tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65934375584017819552024-03-12T20:23:59.675-07:00Wordsthese are my words at the time of writing --
I am more like tree than rock --
as I bend to reach the sunlightPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-29730476134506735192019-11-29T17:25:00.010-08:002022-11-16T20:40:07.928-08:00Thanksgiving<p>This is a letter of reflection on living with the land that I wrote in November 2019 which was read at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco.</p><p><br /></p><p>Dear friends,</p><p>I’m writing to you from the south slope of our mountain up in the redwood forest where I’ve lived since last April. My feet are propped up on a dying madrone, and my head is leaned back against a fir. There are a lot of birds making noise today. I laid here all morning for my mind to slow down enough for words to come. I was asked to write something about land and food. It is hard for me to know what to say.</p><p>This land lived with the Cahto people for I don’t know how many thousands of years. And while this forest is thoroughly beautiful, I imagine its mangled body would be barely recognizable to many of them. Almost every tree has been cut, the land itself cut in all directions with roads, slopes stripped of their soil, no longer able to hold the rains on their way to the sea, eroding the streams into deep canyons. And the trees are dying on their own now, whether from drought or toxicity or loneliness, I don’t know.</p><p>What does it mean to live with the land? I feel no authority to speak to this. I lay in the forest and weep for what has been done to them and is still done to them. I am sorry. I don’t have an answer, and I cannot turn away. I will be here and ache. They tower above me, they shield each other and my own body from the wind like a thick crowd, solemn, silent. They want me to be here, they want me to see them. I feel this. I hear them whisper to each other in the rustle of leaves. I think they know why I’m here, but I do wonder sometimes what they really think of me. What I feel most from them is love and sadness, and a confidence that they belong.</p><p>Do I have any right to ask them to provide for me? I don’t know. They do provide. Even after all the people have taken from them they still sprinkle the ground with acorns, and drop wood for our fire. I am crying right now. I cringe to speak of them and of my own way of life on the same page.</p><p>Am I really living off the land? No. Sure, we have plenty of fruit and greens and mushrooms from the land. Our meat and eggs mostly come from friends nearby. The only foods we need to buy from elsewhere are grains, beans, and spices, but that’s still a significant part of what we eat. I can make excuses for myself. There were once abundant salmon here, and now they are so few I have still not seen one. I am not surrounded by a community that knows how to live with this land, while most of our ancestors always were. I have more pressing work to do; if I didn’t, I could gather enough acorns for the year. But I would still cook them in a metal pot that came from who knows where, while wearing clothes from who knows where else, on a fire of wood cut by a chainsaw. Most of what we depend on was produced elsewhere by the industrial system. There is no purity. It’s all tangled up.</p><p>And I am still a human animal in the world, this world so beautiful I am speechless in gratitude just to be here. I will delight in the warmth of the fire and the taste of strawberries. I will still try to feed us from the land as much as I can because it feels right. This means looking at what we have and eating that. We eat our own kale, garlic, mushrooms, herbs, and apples almost every day all year. And usually tomatoes or potatoes or squash or carrots or peas. So we can taste the land in our food.</p><p>As our industrial and political systems collapse and we can no longer buy the things we used to buy, our relationship with food will change. Here, we will probably end up eating more acorns, and being cold more often, and it’s quite likely that eventually we will go hungry.</p><p>I often wonder if it’s also too late for the forests as they are now, if the ecological balance is so upset that they will die soon even if the humans stop actively killing them. I don’t know. Meanwhile I want to love them as much as I’m able. Looking around the forest here I am always reminded that everything dies, and often sooner than we’d wish it to. I find something here to trust. I trust, not that I will live as long as I’d like, or that I will be fed and comfortable for as long as I live. Rather I trust that under all the sorrow and grief and confusion there is still something vast and beautiful that begs my attention and delight, and so I belong here.</p><p>I am grateful for the presence of tanoak, with its fuzzy, fatty acorns. I’m grateful for fir and it’s bracing sap scent. For redwood even though its leaves get all tangled in our hair. For madrone, dancing its smooth curves beside the straight solemn conifers. For bay with its rich bitter nuts. Chinquapin with its gnarled branches. Bold yellow maple and soft pink dogwood leaves, those funny alder cones, and the elusive yew. The sweet crunch of manzanita, the shiny huckleberry, spiky whitethorn, and the sticky fragrance of mountain jasmine.</p>Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-65669808707735409642019-08-30T17:00:00.000-07:002019-08-30T17:10:45.868-07:00We haven’t got all that much timeDear friends,<br />
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There is beauty.<br />
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What does it mean that so much of what I’ve done or eaten or used or been involved with is entangled with this machine called civilization, that has spiraled out from the first plowed field and imprisoned animal out and out to the point that people have cut down most of the world’s forests, poisoned almost everything in the ocean, killed off almost all of the animals, and imprisoned each other in boxes of metal and plastic and concrete, away from all of the other living ones? What does it mean?<br />
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There is still beauty. And we haven’t got all that much time.<br />
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I know what I find beautiful, what I find worth living and working and fighting for. What I adore and marvel at. My feet are on the ground, my hands in the soil, cold water on my skin, wind on my face, redwood needles in my hair, flowers in my nose, birdsong in my ears, berries on my tongue, sunshine dancing in my eyes, beloved people in my heart.<br />
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And what I find beautiful is being destroyed and desecrated and killed. Has been for a long time, and it’s speeding up. It is heartbreaking.<br />
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No, solar panels and batteries and all that <a href="https://www.grenzbegriff.com/2019/08/the-renewable-energy-lie.html">aren’t going to undo this</a>. There are a lot of other cultures who have lived in a healthy way on the earth for tens of thousands of years, what we might call sustainable, and what I would probably call beautiful, and they weren’t as isolated from the real world as modern civilized folk. They had to feel the world. If we could go back there, I would. If any future culture is to one day live in some kind of sustainable and thoroughly beautiful way with the living earth, it will probably look a lot more like that. No plastic. No computers. People will die of things that people around us aren’t dying of now. And people probably won't be nearly as sick and depressed as so many are now. And people will know each other more and know the land they live with more and know the plants and animals they eat, more than we do. And maybe some hundreds of thousands of years will pass and some of the surviving forests will mature again. My spirit takes some delight in this possibility and then I go back to admiring the tanoaks I’m sitting under and their beautiful lichens and mosses, stiff and biding their time for the rain to come, and the sunshine reflected off the creek dancing on their leaves. I’m writing so that if you wonder “well what’s Phil think about all this craziness these days” you might end up looking out at a tree or taking a deep breath or smiling. Soon I’ll go back to picking strawberries. Really, I’ve mostly been speechless before beauty and mystery for the past year. There’s much I’ve wanted to say but words are difficult to come by, and the soil and air and water always call. If you want to know some of the struggles in the world that I care about and how to help, my dear friend makes <a href="https://forthewild.world/listen">this excellent podcast called <i>For The Wild</i></a> that goes in depth on it, and my heart and opinion is mostly aligned with hers. She’s so good at talking about these things that I don’t have to. :)<br />
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So with all this about how we are destroying everything I love, I don’t mean to lay more guilt on you. We all have some share of guilt in what’s been done and some part in what is being done, and we were definitely coerced into much of it, probably from very young. Yes we have some guilt. And more pressing, we have some freedom. Some of us more than others, but we all have some freedom. Name what you love, name who you love, keep this in your mind. Name the beautiful. Name it and keep it in your mind, and in front of your eyes when you can. Name it and live and work and fight for it, and adore and marvel at it. Everything dies. Feel it. Feel it. Slow down. Feel it. We haven’t got all that much time.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">I am too alone in the world, yet not alone enough </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">To make each hour holy</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">I am too small in the world, yet not small enough </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">To be simply in your presence like a thing, just as it is</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">I want to know my own will, and to move with it</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">And I want in the hushed moments, when the nameless draws near</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">To be among the wise ones or else alone</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">I want to mirror your immensity</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">I want never to be too weak or too old</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">To bear the heavy lurching image of you</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">I want to unfold</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Let no place in me hold itself closed</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">For where I am closed, I am false</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">I want to stay clear in your sight</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">I believe in all that has never yet been spoken</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">I want to free what waits within me</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">So that what no one has dared to wish for</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">May for once spring clear without my contriving</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">If this is arrogant, God, forgive me</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">But this is what I need to say</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">May what I do flow from me like a river</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">No forcing and no holding back</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">The way it is with children</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Then in these swelling and ebbing currents</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">These deepening tides moving out and returning</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">I will sing you as no one ever has</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Streaming through widening channels </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Into the open sea.</span></div>
<br />Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-43886507593056492172019-08-29T21:20:00.000-07:002019-08-30T16:58:26.504-07:00The renewable energy lieThe lie is that we can live in a somehow more sustainable or friendly-to-earth or “green” way by using solar or wind generated electricity and lots of batteries. It’s bullshit. Solar panels are produced from mined materials and toxic industrial processes that pollute where the mining and production is done, and they leach poison into the ground even where they are used, and we don’t know how to recycle them so they will break down over time and be piled up or left somewhere to degrade and pollute and we’ll replace them with more that required more mining and more toxic industrial chemical processes. Wind turbines are not too different — they’re expensive to maintain, require lots of toxic stuff, and eventually break down and can’t be recycled in any earth-friendly way. Hydro is no better, river ecosystems have to be destroyed to have hydroelectric dams. Nuclear shouldn’t be considered green anyway, it’s not renewable since it depends on this limited mined material, and it creates really nasty waste, and of course all the infrastructure required for it is ridiculous, and they risk meltdowns that ruin everything. And then batteries, don't get me started. Look up lithium and cobalt, and then consider that batteries degrade over time and can't really be recycled and are very toxic to produce and dispose of.<br />
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So with all that, in our modern media and social media world, there’s this false dichotomy. There’s the fossil fuels which are evil and polluting and causing climate change and killing everything, and then there’s the “green energy” that causes no harm and will allow our modern civilization and economy and internet and cars and all to go on forever if we just spend lots of money changing over to the “green energy”. The truth is we can’t have this civilization and economy and internet and cars and all for much longer regardless, there is no way to power or maintain it that doesn’t involve ongoing and accelerating destruction of what's left of the living earth. So many well meaning people who love the living earth have been co-opted and tricked into basically being a lobbying force for industry and economy under the guise of "green energy". Don’t fall for this. Your time is worthy of better causes and more beauty than this.<br />
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I use solar panels for electricity, because they’re convenient when living off grid. I have no delusion that they’re friendly to the earth. I am torn and often would rather just quit the internet and not use electricity anymore. Somehow I’ve convinced myself that it’s worth engaging with this stuff in order to be able to fight for what’s left of the living earth a little bit longer, and I’ll be honest, to stay connected somehow to the people I love. Maybe that’ll change one day. This is all very complex. I’m not trying to guilt you, I'm just saying no, renewables aren’t more earth friendly, they’re not a green future, they’re not worth giving your energy to fighting for. If you have energy to fight and you love the living earth, fight more directly for it — like fight to protect forests and rivers and mountains that are directly threatened by logging, mining, pipelines, etc. Stop the resource extraction at the source, and all the rest of our destructive economy will slow down a little.<br />
