A moratorium on negativity

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday and I struggled to regain my equilibrium late into the morning. Everything can seem out of proportion when you live in a 20' travel trailer. With the recent feeling of being thin skinned and a natural tendency toward empathy, I have an increased sponge-like ability to take on other people's emotional states. So when I wake to a call that my massage has been cancelled, my trailer mate complains of a bad belly, and the lawn mower roars outside, I'll admit I didn't handle it well.

I made complaints, numerous ones, in fact. Outside of my head, it might have even sounded like I was whining, which is true because inside my mind it sounded like a temper tantrum. In this moment, it doesn't matter how little I want to be like this - reduced to a filter that only allows frustrations and irritations to pass into my consciousness - I descend into the depths of not good enough and there I am. In a pit, like one of those oubliettes used to torture people, alone with their thoughts and little else.

Yes, I exaggerate, but it's all part of feeling a feeling with total committment, in order to then allow it to pass. I know my trailer mate didn't much appreciate this method I experimented with at the start of our day, but since he went to work I was free to figure out how to pass through the mess of emotions that had formed a noxious cloud to stink up my thinking.

With an unexpected morning free to indulge my mood, I laced up and ratched tight my roller blades over knee high socks and added the essential knee pads, wrist guards and neon orange trucker's cap for visibility. I cranked up the tunes after I made it to the relative safety of the bike path, and skated my way to a better attitude. Excercise improves my perspective on the world, and roller blading has the added factor of being silly and also graceful in moments. When my whole body becomes involved in forward motion and it's long legs and long arms swinging and the music adds an element of dance, it's moving meditation.

I returned home and decided I'd choose to enjoy the day, whatever it brought. I had work, I got some tasks started or completed, I recovered an expensive and difficult to replace window frame for the Airstream that had gone misssing after I took it to a shop to have glass cut for it, I worked somewhere else, and I ate sushi for dinner with my happy to see me trailer mate. I chose a different attitude, and if I had to fake my way into it at first, I eventually found it.

Now I'm committed to a moratorium on negativity. Ironic but it's a little intimidating - sometimes a focus on the rubbish side of things seems easier to fulfill. Who cares about that, though? I'd like to be happy and I'm pretty sure it's a habit, just like the choice to see the worst in any given situation can be. I'm starting with a week, in the hopes it will spill over into a month, a year, the rest of my days. Habit forming happiness, this is something for which I aspire.

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Pay it forward

This morning at my local coffee shop the woman in line ahead of me turned and looked at me and told the gal behind the counter that she was adding whatever I wanted to her order. She told me that today she's paying it forward. I lifted my eyebrows and asked if she'd planned ahead to do this the night before, or if she had decided in that moment to practice random acts of generosity.

It turns out that she's paying it forward in honor of a friend's child - a two year old who died of cancer - it would have been his birthday today. After she tells me this, my eyes sting with sudden, not-quite tears, and then we both have red eyes but keep it polite, don't cry. I am amazed at this sweet way to honor the beloved dead, allow them a voice in their silence. To do a kindness for another person, casual, in the moment, no other thought but today I decide to pay it forward.

"Okay, I'll have a coffee. Just a dark roast drip coffee."

"That's all, isn't there something else you'd like?"

I can hear the disappointment in her voice, so I order a chocolate croissant, which I don't ever splurge to enjoy unless it's in the day old basket or I require a chocolate and buttery flaky bread fix to survive the day. I thank her and she moves forward into her day, and I into mine. And the honored dead do whatever it is they do after life, and I am left with food for thought and ecstatic tastebuds.

People have paid it forward over the millennia; this is not a new concept that began with the novel Pay it Forward, published in 1999 by Cathering Ryan Hyde, or with the movie of the same name the following year. One of my favorite traditions, the potlatch, was the cornerstone of the Pacific northernwest native peoples until a ban by the Federal government in 1884. For some communities, like the Puyallup tribe in Washington State, it remains so to a more limited degree.

This is not your casserole and cherry pie type potlatch, but a necessary means by which these societies took care of the poorest amongst themselves. It also acted as a means to solidify the strength and connectivity of the community. The hosts accumulated food and goods in order to be able to hold a gathering, where a marriage or birth amongst other important events was celebrated with a feast layed out and the honoring the attendees with gifts. Often, it was a way for the wealthy to exhibit their power, as they could give and give more. A wealthy person might become poor in the process, but solidifed their stature in the community.

