The Water's Boiling, Make Tea

LED-volution

2011-12-21T12:43:00.000-03:00

The light emitting diode (LED) was invented decades ago, but it is the 21st century that is now gobbling up this technology en masse. Everywhere we look, flashlights, cell phones, the tiny light on your computer’s battery plug, even clothes and accessories are sporting these tiny gas-burning bulbs of wire and epoxy. And with good reason: LED are extremely energy efficient and since they do not use heavy metals or other contaminants, they produce very little waste at the end of their long life cycles. A standard, white LED runs on about 3.2V of electricity (20mA consuming 0.064Watts), 95% of which is channeled into light with only about 5% lost as heat, and produces on average 30,000 hours of light. Part of its efficiency is that electrical current only travels in one direction through the tiny semiconductor, positive to negative, and of the two metal terminals that protrude from the bulb, the longer one is always positive. Working with LED makes the physics of electrical circuitry very easy, plus with low voltage there is no threat of shock or burns. Of course the light produced by LED is very concentrated, but there are myriad ways to diffuse their light using simple household materials or even by recycling trash. Water is a great way to diffuse light and just one white LED placed inside the cap of a 2-liter bottle of water can create soft ambient lighting for a patio, a garden path, or an isolated dry toilet. And the water in the bottle can be dyed any color to create different moods or atmospheres.

Here in Los Brujos we are fast trading-in our expensive candle dependency for the luminescence of LED. We have experimented with two systems of battery: the 12V deep cycle charged by our solar panels and a 5V cell phone battery. Since LED are sensitive to higher voltage, which will drastically cut their lifespan or just burn them out, it is best to design your circuits with less voltage per LED than more (reminder: their maximum voltage is 3.2V on average). Here’s where you have to remember back to physics class: in series the voltage per LED adds up, in parallel the voltage remains constant. What that means is to use 12V energy for my 3.2V LED’s, I connect 4 LED’s in series (energy flowing from one to the other, positive to negative) which gets my system as close to 12V as possible without going over voltage per LED. For the 5V cell battery, we connected 2 LED’s in series. All other LED connections to our systems are placed in parallel (complete circuits of LED’s in series of 4 for 12V and of 2 for 5V connected back to the battery source). So far we have not found a limit for how many series can be placed in parallel, but transitioning from candles to electrical light, our lighting needs are probably far less ambitious than the average household. In the puppeteers’ illuminated house, they are running at least 6 series of 2 LED in parallel to their 5V cell phone battery without impunity. I only have 2 series of 4 LED in parallel in my house (the kitchen and altar), but it is mostly on account of not making the time to run more wire and my easy pace of transitioning myself to this new technology.

After nearly 5 years of life among candles there is something romantic that one loses by replacing the daily presence of flame with electrical light. But candles are extremely expensive and their light, though soft and inspiring, is typically petroleum-based. It has been a process of wonder to come home and literally click-on the lights, the kitchen counter and stove spot-lit by inversed metal cans punctuated with LED, the altar a-glow from bottles of Kikkoman and mineral water with LED’s inside. The puppeteers placed LED’s between old compact discs, giving their mud-house the look of what I imagine the Ewok village might have transitioned to after the rebel forces arrived to the Endor moon with all their laser technology. I suppose we invent and imagine our own romance to replace that which we set-aside in our personal evolutions. Fire will always remain a sacred element to Los Brujos life, heating our houses, cooking our food, creating a space for reflection in ritual, but it will no longer be placed on precarious stands besides flammable curtains asking to be forgotten, leaping up the walls, devouring precious things in its wake. Here we now celebrate the LED-volution as we continue exploring technologies and designs that fit our scale of life and literally keep illuminating the creative process.

All my knowledge on LED was supplied by Fernando Becerra who gave an interesting talk at a reunion of Permaculturists from Latin America (Encuentro PermaSur) at El Manzano in November 2011. Please visit his website http://www.lapuertadelsol.com for more information on LED or if you live in Chile and would like a professional consultant to design and install an LED-lighting system for your house.

Swarm Season

2011-11-16T08:53:00.003-03:00

Honey bees have a funny way of giving thanks for abundance. In the warm sunny mornings of mid-to-late Spring with the Queen bee laying thousands upon thousands of eggs, the hives near to bursting with hard-working activity, the collective bee-mind dedicates special care to the creation of Princess bees, future queens who will usurp their mother queen. When these young queens hatch, the existing Queen calls together her favored minions and they leave the hive en masse, called a swarm, which usually collects in a great ball of bees on the branch or trunk of a nearby tree planning out their future in the winds of fate. Meanwhile, the newly hatched Princess-now-Queen awakens to a fully intact and functioning hive complete with thousands of workers and plenty of space. This is the honey bee’s reproductive cycle and it tends to happen every year. Trouble for the beekeeper is that the seasoned and reliable Queen that gave you all of last year’s honey harvest is now sitting in a ball in some tree and she will have to be physically caught in a new hive box if you want to harvest honey from her again this year and keep expanding you apiary. And so the adrenaline rushes in drop-everything-fashion from the first humming vibration spiraling loudly into the sky of a swarm breaking away from their hive, carefully watching where they collect, pulling on bee-suits and gathering materials for a new hive and the tools to cut branches and scale trees. There is enormous investment and energy in keeping bees cycling within their natural habits, but it is good group work with the tremendous reward of future honey harvests, living the luxury of enjoying backyard honey all year.

This year we began swarming season with five healthy and strong hives which so far in the past two weeks have swarmed nine times! A lot of factors have led to this disproportionate frenzy of bee reproduction, not the least of which has been the unseasonably dry and warm weather; over a month of little to no rain in one of the typically wettest areas on the planet, a temperate rainforest in Spring, is no small matter. But the largest factor is our change in beekeeping methods this year. For the past two years we have been keeping our bees under the guidance of natural beekeeping: no non-organic chemicals and general respect for natural bee cycles of behavior. This year we decided to go even further towards what is known as permaculture beekeeping which is even less invasive of bee space and bee autonomy. We still provide housing for our bees, but no longer conduct frequent examinations, such as traditional inspections to root-out and destroy future queen cells as a method to prevent swarming. So we have been getting used to the buzzing vibrations of swarms in a flood of new queens, more than doubling our apiary in a stumbling explosion of bee box towers arranged along the earth’s natural magnetic lines in our forest hollow.

According to permaculture bee-keeping theory, honey bees are naturally drawn to form hives at the intersections of earth’s magnetic lines, a global grid that crosses every few meters in all directions. We doused our hillside for these points using two copper wires and have been housing all captured swarms on these points. As the theory goes, lightning is also drawn to these points of intersection, increasing the propensity for large trees at these points to become burned-out snags with hollow centers: perfect, natural honey bee homes prior to the invention of Langstrom boxes. Also, burned wood is naturally water resistant so we have forgone painting our new swarm boxes and instead have been blazing them black with flame. This has not been positive in maintaining our bee suits a gleaming white, but such are the sacrifices of trying new theories. So now our apiary is an eclectic mix of new and old materials, hybridizing our existing hives toward these new methods, starting all captured swarms in blackened towers and hoping they will stay.