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<br />Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-71328956344947786182019-03-28T19:24:00.028-07:002022-11-16T20:30:10.254-08:00You are freak<div><span style="font-family: inherit;">I read this story at the Easter vigil at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco in 2019. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sitting at my desk. Ergonomic chair, 30” screen. Sunlight and cheerful coworkers all around. We are the winners. The tech-elite. Making the world a better place, raising the standard of living. Eventually we are going to meet everyone’s needs with solar-powered artificially-intelligent everything factories.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">But somehow I hear another story. Out there, our empire of civilization reaches its fingers into the last wild places. Its eye falls on an unspoiled steamy jungle, thriving with humans and majestic animal kin. It sees timber, metals, tourism potential, untapped markets, labor pools. Smiling people, sitting on their dirt floors in their dirt huts, eating the bounty of the land. And we call it poverty.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">In march the well intentioned, the missionaries, humanitarians, entrepreneurs, peacekeepers. Out go the animals. The human bonds are replaced with money. Plugged in to the empire. A “developing” country. Another billion users. Growth.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Everything is business. War is business. Revolution is business. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Haiti, Venezuela, the list goes on and on and on. The machine has many faces, the military-industrial-complex, the technological-educational-pharmaceutical-agricultural- industrial complexes. Even the nonprofit-industrial-complex. Most of us keeping the machine running can explain why our part of it is beneficial, and we probably even believe it. Yet despite all our good intentions, the machine grinds away converting life and diversity and beauty into profits.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">No one speaks of it like this. Over lunch, I slip in a sad remark about Syria. Awkward pause. The conversation shifts to when will we settle Mars. We are frantic. We don’t have time to see the consequences of what we do. Everything’s too complex, so we must pretend it is simple. We plug in the numbers and poverty goes down. If you don’t like it you’re a luddite.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> “You can’t say this all at once,” a well-intentioned colleague tries to talk sense into me. “People will think you are freak and then you won’t be able to change anything.”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Must I really go on pretending like it’s all fine, so I can hold on to the golden handcuffs, the empire’s power, and somehow use it for good? I stare out the window at trees quivering in the spring breeze. I sit in a comfortable chair, I have warm food and health care and barely have to work. I should be grateful. But I do not belong here. It hurts.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">(pause)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Laying on the floor of my tent in the homeless camp. Puddle of water in one corner. Headlights in my eyes at night. Screeching bart train in my ears. I’m free! Sure, I’m still in the empire, but now I’m with the oppressed and not the oppressors.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Marching on the street. “What do we want? Housing. When do we want it? Now.”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">We demand the evil empire give us our fair share of this chopped-down paved-over concrete graveyard of a forest. Our fair share of the plastic and minerals dug by slaves from the living earth five thousand miles away. What if it was fair? The seven billionth of us gets a comfortable room, a job, food, maybe an electric car. Clean water, piped from some rare place whose destruction has not yet become an economic necessity. Would the elephants say this is fair? I love the people around me, and it is so complicated. Must it be Team Human against all the rest of life?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">(pause)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Laying under a clump of redwoods in the forest I’ve been with the past year. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">My friend on the mountain says thirty years ago she’d get five to ten feet of snow each winter. This winter, six inches. Up the road from me they made new clear-cuts last fall. They cut some special ancient trees in one particular spot leaving a sign saying it was for “fire prevention.” Bullshit. Money. I hear the logging trucks rumbling on the road a mile away. Will we ever stop? We know that the trees bring in and hold the water in the earth. As the trees go, the drought comes. We’re killing them anyway. Money.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Can our human empire just end already? Must all of the salmon and orcas and caribou and wolves die first? The ocean is dying. The forest is dying. Even the insects are dying. God, are you going to turn this around? What should I do? What are you trying to tell me? Why?</span></div><div><br /></div>Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-61581776239405579012017-11-06T20:29:00.001-08:002018-01-04T18:45:44.420-08:00First They Came For The HomelessPeople have been asking me about the camp I’ve been staying in, what it’s about and what’s happening right now.<br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/firsttheycameforthehomeless/">First They Came For The Homeless</a> has existed I believe for about three years. It’s a changing group of people, though some have been part of it the whole time. It began with fifteen people who were part of Occupy SF. Some are lifetime activists, some are just poor, some have jobs, we all have various physical or mental uniquenesses (like everybody does). It is a protest, and there are no drugs/alcohol allowed, so the demographics are are not representative of the homeless population overall. But our work will and does benefit the overall population.<br />
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Last winter, in what was called the “Poor Tour”, they were evicted from one location after another, 17 times, sometimes with violence, often with possessions taken or destroyed by the police.<br />
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I joined the camp when I returned from my summer in Oregon, so I’ve been there about two months now.<br />
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We are protesting:<br />
- That it is illegal to exist in Berkeley and many cities unless you can afford rent.<br />
- The laws and enforcement of the laws that prevent people from<br />
- That extreme economic inequality means that in many places ~20% of housing is empty, owned by investors or the wealthy, while thousands of people live on the streets.<br />
- Police brutality<br />
- That although we still see some of them, much homelessness is hidden from sight, and forced evictions happen at 4am when the public are not watching.<br />
- That millions of dollars and many hours of police time are spent on evicting homeless from one location to another, when they have nowhere they are allowed to be. These resources could be better used.<br />
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There are other benefits/purposes too:<br />
- Creating community, both within the camp, and with the local neighbors who support us<br />
- Demonstrating that people can get along more<br />
- Providing stability for some people who are not cared for well by the system<br />
- Learning how to meet some of our needs without money<br />
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We consider it successful, in that:<br />
- FTCFTH existed as a stable intentional community at the HERE/THERE signs in Berkeley for nearly a year, providing a home for 25 people, including disabled and mentally ill who were not being cared for as well (or at all) elsewhere.<br />
- When BART police gave us a 72 hour eviction notice two weeks ago, we filed a lawsuit, which delayed the eviction by a week, and resulted in the federal judge <a href="https://www.facebook.com/firsttheycameforthehomeless/photos/a.261431424023814.1073741829.253882908111999/894388207394796/?type=3&theater">ordering</a> the City of Berkeley to provide a plan by Nov 28 that would shelter substantially all of its homeless for the winter. They won’t have to adopt this plan, but still this lawsuit draws attention to the problem and might make it trickier for the city to keep evicting homeless endlessly.<br />
- We inspire other communities to do the same thing.<br />
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With climate change, chaotic weather, wars, resource exhaustion, and growing economic inequality, there will be more and more people in the next years who cannot afford regular housing. Property law and its enforcement is unjust. It is rooted in violence. How else does one person or group claim land and prevent others from using it? May we learn to live together with kindness and understanding.<br />
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After the second court hearing last week, where the judge ruled that BART could evict us, we were given another 72hour notice. With the help of our neighbors in the community, we moved off the land by the HERE/THERE signs before the deadline, leaving it cleaner than it was before the camp moved in last year. We moved to three different locations; those who wanted a more stable location moved to Aquatic Park in west Berkeley. The protestors, myself included, moved to the lawn in front of Berkeley City Hall. A few people remained behind, occupying the strip of land between the sidewalk and street at the old location, which belongs to the city rather than to BART. BART police came and put a fence up around the entire property, as they had done on the other side of the tracks after evicting the people there the week before.<br />
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So that’s what’s up with that.<br />
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The camp at HERE/THERE as seen from the Google bus.</div>
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Neighborhood party, celebrating the delay of eviction.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJP6DwrhgrnE71mYW4RTFcDj7wCY7y5NhtKUhWYp1cr6KSp8ms_ppstwpQm_5lkrBmjC3T7rl6R1k8OPUo0bSsqhXgYUCUORiARmNhVKpAzwMSlAtTxpBSkQH4sRdBRSS-5mE35eNsFZQ/s1600/IMG_20171017_215328000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbJP6DwrhgrnE71mYW4RTFcDj7wCY7y5NhtKUhWYp1cr6KSp8ms_ppstwpQm_5lkrBmjC3T7rl6R1k8OPUo0bSsqhXgYUCUORiARmNhVKpAzwMSlAtTxpBSkQH4sRdBRSS-5mE35eNsFZQ/s320/IMG_20171017_215328000.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Hanging out.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlfLQ9rEGhfVBk3Zyxj-ZUCDsdxtpH3OTrlFJjoDPoV4CdGMNEEyXnP06BGaSeUXEslcMZktJjyUq7KMsrf2mZqh24Kif7s1VFNxdqc-YCZaeLs0l9zR0aqwN5NwiclwZi6VQnr1jDI03a/s1600/IMG_20171104_110411437.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlfLQ9rEGhfVBk3Zyxj-ZUCDsdxtpH3OTrlFJjoDPoV4CdGMNEEyXnP06BGaSeUXEslcMZktJjyUq7KMsrf2mZqh24Kif7s1VFNxdqc-YCZaeLs0l9zR0aqwN5NwiclwZi6VQnr1jDI03a/s320/IMG_20171104_110411437.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Cleaning up and moving out of the HERE/THERE location.</div>
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One woman refused to move out with us.</div>
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The police removed her the next day.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn43VhKRZ5r8TbzFooLrvvVqs0di4-RCpJQMk5Nwy4FLsBCmIi45Yk2QJYGt9zQT0XW2S4k9TR73SaRG1y4hWYefJfWl4FCA2_3K4gxr7AXPWbK-Fb83iunfKehQdF4pKaUo2YguRIIgyY/s1600/23213135_896466320520318_8830261307175383398_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn43VhKRZ5r8TbzFooLrvvVqs0di4-RCpJQMk5Nwy4FLsBCmIi45Yk2QJYGt9zQT0XW2S4k9TR73SaRG1y4hWYefJfWl4FCA2_3K4gxr7AXPWbK-Fb83iunfKehQdF4pKaUo2YguRIIgyY/s320/23213135_896466320520318_8830261307175383398_o.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
Fence around the BART property after the eviction. In the background you can see the tents where a few people stayed on the city property between the sidewalk and the street after the eviction.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQBE3HAaZ4l50IQSxJ39zd76yvdB6iemt4zspx6RUAdphAkK1NeEK9gboV4sNAgAlfKRY9IqOUHhoUeNkbknA4mhAG_P68gzn9GSS6i7bHdDxGgWi3aLAFFQDqXqPci6qNHJqpGaGdrqWy/s1600/cam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQBE3HAaZ4l50IQSxJ39zd76yvdB6iemt4zspx6RUAdphAkK1NeEK9gboV4sNAgAlfKRY9IqOUHhoUeNkbknA4mhAG_P68gzn9GSS6i7bHdDxGgWi3aLAFFQDqXqPci6qNHJqpGaGdrqWy/s320/cam.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The new protest camp on the old Berkeley city hall lawn</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPKByZdUfFpL09tjG8vUXR0sJqU-kbMRfR-mjb_Gjo18witVso7h73XoFS2WrLVFz_ntjsPEBaUv7q8RdVPll1Y6xC04_kTmUJIRj-aSu4gCJzA4DK37IOdu-XLCE14xhMhS0hRPIQUNU0/s1600/IMG_20171115_125436611.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPKByZdUfFpL09tjG8vUXR0sJqU-kbMRfR-mjb_Gjo18witVso7h73XoFS2WrLVFz_ntjsPEBaUv7q8RdVPll1Y6xC04_kTmUJIRj-aSu4gCJzA4DK37IOdu-XLCE14xhMhS0hRPIQUNU0/s320/IMG_20171115_125436611.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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From the steps of city hall</div>
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Other camp near the Bay</div>
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Shelling two pounds of acorns while guarding camp (haha)</div>
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<br />Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-77983190028933560862017-10-25T16:21:00.001-07:002020-08-02T12:05:31.694-07:00Leaving<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small;">
Hi friends,</div>
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I'm leaving Google at the end of next week.<br />
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There's too much I want to say. :)</div>
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I spent the summer away from work, outdoors in Oregon, awash in beauty. I learned a lot. I wept at how we're treating the earth, as I rode past mile after mile of logged forests, polluted streams, and lifeless monocrop fields.</div>
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I got to be part of what I'll call "alternative culture", to explore ways of meeting all of our human needs through local community alternatives to basically everything we currently use money for. I wrote some about this time <a href="http://www.grenzbegriff.com/2017/08/">here on this blog</a>. I barely scratched the surface though. More and more people, perhaps millions now even in the West, are devoting their lives to new (and sometimes ancient) ways of living in healthy relationship with each other and with the earth. While they are usually partly within the current system, when all of these new ways of living come together, the current system becomes obsolete. I see joyous glimpses of this everywhere.<br />