If instead of banning this practice, the US government had adopted it, we'd see an America that looks and functions radically different to what it does at present. With the heavy hand of Big Business and the personification of corporations that leaves them running wild and trampling our democracy, we could stand to have a shift to pay it forward rather than pay it to we, we, we. And I mean the corporate we, as if these companies had been graced by God like kings or queens to do whatever they want in order to reap the bounty of profit and power.

In this moment, I have no control over the structure of corporations in the US, and I can't say I'm even close to the kind of audacity it would take to shift from an attitude of survival mentality to a full on giveaway at a party. But a more altruistic attitude doesn't have to be relegated to grandiose gestures, it doen't take much to offer some small kindness to another person. A cup of coffee, the quality of empathy, even the moment shared to contemplate an almost new being already gone and grieved.

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The wordie recommends

Books for kiddos

The following books are ones I loved as small child - they were first read to me and then I mastered the art of reading and read them to myself . . . and others. Once upon a time I had Green Eggs and Ham memorized. I have several other Dr. Seuss books on my milk crate shelf, that's how important I believe it is to infuse life with whimsy, rhyme and not entirely subtle be better/ do better themes.

• The Monster at the End of This Book
• Stellaluna - because bats rock
• The Giving Tree
• Where the Wild Things Are
• Goodnight Moon
• Anything by Dr. Seuss. My favorites include The Thinks You Can Think, Oh, the Places You'll Go!, Green Eggs and Ham and The Lorax.

Tweens and Teens

As a voracious reader in my youth (and beyond), I was indifferent to the intended age level a book targeted, reading anything that caught my attention. I will share authors and some of their titles that I enjoyed during those angst filled years of junior high and high school - conveniently rolled into one building when I passed through 7th - 12th grade. These are the authors (and their works) who made the long days in class more interesting, the longer bus rides (in spirit if not actual time) tolerable and my chaotic home life manageable:

• Ursula le Guin - I met her through the Earthsea books
• Laura Ingalls Wilder - I loved her Little House books
• Lloyd Alexander - The Black Cauldron
• Susan Cooper - Over Sea, Under Stone
• Margaret Mahy - The Tricksters
• Jane Austen - yes, I was that bespectacled girl who loved the Victorian novelists
• Louisa May Alcott - even a girl with two sisters and two brothers can want more
• Emily Bronte - I have a woodblock art copy of Wuthering Heights from the 1800s somewhere in storage
• Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle in Time and about sixty others
• Anna Sewell - Black Beauty
• Juliette Marillier - fall in love with the folk of the Sevenwaters series
• Charles de Lint - I first read Trader, but I adore all this guy's books

To be continued . . .

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Surfing at the Pink Garter

Yesterday Brad scored two free tickets to a Led Zepplin cover band performance at the Pink Garter here in Jackson Hole. I wanted to go see Zosos' performance last year when they came through town, but I was working or in the midst of a frugal period, so it was a treat to enjoy them last night. We rode bikes the two blocks to Pinky G's and shared a few slices before we ascended into the former theater for the show. I like to imagine it as a gambling den and whore house back in the day when Jackson was a dusty row of houses huddled around a village green, but it was probably never either one.
Even though I do't often listen to the original rockers, I felt the music thrum and pound its way into my cells last night. I might have missed my era - I could almost smell the steaming bodies, reefer like a skunk's spray and the pheremones rising like a cloud from the stage - except I did really smell all that. The band dominated the boards in their painted on jeans, shiny chests exposed through unbuttoned shirts, and the guitarist strutted like a peacock with his double neck guitar and black spandex with white side panels glittering with sequins under the house lights. I thrashed and shook my hips in time with the thrumming rhythm, to the epic drum solo punctuated by a gong and writhed with my man as the sound rose and fell, rose again.

There were a few attempts at croudsurfing last night, in particular two guys who tried multiple times to get up and ride the wave of hands. One guy, relaxed, managed to travel half the distance of the main floor, but the other looked too excited and bounced right off the top and down to the ground. That didn't stop him from trying again, a few more times with less success and diminished crowd participation.