In these modern times, generations of traditional bee-keeping methods have turned progressively toward the increased use of chemicals and the mechanical treatment of honeybees. In combination with the increased use of chemicals in traditional agriculture where honey bees pollinate, modern methods are resulting in alarming rates of hive collapse and a growing list of parasitic hive infections that decades ago did not exist. Faced with such realities, the investment and risk of trying a natural, permaculture method of bee-keeping is minimal in an attempt to raise hives whose natural defenses will be amplified by living a less stressful existence more aligned with their natural habits. Honey bees have been pollinating and producing honey for millions of years, long before humans ever got involved. Our relationship with honey bees will determine how long they continue to tolerate our sharing of their delicious labors. So this season we are welcoming our swarms, just hoping they choose branches closer to the ground.

Wholeness

2011-10-26T08:49:00.001-03:00

My freedom dwells in a forest with my hands set to work, my mind solving puzzles, my heart accepting gifts in every season. My truth is a love unnamed and powerful, a chosen family that I protect and am protected by. My fear and my sadness have no shelter here, yet still they knock at the door of my heart, slip between the cracks carved long ago because I live between worlds, each insisting the other to be only a dream. My struggle is to rectify my belonging, to accept my happiness in where and in who I am, to allow my creative expression to flow unhindered, uncensored, unquestioned. My goal is to inspire an evolution in consciousness. My hope is that others may do the same. My life is a series of cycles spiraling before me and behind, and keeping my balance among the waves requires discipline and patience. My guidance comes from Nature and my faith resides in the Universe, where there are no mistakes, only different paths. My journey is centered by art and love and laughter, warm meals shared with my companions for I do not travel alone. My only wish is acceptance from without and from within: to know myself completely and to love all that I find. My peace is found in sleep and in quiet contemplation where I know myself to be more than this body, more that a singular illusion spreading over the immensity of existence.

My freedom, my truth, my struggles, my life burning away shame and possession in the warm rays of sunlight, cooling my anger in the touch of rainwater, cradling my vulnerability in the darkness of night where the glow of candles, of the moon and the stars call forth a higher imagination of what is possible and what is necessary, allowing healing and new beginnings to arise. There are no other mandates, no secret tricks to uncover, and no one else who can take your place. Embrace your responsibility to your own discovery and enjoy the adventure completely.

Trafkintu

2011-09-22T13:40:00.002-03:00

Trafkintu is the Mapuche word for a seed exchange, a gathering in which participants exchange vegetable, herbal, and floral seeds and the knowledge of how to care for the plants. This year on September 10 we in Los Brujos participated in Valdivia’s Trafkintu held in the school of Architecture on the UACh campus. We exchanged a collection of our kale seeds and a few olivillo, manio, and cherry tree saplings from our forest for 33 different varieties of seeds from local and regional growers: lettuce, squash, pepper, tomato, bean, pea, spinach, cucumber, and various flowers… all that’s necessary to start a diverse family vegetable garden! The experience was an overwhelming abundance of gardening and food-growing enthusiasm crossing generational and cultural barriers, all voluntarily organized with smiling faces and no involvement of money. Steaming ceramic bowls of seafood broth and trays of fry bread were freely given to participants staying through lunch; names and networks also exchanged and expanding in the sharing of a communal meal. Across the river on Valdivia’s costanera, perfectly framed by the Architecture building’s tall glass windows, the Chilean military assembled demonstration tents and exercises in full camo-gear, a stark, ironic contrast to the energy of the Trafkintu where little old ladies declared with beaming faces, their hands lined by a lifetime of connection to the earth, their precious collection of heirloom seeds wrapped in colorful cloth: how nice it is to see so many young people returning to the land and the growing of gardens. And none too soon.

Declining diversity in seed variations is a worldwide concern and seed exchanges are desperately needed in many parts of the world to literally keep seeds and their genetic memory alive on earth. This year’s Trafkintu carried the added urgency of a recent change in Chilean law regarding commercial seed distribution and trade agreements with the U.S. which render illegal the selling of non-certified seeds and have opened Chilean borders and farmlands to the international markets of patented, engineered seeds distributed by corporate giants like Monsanto. What the agreements between Presidents and their corporations translates to here is an increased police presence among our late-Winter farmers’ markets, checking that all seeds sold have patents and professional packaging, i.e. no heirlooms or bundles of seeds saved from last year’s harvest no matter how well they may grow, adapted for generations in the local climate and land. Finding seeds from here this season had been a frustrating hunt among farmers’ stalls, hoping to gain the trust to buy a few local carrot seeds hidden out of view; the Mapuche women of Temuco’s farmers’ market literally squatting at the fringes on the sidewalk with their seeds splayed on cloth, able to quickly pull everything out of sight should the police wander too close. Roadside billboards blaze along the highway touting the wonders of pesticides and trans-genetic seeds, guaranteeing production and security, promoting faith in corporate technology like a never-ending evangelic sermon for mass-production. In the shadow of this political and corporate pressure to homogenize Chilean food-production, the Trafkintu came together in Valdivia as a practical rebellion, a chaotic stock exchange of seeds and knowledge changing hands, a loophole in the system’s power to control transactions between human-scale growers and those willing to learn and wanting to maintain seed-lines for future generations.

After the Trafkintu we hurried home with our 33 bundles of seed treasure, having a few days to still plant with the Moon waxing full to guide upward leaf growth and then returning to plant root-oriented seeds like garlic and potatoes once the Moon slipped past full into its waning cycle a few days later. Now after a couple of weeks as we official enter Spring, our seed boxes are germinating with the first leaves of brassicas and varieties of lettuce and peppers. Every day new leaves sprout to the surface, each receiving our thanks and bearing the promise to allow these plants their ful cycle, the careful protection of their future seeds to bring with us to next year’s Trafkintu.

Bicycle Laundry Machine of Los Brujos

2011-08-11T15:40:00.002-04:00

This is a testament to the internet; the digital ability for humans separated by immense geographical distances to communicate and share ideas in simple image, text and video, completely anonymously or through fractal links of social kinships, on any topic or subject-matter imaginable. Last month I was pondering over the idea of bicycle-machines, this month I am pedaling one on my own porch to wash clothes. Curiousity leading to digital communion, inspiration and action following close behine in willful experimentation, Antonia our in-house engineer worked in town with a welder, an electrician, and a bike enthusiast realizing a simple design specific to an old, front-load laundry machine she acquired from a repair shop. Expanding upon the images downloaded from YouTube, the bicycle-laundry-machine of Los Brujos additionally harnesses the extra speed reached during its spin cycle to run an alternator, generating 12V electricity, which compliments our existing solar-charged battery system. And it was all designed and produced without ever meeting anyone who had ever created such a machine, let alone been in the presence of one at work. Long live the monkey brain with its ability to piece together a puzzle in the physical realm based on the visions of the imagination; images of ideas, some digitally captured and shared. Some day we may be able to independently tap into the collective consciousness, inspiring unique projects without the aid of the internet's technology, but until then may the digital blossoming of ideas continue untethered and dreaming!

Bicycle Machines

2011-07-04T13:49:00.002-04:00

Lately I've been swept up by a fascination with bicycle-machines: a whole range of mechanical functions driven by the power of a human-pedaled bicycle. Laundry-machines and blenders, honey-centrifuges and grinders, the bicycle-machine can greatly reduce the time and energy necessary for many ordinary, everyday tasks. They can also be used to generate electricity using an alternator or dynamo, powering small electronic devices, LED lighting, even a laptop computer. But truly bicycle-machines are most efficiently used in the production of mechanical power. For all our washing, spinning, grinding, husking, blending needs, a bicycle-machine can remove the need to consume electrical energy in performing these mechanical tasks, thereby helping us reduce our electrical energy consumption and to improve the efficiency of how electrical energy is used; reserved for essential electronic devices instead of being unnecessarily guzzled in high-input electric motors. Plus, the kinetic exercise in powering a bicycle-machine is good for the body, a much better use of time than pushing a button and idly waiting in front of the television for a load to finish. And best of all, bicycle-machines operate using simple mechanics that nearly everyone can learn to repair or even build using common tools and human hands. Bicycle-machines are based on truly human-scale technology with a vast potential to provide mechanical power without the need for electricity. So, with such an adaptable energy source available, why aren't we using more bicycle-machines?