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Meanwhile our dominant civilization is killing its own foundation: the healthy web of life on earth. Through deforestation and pollution we are destroying the ability of the planet to support all forms of life. We can see this in the oceans where the fish populations are collapsing, the silent fields that were once thriving forests, and the deserts where millions of people go hungry in drought. This ecological crisis can't be solved simply by <a href="https://www.grenzbegriff.com/2019/08/the-renewable-energy-lie.html">swapping oil for solar panels</a><span id="gmail-goog_1460992569"></span>. I'm no longer optimistic that we will soon fix these problems with some new technology. It looks like climate change is exacerbating the storms and droughts and fires, and seems likely these will continue to become more and more severe in the next years.<br />
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The effects are not evenly distributed. The unhoused breathe wildfire smoke while many of the housed have filtered air. Some of us see our homes flooded or burnt while for others business continues as usual. Most communities in the country and increasingly in the world have lost the ability to sustain themselves from their land, and now must import almost everything they need from elsewhere, which becomes precarious when those importing the goods see no profit in it (food deserts), or when disaster breaks down the supply line like in Puerto Rico. Many communities no longer have access to clean water, or are losing it as I write. On Monday I listened to a man from Guatemala talk about a new silver mine near his home that is polluting and drying up the water supply for many villages there. Almost all silver is used to produce electronics, and demand is rising. In Oregon this summer, ancient trees thousands of years old were cleared for fire breaks. The entire planet is being saturated with <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/10/30/a-dripping-wet-chemical-planet/">chemicals</a> that we ought never to have created. These kinds of damage cannot be undone or fixed by technology. The story for other species is even worse, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/27/world-on-track-to-lose-two-thirds-of-wild-animals-by-2020-major-report-warns">most</a> wild animal populations have died off and we pack billions of animals in cages in horrific factory farms. The coral reefs, the rhinos, the ancient forests, the whales, and even the insects... who speaks for them? Some people do, and they end up in jail if their actions threaten profits. Profits are made at the expense of Life.<br />
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And within our civilization, we have more prisoners and refugees, more drugs and anxiety and depression and stress and addiction than ever. Even in wealthy regions, most people don't like the work they do all day. It's also not physically healthy to be indoors or using a computer or riding in vehicles for as many hours as many of us who are "successful" do. What is happening to us?</div>
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It seems the leaders of our world are apathetic or powerless, as they fight over the most gaudy deck chairs on this titanic. While it pains me, I don't hate them for this; their actions are the product of a traumatic history that touches all of us. They don't know what they're doing.</div>
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I envision a more beautiful world where humans have a healthy part to play, to love and respect the earth, not to dominate and exploit it. I see many people living that vision already, and want to live my life in service to it. I see the extremes of both ugliness and beauty grow more stark. Ugliness as we close down and protect ourselves from the 'other', beauty as we come together in community, in love with mother earth. Will "society" as a whole make some kind of transition, or continue the march into dystopia and eventual chaos? I don't know. It will be both at the same time. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOXXdYtZSbQ">Some people</a> are already in an obvious dystopia, some are in a beautiful place yet in the shadow of a collapsing ecosystem. To hope for a peaceful transition would be to ignore the incredible violence on which the current system lives. It <a href="https://prayforcalamity.com/2015/02/11/there-will-be-blood/">will be violent</a> because it already is. May we learn to be kind to each other as these changes unfold.</div>
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It's been said that we need the darkness to see the stars. We can open ourselves to what is happening, feel and honor our pain, grieve what is lost, and revel in our deep gratitude for the beauty of life. I don't mean to be a downer pointing at all this ugliness. I feel that we have a deep need to see it and acknowledge it. It makes the beauty that much more precious and worth living for.</div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">“Tell me, what else should I have done?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Tell me, what is it you plan to do</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">With your one wild and precious life?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">-Mary Oliver</span></div>
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What should we do then?</div>
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I don't know exactly what we should do. I don't have a rational "here's what everyone needs to do" that will resolve all of these crises. I want to let go of my need to control what happens, because I'm really not in control. At the same time, even if I let go and accept whatever comes, I am a human being and it is natural for me to care and want to help, to serve what I love. I will not deny that part of me either. So I find myself thinking about how to help, even if it seems "hopeless" overall. I need not stress about the outcomes, but I will still act. What else would I do with my few short years here?</div>
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So what might I do to be practical?</div>
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I don't believe our technology is serving us well. We, the wealthy humans near the top of the power hierarchy may see it as indispensable, but if we consider the animals or the fish or the trees or the laborers in the sweatshops and mines and plantations, it's not working out so well. Yes, our technology relieves some suffering in some places, but at what cost? We simply do not, and probably cannot, count the costs of development. I am not enthusiastic that further technological progress will heal us.</div>
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I also don't believe that our problems are mostly due to money being in the wrong hands. Measuring everything by monetary value seems to me one of the roots of the crises. The mentality that values money over life drives much of the pollution and resource extraction and oppression around the world, since humans first accumulated "property" and enslaved each other. I don't feel that getting as much money as I can and giving it to the non-profit side of the system is the best way for me to serve what I love. I feel that the money abstraction and the distance it puts between us and the effects of our actions makes us feel disconnected and alone.</div>
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I also don't like our culture's valuing of measurable impact over everything else. Much of what is precious to me cannot be measured. What's the measurable value of a 5000 year old yew tree? What's the measurable value of caring for a disabled child?</div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">“May what I do flow from me like a river</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">no forcing</span><br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">and no holding back</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">the way it is with children.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">-Rilke</span></div>
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So I don't know what we all should do exactly, and I don't know what I will do beyond the short term. I'm skeptical of money and the dominant culture's value system. I want to trust what makes me feel alive over our culture's normal stories that usually are rooted in fear. I recognize that I'm one of the most privileged people in the world. I know most people do not have the options that I have. I don't mean to judge, only to encourage.</div>
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Right now what's happening is I've been living in a homeless protest encampment in Berkeley the last couple months, which has given me still another perspective on our society. It got <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne3eab/inside-a-homeless-encampment-on-the-brink-of-eviction">interesting</a> this weekend and we're fighting eviction, hoping to benefit and inspire homeless communities around the country. With all of the disaster and war refugees today, and housing crises in many places, there are more and more people who can't have regular housing, and we could learn to live together with more <a href="http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?sid=127">kindness</a> and understanding. I'm also involved with the community here in other ways like <a href="http://www.grenzbegriff.com/2017/08/food-not-bombs-in-portland.html">Food Not Bombs</a>. I expect soon I'll be moving on to other places, to learn and to live in service to what I love. To restore soil and help plants grow and be community.</div>
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I've learned I don't need much money to live well myself, so I don't need to earn it for myself. Perhaps my perspective on money and impact will change and I'll eventually decide that earning money and supporting my many friends who don't have much money in their various causes is the best way to contribute, and then I might return to a job, but we'll see. "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."</div>
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Wherever I am, I'll be with some kind of community learning how to live in healthier relationship with each other and with the earth. There'll be dark moments and joyous moments, and this is life. Life is good. Whatever comes, I will give <a href="http://www.grenzbegriff.com/2017/08/the-purpose-of-every-gathering.html">attention</a> to the beauty around me, the beauty of <a href="https://imgur.com/a/aImJn" style="color: #1155cc;">community</a> and of <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/117901973@N02/albums" style="color: #1155cc;">nature</a> and of every form. Beauty everywhere begs our attention.</div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">“An eye is meant to see things.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">The soul is here for its own joy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">A head has one use: For loving a true love.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Feet: To chase after.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">for learning what men have done and tried to do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Mysteries are not to be solved: The eye goes blind</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">when it only wants to see why.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">-Rumi</span></div>
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Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-44948286977997378122017-09-22T19:04:00.000-07:002018-01-31T09:34:17.742-08:00Simple vegan cooking<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I don't like to follow recipes, partly because I don't like to use (and get dirty and then have to wash) a bunch of measuring cups, or to think about 3/8 and other numbers like that, and I don't like trying to read while I cook.<br />
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I prefer guidelines and tips over rules and recipes. So here are my guidelines and tips, or generalized "recipes", which I have done in quantities large and small, for myself and for others. I do not have the exact ratio of seasonings down to make something perfect, but generally every dish is healthy, tasty, unique, fun, easy, and doesn't result in lots of unnecessary dishwashing. I learned to cook like this mainly through cooking with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sffoodnotbombs/">Food Not Bombs in San Francisco</a> and then trying the same methods at home or elsewhere.<br />
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<b>Grain</b><br />
(Rice or any grain, e.g. millet, barley, etc etc)<br />
Basically you want to boil it. The process is the same for any kind of grain. I do brown rice most often. First you need to know the ratio of water to grain. For rice, people usually use 2:1 water to rice. For other grains you can Google the "ideal ratio", or just err on the side of too much water, or watch the grain and if the water gets low before it is soft enough to eat, add more water. I like rice mushy, I think it tastes better, it keeps better for later by not drying out, and you don't have to almost burn the rice at the bottom of the pot.<br />
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Put water and rice into a pot on the stove, ideally where the water only reaches 1/3 of the way up the pot so it won't accidentally boil over. Turn the stove to max until the water is boiling, then lower the heat so that it continues boiling slowly. Use a lid so it will cook faster. It'll take anywhere from 30-90 minutes depending on the size of pot, amount of heat, etc. Water will continue to evaporate from the rice after you turn off the stove, so you can turn it off once the rice is properly cooked (taste some to see if it's soft).<br />
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<b>Beans</b><br />
(any kind of legume -- dried bean or lentil or chickpea etc)<br />
Cooking beans is nearly identical to cooking grain, so follow the same process except use more water. The standard rule of thumb is 3:1 water to bean. If you don't mind your beans sitting in extra water, you can add extra water e.g. 4:1 or more, and this way you won't need to worry about burning the beans, as they'll cook through long before the water is all gone.<br />
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Soaking beans for hours before cooking them is not necessary but it does make them cook faster saving energy. I usually add seasonings, e.g. salt, pepper, oregano, or whatever, to the beans while they cook. You can throw minced garlic or onion into the pot too for that flavor. You can throw in chunks of potato to make the beans creamier, assuming you're not using tons of extra water.<br />
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You can add any other kinds of seasonings after<br />
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<b>Greens</b><br />
(e.g. kale, chard, other mustards, beet greens, etc)<br />
Greens are really good for you. The easiest way to cook them is to chop them up (as small as you want, I usually make a big pile of greens on the cutting board, hold it tight, and chop it every half inch, with maybe a few perpendicular chops across the whole bunch so there aren't really long strands. This takes very little time.<br />