I've crowdsurfed at a few concerts - it's a far different experience to be a young woman surfing the crowd - and it's exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. You're popcorn exploding in a pot, bouncing on a trampoline that tries to grope you, connected and yet caught then released by the crowd. You hope no one grabs any parts that don't want to be touched, and at the same time you don't think of anything except this weightlessness, the split second decision to trust the hands below.
I don't remember what show I was at the last time I crowd surfed, but I know why I haven't since. The crowd in that university district venue that night pulsated with some wild energy and I got carried away by hands that weren't gentle, that grabbed rather than sent me across the surface. In the end, an undertow pulled me deep and I slammed to the floor. The surge of bodies kept me submerged and the beer I'd guzzled and humid heat of hundreds of people in motion sent my brain into a tail spin.

That night I discovered I have claustrophobia in crowds and that while I'd love to learn to surf, I'll save my attempts for the ocean and avoid the less predictable nature of humans in a group. I clawed my way off the booze soaked floor and stood, shaken, missing a shoe and my glasses no where to be seen. I found a wall to huddle against and waited out the show until I could make my mole blind way around the hall to reclaim shoe and specs. I found both and relinquished any desire to crowdsurf again. It's entertaining to watch others ride the wave, but I'd rather stake my claim to a piece of the dance floor and thrash my way through a show.

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The habit of procrastination

As I sat under moon and fairy lights late last night, editing my post, I considered how often I'd been in this very same place. Posting to Words and other adventures near or on the other side of midnight, working late to finish a project. And this one doesn't have much of a deadline.

I have lived most of my life convinced that I lack proactive qualities that would make life a little simpler and less stressful, called myself a procrastinator, a slacker, lazy or inept. Harsh, right? To decide a character flaw is so ingrained that it's my nature hides the truth: my tendency to often leave a task to be completed last minute is nothing more than a habit I've repeated year after year, one opportunity to reinforce it after another. Now, I procrastinate because it feels comfortable, a well worn rut my feet find in the path, as water follows the path of least resistance.

Rivers are living things, not static and unchanging. When I landscaped in the Snake River valley last summer, I found river rocks buried in dirt as smooth and collected as if the river had just receded the year before, instead of a thousand. The Snake has wandered across the valley numerous times, since even for this creature of habit, the default can be redefined. Does a human consciousness help or hinder making the changes I wish to see in my life? That's a question I cannot resolve, but I know that my own particular stubborn self is capable of shifting its habits.

Planning a wedding is, of all surprising events, what's helping me become more proactive. Even though my fiance and me aim for simple - more a party for family and friends to share our union than the elaborate ritual that my older cousins celebrated in the Catholic tradition - a wedding takes on a life of its own, just like the river. Gathering email and snail mail addresses struck me as easy as herding sheep, one of those simple tasks that requires persistence and small steps. Maybe herding sheep is easy if you have experience doing it, but my few attempts were hardly that. However, I kept at it and after several weeks of queries, data entry and discovering the beauty of Paperless Post, I succeeded. Well, almost entirely . . . I apologize if I missed you.

Single steps, one after another, persistent to go the distance. This is how I'm creating a new habit, how I'm checking off items on my punch list, how I'm going to find my way to post on this blog at some time other than the last minute. That and scrap paper filled with lists I revise over and over, writing in bold the sneaky to dos that consistently escape completion.

I read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg this spring in the hopes I'd figure out how to subvert my tendencies and find a new rut to roll through, one that shortcuts the delay and frustrations of the procrastinator's reality. What I learned is that our daily activities are primarily controlled by habit in a loop. A habit initiates by a cue, which then implements the routine, leading to a reward or outcome.

When I have projects to complete that involve writing, I have two primary routines: an older one in which I wait and wait and wait a little longer to get started because I always try to do tasks in big chunks and I always underestimate the time required to see it start to finish. The second, in my morning pages routine, gets me out of bed and writing first thing. It is a sure path to success: I sit and write and I get my 3+ pages done every day. This is the loop I've decided to adopt and follow.