Our modern-day priorities and expectations have become very mixed-up in terms of our energy needs. Why spend hours and dollars a week at a private gym when one can have their own spin class at home doing laundry? The social aspects of gym membership could be restructured in community gatherings to design and build more human-scale technology! Obviously I am speaking a little tongue-in-cheek, but the truth remains that converting electrical energy into mechanical power is very inefficient and costly, especially when the electrical energy is generated using finite or contaminating resources like coal, gas, and petroleum. So long as we continue to nurture our addiction to the false ease of button-pushing power (nearly all of which tasks we performed only a generation or two ago by hand), a realistic jump to alternative energy sources remain an impossibly expensive pipe-dream only accessible by the extremely rich or become a mega-project extension of our mega-consumption lifestyle, dominating our horizons with massive stands of wind turbines or algae fields or solar arrays to power our impossible demands. Imagine instead coming home on your commuter bicycle which pops into a standing structure to mix yourself a margarita before you send your clothes through the rinse cycle or grind your coffee beans or knead dough for tomorrow's breakfast.

I am a big supporter of alternative or green electricity production, but I also know its limitations when used on a small-family scale where electrically-driven motors simply require more investment in sun and batteries than most people can afford. Small-scale solar is great for keeping cell phones or laptops charged or even providing 12V car stereo music, but it will never run a blender to froth the egg in a pisco sour, let alone spin excess water from wet laundry or run a circular saw. Having spent some years perfecting my hand-saw technique and how to best wring-out wet clothes, going without pisco sours while at home, the potential of a bicycle-machine to put leg-strength to work on these tasks strikes as lightning revelation, an answer from the heavens that ironically has always been available at least in my lifetime. When electricity was cheap and thoughtless, the genius of the bicycle mechanism was temporarily forgotten. Now folks all over the world are pulling gears out of their closets and putting pedals to power. I hope some of these ideas inspire you as well, returning us all to technology a little more human in scale.

In Guatemala, Maya Pedal
In Mexico, C.A.C.I.T.A. (a great video on a variety of bicycle-powered devices with English subtitles)
An idea for an electric generator
An idea for a bicycle washing machine
An idea for a bicycle blender

Three Lunar Eclipses

2011-06-17T12:30:00.000-04:00

We as a planet are passing through a series of three lunar eclipses which began with the new moon of June 1st. The full moon of June 15th just passed and now we are heading toward the last of the three, potentially one of the most powerful, with the new moon of July 1st. These three eclipses, especially poised at the opening and closing of a complete moon cycle surrounding the solstice, are said to bring creative energy, inspiration, and a little cosmic force to manifest changes, new cycles, transformations.

We in Los Brujos have felt the call, artistic imaginations flying in many creative directions at once. Writing, drawing, designing, photographing, hooping, costumes and puppetry, the winter rains have sent us inside and into town to create and imagine; the moon in our shadow playing with its own image, sending us energy bathed in metamorphosis. And the Universe has answered our efforts with writing and photography contests, design shows and performances, as every day we try to live more by our arts, quietly and steadily disengaging from the traditional system and its traditional ailments. It continues to be a long journey, but I feel certain vibrations in my personal transformation to be quickening pace, images and ideas wanting to explore paper and pencil and ink with a renewed energy, nearly a cosmic necessity as time accelerates and the moon flashes between shadow and light. I acknowledge that the weather and season contribute to the boom in artistic endeavors as we shift energy from summer labors to quiet tasks by the fire, but I can not discount the energy shifts that must also be present in an alignment of our closest orbiting celestial body with ourselves and our greatest source of power, the Sun, not once but three times in a lunar row.

If you also feel the creative push, inspiration pulling at the edges of your mind, I highly recommend letting you imagination express itself freely this lunar cycle, expanding your consciousness toward a different way of seeing, embracing a transformation and new beginning. The Universe is listening for wishes and aligning to help them come true.

Releasing Guilt in Knowing Self

2011-05-28T13:03:00.000-04:00

I am a spiritual pilgrim seeking my personal truth. Many have come before me for this quest is as old as consciousness itself. I surround myself with those who are on a similar journey. I seek my truth at the edges of wilderness away from urban noise because I find the television to be as distracting as it can be entertaining and I want to create my own images, see my own stories set to life. I want to saturate my senses in the palatable, the physical sensations, touch that which is real, solid materials that breath and bend and can be built with human hands, smell the earth, taste life, listen to the stories in every place and hear the echo in my own pilgrimage, my own knowing of myself as soul, seeing ancient beauty in every footstep. I question where I have come from, what I have learned, what I have been taught, not to cause problems, but to seek the real meaning behind rules and social conduct, to reach the essence of what it means to be human. I ask the Universe to show me who I am, why am I here, what have I come to learn, to share, to create. I am learning to release judgment, especially of myself, and to respect the diverse paths that humans take, the unique pilgrimages we each pursue consciously and unconsciously.

In my journey I have found love to be abundant, the Universe receptive to intention, the only limits to happiness being our fears and our attitude, both of which we are capable of changing or of letting go of at any moment of our choosing. We are water and we must flow to purify, to heal and to stay healthy. Dwelling too long in fear, in self-criticism, in anger destroys the body. Laughter alleviates suffering. What I write here may read like the babble of a fortune cookie, but truth has always inhabited the most unlikely of places. Once you make the conscious decision to seek truth, messages arrive from everywhere. You can doubt or believe or test truth in your own life, and if you have the patience to see the wider experience you may find that everything does happen for a reason and that the Universe never makes a mistake. I am a spiritual pilgrim and these are some of the truths which I have found in my journey.

I live comfortably and accompanied, with daily chores as well as creative endeavors. I have neither too much nor too little. I have received many gifts in life, have been blessed with many opportunities. Yet, I struggle with self-judgment and guilt for the decisions that I have made in pursuing my own happiness in life so different from even my own expectation. Why? Seeking truth, meaning and happiness is soul’s ultimate journey on earth as memorialized in the Buddha’s image, in Siddhartha’s quest of self-knowing and self-reflection. That I should take even one step in the direction of truth-seeking and find happiness is cause for celebration, with no place for shame and sadness. Acknowledging the Catholic influence in my Buddhist up-bringing may aid explanation, but it is a tired trajectory to blame the Church for my emotions. How to come to lasting peace with oneself, shedding guilt, welcoming pleasure and laughter and satisfaction? Receiving love is difficult because one must admit without shame that we are deserving of love. And the release of shameful feelings and guilt comes from the honest knowing of self, full-acceptance of who we are, every aspect. It is a decision that I have been long in the choosing. So many years I have sought approval for the color of my skin, my professional pursuits, my political alliances, my love relationships. Knowing that once I commit to shedding guilt all the judgment form inside and out will slip away does not make the actual release any easier. It feels like standing on an edge of a dark pool of water, anticipating cold and sinking sensations when in reality one floats and the body generates the heat to counteract the shock of the plunge.