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Put the greens in a pot on the stove. If you want them to be tastier, put oil in the pot. Coconut oil is my favorite, but any kind of healthy cooking oil will work. Stir the greens with the oil first, so they are all coated. Then, before turning the stove on, add some water. Maybe an inch of water for every four or so inches of greens in the pot. If you have more oil you can use less water. Greens will cook down really small, so if you want more you can throw more in on top of the first ones after they cook down. (Useful when cooking one big pot of greens for a hundred people at Food Not Bombs.)<br />
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To make them tastier, add vinegar or squeezed citrus or herbs or any kind of seasoning, or any combination of these. A simple go-to is salt, pepper, and squeezed lemon. Minced garlic or chopped onion are also good in there.<br />
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<b>Vegetables</b><br />
(e.g. root vegetables (potato, yam, carrot, beet, parsnip, turnip, etc), broccoli/cauliflower, green beans, brussels, zucchini, squash)<br />
My go-to method for cooking vegetables is, like greens, to cook them in a pot on the stove with some oil and water. More oil and less water means they'll be tastier (more fried than boiled) having more fat and thus more calories. I'm not afraid to mix any combination of vegetables, but often I'll do either all root veggies or all green veggies.<br />
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Chop dense vegetables in roughly 1/2 by 1 inch pieces, or smaller. Bigger pieces will just take longer to cook. Broccoli and cauliflower pieces can be a bit bigger.<br />
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As with greens, add minced garlic or onion, herbs, and other seasonings. The earlier you add them the more they'll infuse the vegetables. Mushrooms go good in here too.<br />
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Vegetables can also be baked in the oven. Leave out the water if you're baking them, but oil is fine. Bake at around 350F.<br />
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<b>Green salad</b><br />
Take any kind of good-to-eat-raw greens and throw them in a big bowl. Some greens (e.g. mustard) are edible raw but are spicy, so only use those if you think everyone can handle it. I like to chop or shred the greens on a cutting board, similar to the greens I mentioned earlier, but usually more finely shredded. This makes them easier to eat and easier to digest, and easier to fit more on a plate without them falling off. Add any mix of good-to-eat-raw vegetables/fruits, such as sliced cucumber, shredded carrot, sliced radish, sliced zucchini, diced or cherry tomato, avocado, sprouts, olives, maybe some citrus. If you have dry ingredients like nuts or seeds or dried fruit, those are good in there. Add a dressing.<br />
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<b>Fruit</b><br />
If it's just me, I'll eat the fruit whole. If preparing a meal for a crowd, I usually chop it up into a fruit salad. Basically any kind of typical sweet fruit goes well together in a fruit salad. You can add citrus juice or some kind of seasoning, but it's really not needed.<br />
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<b>Dessert</b><br />
My ideal dessert is what people call a "crisp". Just put chopped fruit, e.g. apples/pears, berries, or stonefruit like peaches and plums, into a pan. Oiling the pan will make it easier to clean after. Put oats on top, with cinnamon or other seasoning. Bake until the fruit is soft / shriveled. You can add sugar, but it's totally not needed, and people will feel better afterward if you don't. If you want a more gooey texture, add chia seeds and a little water to the pan.<br />
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<b>Baked goods</b><br />
Normally yeast or sourdough bread is vegan. I don't have a favorite recipe and on the rare occasions I do make bread, I like to wing it with flour, water, oil, salt, and yeast. Maybe add some rosemary or other seasoning to it, or other fun ingredients like mashed zucchini.<br />
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The easiest baked bread-like dessert is shallow dish banana bread. Just mix flour, water, oil, salt, and baking powder, and add bananas. Season with cinnamon, vanilla, crushed nuts if you have them. To make it a little fluffier and healthier, add chia seed or ground flax seed. It's hard to really go wrong, whatever you make will taste good, and depending on the ratios of ingredients you'll end up with something drier or gooier.<br />
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Put the batter in a pan of any kind, maybe 1-2 inches deep, and bake at 350F until it's firm enough to cut and eat. Since there's no animal ingredients, it's safe to eat the batter raw, so you don't have to worry about when it's really cooked.<br />
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A typical meal at Food Not Bombs San Francisco has rice, beans, 1-3 vegetable dishes, a green salad, a fruit salad, and maybe a dessert. Plus sometimes other fun things we come up with.<br />
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See also my <a href="http://www.grenzbegriff.com/2017/09/simple-whole-plant-foods-minimum-waste.html">whole-plant-foods minimum-waste backpacking food guide</a>!<br />
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Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-6550811877848579682017-09-19T19:22:00.000-07:002018-01-31T09:34:54.542-08:00Simple whole-plant-foods minimum-waste no-cooking backpacking food guide<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #4d5763; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.42857em; margin-bottom: 0.357143em; padding: 0px;">
Here's what I did for food this summer while bike/backpacking in Oregon.</div>
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No heavy cookware or fires required. Everything can be purchased in the bulk section of a good food store, ideally your local food co-op if you have one. Everything lasts a long time so you can keep your leftovers for next trip. This is healthier, less expensive, and less polluting than buying typical backpacking food. It's basically the same food that goes into protein and granola bars, but unprocessed, without the chemicals and stuff. It’s very tasty too, and with a variety of seasonings, you can get a wide variety of delicious combinations.</div>
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The basic idea is to <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin: 0px;">eat rolled grains, soaked, with nuts/seeds and seasonings added in</span>. I'll tell you what I buy, roughly how much, and how to carry/use it.</div>
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. . .</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin: 0px;">What to buy?</span></div>
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Grains/legumes:</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">rolled oats</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">rolled barley (and/or rye, spelt, wheat)</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">lentils (many possible varieties)</li>
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Nuts/seeds:</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">sunflower seeds</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">walnuts</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">almonds</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">pumpkin seeds</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">sesame seeds</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">chia seeds</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">peanuts / peanut butter</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">etc (whatever you like, but don’t support the cashew industry)</li>
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Greens: (for nutrients)</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">dried nettles</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">dried seaweed</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">dried kale</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">etc</li>
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Dried fruit:</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">raisins, or whatever you like! raisins are usually the cheapest, I also love dates, craisins, dried blueberries, and dried currants.</li>
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Seasonings:</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">salt</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">whatever else you want!</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">I like pepper, nutritional yeast, curry powder, cinnamon. But there are plenty of options -- use what you like.</li>
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Utensils:</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">bowl and spoon (I use one of those tall plastic yogurt containers as a bowl)</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">durable container with screw-on cover for soaking lentils (soak for 8 hours, e.g. overnight)</li>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin: 0px;">How to prepare?</span></div>
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Put rolled oats or barley in your bowl and add water. Let sit for 5 minutes. Then add in all the other ingredients, whichever combo you like, stir a couple times with the spoon, and eat.</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin: 0px;">How much to bring?</span></div>
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I’m 6’4”, ~190lb and a big eater. For 10 days, I had roughly:</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">8lbs rolled grains (~1800kcal, 60g protein / lb) ($0.50-$1.50/lb)</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">1lb dry lentils (~1600kcal, 120g protein / lb) ($1/lb)</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">4lbs nuts/seeds (~2800kcal, 90g protein / lb) ($2-$15/lb)</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">1lb dried fruit (~1500kcal, 15g protein / lb) ($3-$10/lb)</li>
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for a total of roughly 3000 calories and 100g protein per day, costing about $50 for the food, plus I spent about $20 more on greens and seasonings. I buy organic — if you don’t, it’ll be even cheaper. I am lucky to be on the west coast of the USA where these foods are relatively inexpensive, too. Other parts of the world it may be pricier, but still probably cheaper than processed foods. I don't eat this much when I'm not getting intense exercise every day.</div>
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Dried greens don’t really count toward calories — basically bring as much as you can afford, the nutrients will make you feel good.</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin: 0px;">How to carry?</span></div>
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Use reusable plastic bags or containers for everything. You can use these same bags for buying in bulk and carrying with you. Use a little gorilla tape to patch holes in the bags. Like any backpacking food, you should either hang it from a tree in some kind of larger bag, or put it in a bear canister.</div>
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. . .</div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin: 0px;">Other tips</span></div>
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My favorite combos:</div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sweet: soaked oats, cinnamon, walnuts, chia seeds, dried fruit</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1em; line-height: 1.42857em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Savory: soaked barley, lentils, curry powder, nutritional yeast, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, salt, pepper, dried nettles</li>
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If you’re in a place where plants grow, learn to forage greens, herbs, and berries. Don’t count these for calories, but they’re great nutritionally. In california and oregon, miner’s lettuce is all over, for example.</div>
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If you let your lentils soak long enough they’ll sprout which is OK! They can soak for days and still be OK to eat. They'll be slightly crunchy but perfectly palatable after 8 hours soaking.</div>
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No need to wash your bowl (although you are welcome to). Just eat it mostly clean, and let it dry in the sun. I went a month without washing it with soap, only rinsing it with water occasionally.</div>
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I like to bring a little coconut oil. Rinsing your mouth with coconut oil is a good idea in addition to brushing. I just swallow the oil after rinsing, so it’s not wasted.</div>
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I love walnut flavor infused in the oats, so I chew the walnuts a little and then spit them into the bowl, when I begin soaking the oats. You could also crush the walnuts, but I find that more difficult to do.</div>
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Sesame seeds are great and cheap, but they're hard to chew if you mix them with other food -- you'll end up swallowing them whole, and I believe some of them won't be digested. So I eat spoonfuls of just sesame seeds, separately. If you can grind them before the trip, then they're fine to mix in.</div>
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Flax seeds are also great and cheap, but you need to either grind them before the trip, or roast them and eat them separately just like the sesame seeds. Eating raw whole flaxseed is difficult, and won't work at all mixed with other things.</div>
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Bring enough salt! With no processed foods, <em style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: inherit; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">all</em> the salt you get will be the salt you bring, and the little sodium that's found in these foods. I'd guess you want <span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;">at least</span> 2-3g of sodium each day -- but I'm not a nutritionist.<br />
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See also my <a href="http://www.grenzbegriff.com/2017/09/simple-vegan-cooking.html">simple vegan cooking guide</a>!</div>
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Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-14095801361647394182017-08-30T00:00:00.000-07:002017-09-18T12:33:11.192-07:00On Simple LivingWhen I talk about simple living, I'm referring to living in ways that are less harmful -- that require less destruction and pollution and oppression. People might also use "simple living" to mean having a less cluttered house, or a large house where their few possessions leave lots of empty space. That's a different thing -- one could have that kind of simplicity and still spend a lot of money in support of harmful industries, and pay for a lot of violence and destruction. We can even spend our weekends protesting against the government and corporations who are carrying out this violence and destruction, while the rest of the week we produce and consume in support of them. One hand is holding a sign saying "Stop!" while the other hand is giving our money to the object of our protest, implicitly saying "keep it up!".<br />