Right now, it's 7:59 a.m. and I'm finishing the first draft of this post. I need to figure out the next piece, the edit and upload, but I'm well on my way to a new and positive habit. Step aside, procrastination and bad attitude about it, here comes every day consistent choices deferred to the easiest route forward. Except it's 12:17 the next day and here's to getting it right, another time.

 

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Morning pages and photographs

I've written some variation of morning pages since I was a teenager. If you're familiar with the work of Julia Cameron, you will have heard of morning pages, but for those of you whom have yet to have the pleasure, the gist is as follows. Wake up, grab a pen, a notebook and write. Yes, with your hand, not on a computer or tablet or dictated on the morning commute to work. Write three pages, across one side of a sheet of 8"x11" paper, or if you like a comp book as I do (they have that rigid cover so it's easy to write on them anywhere, like in bed or on the couch), I generally add a few pages more.
These are throw away pages, meant to clear out the cobwebs of the night's sleep and start you fresh for the day. They are not high prose, though sometimes a clever turn of phrase emerges or I'll write down an idea that startles me by its insight. More often, though, the morning pages feel like having a really good session on the toilet. After, my body feels lighter, my mind ready to conquer the blessings and challenges the day brings. I use them as a form of meditation, and my monkey mind is just as present when i sit to write these pages as it is when I sit cross legged and try to think of nothing. Or not think at all.
I'm fully committed to the philosophy that this life is simply an experiment, and this summer is the first part in the next step to manifest a new kind of life. I've made wonderful progress in some aspects of how I think and go about things, but I've also been stuck in a rut when it comes to others - like how I make a living, where I live, etc. I'm giving the time I write morning pages over to my blog, because I believe this is an important part of the shift. This morning I skipped both and went for a bike ride first, except I started late and didn't return home until noon. By then the heat had zapped my morning zeal and initiative. So here I am again, finishing my post for the day on the following one, a little after midnight.
I feel like I'm back in high school, or college, in a rush to complete a project just before it's due. These are definitely not all-nighters, but my mind and drive seem to wake up when others are tucked snug in their bed, out for a night of drinking, or even working the night shift. Or down in the Southern Hemisphere, perhaps in the midst of some school project due tomorrow morning.
In addition to crafting posts for Words and other adventures, I've been scanning photographs at the library as jpegs to upload to my laptop. My retired rugby cleats came in this box that I repurposed to hold prints, and the photos within have acquired curled or crumpled edges. Those shoes are buried beneath my broomball padding and shin guards in our storage unit, but the state of those photos had been on my mind of late. I pulled them out to make digital copies, to have access to them for daily use on the blog or elsewhere, but also to remember.
Looking back, even though I find it easy in the present to have regrets about what I haven't done, when I see these photographs that's the farthest thing from my memory. I think what an amazing adventure I've had, what incredible people I've been blessed to know (in the earthiest of senses, since I'm not a christian to say biblically), and oh, the places I've been... What a brilliant bit of luck and choice, or chance and choice as this boy I once knew would say.
The morning pages act in this fashion on the rare occasion when I peek back in a notebook, into time and the slice of perspective I had that day, or the time period it contained in its sheets. Sometimes when I read older ones - I do have journals dating back to high school, after all - I can't image that the person writing these sentiments, doing these deeds has any connection to whom I am at present. Seventeen year old me reads as a little crazy, though I have to cut her some slack that she was doing the best she could with what she, I mean I, had.
Their catharsis, though, has the same distancing quality as looking at old photos. In this case, the awareness that life is continual change comes as a relief. At times those emotions, almost always the negative ones, the weighty, oppressive, woe-is-me humdingers, hang around like a bad smell in a close, hot room. They are never going to go away. Until one day they have and that slice of you frozen in the photo, on the page, is a negative to the image you now carry within.
The photos aren't burdened with the weight of sad, irritated, content, betrayed, bored, madly in love or ecstatic. Even if you can remember you felt that then, it's only a story now, just like the writing I did all those mornings. A story after the time, being now, has slipped into the past.
This morning I didn't write, but that's just part of the story, part of the experiment, undocumented except for on this digital page. And there are plenty of photo files now to prove that the experiment so far has been a success, even when I had frizzy, tripod hair or ended up not liking the person I'd once been head over heels in love with, in the photo.