I am a spiritual pilgrim in search of my personal truth and that is nothing to be ashamed of. I have travelled far from where I was born and raised, and have built a life on different values, finding support from diverse relationships. I spend my days and nights in creative dreaming and observation, causing no harm to those around me, learning to live more harmoniously with my surroundings. I do everything to the best of my ability and am careful in my work. I have much to learn and absorb, many truths to seek, but my guilt, my shame, my judging of self and in relation to others, have no place in my journey. I have carried these feelings a long distance for many years and to continue sheltering shame will only make me sick and sad. This is a pattern of emotional reaction that I want to end. I am responsible for how I act and where I choose to emotionally dwell. I choose happiness here and now, leave my suffering behind.

Our Other Within

2011-04-26T13:02:00.000-03:00

We encounter our Other within again and again.
Recognizing that society places limits on our eternal freedom
We had forgotten the possibilities.
Instead our souls, long ago cloistered in cloak and stone behind volumes of words,
Accept cheap imitations of life
Striving for substitute goals and objectives
Allowing the world around us to become uniform, intelligible, mechanized, predictable.
Our Other within breaks the monotony, shatters expectation and projection, halts production,
But some of us do not survive the revelation.
Again and again we press against the limitations, recognizing and deciding
Between our image of self and our truth of self:
What demonized haunts we might evoke
What vibrant dreaming we might inspire
And how not to confuse the two.
The wretched silences and the quiet embrace all await our metamorphic end
Whether we accept our inner invitation or not
The encounter with our Other within is certain to arise.

Noospheric Rumblings

2011-03-28T12:59:00.001-03:00

Rumors and gossip, speculation and myth. Is there a change coming upon the collective human consciousness? Will it manifest physically? Is there any value in knowing?

This past weekend Valdivia hosted a conference on the noosphere, the envelope of collective consciousness which surrounds the Earth. The concept has long intrigued me, but I was too busy with harvesting chores and preparing our buildings for winter rains to attend. Lately the physical demands of life in Los Brujos have dominated my time and energy, leaving in patient wait the subtle cycles of spiritual and creative practice. Perhaps I may have benefited greatly from a noospheric break in my physical labors to sit quietly, take in, explore visioning in other dimensions. Yet I need not await another conference to do so. The promotion of the noosphere in Valdivia was a clear reminder to me of the importance of regular meditation, connection to the Universe available in every moment of our conscious existence. Just as the rains are unforgiving on unfinished construction projects, so is the Universe in meeting disequilibrium with chaos. A return to harmony is achieved by restoring the discipline and the care for both physical and spiritual responsibilities in life, regarding both as important practices of well-being.

The white rabbit waits, whiskers twitching as his metal watch keeps time. Shall we follow him down his rabbit-hole? Western meme meets Eastern prophecy in a clash of symbols too aligned to disregard. Yes, human consciousness is morphing, changing, blending, is becoming more uniform in places, is becoming more starkly contrasted in others as we each step toward our individual rabbit-holes and make our decisions as to how far we are each willing to go. The Chinese lunar calendar marks the Western solar year of 2011 as a white rabbit year, emblematic of Lewis Carroll’s famed messenger leading Alice into Wonderland. I do not know the meaning, only I can not help noticing, taking note, puzzling over the possibilities, watching symbolism and metaphor foreshadow and synchronize. The great whatever IT IS will manifest eventually, tantalizing glimpses that finally collect themselves in time and reveal, but not to come as proof, not to justify one philosophy over another, though many will make claims and attempt to manipulate what is seen, what is shone. What is inner must become outer, that much is written, and changes are happening on the collective inner, vibrations too strong to ignore for much longer.

Yet, time is completely relative and the Universe operates on scales beyond human imagining, well beyond human lifetimes. The valued in knowing comes not just to be poised, camera-ready to document an absolute moment in which the world, collectively was ever-changed to a new frequency of consciousness. Waiting for that moment harkens too literally of Waiting for Godot, an exercise lost in itself. The value of recognizing the necessity and eminence of a change in human consciousness is to actively participate in its arrival, sending our individual vibrations positively toward that collective space to, in whatever small way, harmonize a truly representative manifestation reflective of our individual frequencies, our collective energy as one from many. Our intention toward the next evolution in human consciousness, a change that will impact our spiritual inner worlds and our physical outer worlds with absolute fluidity, is the only aspect we may control; our free-will to decide, divinely given to us with very intentional purpose.

We, individually as souls, collectively as a beckon of light-energy in the vast Universe, are entrusted with great responsibility to perceive, to consciously understand, and to act. Our decisions will define us as they always have. We have faced leaps in consciousness many times before in our collective evolution, all having led us to exactly where each and every one of us presently are. So, the question truly is: what will you decide to do? The rabbit-hole yawns before us and the rabbit glances nervously at his watch. It’s your choice.

The Composting Toilet

2011-02-19T18:03:00.004-03:00

For most of my life I have been deathly afraid of outhouses. As many can contest who have accompanied me on camping trips or at rural roadside pit stops, I would be the one screaming with the door open, and hopefully someone standing guard, should the dark and dank odors from below incarnate into groping hands while I squatted hovering above, convinced I could at any moment be pulled to my doom; a nightmare of filth and flies and rotting mess. The deeper the hole, the darker my fear, and so marked my complete experience and knowledge of outhouse and pit toilets until a year or two ago.

When we moved off-grid, the sewer lines were left behind and all basic human needs were pulled into sharp focus. Without a constant source of running water, the concept of a flushing toilet for the seven or more humans regularly inhabiting Los Brujos (not to mention guests) was not feasible, and we learned that we enjoyed depositing our human waste in the fresh outdoors, directly into the ground. But digging a small hole each visit and keeping the dogs away from the growing piles became tedious if not impossible. Still I harbored psychological fears against the obvious solution and when we were blessed with flowing water pumped from the stream, we quickly installed septic systems; an urban solution, ignoring the inevitable future of what happens when the hidden underground chamber finally fills up.

Waste flushed away even as our consciousness expanded in the realms of self-sufficiency and sustainability. We recycled gray water from dishwashing in order to keep the toilet flushing even during summer droughts or times of water scarcity; using creativity to justify avoidance of the hypocrisy in our midst, the psychological barrier that plagues the modern, Western mind in regards to our waste. Every day our bodies were producing nutrient-filled material that could potentially feed our fruit trees, flowers or other plants, but instead we were hoarding all that material in a wet environment of concentrated toxic sludge that would some day overflow and contaminate the surrounding forest and water with its active bacteria. We were wasting water, losing nutrients, and filling a time bomb. Eventually our conscious awareness of the error we were actively committing several times a day overpowered the psychological desire to change the subject: we needed a self-contained solution to our human waste disposal.

Of course, overcoming life-long traumas is not an overnight process. Although we openly recognized the need for a solution, the final design and building of a composting toilet would only come after a couple years of research in the matter; spikes of enthusiasm sketching out potential structures or purchasing key materials followed by months of distraction in other projects as the reality of a drastic change in waste management eased beyond tolerance toward embraced acceptance. Like any transformation, the actual moment of change was much easier than anticipated, natural really, and was charged with the positive feelings of active measures.