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So simple living is a way to put our money where our mouth is -- in other words, take a holistic view, to integrate all parts of our life into a whole, we might say to live with "integrity". The reason we practice this kind of simple living is that we desire to be kind to those we love, and recognize that we love all beings -- ourselves, other people, animals, and I say even the trees and mountains. The same way we try to be kind to those closest to us, and we try to avoid harming them, we can practice being kind and avoiding harm to all. When this happens, we are more able to appreciate and enjoy the beauty of all beings, similar to how we are able to appreciate and enjoy the beauty of those we love most.<br />
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So what could simple living look like in 2017 America? <br />
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I can't imagine there's a single general answer, but all of us have steps in this direction that we could take. Everyone who wants to be kind and stop harming others will find some steps easier to take than others. There are steps that will be easy for one person to take, while being extremely difficult or impractical for someone else. It's helpful to be in a place of genuine love, not trying to justify one's actions to feel less guilty, and not trying to impress others. Perhaps when we're coming from a place of genuine loving kindness, we can celebrate any step that anyone is taking, and we can freely admit our own struggles and the things we do that we feel are harmful but that we are not ready to change for whatever reason.<br />
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Maybe a good practical starting place is, wherever we might spend money, to look deeply at what we are paying for and what the consequences are. Question it with curiosity. What pollution and destruction and oppression is required to give me this thing, and am I paying to support that pollution and destruction and oppression? Do I really need it? If I really need it, is there an alternative that is less harmful? Am I paying for someone else to do work that I would consider beneath my dignity?<br />
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Questioning even one purchase this way could feel overwhelming due to the complexity of today's economy -- and I think that in itself is a valuable insight. Some are simpler, for example if I buy a banana, I'm giving more profit to the fruit companies that conquered Central America and killed/enslaved/displaced the people there, and continue to occupy the land and destroy rainforest. Some purchases might seem more benign at first, but on investigation we can see they are entangled with all kinds of destruction and suffering around the world. The purpose of questioning is not to feel guilty about what we've done, or to figure out a way to justify our actions, but to help us practice kindness toward what we love.<br />
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In Portland, in the Food Not Bombs community I wrote of earlier, I found people questioning almost everything in this way, and avoiding harmful things as each had the ability or courage to do so.<br />
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Here are some examples of harmful things people were avoiding, which we can all try avoiding to varying extents:<br />
- paying for cars to be driven<br />
- paying for airplane flights<br />
- buying animal products<br />
- buying non-local, non-organic, or packaged food -- this is a big topic I'll say more on someday<br />
- buying food from corporations<br />
- buying anything produced with slave labor<br />
- buying anything produced with any destructive means<br />
- paying taxes<br />
- investing money in harmful business or organizations<br />
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I am not completely avoiding all of these things, but I do feel the cognitive dissonance each time I give money toward one of them.<br />
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I still possess things that had a high cost in destruction, and will again if I someday replace them. Most obviously my electronics: smartphone, laptop, and camera. Even just possessing them, there is a cost, because I could sell or give them away to someone else who would have bought them new, which would reduce the demand by one. Another one I have yet to address in my own life is investments. I have a lot of money invested in index funds, because that's what you do when you save money, and I know I am helping to fund large scale destruction... perhaps it won't be long before I figure out what to do with that money instead.<br />
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But can one person's actions make a difference?<br />
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Yes. We know this intuitively, that when we do harm or show kindness to another being, it matters. If anything matters, this does.<br />
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Consider the destruction of beautiful forests and rivers and wildlife and cultures and villages that has been paid for by the demand of the "developed" world, and take one individual's share of that, one billionth or whatever it might be. Just in terms of acres of habitat destroyed or polluted, one individual's share is quite significant. This is not just statistics -- somewhere, actual trees and animals and indigenous people were killed, and the water poisoned. I don't want to pay for that.<br />
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There are lots of other logical arguments for how one person's actions make a difference, but logical arguments eventually become wearisome. It is beauty that I love, and whether I can accurately quantify the effects or not, I want to live in a way that feels true and honest in the face of the beauty that I love.<br />
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<br />Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-34950899145195789042017-08-29T00:00:00.000-07:002017-08-30T16:10:56.765-07:00Food Not Bombs in PortlandI've mentioned that I spent time with a loose-knit community of people practicing various extents of "simple living" in Portland. I want to say more about what I mean by simple living, but here I'll just give an example.<br />
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Food Not Bombs is the focal point of the community I mentioned. Here's how it works. Three times a week, monday/wednesday/friday, some people gather at 3pm at someone's kitchen and start preparing a meal mainly using fresh produce picked up at the end of farmers markets. Then at 6ish the food is taken over to a park, where everyone else shows up and shares the meal. The produce that isn't cooked is available for anyone to take home, along with rescued bread, burritos, etc picked up from shops, and occasionally from dumpsters. It's all vegan, mostly organic, and usually delicious as there are people who know how to make food taste good and this knowledge spreads around. Helping with the cooking is a great way to learn how to cook. All the food pick-ups are done using bicycles and trailers. Most people show up to the gatherings by bicycle. People bring their own dish and spoon, so no paper or plastic is wasted. It's all voluntary, no money is used. Everyone who helps out gets to learn how to do anything from hauling to cooking to serving to cleaning. <br />
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Food Not Bombs helps everyone to participate in avoiding or boycotting many harmful or wasteful activities, and replace them with fun -- we get to<br />
- ride bicycles instead of cars<br />
- eat local/organic/unprocessed food, and not pay for the pollution and waste of shipping/chemicals/packaging<br />
- eat plants and not pay for the horrors of animal agriculture<br />
- use one big shared kitchen and not waste resources using lots of kitchens to cook the same amount of food<br />
- share knowledge and skills so everyone learns how to make food good, and just how good it can be<br />
- eat together in community rather than isolated in separate homes<br />
- do the "work" of preparing and cleaning together rather than alone, because washing dishes and cooking is way more fun with friends<br />
- invite and welcome anyone and everyone to join us, since we're in public and the food is free<br />
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In a more beautiful world, I imagine most people eating most of their dinners this way: all-voluntary, free, and in community. Food Not Bombs gets to show us how beautiful this can be right now. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjjMv0YjR8NcO00mv6rmZqDrORer37AueQsskkW4G1YPEpx8lHku_m8ohAghDj5_3RfMacJmqtTX0Wt15bXjV22VxC0f8yRXlyGrDo5mnlSE0MEzFO0buVwSlQt_5EvrUCnKG5Fgo4KTbH/s1600/20663826_10213578061793968_9048071442567790617_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjjMv0YjR8NcO00mv6rmZqDrORer37AueQsskkW4G1YPEpx8lHku_m8ohAghDj5_3RfMacJmqtTX0Wt15bXjV22VxC0f8yRXlyGrDo5mnlSE0MEzFO0buVwSlQt_5EvrUCnKG5Fgo4KTbH/s320/20663826_10213578061793968_9048071442567790617_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Cooking food</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgHDxbFCEjKfKK2TSRwpBgpMmaVlz4Rc3A__B9xrUWu2CZAnmWDFIRGuIYs1ukXMt2ucTHFHTE0mpJpfQpWsbUZz8cRQ9dGjMaW2kTdFvN8ukNcw2_1mwsYAUcW8HlRZW4KSXRyUcmOGaK/s1600/21083646_10213756166246468_5014519347988736699_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="1152" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgHDxbFCEjKfKK2TSRwpBgpMmaVlz4Rc3A__B9xrUWu2CZAnmWDFIRGuIYs1ukXMt2ucTHFHTE0mpJpfQpWsbUZz8cRQ9dGjMaW2kTdFvN8ukNcw2_1mwsYAUcW8HlRZW4KSXRyUcmOGaK/s320/21083646_10213756166246468_5014519347988736699_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Hauling food to the serving</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJKrKJ7IRT2pCeKxiveomCAHnDQJjDOTuld6tZa536pV09Ax9sjA2eT6ZmNAQTPX2LgExuTU0eMsaN9nXHF_bdtulDlyWH890yzIq_aIxInYDH_ffoTTPLt-be7Ze7W4M7Jo3PAxOw_CEL/s1600/20746161_1210556192381586_5263123636094270107_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJKrKJ7IRT2pCeKxiveomCAHnDQJjDOTuld6tZa536pV09Ax9sjA2eT6ZmNAQTPX2LgExuTU0eMsaN9nXHF_bdtulDlyWH890yzIq_aIxInYDH_ffoTTPLt-be7Ze7W4M7Jo3PAxOw_CEL/s320/20746161_1210556192381586_5263123636094270107_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Eating food</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP03bbfFA3H2__oZo0dtw4vWv0frFJloqG6n68N-v3BdU6rNaA6w96VZmyziSWEnMgHqVzp9fdIINYaiDBNyOz58Q4qCIyXwekTzFskPta09p2zb_fWdenIGK4TLXmqROXDUkGTKn6g1BN/s1600/20645361_10213594937055839_7390599147324951685_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP03bbfFA3H2__oZo0dtw4vWv0frFJloqG6n68N-v3BdU6rNaA6w96VZmyziSWEnMgHqVzp9fdIINYaiDBNyOz58Q4qCIyXwekTzFskPta09p2zb_fWdenIGK4TLXmqROXDUkGTKn6g1BN/s320/20645361_10213594937055839_7390599147324951685_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Food</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgorut3UD0U2W1iuvrJNwnKLSJCiTOJHS_0SM-v_dd7Y-1fT9ZToI56yECRR06flqTUGQ5xQUiGPRyaFd1MtC09YwFC9fFuBxP8ByQtplLTivres-uV3iw-evvmJDLG8buUikv262tTJoOF/s1600/21200498_10213756244168416_4410714942551212130_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgorut3UD0U2W1iuvrJNwnKLSJCiTOJHS_0SM-v_dd7Y-1fT9ZToI56yECRR06flqTUGQ5xQUiGPRyaFd1MtC09YwFC9fFuBxP8ByQtplLTivres-uV3iw-evvmJDLG8buUikv262tTJoOF/s320/21200498_10213756244168416_4410714942551212130_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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More Food </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjie0Vp6dx2BFDl9XPzwXk60H_EFjdd_B6FMGlVs9vhd9kU1liA7QjTvZC75lgA3rTYbRpAwEO5fhRH_pl9zSTU2I8uVAduM-1UAM5honGd8dGMswPAbcRLBFqD-2g6asE2yqObju0JiZZa/s1600/17191202_1076451909125349_2742984353684935786_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjie0Vp6dx2BFDl9XPzwXk60H_EFjdd_B6FMGlVs9vhd9kU1liA7QjTvZC75lgA3rTYbRpAwEO5fhRH_pl9zSTU2I8uVAduM-1UAM5honGd8dGMswPAbcRLBFqD-2g6asE2yqObju0JiZZa/s320/17191202_1076451909125349_2742984353684935786_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Food in large quantities can fit on a bike trailer</div>
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(photos from Daniela and the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Food-Not-Bombs-PDX-104789846291565/">Food Not Bombs PDX</a> page)</div>
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By the way, this also goes on in <a href="https://sffnb.org/">San Francisco</a> and the <a href="http://ebfnb.org/">East Bay</a> -- I've been with the SF group for the last year.</div>
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<br />Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-12796115781813610462017-08-28T00:00:00.000-07:002017-09-20T16:52:54.635-07:00The purpose of every gathering<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm contemplating, as I often do, what to do next with my life. Right now that means deciding whether to continue working at my job.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-56e10111-2a4d-4fda-2754-624396898a29" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of you are probably well aware of the "ecological crisis". I find it good to be reminded of these things and just sit with them for a bit, because I don't always have to see them in person and it's possible to forget.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We've poisoned the air and groundwater and the ocean water of most of the earth through developing and using toxic chemicals and industrial processes. Since we're rich in the US, most of this has been moved away from here and is now done in South America, Asia, and Africa, where most of the people are oppressed and in poverty, and have even less power to stop it. This makes it a little harder to see from here.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In vast numbers around the world, people who once grew their own food have been driven off the land, or killed, or moved into cities and into debt to become consumers. While I might not be the one with the gun driving them out, when I pay for ordinary things in America I pay the companies that pay the guys with the guns.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most of these things have accelerated in the last 20 years as technology has allowed us to multiply our efforts. Forest is being destroyed faster than ever right now. Fertile land is turning to desert faster than ever. The oceans are being killed off and polluted faster than ever. We're dumping more trash than ever. We're mining and extracting more finite resources than ever. There are more factory farms packed with animals in pain. There are more human refugees than ever.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But aren't we right around the corner from having new technology that will let us solve all of this?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your guess may be as good as mine. I think we already have the "technology" needed to live in a sustainable and much, much more beautiful way on the earth, even with seven billion people. Trees and plants, for example, are incredible sustainable solar-powered air-cleaners and soil-restorers and carbon-sequesterers, plus providing food and habitat for us and all the other creatures. But our current trajectory is toward more industrial technology that is used to make a profit. And to make a profit, on some level, means taking nature (life) and converting it into resources and products that can be sold, accelerating this destruction. Even "green" technology, like solar panels and wind turbines, require horrible pollution to create -- even if they are better than digging coal for the same amount of energy. And of course, most or all of these green technologies are also focused on profit before anything else.