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Seven shades of gratitude

Here are seven things for which I am grateful:

• that I am alive. What does it mean to be alive? I believe it is to have a consciousness, an awareness that animates us, the vital spark of a spirit. I consider those that have passed into another plane and I don't know where they're headed or where they've landed, but I'm grateful I'm in this life, this body, this truth that constantly evolves as I decide.
• for my ability to love and be loved. Everything in the universe is made of energy and perhaps that energy is neutral, but I believe it pulsates with the force of love. Some people say "God is love," and if I translate the ultimate divine being as the creator of all, the originator of love, then I see that everything connects through love. At birth I had no filter against love, but human will allows us to accept and reject as we decide. Circumstances, choices and character inhibited my ability to love and be loved, so I veered toward becoming an angry and disappointed person. I've mostly healed my spirit and become a being able to open my heart. I imagine it as this cavernous temple that once echoed with lone footsteps, transformed into a place of laughter and a warmth from connection to other beings that confirms I'm never alone.
• for the love of family, friend and others. It can seem simpler and easier to shut down one's heart and avoid the messy and changeable emotions and attachments of relationships. I say: without risk the potential of success defaults to zero. Yes, failure and the in-between of loss, misunderstandings and suffering, they are also up for grabs, but these add heat, flavor and valuable lessons to life. I am as grateful for the love of people whom I struggle to understand as I am for the love of people who are easily identified as tribe.
• the passion I feel for words and ideas. I've already expressed my love for language and ideas. Now, I revel in the everyday simplicity of relinquishing my resistance to this passion - I make space to write and share this with others, instead of reserving words for the closed pages of journals. I give thanks I needed to spend years hiding words like a chipmunk her acorns for the long winter, but it's summer now and the seeds I've sown have sprouted and rise up toward the sun.
• for improved communication skills. As I accept my own personal truths - the pretty parts and the ones that look better in candle light - and am able to be honest about them, it becomes easier it is to live in my own skin and be happy in it. When I don't fear who I am, and through writing it down to share, communication with my partner, for example, lightens and sweetens.
  
• that I learned that precipitating change in the world starts as an inside job. I spent years intermittently going to therapy to try to understand my internal landscape through the perspective of the people in my life, my experiences and to heal the rift between who I was and who I wanted to be. I learned much and created some scar tissue to seal the wounds, and then I set out to create a bridge across the gap. I will eventually gain enough momentum to leap the last distance across, but for now I take small steps toward the life I dream about and aspire to create. I'm on my way, now.
• for the beauty of the world. As a person who can spin lost or sad about the state of affairs amongst people, the environment, and what looks to be a broken web between, I thank the combination of factors that inspires me to still embrace the wondrous nature of creation and revel in it. As Byron Katie suggests: be "a lover of what is." The world is beautiful, despite its sorrows, troubles and even its terrors. The world is beautiful and I am a part of it, just as you are a part of its beauty.

 

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The wordie wonders

As a glutton for words as much as I am for fine foods, I consider myself as much a wordie as I do a foodie. I define a wordie as a person who adores the way words strung together create an alchemical meaning, the whole greater and almost independent of its parts. An alphabet evokes sounds, words meaning, and connected words transform into ideas, emotions and shared experience. Their power can create new worlds beyond what we are able to conjure with our five senses and the immediacy of consensual reality.

The rhythm of my years corresponds to books I've loved, poems whose essence I've tried to absorb into my consciousness, and my own writing practice. I feel wonder toward others' works and my own because it amazes, inspires and activates my curiosity to understand more deeply. Writing, with its capacity to tell stories, to share concepts and to open the inner eye of the reader, strikes me as kindred to magic in Dion Fortune's definition: "magic is the art of changing consciousness at will."
Before I learned to read I remember my parents sharing Green Eggs and Ham, The Monster at the End of This Book and the sloe eyed creatures of Mercer Mayer. In first grade I was placed in a remedial class because I just didn't get the reading thing, or maybe I had mild dyslexia if you can have it in degrees. By third grade I'd caught up to and surpassed most of the kids my age in language skills.