Today in Los Brujos guests and residents are welcome to use our dry, composting toilet with outlined instructions in Spanish and English with accompanied drawings. Our toilet sits on a platform suspended between two trees above our solid waste containment and composting vessel: a 125 liter plastic garbage bin. Liquid deposits are funneled through a pipe to a natural drain rinsed with a little water after every use, easily absorbing back into the forest. Solid deposits fall directly into the garbage bin and are dusted with ash and sawdust; leaves and other organic matter diversify the mix. When the bin fills, it is to be capped and left to compost naturally for 6 months to a year in which time the harmful bacteria found in human waste will die off, leaving behind a nutrient-rich soil fertilizer for fruit trees, flowers, and other plants. A new bin is replaced under the dry toilet to fill while the other rests and such is the rotation of the composting and the recycling of waste, adding more bins as need arises. Separating the liquid and solid waste controls odor and helps speed the composting process, drying out the bacteria. We adapted our simple design for Los Brujos from a variety of composting toilet designs, tying the project into a tree-house to avoid having to build pillars in order to elevate the toilet over the bin. The rest of the structure housing the toilet is covered with colihue (a Chilean bamboo which grows rampantly in our forest) and panels of opened and cleaned Tetra-Pak boxes (used to contain juice, milk, and wine), a handy material that we readily consume and which Christine’s students, when prompted, happily collect and donate to us.

Forming an active and positive relationship with our human waste is just one aspect of our physical and spiritual transformation here in Los Brujos, but an important test in our commitment to face fears and take responsibility for our physical presence on the Earth, especially within the vibrant ecosystem which is our forest home. I find using our dry, composting toilet to be a pleasant and easy experience. I am very sensitive to odor and I do not find the toilet to be smelly. Sitting up in the trees, looking out at the forest, knowing where my waste is going and imagining how it will be recycled healthily into my surrounding environment, one forgets to worry, does not even think of this space as an outhouse. Because part of me still harbors a mistrusting fear of poorly managed, traditional outhouses: those groping hands that just might crawl out of the slime, bacterial time bombs in waiting, too many unknowns for the imagination, fears to truly ponder.

The Poop that Went Bloop

2010-11-25T19:06:00.001-03:00

***The following is a short story I wrote earlier this year in April to help inspire our psychological and physical transformation from a flushing, septic system to a dry, composting toilet for our human waste. It has taken us a while, but one composting toilet is already in use in Los Brujos and more designs are currently in process. Enjoy!***

A time not so long ago, poop was silent. It fell to the ground and became part of the earth where it fell. Then some plumbers invented a system of flushing poop away with water. The first poop to fall into that water went BLOOP and people were fascinated. Everyone wanted their poop to go BLOOP. It made an otherwise embarrassing exercise have a fun sound and with the push of a lever, the poop disappeared out of sight, out of mind. Oh, how the people rushed to install their flushable gadgets that would make their poop go BLOOP!

Cities spent millions of dollars to widen their sewers and prepare water-sanitizing stations to handle all the blooping poop that their citizens were flushing away every hour of every day. Poop everywhere was going BLOOP, but it was ending up in big, concentrated piles at the edges of places where people don’t go. These places grew toxic amounts of bacteria and sent plumes of harmful gas into the atmosphere. Water that passed through or nearby these places soon became a soiled mess that no longer nourished the land nor the creatures that it touched. Cities spent more money trying to clean up the mess that the blooping poop created, and even more money fighting over who was responsible.

Meanwhile, poop continued to go BLOOP without pause and no one had any intention of stopping this glorious new sound. When the flower beds withered from the lack of household compost, people bought bags of fertilizer and pesticide chemicals to restore their plants’ vigor. When their wells turned sour form the chemicals dumped on their yards, people began buying water back from the city; water that was so heavily treated with chemicals in order to be sanitized that people also bought special filters just to make the water drinkable. But even after all the hassle, no one questioned the arrangement of poop going BLOOP and poop continued BLOOPing with so much popularity that new generations grew up without even pausing to wonder at the mysterious BLOOP made by their poop.

Until one day it happened: the sewers backed up and overflowed into the streets and septic tanks reached their full capacity. Trucks came to haul away the mess, but the dumping grounds were also full and there was no where left to send the brown, watery slop. Poop stopped blooping, but no one stopped pooping and the smells were soon intolerable. Mayors blamed officials and officials blamed workers and workers blamed the citizens who were once their happy customers. Everyone was fed up and they now saw the disaster of the poop that went BLOOP with new eyes. The land and the air and the water was contaminated with the waste of blooping poop and all the chemicals necessary to treat that mess. Millions of dollars had been spent trying to contain the waste and now millions more would be necessary to keep poop blooping. People demanded a better solution, something they could do immediately to clean up their neighborhoods and to discard their daily waste.

Thankfully, every city had at least a few older folks who remembered the silence of poop from previous generations. People learned about compost and separating their pee from their poop. They built many small, unique structures to allow their waste a space to decompose, for families, for groups, even for whole apartment buildings. And poop everywhere began falling silently into layers of sawdust or newspaper or vegetable peelings.

By the following Spring, the silent poop was naturally transformed into nutrient-rich compost which people used to plant flowers and herbs and to fertilize their fruit trees. There was no smell and no messy, brown slop. People smiled at what they had made from their waste and they laughed at the thought of ever having their poop go BLOOP again. Better to keep that water clean for drinking and allow poop a chance to silently return to the earth. The poop that goes BLOOP is a tempting sound, but it only ends up in a great big mess.

Signs of the Season

2010-10-26T22:03:00.002-03:00

Spring shines forth in Los Brujos, sun between rains leaving the forest in bloom dazzling with light. We are creatures in evolution, spiraling through transformation, greeted with familiar signs marking the seasons of our growth; this forest, its inhabitants. I can not tell if the abundant layers of green, the budding reds, yellows, and whites, have increased in number over the past four years, or if in my patient observing that my eyes have adapted to the finer details, now making greater distinction in the growing, entwining forms, better discerning the biodiversity and their cycles of awakening. Perhaps as we evolve, trees stretching upward, undergrowth spreading outward, and the intersections where light and shadow fall change accordingly, dormant seeds slip out of their waiting and take the risk of rising, blossoming, showing off their vulnerable beauty in the full light of day. Same as flowers, artists make similar decisions in the sharing of their art; whether consciously or not, the transformation unfolds along similar patterns. And when many artists come together with their myriad trades and passions, the effect is similar to the kaleidoscope of forms pushing through a forest floor mid-Spring: ideas spilling over tree trunks, mosses inspiring vines, tender petals giving song under ferns building shade, conversations on growth painting harmony in form, in color, in sound.

As the evening glow stretches long into shadow, the hum of hatching beetles taking flight is surpassed by the vibrating precision of a hummingbird harvesting nectar from the newly opened notro flowers. Red and green they call to each other in an ancient rite of courtship and the golden light through the leaves sets the scene theatrically, highlighting the first orange orbs of the matico plant just as the asara’s yellow coat begins to fade. Quietly smiling at the edges, the pinwheel-like orchids that began their appearance a couple of weeks ago as white serpent heads in the undergrowth now open en masse revealing their laughing dragon faces along our paths and at every entrance to the forest. Seagulls call, appear overhead in formation and disappear again in their annual migration, sometimes sending chattering, startled flocks of green mountain parrots darting frantically towards their next social engagement. As dusk pushes the light to the murky shade where the human eye loses contrast, the clear songs of bands of black birds call out across the treetops before the frog choruses resonate from their hidden places deep in the creek beds, accompanying us into the night.