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">How does your job contribute to the problem?</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To take the most obvious angle on it -- we make most of our profits through advertising, which is a crucial part of the industrial/consumerist system that provides the financial incentive for most of this destruction and horror. So my job is to help this system run more efficiently. Plus a good one third of the money I make goes to taxes, half of which go to war.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could use the remaining money I get to try to do something good. This was my noble intention until recently -- "earning to give". But now I see that my earning the money is contributing to the destruction that I would then try to undo by using the money I earned. It doesn't make sense. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><span style="font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">What would you do instead?</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't know exactly. But just as a strawman, if I stop working a regular job, buy almost nothing except [local, organic, unprocessed] food, and just go around helping with Food Not Bombs or whatever else? I think I'll find other interesting things to do, in fact I have a lot of ideas and plans floating around. But as a baseline, I could do this, and the amount of earth that is destroyed on my behalf each year will drop tremendously -- as I suspect it has this summer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How could you give up work that you enjoy, a team of coworkers that are incredibly fun to work with and extremely talented, a career that is respected by most people, and a comfortable life where all your physical and financial needs are taken care of? </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">:| It's not the easiest thing. But I do enjoy other things, there are awesome people outside Google, there are some people who would understand leaving, and a comfortable life isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sunshine and birdsong and dirt and grass and the smell of rain and the taste of wild berries are also there outside the comfortable life. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What are you really thinking about?</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't spend most of my time thinking about technology and destruction and all that. I love the trees themselves, and the birds, and the people, and the poetry, and the music and mountains and rivers and all the rest. Most of this summer I've been spending my time up close with what I love. I love this line from Rumi: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>"The purpose of every gathering is discovered: to recognize beauty and to love what's beautiful."</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is what we really want to "do", isn't it? This is why we go to the mountains. This is why we spend time with those we love. This is why we watch [videos of] cute animals. This is why we gather to cook food and make music and watch eclipses. I can give my attention more toward what is beautiful. And I may help others around me to do the same. And then we won't need as much of the stuff that is destructive. The real juice is in what we gain, not what we avoid. Life can be much richer than most of us are used to. I've tasted this.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It'll still be complicated and difficult. It's not like leaving work automatically flips life from dry to rich. I had many rich moments while employed, mostly in my free time, mostly out in nature or with people. And I've had my dry moments this summer, if fewer. I'll still wrestle with my conditioning and culture which tells me that success, work-ethic, accomplishment, reputation, and so on, are most important. I must be true to the deepest call I can feel.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground. May this be one.</span></div>
Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-85434979334411887312017-08-24T09:25:00.000-07:002017-08-24T09:39:06.501-07:00Portland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrfrhbuq6Wg-Ef_WyLm6SJURnG0-kcMnhDUvbniC74ftefY2ZbtKQedVbqQE6elLtm5wmIwZRt9PsUq3ekYM-oDyvM7TOYUOzIwvScTBfBnpA1qRzQuxrWdm2FuEi3PNjIS_ZO61TESsOP/s1600/20746161_1210556192381586_5263123636094270107_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrfrhbuq6Wg-Ef_WyLm6SJURnG0-kcMnhDUvbniC74ftefY2ZbtKQedVbqQE6elLtm5wmIwZRt9PsUq3ekYM-oDyvM7TOYUOzIwvScTBfBnpA1qRzQuxrWdm2FuEi3PNjIS_ZO61TESsOP/s320/20746161_1210556192381586_5263123636094270107_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/Food-Not-Bombs-PDX-104789846291565/">Food Not Bombs</a> at Kenilworth park. </div>
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Figs popping</div>
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A picturesque Food Not Bombs meal</div>
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Abundance of blackberries in Portland</div>
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Hey now, I don't think them cashews are local...</div>
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One of many berry harvests</div>
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Twelve pints of blackberry jam!</div>
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One week was super hot -- up to 106<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">°</b> so I tried drying plum slices in the sun. It worked, but don't try to dry fruit on cardboard as it glues itself to the cardboard. </div>
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Fig picker</div>
Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-84595934253535070252017-08-24T00:00:00.000-07:002017-09-20T17:52:36.619-07:00In the woods<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
In August I did a little solo bike/backpacking trip, to spend a week in the woods and see the eclipse. Oh my God. It was the most beautiful time. Words can't say how I felt, and I think "beautiful" is the best available word to point to. Here are some photos.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpeKs2YlXnpT93x6Vp9X_YpyD9efLDHkV6rCc_6aGa-i_-yGRTFONNcdz_2QOa1LGFOGgqHwZpwby-16JnaVnqouFTR5QV8MMO9duOafN2xsTx7CtQnNOU1dIu8ad8k5Iqx6pUKE87ae0o/s1600/IMG_20170813_142127.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpeKs2YlXnpT93x6Vp9X_YpyD9efLDHkV6rCc_6aGa-i_-yGRTFONNcdz_2QOa1LGFOGgqHwZpwby-16JnaVnqouFTR5QV8MMO9duOafN2xsTx7CtQnNOU1dIu8ad8k5Iqx6pUKE87ae0o/s320/IMG_20170813_142127.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Getting rained on along the Clackamas river.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-_UQueScGzmfY7VYIeT1EpO-Q-GX__t9l_VONUZIZoiQY0ycptYkCEXKVpD14iJN2Fb2pAqetQWi7vOOuR8NJyhAlSfjeiBhepA4W79dK6t5yzuZrK_wuQOSVozRDCreOBRoUDN9lzDJF/s1600/IMG_20170813_194235.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-_UQueScGzmfY7VYIeT1EpO-Q-GX__t9l_VONUZIZoiQY0ycptYkCEXKVpD14iJN2Fb2pAqetQWi7vOOuR8NJyhAlSfjeiBhepA4W79dK6t5yzuZrK_wuQOSVozRDCreOBRoUDN9lzDJF/s320/IMG_20170813_194235.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Along the ride into the Cascades. I took my time getting there, spending this second night on a mountain along the river, and getting to Bagby hot spring in time for the third night. There I hung out with a group of ten people who had just come from running a kitchen at a camp somewhere, and gave me a bunch of their leftover food, which allowed me to stay in the mountains a full ten days after that without getting hungry. After Bagby I hiked off-trail to get over to Bull of the Woods without having to do a 20 mile loop or whatever it was on trail. This was awesome at first, though tiring, but then I hit this super dense rhododendron thicket, and took about four hours to go a tenth of a mile through it, as I kept getting stuck. But it was passable! Definitely more passable than a blackberry thicket.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRcBEgpKbl1_97SKfSnoQZxznmFfociesgehnhHZATpRP9HqRfmS-dlQbq4pw9A-ha5pdf0ynmODfLO2BkD5qT_qCzi8rMGyMYKncks22SJv_4MU4vHto3mmyE2iAMEG8-2A7EyUSKxJKb/s1600/IMG_20170818_200755.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRcBEgpKbl1_97SKfSnoQZxznmFfociesgehnhHZATpRP9HqRfmS-dlQbq4pw9A-ha5pdf0ynmODfLO2BkD5qT_qCzi8rMGyMYKncks22SJv_4MU4vHto3mmyE2iAMEG8-2A7EyUSKxJKb/s320/IMG_20170818_200755.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I camped on top of Bull Of The Woods for four nights, and then two more on Big Slide. Pictures do not do any sort of justice to the 12 sunsets and sunrises on top of the mountains. Such beauty. Also saw a lot of meteors, one of which fell slowly at sunset and flared up before going out. And birds -- there were hawks, one of which landed for a while in a tree just twenty feet from my head. Hummingbirds, one of which flew straight into my face -- I dodged instinctually, I don't know if it thought I was a flower or what. Blue birds, and some red birds, and a bunch of other kinds.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6i8kjrBgRTrSz4g9bjXs8fjM3oh5_2eGXpBn83UZiWnQ4N9TolbgULNe2ICDiBOJdf67Nm_yI457L_RHM6d2h0S4RbiKjim6khOSaeINziYNUFtoxKHjN4qFZ7nBjvEkJVsC_ETVfXSJ/s1600/IMG_20170818_200758.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiz6i8kjrBgRTrSz4g9bjXs8fjM3oh5_2eGXpBn83UZiWnQ4N9TolbgULNe2ICDiBOJdf67Nm_yI457L_RHM6d2h0S4RbiKjim6khOSaeINziYNUFtoxKHjN4qFZ7nBjvEkJVsC_ETVfXSJ/s320/IMG_20170818_200758.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Looking at Big Slide from Bull</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTdM_16TR_kawSwvNAOTkz9ktci2yUyBCT0eW4U6n1CkVueKnOQbfrGLrkXi1sYecOOnDeuBddvaeywu7_8K1wDeuinbQhRKyzshEQxdBDmFlO2qLUkDbRScNKz1gxY6E5TCsVCb9jxS_x/s1600/IMG_20170819_062027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTdM_16TR_kawSwvNAOTkz9ktci2yUyBCT0eW4U6n1CkVueKnOQbfrGLrkXi1sYecOOnDeuBddvaeywu7_8K1wDeuinbQhRKyzshEQxdBDmFlO2qLUkDbRScNKz1gxY6E5TCsVCb9jxS_x/s320/IMG_20170819_062027.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Morning fog rolling in and melting away. Mt Jefferson in the middle, Olallie Butte on the left, and Three-fingered Jack on the right.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ZtSjVUOd_bwSM4re7r4Hl3W8jNsC6aJPM0nvN0X-DPFCQRwawZ_KcuollG0SRom2CJ5TjjaoIujW_EEqBzcpEgADNCmeQ_ykoGnVa0vXansBSeT2dELA62a1VggI1ZoNI_xHsT0R6_UN/s1600/IMG_20170818_195241.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ZtSjVUOd_bwSM4re7r4Hl3W8jNsC6aJPM0nvN0X-DPFCQRwawZ_KcuollG0SRom2CJ5TjjaoIujW_EEqBzcpEgADNCmeQ_ykoGnVa0vXansBSeT2dELA62a1VggI1ZoNI_xHsT0R6_UN/s320/IMG_20170818_195241.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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After three days alone on the mountain, some people showed up and took my picture.</div>
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During the day when it got hot up on the mountain tops, I would go down to one of the lakes to swim and get water. This is the way down to Lake Lenore -- the slope was covered in beautiful fireweed -- apparently so named because it's the first thing to cover the ground after a fire.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiePZzUtNS-Vd0gC0NHeOX9jk3-GnneH_LmWJ7XA6opVOWD0X8EIPoyuNHbpURje-mvuaRJVDIFQcAy3OZvopuFQAwDcRPCcLPr2v1xXay3lfJyTlW2WF6zOfgQcOlhDsf_1B7ajHgBis5X/s1600/IMG_20170819_151731.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiePZzUtNS-Vd0gC0NHeOX9jk3-GnneH_LmWJ7XA6opVOWD0X8EIPoyuNHbpURje-mvuaRJVDIFQcAy3OZvopuFQAwDcRPCcLPr2v1xXay3lfJyTlW2WF6zOfgQcOlhDsf_1B7ajHgBis5X/s320/IMG_20170819_151731.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Lenore was incredibly peaceful with no one else around, so I spent all afternoon there picking huckleberries and sitting with my feet in the water. There were these brown salamanders (actually "<a href="https://i.imgur.com/LkZcYkK.png">Rough Skinned Newts</a>" I think) in the water all around the shore. Three of them came over and crawled on my feet, one of them kept sticking his face in the cracks between my toes, probably eating the grime or salt or something. One of them came by all agitated, trying to shake this tiny green worm off his (or her, I dunno) back. He rolled over and over, scraped his back against rocks and my leg, and tried to reach it with his own short arm/leg, but could not. I don't know how that ended as he eventually moved away, still trying to get the little guy off.</div>
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Huckleberries! The entire wilderness was full of huckleberry plants, though most of them had very little fruit, supposedly it wasn't the best year for them.</div>
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Up on an unnamed peak as the eclipse gets darker. A lot of people showed up on the mountains the weekend before the eclipse, so I had company. You probably saw the eclipse or already talked to people who did, and heard about the eerie feeling of the sun dimming for an hour, and the birds starting to chirp. One beautiful thing here was how the snow-capped peaks to the north were still glowing in the sun while we were in the shadow. </div>
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When I was up there during one of the sunsets, some people came up, and one said something about how amazing it was, it looked like heaven. Said the other: "welcome to the world". I liked that saying and think I'll use it again if I remember.</div>
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After the eclipse I hiked back to Bagby hot springs where I had stashed my bike. Bushwhacking the last mile was much easier than the first time, as I went a different route along the creek, and didn't hit the dense rhododendron thicket. Just a lot of clambering over and under big fallen trees.</div>
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The creek was amazingly beautiful. Close to this creek the trees had never been logged, so they were huge, and the ground was covered with a deep layer of decaying wood covered in moss. Very soft and quiet. I was very grateful that there were very few mosquitoes and no poison oak. It was a very hospitable place.</div>
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The ride home was beautiful too, it rained a bit and the sky was gorgeous. When I first encountered a busy intersection, and was crowded by huge noisy vehicles with faceless (well, face-obscured) drivers all in a hurry, my heart was sad. It doesn't need to be this way.</div>