I devoured books, and in fact wandered a little lost in them. They provided an escape into a realm where anything became possible and likely and I've always loved to travel there. I used the bus ride to school, which varied in length from a half hour in autumn and spring to over an hour if snow lay on the ground, to charge through Madeleine L'Engle, Ursula le Guin and Alexander Lloyd. I raided the school library, the public libraries within thirty miles of home, and especially loved the bookmobile.
Around fifth grade, I stepped over the line of young adult (YA) fiction into novels intended for adults when I read The Clan of the Cave Bear the first time. When I got her permission to read it I know my mom had no clue that a girl was raped in the book - we weren't allowed to watch rated R films or TV shows with violent or sexual content - and she almost exploded when she learned this. It was the first thousand plus page book I read, and after that I obsessed over medicinal and edible plant foraging, anthropology and historical fiction.

I know I'm not the first or last kid whose love of reading was partly forged in the fires of social awkwardness. I started out an average child, but I grew weird: tall, frizzy hair, acne, 'spaced out,' contrary and confrontational. So I read on the bus as the ride dragged on, to escape who I had become - other in contrast to my friends - and to ignore a life that was pale and dull compared to those of the characters I met in books.

I became a wordie when reading books lost the sharp edge of escapism and shifted into pleasure. Okay, I still enjoy boarding a book and heading off for parts unknown, but now I'm happy to return to my own self and life. I can still read a two hundred page book in a day, but given my need to make hay (aka a living in an expensive town with seasonal work), I'm lucky if I read more than a chapter in a day.

I can't host a lending library like I've dreamed of doing since I was a voracious reader in a rural part of Ohio's Appalachian foothills, because my Airstream bookshelf is a single milk crate. I can build a virtual shelf to display literature I appreciate, so check out the wordie reading list on Words and other adventures. The first books includes more titles I loved as a kid.

What did you love to have read to you or read on your own as a child, as a tween, as a teen?

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Another fourth

Two days ago, I wrote about childhood memories on the Fourth of July in my home town. I never gave my age at the time because all those holidays blend together in a happy haze of feasting, greased watermelon wrestling in the pool and fireworks. For this USA's birthday, a catering gig followed my morning giving massages. As I polished silverware in the garage, circulated crostini in the living room and poured beer, wine and lemonade at the makeshift bar, I considered the gap between this fourth and others from early adulthood.

One of my most memorable Independence days was spent at a national Rainbow Gathering in Oregon in 1997. I rode the first leg of the journey in a school bus covered in murals from Columbus, Ohio to Wisconsin to see a two month old white bison. The birth of the rare bison was auspicious, since in Lakota tradition the white bison is said to usher in an era and tribe like the Rainbow community, uniting people of all colors and stripes, checks and polka dots, too.

I had no intention of going to the Rainbow Gathering until a few days before the bus left, but at twenty I cooked in a greasy spoon and could leave with no notice or consequence - the benefit of the wage slave in a college town with a lack of "reliable" workers - so I thought, why not? My general life rule is try it, try everything. So I left the Greenhouse with a backpack, some cash and a vague notion of where I was headed.

I already believed in communal living: the Greenhouse had been an intentional household several years before I moved in, started by Ohio State college students to share household responsibilities and eat organic, vegetarian food together. Before that, I lived with my parents, four younger siblings and various pets in a two bedroom house. I thought the idea of a tribe of all kinds of folk coming together around the Fourth of July to celebrate cooperation and peace in the outdoors a fantastic idea.

The old bus broke down in Wisconsin and the people who owned it asked the newcomers from Columbus to contribute to the cause, but that would have meant goodbye to most of the money I had stuffed in locations other than my wallet, plus a week later arrival. I wanted to experience the gathering in its entirety, and I've always bristled when I think I'm being told what to do, so I headed out on my own instead. I know, not great community spirit, but I did get to enjoy the close quarters camaraderie of Greyhound buses from the midwest to Portland, Oregon.

I met Squirrel and his friend on the bus that took us to central Oregon, and they had a tent and I still had a little money so we agreed to pool our resources. They were a few years younger than me and had this gutter punk attitude and look that has always attracted my interest. We exited the bus in the town closest to where the Gathering was held and after we filled up a cardboard box with vegetables and candy bars, we hitched a ride in a truck up the winding, dusty forest service road to the site.