Tools put away as the candles come on, a thanks to the house altar for a good day’s work, we sit together with tea and toast, sharing ideas, our accomplishments and challenges. A second hydraulic ram pump assembled and set in a small footer of concrete awaiting the drying before the final installation that we hope will bring us stream water for all our summer watering needs. An abandoned refrigerator adapted to use tomorrow’s sun to heat bathwater and maybe cook a pot of rice. Piles of mud-bricks stacked out to dry, nearly ready to fill the final walls on the puppeteer’s house, their green roof already a glow of healthy grasses and moss. The lower garden completely fenced off from chicken claws, terraced beds all planted and mulched, with broad bean shoots already appearing, established broccoli, cabbage, and kale with delicious leaves for salads. The greenhouse bursting with seedlings, small tomato plants and basil, lettuce and parsley for the taking. The design for a composting toilet set in a tree ready to execute and despite being exhausted, project ideas continue unfolding, inspired by the enthusiasm and the confidence of many working hands supporting one another; creatively realizing long-pondered dreams. Have we always enjoyed such abundance, or have my body, heart, and mind adapted to the pace of collective harmonizing over the years? I can not know, but I do enjoy the signs of the season.

Alone in the Wilderness or Together

2010-09-27T20:12:00.001-04:00

Richard Proenneke is one of my new heroes. A man from the American West myth, of the generation of renaissance men that knew how to build, hunt, plant, tend, and otherwise completely survive on their own in the wilderness with the added aesthetic of not taking too much from their environment, blending into the scenery to observe, commune, become a part of Nature’s boundless poetry. A generation or two later these figures have been all but completely lost to the modern, Western consciousness, not to mention their incredible repertoire of skills and the physical endurance to wield their tools.

As the modern young person body builds in a gym between Bauhaus-ing on imported coffee and clicking through text on increasingly small, plastic devices, the importance and significance of the surrounding physical environment begins to evaporate: this could be New York or London or Tokyo or Sydney with the daily life experience becoming ever-encapsulated in the generic spaces of commerce, which are directed not by a craftsman’s hand, but by the outputs of factory-scale construction materials standardized from afar and shipped world-wide. I do not make these statements completely begrudgingly. I fully acknowledge the factory dies that trimmed to dimension the wood beams and boards which make my house, pressed and transported the mined minerals that became my roof, my nails, my screws, and all my tools. But watching Richard Proenneke’s self-filmed documentary of a year of his life in the Alaskan wilderness gave me more than one reason to reflect on the direction of our mainstream, modern evolution and the value in trying to follow a wilder path.

I do not disguise my envy that Mr. Proenneke grew up in a time where he was given ample opportunities to learn, hone, and perfect survival and construction skills, and the physical musculature to accompany such work, so that at 51 years of age he was perfectly poised in health and mind to embark upon his Alaskan oddessy that would become his world for the next 35 years. I watched his hour-long documentary in awe and near-disbelief, but also with a quiet sadness at the increasing loss of the long-standing craftsman guilds. Perhaps the intricate sills of the Gothic and Baroque masters who brought artists’ architecture to life in perfect, ornate function and form were too elaborate to be long-sustained, but what happened to the inherent knowledge of how to build a comfortable shelter, make the tools necessary for daily life, or create a unique aesthetic of space that reflects the character and story of who we each are and where we have come from? Why have we as an increasingly globalized human race so easily chosen uniformity in nearly every aspect of the modern, urban daily life in the industrialized West? Is it that we have never paused to reflect on our options, or are we so driven by the joint-markets of time and cost that our options self-selectively dilute into the illusion of plastic abundance as presented by any area’s big box store?

As the Richard Proennekes of the West disappeared into that frontier, happily cutting ties with our modern consciousness, those left behind were raised with the false confidence that food can be conveniently fast, that electric and sewer grids are endless, that more money can solve any problem, and that the natural environment can be partitioned and re-designed as necessary without physical or emotional consequence. In one or two generations we modern humans have completely altered our planet and our relationship to it, but I do not think it impossible to acknowledge this uniform trend and to re-envision a myriad of alternatives. Sub-cultures are exploding throughout the modern consciousness, calling themselves by different names, proselytizing a specific creed or life-style, some passing as trends while others form schools of thought, build community and impetus. Permaculture, self-sufficient, or intentional communities are some of the generic terms for a growing network of urban and non-urban individuals taking their own-scale steps toward the relearning and the teaching of the craftsman’s guilds, the ability to manifest one’s daily needs, create, inspire, observe the world with the wonder and respect of a naturist’s eye, and to return our focus to life-giving endeavors rather than on life-taking tasks.

I can understand the sensibility that might react to this modern age with a longing to be, as Mr. Proenneke demonstrated, “Alone in the Wilderness,” but I’d much rather, and I hope many others agree, that we can find the rhythm and the patience to bring us all “Together in the Wilderness” some day soon, sharing stories and possibilities we have not yet forgotten in ways we can not yet even imagine. To return a little honor to the modern paradigm, and a little more humanity to the human experience where hands create and minds imagine and our hearts can be taken inwards once again by the true miracle of our living planet and our existence within it. Perhaps then the mythical figures of the modern past like Mr. Proenneke will no longer have to keep their distance. My generation was once promised that the Lorax would return. Dr. Seuss said it starts with a seed and you.

Reunion

2010-08-17T15:00:00.000-04:00

Reunion means reconnection, a reaffirming that we are all on our individual spiritual paths. Reunion is a return to the past, the present, the future in physical and in emotional space; a return to place, a return to Self. Reunion is the reconstruction of ideas and perceptions made open, made closed, in time, in reflection. Reunion is a requirement of spiritual growth, reconfirming where we are going in revisiting where we have been. Reunion is reverence for the sacred, a reminder of truth, of freedom, of joy that binds all life together. Reunion is the recollection of love across time and space. Reunion is remembrance, embracing the beginning and the ending of cycles, and the eternal promise of repeating the revolutions of Reunion…

I have recently returned from a journey of reunions and now find myself reuniting with my daily life in the forest drenched in the deep rains of winter while summer’s heat still lingers golden brown on my skin. Consulting the I-Ching as I recollect my scattered fragments of self, having separated in the passing through the portal between hemispheres, my current role lies unequivocally in La Duracion, hexagon 32, between wind and thunder seeking and finding my inner calm. Thunder claps, earth shuddering as if pushing up through the ground and wind hurls hail and rain through the forest as I sit in-between, watching trees bend and sway, nature’s spectacle playing out in ferocious display as I am warmed by the stove’s fire, buttered toast and tea, writing and quiet inside. My quest for a new paradigm of love, the untold stories we have nearly forgotten will be answered, the sky bellows. The lightning flash of inspiration shines silent and the wind and the thunder are not far behind.

I am seeking a Love that is neither possessive nor obsessive; a Love that is genuinely abundant and that multiplies in the sharing. As we must become the light in many individuals’ lives, so must we accept that many individuals will light out own path in this life. These thoughts inspire my present transformation living among a group of young friends turned family turned connected souls in a forest setting on the edge of wilderness, on the edge of the modern illusion. We are artists sharing trades, sharing meals, sharing paths, building something larger together than any one of us could individually accomplish. We ponder meaning, we juggle egos, we laugh and invent and trust.

Lightning cracks through the air simultaneous with a roar of thunder and the wind slams hail and rain from above, forest detail disappearing in the haze of falling water. I am temporarily shaken, heart beats quickening, but still quiet in my sanctuary which I built by hand, though inspired, guided, and aided by many other hands, hearts, and teachers. Acknowledging the web of Love that sustains me, and living consciously within a group of intimate souls seeking the same is all I ask; just a chance to live something real, be a part of love manifesting in art, bypassing the normal trappings of modern life. This is an opportunity to shed fear and doubt, embrace true human potential and shake the traditional paradigms of love and intimacy and human bonds to their original cores before society made rules and limits on the cosmic possibilities.