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Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-31477923785377804382017-08-13T16:33:00.002-07:002017-09-20T16:51:33.338-07:00What is up with me<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5e9d86c8-ddef-50e3-593a-2690f3f15a87" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Hi friends,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I wanted to give an update. I think I've found my calling: picking fruit! :p</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">What follows is some of what I've been doing and thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I stayed with friends in Portland the first week I was up here, and then four of us left on a bicycle trip to the rainbow gathering out in eastern oregon. That was an amazing experience -- to be among 10,000 people in a remote forest, 2-3 miles from cars, for a week. It was very inspiring to see what was possible when people came together from a place of love and generosity. Not exactly a model of a sustainable community as we were in the forest and bringing food in from elsewhere -- it was more a festival or celebration.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I stayed at the gathering about two weeks, partly due to my friends and I being sick some of the time. It was a grand place to be sick though -- camped on a beautiful mountain meadow with a view of the sky, surrounded by chipmunks and birds and squirrels and creeping things. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">After the gathering my friend Tim and I bicycled back across the desert and the Cascades to Eugene, and after a few days there I finished riding back to Portland alone, and stayed with my brother for about a week, picking blackberries and making jam. I've picked so much wild/public fruit, which is a great joy for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I do struggle with feelings of urgency about what I "should" be doing. I mean, this is the first time in 4 years I've had more than a week of free time -- I should be traveling the world, or be living in some intentional community doing regenerative agriculture, or spending weeks backpacking in the mountains. If I'm not "working", I should be accomplishing </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">something </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">at least, otherwise I'm being a lazy bum. :p </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Maybe I have accomplished something, to take that perspective -- I've spent 6 weeks sleeping outside, using very little money (about $200 so far, almost all on food), and am still healthy and enjoying it. I've done a 650-mile bike ride and helped feed a lot of people and learned a lot about plants and fruit and less harmful ways of living from the people I've been with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">But part of me also knows this whole measuring of what I've accomplished isn't the most healthy either. So when I stop and ponder it, I resolve to return to the present and be kind to the people (or plants/animals) I'm with and enjoy the rest of the day. I can remember that I'm OK. I imagine it'll take time, maybe a long time, of practicing this for the conditioning around accomplishment and success and work ethic to wear off.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">In terms of my thinking -- this time has strengthened my perspective that much of the work and nearly all of the consumption in America is very harmful to ourselves, others, and the earth. Just the impact of my life so far on the planet, in terms of acres of forest habitat destroyed, people oppressed, plastic and chemicals dumped in the rivers and oceans, animals killed, violence paid for, etc, would be disturbing to count. I won't be stuck in guilt over that -- but it makes it easier to see that what I'm doing now is actually really helpful, even if it looks simple or lazy on the surface.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I don't mean people are bad for having jobs -- my point is not to judge like that. We are, every one of us, doing our best in the situations we're placed in. But there may be others in similar situations to mine, and I'm glad to be an encouragement to them. Having no debt and no dependents, nothing but comfort and reputation and the allure of "success" to keep me in a career, it is easier to contemplate letting it go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">So I feel pretty confident that I won't be able to stay at my job for much longer. It'll be a hard to let go of, but maybe not that hard. Especially when I remember all of the good poems. When I remember that life is short, and instead of spending my days in an office overusing my brain for the sake of making consumerism more efficient (this is a crude and biased caricature of what my job is about), I could be giving my attention to people and trees and the rest, loving them up close. I don't want to let the ends justify the means in whatever I do. And our system that my job is part of may be even more short-lived than me. For the sake of beauty, I hope so. It might not end soon -- we may plunge further and further into dystopia for a long time yet. Either way, I want to be part of the colorful alternative culture that will not give up making the best of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">In Portland there's a large loose-knit community really interested in living a more joyful and less harmful lifestyle to varying degrees, through some combination of boycotting cars, airplanes, animal agriculture, plastics, non-local products, etc etc, and instead spending time together and learning to meet our needs in other healthier ways. I think it's easier to live here in the summer on a bicycle with little money, compared to most places. There's Food Not Bombs three times a week, all the free fruit one could want, and good places to camp. The winter would be different I'm sure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I also see that while this may be a less harmful and more joyful way for *me* to live, in my present circumstances, it's definitely not a complete model for everyone. I seem to have a lot of company in envisioning a world where we all can live healthy lives in community, eating real local food and not oppressing or exploiting each other or the earth. And I'm encouraged to see so many people interested in permaculture, natural building, healthier ways of interacting in community, shared leadership, holistic health, etc. Altogether, these "technologies" and the people using them can demonstrate the healthy world community that could be. There won't and cannot be a single individual model of it, but all of us can take more creative steps in that direction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">I just left Portland yesterday to ride to the mountains (north of Mt Jefferson) to spend a week alone in the forest, and see the eclipse if I don't lose track of which day it is. I'm writing this at the Estacada library, probably my last stop with power+wifi. After the eclipse, I'll likely head back down to the bay area. Last night and this morning I got to experience a lot of rain for the first time up here, and am still somewhat damp. It is good to be alive.</span></div>
Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-79311621765411113692017-08-06T20:20:00.002-07:002017-10-09T17:32:51.172-07:00On the road<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Just some photos from the bike ride, Portland -> Rainbow Gathering -> Eugene -> Portland.</div>
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The whole route</div>
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Some of our bikes in Portland right before leaving</div>
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A beautiful field of purple flowers on our way to Mt Hood</div>
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Our breakfast spot on the second day<br />
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Eating salmonberries!<br />
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Beautiful country<br />
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Approaching the pass around Mt Hood<br />
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Dusk near Mt Hood<br />
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Past Mt Hood, riding through the Warm Springs reservation. We had a wonderful tailwind here.<br />
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Looking south toward Mt Jefferson and Sisters, from Rt. 26 in the Warm Springs reservation. When we got to the town of Warm Springs, some people were very kind and welcomed us to camp in their school park right in the middle of town, which we did.</div>
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Climbing out of the Deschutes river valley where Warm Springs is</div>
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We stopped at the Organic Earthly Delights farmstand just outside Madras and had a feast of mostly very-local produce. That apple is not local!</div>
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Rolling out of Madras</div>
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Coming down into Prineville it was very cool and mostly downhill</div>
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Beautiful scenery on the approach to Prineville</div>
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Next day, two of us split off to continue riding while the others hitched to the gathering.<br />
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Climbing up out of Prineville we got our last view of the cascades</div>
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We stopped to pick currants many times, and ate at least three pounds of them.</div>
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We rode right past a couple small rattlesnakes in the road, who rattled at us. I wasn't in front so it wasn't my fault! There were many roadkill rattlesnakes along this stretch.</div>
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One of the many beautiful sunsets</div>
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A lovely camping spot on soft dirt right by the road. The guard rail was making these crazy noises probably due to the change in temperature once it got dark, and at first we thought it was a bunch of animals somewhere in the distance, it was pretty funny.</div>
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Rolling out the next morning. Sadly almost all the land along the road for this 100+ miles was barbed-wired off as cow pasture, and there were a lot of cows, so we were afraid to drink the creek water even through a filter.</div>
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We saw a lot of cool old houses and contemplated how we might settle down and eke out a living in them.</div>
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Fresh orange, red, and black currants from the roadside, and cherries we'd picked in Prineville. The cherry tree is one block west of Good Bikes bike shop, on the main street. We picked a lot of cherries and tried to give them away to people in the park, but everyone refused. Happily, we filled our water at a starbucks on the way out of town and someone working there was glad to take them.</div>
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An attempt at shade for a siesta. The day after we left Prineville was the hottest, and had the longest stretch without water of 40 miles. Happily, two people stopped to see if we needed anything, and gave us water. This siesta idea may have been good, but it was still too hot for me to sleep, so I basically sat or lay in the heat for four hours waiting for things to cool down.</div>
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Weather! Sometimes there was a cloud shadow on the road up ahead and we'd try to race toward it to get shade, but then it would move :p</div>
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The final climb into the mountains of the Malheur national forest</div>
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Rolling in to the rainbow gathering on NF-24</div>
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We went all the way to the back of the gathering up a hill, and camped on the most beautiful open hillside with tall purple flowers everywhere, and a gorgeous view of the sky. This was the last photo before turning off my phone. I was camped up here for about two weeks, waking up laying in the grass surrounded by chipmunks and dragonflies and all other creeping things. By the time we left, the purple flowers had faded and orange and yellow ones were starting to bloom.</div>
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Two weeks later we rode back...<br />
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The evening we left the gathering, we were greeted by a beautiful and refreshing storm at sunset, with a double rainbow, light rain, and lots of big lightning bolts.<br />
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We stopped to take it in, and also watch the semi-wild horses running around, and eat currants which were now ripe at higher elevations.<br />
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Camped for our third night just outside Prineville<br />
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Riding toward Sisters<br />
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At a farm stand in Sisters we bought and rescued various fruits and vegetables. We ate most of this in one sitting.<br />
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Going up the east side of the Cascades on 242. There was almost no traffic. A forest service guy said it is completely packed on weekends, but we were there tuesday and wednesday.<br />
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At Windy Point it looked like Mordor with piles of igneous rock everywhere</div>
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Hammocked just up the hill from Windy Point. One guy who stopped there had his car make a loud beep and told his companion he thought there was "a bum" camped up there, whom he wanted to scare off.<br />
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Mordor by day<br />
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A beautiful lake on the way down the west side of the cascades. At lakes, I like to make a raft and float out on it. There were lots of dragonflies by the shore, who would fly way out on the lake and sit on this tall grass that was growing out there.<br />
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Another lake we hiked to<br />
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The Willamette river in Eugene<br />
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Delivering Food Not Bombs in Eugene<br />
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We parted ways in Eugene, and I rode back up to Portland alone. Now blackberries were in season, and I ate a ton of them every day. Also shared a gallon of berries with people in the park in Corvallis.</div>
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Soaked oats and blackberries make a delicious meal. Yes I ate all those blackberries at one breakfast. They're probably good for you.</div>
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Last sunrise on the road.<br />
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Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-29239580883730645242017-08-04T10:40:00.000-07:002017-08-07T10:40:43.818-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Getting on bart with my bike</div>
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Passing Mt Shasta on the train</div>
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First place I stopped in Portland to figure out where I was going, I got fresh raspberries</div>
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Climbing cherry trees in Portland</div>
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This is a small quantity of cherries; large quantities were picked and eaten</div>
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Picking cherries after midnight just for fun</div>