The focus of the Gathering is July 4, where the energy of "bombs bursting in air" transforms into prayers for peace and a party to follow. On this day, silence is held until noon, and it is a wonder to behold: twenty thousand people meditating on an end to war, to the poverty of spirit the USA cultivates when people live out their lives dominated by tv, consumerism, the industrial military complex and other consequences of "every man for himself." Energy rises with the hush. Near noon the people nearly shout through their body language, the cries and giggles of children punctuate the sound of the forest, people's movements, and their breath.

At noon, a procession led by elders and children begins to wind its way through camp. From inside tipis, the shelter of tents, and away from banked cook stoves and pizza ovens come women, men, children and people of all shades. They form a parade through the trees, one after another, holding hands, moved by song, bursting with laughter. The strand of people spirals into a wheel, and different voices share the story of the Rainbow people and the intention of the gathering.

I do not remember all the words of wisdom that were offered then, but the essence of the gathering remains clear years later. We came together to nurture community, as we dug pits, gathered firewood, diced carrots and peppers in a kitchen camp. Connection began and deepened when we talked over the chopping board, and drank tea late into the night. DIY for the greater good meant shared fires, meals, creating art and offering one's talent - in the healing tent or at a freeschool session - for free or a small trade. Commerce meant an exchange of equal value, and that value rested entirely in the hands of the barterers, as had once been true the world over, and now is decided in banks, markets, the fluctuation of code in a computer, etc., instead.

Though there were general rules that governed the Gathering, meant to maintain safety and a common ground - such as no alcohol in the main camp, or firearms or money at all - the Gathering otherwise abided by social anarchist principles/ the golden rule/ the witch's philosophy: live and let live and do no harm.

Was it idyllic, utopian, or perfect? Of course not, but it was - and is still, I'm sure - a whole hearted attempt to live by a standard that has largely been set aside as our culture has shifted to something . . . else. I believe their perspective is one that would transform America for the better if it became mainstream. Perhaps then the 4th of July might be spent looking inward towards peace, and we'd find the balance between the fulfillment of self and an altruism that could ultimately cultivate a different sort of United States. Adios then to "the rocket's red glare," it'd be drums, dancing and dirt. And you could peel potatoes, set up a water filtration station or perform a one-act play for your daily bread.

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Happy birthday, USA

Fourth of July, birth date of the United States of America, and I celebrate it in the most responsible, adult way: I work a double - first giving massages at a hotel high on a hill, and then as a catering server at some party where I get to be an anonymous waitron in black. I'm grateful for the work, since June here in Jackson dragged on with little work and I have a wedding to help pay for this fall. In the back of my mind, though, I remember more youthful and carefree Independence days.


I grew up in a little resort community, Hide-Away-Hills, five hundred residents in the winter, with a considerable influx in the summer. The planners' original intent was that it be a gated retirement enclave, and there were plenty of retirees, but there also quite a few young families like our poorer, working class, Catholic on both sides, tribe of seven who had escaped bigger cities like Columbus for the forest and sub-Appalachian hills of southeastern Ohio. Membership included various amenities, some we never accessed, like the air strip, and others that I knew well, like the pool and lodge. It sounds shi-shi, but for us, not so much, but it was a fantastic way to grow up.

These pool and lodge were close together, the latter just up the hill from the other. This zone was the location of the annual Fourth of July picnic. My memories are vivid with the scent of meat on the barbecue, the steam rising fragrant and making my mouth water, guzzling pop while the adults drank beer, tables groaning under the weight of potluck contributions: casseroles made with dried onions and cream of mushroom soup, bags of chips and bowls of dip, pies, cakes, and plates of brownies and cookies. You'd eat until you were almost sick, and then complain about the 15 minute wait to get in the pool to cool off from the humidity and triple digit temperatures. Then the herd of children would flow to the next source of entertainment: face painting, dunking and kissing booths, carnival games with stuffed animals and goldfish in a bag as prizes. I see red white and blue streamers swaying in the breeze.

After dark, the fireworks would split the sky and reveal the colors hidden inside. Shapes would crackle and morph from a star to a tree to rain that dripped gold, blue, red, green. The black cats would howl, the crack of thunder would fill the night in an otherwise clear sky, and the oohs and aahs of kids and child-at-heart adults provided background.