The Duration, I have learned in reuniting after long-distant reunion, is my current path, steadfast and true, seeking a Love that is neither possessive nor obsessive, which is abundantly multiplying in the sharing, sparking between thunder and wind in the forest of Los Brujos. May I keep enough courage inside to continue on this path. May I pass on my courage to those I meet along the way, so that no matter how terrible the thunder may shake, or how strong the wind may blow, that we each may take faith in our reunions and stay forever united to our innermost goals.

Let Us Go

2010-07-29T13:40:00.001-04:00

Every year I return to my birthplace, my culture of origin in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C. We enter through the manicured interface of airports like the last quiet hush of personal thoughts and meditations and wishes where most other travelers distract themselves in books or personal music or sleep. It is a digital illusion this world of very limited spaces and options that confines the soul into pre-programmed outcomes while insisting through material accumulation that we are entering a world of abundance, of endless possibility. Looking up from these thoughts, pondering soul’s eventual rage as seen in the small tantrums which spike through the modern child’s day, I noticed a message scrawled by a young person’s hand in the fine layer of dust on the tall airport windows: Let Us Go it reads in 2 feet high lettering with palm print accents at the end of each letter. Let us go the graffiti reads transparent on glass, but only seen from certain angles, the dust is so fine. Let us go the message screams most likely at the waiting, a delay, the powerless of airport travel, but carrying a deeper vibration all the more rooted in our human longing by the hand-prints, the fluidity of palm making shape, giving voice and I am humbled, I am quiet because I know we all have to let ourselves go, let it all go, that there is no keeper at the gate: we have entrapped ourselves. I am here in my birth culture attempting to blend-in because I want to see my loved ones, confirm and share our love, but deep inside I am transforming and learning to let go of the pasts that haunt and hurt and fill with fear and rage. Letting go of possession, of obsession, of material consumption. Letting go of reaction, embracing observation, controlling my temper, my desire, my fear. Why do we come here, to a place I find so hard to navigate, so confusing to understand? Because it is in these temptations at 33 that I can find who I truly am, my Jesus metaphor turning allegory. It is here at my roots that I can learn to let go of rejection, of all my childhood fighting, and learn to embrace my whole that allows me the freedom to live the rest of the year in my forest sanctuary. This is not a journey of a prophet, this is a journey of my personal transformation and the letting go we each must manifest in our individual lives, or be consumed by.

Turning 33

2010-07-10T15:14:00.003-04:00

Turning 33 and shedding skin, peeling back the layers to reveal new creation, illuminating my path before me. Turning 33 and the Catholic lessons inside me cannot help but recognize this age as the same as Christ upon his crucifixion, where his skin was shed to his base humanity: his blood, his sweat, his pain and thirst. Turning 33 with Christ as my Buddhist metaphor, my temple stands nearly complete after 2 years of physical determination and I have returned to daily meditation, reaching beyond my base humanity to harmonize with an invisible frequency that I can sense all around me, but cannot yet touch. Turning 33 I have probed the ritual of honoring sacrifice, have felt the whisper of a soul departing a body under my fingers in the evening mists that came to claim our roosters, respecting death as universal. Turning 33 and embracing my imagination, my creations as artistic, as necessary expressions of my love for life. Turning 33 humbled by my body’s limitations and learning patience in the realms of healing and health. Turning 33 and remembering the importance of graciously receiving love as equally as the giving of love. Turning 33 and preparing for travel to childhood addresses, to separate the past from the present, to remain true to myself with love and respect, shedding skins and old patterns. Turning 33 and the Moon will pass between us and the Sun, whether we see it or not, marking a moment in a grand cycle we are too young to remember, though we are learning. Turning 33, like Christ, like Buddha, and all the world’s prophets, reaching for personal transformation by shedding my Snake skin in this year of walking the edge of the Tiger’s stripes, through the physical, the emotional, the imaginative realms, while sleeping, while awake, and to learn to carry these lessons always.

My Pledge of Allegiance

2010-07-02T22:41:00.001-04:00

As Christine always says, “Just give and receive Love. That is all we have to do.”

This Fourth of July weekend as the nation’s capital prepares for the William Tell Overture and back-lighting the monuments in clouds of pyrotechnics for the annual patriotic salute of flag waving and the glories of history, I find myself alone on a quiet night in the forest between a break in the rain making a different pledge. In the glow of a candle and a solar-charged lamp, across the quilt my mother-in-law sewed by hand, I pledge allegiance to my heart’s inner desire which expresses my eternal Soul’s place in this world, and to this true calling I commit my creative imagination to give and receive Love, without judgment, without expectation, for the freedom and the happiness of all.

Submission for Queer 13 Zine Project

2010-06-15T19:10:00.001-04:00

The following piece is my submission for the Queer 13 Zine project. If you would also like to participate, please write Lindsay at icecream.deluxe@gmail.com by June 20, 2010.

When I was thirteen I was in the closet. Literally squashed in a small wardrobe amidst hanging towels, coats, and shoes. It was summer art camp at Goucher College in Towson, MD and I had just returned to the dorm room with my roommate for a shower. My roommate Rebekah was at camp for dance while I was there for ceramics, which unless you are Demi Moore in Ghost, is not as sexy as you might imagine; while Rebekah spent her days learning to express emotion through her body, I was assembling pinch pots and worrying over air holes in clay slabs. So, when Rebekah suggested with smoldering eyes that we shower together, I giggled a bashful acceptance completely unbelieving that anything so fanciful could ever happen. But then as soon as she shut the door, her clothes were off and my lovely roommate stood before me completely naked, all dancer grace even at 13. And that’s when I panicked.

Oh, the eternal awkwardness of 13 made degrees more complicated by my conflicting fascination and shame! Growing up in my family where I played afternoons under the serenely watching eyes of Buddha in my basement and spent every Sunday on my knees before a crucified Christ, where damnation operated on multiple levels and personal sin carried repercussions for both ancestors as well as potential progeny, my every emotion, but especially my sexual emotions, carried a hefty burden of guilt. Guilt thick like the heady musk I was swimming in at 13 with my art camp fantasy standing naked before me. I did what any good Chinese girl would do: I burned scarlet and ran for the closet. There hidden by the cheap paneled walls, pressed under the hangers with Jesus and Buddha looking down from some heavenly above, I shook with fear, with exhilaration, but I could not find the courage to step out.

While there are ballads dedicated to the scornful regret of opportunities missed, I know that only in an alternate universe would someone of my background have been able to make the brave decision to say yes to beauty that summer evening. Now looking back at my awkward 13-year-old-self from the refreshing perspective of nearly twenty years later, I smile at my blundering and at all the pointless years I would spend afterwards worrying away in closets. But I also recognize that in that moment of diving for the art camp closet, I ensured a lovesick karma smote of my regret and of Rebekah’s unfortunate rejection; poor dear left naked and alone, talking to a closed wardrobe. I would spend the next ten years trying to make it up to Rebekah’s bold memory, foolishly falling head over heels in love with nearly every adorable Jewish girl, dancer or not, who crossed my path and having my heart broken again and again until the debt of my rejection was relinquished; Rebekah’s dancing naked memory finally satisfied. What deeply entrenched fractal patterns our first sexual encounters can unfold: unconscious fascination cycling regret and rejection until we finally release ourselves from the burdens of closets and truly choose to live free!