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Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-82512194625850948462017-06-18T00:00:00.001-07:002017-08-28T12:39:42.885-07:00Reflection, June 18, 2017<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14.6667px;">In 2016-2017 I was part of a "discipleship group" at my church, First Mennonite Church of San Francisco. Basically we gathered to share a meal, share what we are struggling with, do some reading, reflecting, etc. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a short reflection I shared at FMCSF on June 18, 2017 at the close of this period.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our first discipleship group was the day after the election. This was a month after I shared a <a href="http://www.grenzbegriff.com/2016/10/reflection-october-9-2016.html">reflection here in October</a>. At that time I had no idea how my world was about to be shook around, and no idea of the beauty that I would witness through that shaking. Nor did I know the beauty I would be find on the other side.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For about three months after the election, which is when our group first met, I got embarrassingly caught up in following the news and trying to make sense of the world situation. Some of my deeply conditioned assumptions about how our global society works were shattered and I didn't know what to replace them with. While our politics drew me in initially, I ended up seeing beneath the politics an ongoing pattern of non-partisan for-profit exploitation and destruction of people and life in every part of the world, that deeply disturbed me. I was also disturbed to be in an environment at work where the connection between our business and this destruction was basically ignored. The cognitive dissonance was painful. I quickly felt that I needed to fight this evil by exposing what I could. But I despaired, because mostly people seemed to seemed to believe it wasn’t really that bad, or that it was pointless to try to do anything about it. And the consequences for others who had publicly taken this on looked grim.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Through this difficult time, at discipleship group I could leave the internet behind for a few hours and release some of the pressure that was building up. I could remember the deeper truth of belonging, beneath this chaos of clinging and struggle for control. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In February, doing preparatory reading for our next meeting, I found someone who had seen everything I’d seen, and was not despairing! I was shown another path forward. I don't have time to go into great detail here, but as springtime burst forth in bloom around me, I felt springtime inside, beckoning me out of the cold dark place I was in. Maybe I don’t need to defeat the powers of evil from the top. Maybe I don’t need to control everything. Maybe there’s a better way: a slower, mysterious way. A mustard seed. A way that "the powers that be" would laugh at, but a way that would survive even death.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Admittedly, I say this from a place of extreme extreme privilege, far from the war zones and sweatshops and mines and plantations and prisons. I can only point to Jesus, who spoke of the mustard seed on the way to the cross.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I began to be freed from the idea that I needed to take part in the war of control. So I quit most forms of media for a while, and was given time to ponder. I knew that my own way of life and my work were part of the pattern of exploitation and destruction, and I could see that more clearly now. Maybe my own clinging to money and reputation and comfort is one thread in a great fabric of clinging that casts this grim shadow over the world. Maybe I am only free to the extent that I let go of that clinging. Maybe I could live joyfully in a way that would not require me to exploit or harm the earth or other beings.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could not impose this beauty on the world, But I could live in it myself, spending my time in community or contemplation -- growing and collecting and sharing food here in the city, listening to others, or walking barefoot on the hills drinking in sunshine and silence and green trees. I could look deeply at each thing I consume or possess or participate in, and question whether it is worth the harm that it entails. I could pay attention to and question my habits. The more I live in this place, the less I need the things I am conditioned to cling to. Months passed as I grappled with this vision and its implications for me, and this continues. Discipleship group has been a mirror to help me see what was happening to me. A circle of trust to hold me with love, so that I could allow it to happen despite my fears. And a source of encouragement as I witness transformation in others.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So things are getting more interesting. As some of you know, I’ve left work at least for the summer, and moved out of my room. Tonight I’m taking the train to Oregon, with the intent, at least for a time, to practice simplicity and presence with some people there. I don’t know what’s coming and I don’t know what I’m doing. I expect whatever comes will be painful for some parts of me. I can feel that, when I wake up in the middle of the night thinking “what the heck are you doing”. But in my clearer moments, I remember that if I would truly know beauty, I must respond to the deepest call I can feel. And maybe there’s an even deeper call underneath this one. So I cry out, free me from my delusions. Grant me the courage to be still, so I can feel your call daily. And grant me the ability to respond, with all that I am.</span></div>
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Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-83631501549701225772016-11-26T00:00:00.001-08:002017-11-10T10:27:46.555-08:00Our earthOur earth is beautiful. I love her how she is now, and I will love her with tears in my eyes even when her ice caps are gone, her coasts are flooded, and we’re migrating north. It seems we humans get to decide what we want to do with earth. For example, we could pump the oil out of the ground, knowing that a lot of it will spill in the water, so that lots of the animals and birds will die and more people won’t have clean water to drink. We decide. Is this worth it, just so that we can have some measure of stuff, comfort, and freedom that we can get more easily by doing this?<br />
We all breathe the same air. We are part of the earth. In everything we do, we are participating in this decision, of what to do to her, what to do to ourselves. There is no way to not participate. Each time I buy a product made of plastic I’m participating; and I just bought plastic today — I’m guilty with everyone else. We are all in a dialogue, through our words and our actions, deciding what to do to our earth, what to do to ourself.<br />
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Today, this dialogue is most visible at Standing Rock where ten thousand people are gathered, with the support of millions more of us around the world, to say “No” to another oil pipeline. Now this is an extreme case, where the “benefit” of building the pipeline is mainly that certain companies, their investors, and the politicians paid by them will get more money/power if we build it. The rest of us might get slightly cheaper gas prices so we can melt those ice caps a little sooner. And then if the pipeline breaks, the Missouri river will turn black with oil all the way down to New Orleans. This is not new — we already did it in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and that’s still a mess, just as one example. I will still love earth even if we do this to her as well, but we don't have to.<br />
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What we see at Standing Rock is that collectively we value the profits of companies, the wealthy, and their politicians, more than we value the health of the earth and its inhabitants. We will even use excessive violence and cruelty against our fellow humans to maximize these profits. I say “we” because our elected government is doing this and we are all supporting them in it through taxes, votes, our excessive consumption of everything that requires oil, and our silence in the face of violence. Standing Rock is the tip of an iceberg. I cannot concisely describe the violence we are doing to other people around the world for the same cause.<br />
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So, my friends, I’m asking you: be conscious of what causes you are supporting. And if, like me, you find that your actions are not in harmony with what you really love, pay attention to that, and take the time to figure out what to do about it. It won't be simple but that's okay. For me, it's changed my entire life, how I think, and what I do with my time and money. I’m willing to talk about this, without bringing blame and shame into it. It is worth it, to live a life where your actions and your heart are consciously aligned. Everything becomes even more beautiful.<br />
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Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-69174572571967419112016-10-09T00:00:00.000-07:002017-08-26T15:47:36.942-07:00Reflection, October 9, 2016<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a short reflection I shared at FMCSF on October 9, 2016.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What does it mean to you, in your daily life, that you identify as an anabaptist christian?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am invited to love God and neighbor, and to me that includes everything. This loving is that field with the treasure that Jesus talked about. To me, being an anabaptist means I know in the deepest way I can know things that it is worth selling everything to buy that field. It means I’ve tasted a freedom so sweet that I’ll let parts of myself be burned up to get to it. This is not a one-time thing, but a moment to moment dialogue, a never ending dance. In every moment I am invited to step into the fire.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This invitation takes many forms for me. It may be to let go of some thing my mind or body wants like physical luxury or praise from other people. Or to give money rather than holding on to it. Or to let my mind quiet down rather than feeding it with more excitement. Or to practice appreciating the things that would annoy me, rather than being annoyed. One of the scarier invitations for me is to live honestly with myself and with others. I don’t just mean by avoiding technical lies, but by living undisguised, bringing my struggles and failures into the light.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While we don't have the inquisition burning us at the stake for not conforming, in our culture it is very easy to build up a safe and comfortable and independent life behind a lot of masks, simply by default. Breaking out of that cocoon is painful. It’s painful for me to acknowledge my struggles and fears, my daily mistakes, the really embarrassing conniving that my mind is always up to. Or the lesser invitations that I respond to. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I’ve found joy and freedom beyond that pain. It’s like dying to be born again as Christ taught. Into a life where justification is not sought or needed. Where I let go of judging others and myself. Where I lay it all out on the table and sit with it, appreciate it for what it is, and laugh over it. From that place, I think I can take anything and my heart will keep on singing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So. :D I’m gonna dip my toes in this fire just a little bit by sharing some of my embarrassing escapes, addictions, and struggles. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Often I’ll have decided the next right thing for me to do, and instead of doing it I’ll find myself getting out my computer and spending hours browsing the internet. Or I’ll find myself eating when I know I have something better to be doing. Or when I’m feeling down I’ll reassure myself by identifying with my accomplishments, or things I’ve created, or respect from other people for things I’ve done, rather than facing myself and remembering who I am.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And when I do fumble into the fire, there are questions I wrestle with. What should I do with my time? Is my job really the best thing for me to be doing? Even at a company that makes its profit off consumerism and, by extension, exploitation of the earth? What should I do with the money and power I’m given? Should I live more simply than I do now? Should I give up my comfortable living situation and try to find cheaper housing?</span></div>
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<br />Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-33442396631352896102016-01-09T08:42:00.005-08:002017-11-10T10:28:57.272-08:00SunsetsI frequently intentionally make time to see the sunset, and sometimes the sunrise too depending on the time of year and whether I expect it to be good, depending on the expected weather.<br />
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Here are a few of my favorites from 2015. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/117901973@N02/sets/72157650977773036">Click here to see the full album</a> of 230 photos of 90+ sunsets/sunrises from the last year.<br />
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<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/117901973@N02/sets/72157650977773036"><img border="0" height="572" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigEd1-Fo5i5uOOXtMbxNY5_tGD9cq_nPYpMk3_LSApeouqrz4gGjD1UwKrr5HSYElAkKRIi-I0MVoVxVapRoi5S6pkR5D0YeaX5M7JEg5tBKxxPwkTLy0mlUhBBZb4r4QIPqajh5csLMMT/s640/sunset_sample.png" width="640" /></a><span id="goog_401924128"></span><span id="goog_401924129"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div>
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<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js"></script>Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-60556167831674657422015-11-12T17:40:00.001-08:002017-08-07T10:27:57.837-07:00I know I have already been happy. So can I say that anything I have not yet experienced is not really necessary in order for me to be happy? Where do I draw the line. I presume the best thing is not to abstain from all pleasant experiences that I have not tried.<br />
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But there are some which I have abstained from for better or worse. And in having never had them, I do not miss them. Perhaps the notion that I don't need them to be happy is all in my head, and really, since I even know that they exist, I should not be happy without experiencing them. But those which I have never even been aware of, ah, <i>those</i> I clearly do not need.</div>
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I suppose we won't really know, and it is up to us which things are worth experiencing and which are not. And that shapes our life. </div>
Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-51139738393455257102015-10-26T08:43:00.001-07:002015-10-26T08:43:17.255-07:00Life is like a pie where taking a slice doesn't reduce the amount that remains to be took.Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-2736093084365389442015-10-25T10:21:00.003-07:002015-10-25T10:21:41.434-07:00Some peopleThere are some people who can detect the humour embedded in any scrap of English I emit, and these people often do so. When this happens, one of life's many purposes is fulfilled.Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6593437558401781955.post-14619100159942584622015-10-25T10:18:00.003-07:002015-12-10T22:21:38.213-08:00A place for sayingsAs often some witticism wants to be shared but I'm reluctant to spam the people on Facebook with it.Philhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11482382575219236203noreply@blogger.com1