Today is your day, wherever you are across the country, to show your pride in being a part of this vast, diverse and unique nation. In the United States, there are as many ways to celebrate your patriotism as there are Americans, though some try to decide how that looks for others. This, however, is not truly the American spirit, and I can only hope as America and her Americans get a little older, they will also acquire the wisdom to live and let live, and do no harm in doing so.

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Food love

I love food. I adore food. I eat food with enthusiasm. I am so grateful I get to eat food.
I know it's a blessing to be able to eat every day, and not only that, to eat well. For me, it is how I generally spend most of my paycheck. Sure, I have numerous bills that clamor for my attention, but the most important expenditure is what fuels my body, nourishes each cell and tantalizes and satisfies my taste buds.

I think about food between meals, about recipes I want to try or tweak, the process to create a garden, and the state of our food production in the United States and across the world. Food is a necessity, and it is also connects us to family, region, and a tumultuous history that has shaped the world. In fact, it is so complex a subject that it has been written about many times over, but my goal here is to share food that I love in the form a recipe you can try and modify or not as you choose.

The decision to share recipes on my blog may go against the grain of general blog wisdom to stick close to the original subject, but since I had no boundaries made at the outset, anything goes. I believe in do-it-yourself (DIY) and the power to make smart choices about diet, even if the ingredients come from the grocery store shelf. Just as important, action and thinking that enhance and expand creativity are necessary and to be celebrated. Imagine, then, dinner as art, even when it's macaroni & cheese and a salad on the table.

DIY

The average American eats an excess of sugar, fat, carbohydrates, salt, processed foods and additives. I'd love to know how many people look at the labels on the packages they put into their shopping cart or basket. I'd guess it's not a large portion of the population. The best way to know what's in your food is to do a little research right there in the cereal aisle, determine if you want whole grains or Sugar Crack Crunch. Even simpler is to choose ingredients you can find in the produce section, or packaging free in the bulk bins.

Chocolate power balls

I got this recipe from a friend years ago when we lived on an organic farm in California. She prepared these little chocolate balls in bulk and when chilled they were good for days, though they never lasted long around our hardworking crew. I made these a half dozen times over the winter, my motivation another friend who had given up sugar. I love to feed my friends and know firsthand what misery there can be when you avoid sugar in a land where even your potato chips can contain sugar. I enjoyed the challenge - and the reward - of perfecting the process.

I think of these as energy nuggets, and they fulfill the dark chocolate rda. Please alter the recipe and discover your own favorite combination of fruit, nuts, seeds and spice. Any additional sweetener is optional.

Ingredients:
1 c walnuts1 c almonds

1 c dried fruit (try goji berries, currants, sultanas, figs, dates, mangos & unsweetened cherries or blueberries)1 tbsp water or orange juice

½ c bittersweet chocolate chips, melted or

"sugar free:" 6 tbsp cocoa powder, 2 tbsp coconut oil, 3 tbsp honey or agave (to taste)

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 tbsp vanilla1/4 tsp cardamom½ tsp cinnamon

1 tbsp chia seeds

1 tbsp sesame seeds

optional:

dry, unsweetened coconut flakes

cocoa powder

1. Grind the nuts in a food processor or blender. Though I aim for finely ground, I'm not concerned about a few random chunks, but avoid bigger than dry lentil size.
2. Pulverize the fruit in a food processor or blender. For very dry fruits, such as goji berries and mangos, I recommend using the water or orange juice to hydrate them prior to tossing them into your mix.
3. Add the coconut oil, vanilla and spices to the melted chocolate chips. Or, try my adaptation, the "sugar free" option. Mix the cocoa powder with the coconut oil, including the additional 2 tbsp, you will find it easiest to do with the coconut oil at room temperature. Add the vanilla and spices.
4. Blend the nuts, fruits, chocolate mixture, seeds and add coconut flakes to your taste.
5. Cool the mixture in the fridge until it sets up - you want a moldable, not gloppy mixture.
6. Form into balls, I prefer between a quarter and half dollar in diameter.
   
7. I love a truffle finish: place flaked coconut and cocoa powder on a plate and roll the ball in the mix until evenly coated. Chill and keep refrigerated until you're ready to eat. Be careful: these are messy and addictive, but also satisfying, so a little goes a longish way. Enjoy!

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