I never returned to art camp and even abandoned any serious pursuit of my art for over a decade afterwards. Such is the power of the closet to hide away our deepest yearnings, our imaginative gifts, our truest selves. Seemingly just a space of convenience, of laminated wood panels and hinged doors, we could lose our souls inside its depths if we let fear control our hearts. Ironically, I intentionally entered the closet while in one of the arguably safest settings a queer 13-year-old could be: among the creatively expressive and weird atmosphere of a summer art camp. At the tender threshold of adolescence, presented with myriad opportunities to declare and embrace my true passions, I chose the comfortable guilt of Jesus’ and Buddha’s company and walked a longer path to attain my inner freedom. I do not regret all that which I learned along the way, only that I gave in to fear so unquestioningly.

To the memory of my queer 13-year-old-self, I send the courage and the faith that closets need not last forever, that freedom is stronger, and that by taking the longer path we still always arrive exactly where we are meant to be, eventually. May this message reach all souls that harbor their feelings in closets across space and time until the very concept of the skeleton closet releases its hold on our collective consciousness and is forever abandoned.

The Art of Canning

2010-05-26T17:54:00.003-04:00

Canning seasonal fruits and vegetables for winter storage and enjoyment was once as common a household chore as buying groceries. And I am not referring to some ancient past: in my generation canning has transformed from fuzzy childhood memory to an old-fashioned, grueling task that is considered unnecessary and time-consuming in the modern-age of stocked supermarket shelves filled with year-round produce. So naturally I wanted to challenge this social construct and to try canning for myself.

I examined our food consumption patterns and decided the one item we use a lot of, but which could readily be made and stored is tomato sauce. The tomato sauce commonly sold in supermarkets here in Chile comes in little plastic baggies and is of horrendous quality; once confirmed for me in a conversation with a friend who worked for a time as an inspection supervisor in a large tomato sauce factory, quoting for me the regulated allowances for rat parts and molds in the massive sauce vats. In re-reading Barbara Kingsolver’s excellent book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I found a recipe shared by her daughter Camille for a delicious tomato sauce specifically written for canning on a large, but manageable, family-scale.

Our personal tomato harvest this year was slim with the excess rain and lack of summer sun (we are ironically experiencing more sun now in Autumn than all of Summer) and the majority of our tomatoes had to be picked green, reddening slowly indoors in storage. Bu the farmers’ market was bursting with tomatoes from better-strategically placed greenhouses in our region, and we easily brought home a crate of 20 home-grown, delicious kilos for under $6 USD. I saw no reason to forgo canning simply because our garden did not produce the fruit. I really wanted to practice this not-so-forgotten food storage art and supporting local farmers at the same time was an added bonus.

Now came the actual work of converting these ripe tomatoes into sauce and then safely sealing the many steaming liters in sterilized jars, and I’ll admit, I got discouraged before we even began. It seemed overwhelming all the pots of boiling water, and tomatoes just happen to be one of those fruits that I dislike chopping for their slipperiness. Directions in one book called for a canning rack, others for thermometers and time schedules, to peel or not to peel… I despaired. This is why the supermarkets have us, I thought. But then Christine just began dousing tomatoes in boiling water one by one and I set up chopping their skinless selves into a growing pot of sauce. Just quietly by candlelight on the wood-burning stove the overwhelming task fell into an assembly and before we knew it we were stirring in the last ingredients to a thickening vat of sauce. John Seymour, the author of our informal house bible, The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It, recommended placing folded dishtowels on the bottom of the pot used to bathe the filled jars for the final canning process in lieu of a fancy canning rack and this simple substitute worked fine. Once pulled from their bath and set on the counter to cool, all our jar lids sealed properly.

So naturally, so quietly, so inexpensively delicious. Why would this art have ever been overlooked, pushed aside, discarded, forgotten? That is as confusing a question to answer as why we must drive distances we can easily walk, or why we so readily employ strangers to raise our children, or why we trust faceless, mega-corporations to provide us with nutritional meals. It just happens. We are a funny animal, and maybe made funnier still by re-examining ourselves, our actions, our values, and willingly admitting that we made a mistake; like mass-producing the plastic bag, factory-scale tomato sauce was a decadent error in our 20th century development that only led to excess consumer waste for a bad-tasting product. Hopefully canning will come back into fashion. Here in Los Brujos it has been all the rage this season: canning blackberry jam, murta-berry jam, rose hip jam, apple sauce, and of course the Kingsolver tomato sauce. Long may the art of canning and other seasonal food storage grace the kitchens and pantries of people the world-over. We have only to gain nutritional and taste quality, not to mention the warm company of working in groups of family and friends to prepare delicious meals. Candlelight atmosphere optional.

Building with Mud

2010-04-12T20:16:00.002-04:00

Is incredible. A meditative experience sculpting walls with mud-caked hands, walls that will keep out all draft, that will warm and cool as necessary, all smoothed and layered from materials that we gathered within 1 kilometer of our house, a miracle melding of earth and water and pine needles. A harmonizing with some forgotten instinct, how not-so-long-ago when everyone knew how to build a house, or at least had a grandfather who did. Mud between hands, mixing underfoot, building up walls and shelter, holds an ancient history in the collective human consciousness and for the non-human as well. Relative to their size, termites build the largest structures on the planet using only mud and their own excrement, and many species of birds use mud to bind their nests.

For our project, insulating the workshop, we lessened the wall weight and economized our mud-hauling schedule by filling as much of the walls as possible with residue-free, plastic trash saved up over the past year. Bags of post-consumer waste, which we felt personally responsible for accruing, were finally laid to rest, entombed in old plastic bottles and tetra-pak boxes, and then covered in mud, becoming light-weight insulation within the workshop walls. Shampoo bottles and pasta bags, candle wrappers and discarded tape… plastic packaging and containers of every shape and size! What a relief to have finally found a permanent home for the residual evidence of our continued consumption, plastered in walls and working to keep our workshop snug. Plus, from an anthropological point of view, a perfect time capsule of the era for future archaeologists. Better that our trash should work to insulate on stormy nights and chill, misty mornings than rot in a landfill with many other daily metric tones of plastic, whose scale of consumption concentrated in a single space only bleeds toxic leachate and emits flammable quantities of gas. Packed between clumps of mud and pine needles, our post-consumer waste is absorbed into our surroundings on a manageable scale using the most fundamental of technologies: human hands and imagination.

Once on an archaeological dig in Israel, we came upon a wall from Ancient Greek times that still clearly held the imprints of the human hands that had smoothed its surface. I was mesmerized by that wall and stood silently before it many times, connecting to that other time, human hands sculpting space across ages. Perhaps those hands worked in earnest, willful ritual, perhaps they worked in forced labor, I do not know for certain their stories. But stories they had and imaginative hands which left their prints and centuries later inspired a small girl who had wandered there by chance from across the ocean. Hands building a wall, something harmonized, in the witnessing of a truly human act with an ancient history almost forgotten, but still present, and I promised to remember.

Thirteen years later I am leaving my own hand-prints on a modest set of walls, whose longevity I hope will last at least my lifetime. And I sense a communion fulfilled. The rites of mud-building-shelter continue.

Sacrificing a Rooster

2010-03-31T12:16:00.001-03:00

One lunar cycle after the earthquake we sacrificed a rooster, each person present sharing a piece of his heart in the meal he became. It was my first experience being involved in the killing of an animal and participating in the transformation of corpse to food. We had built a ceremonial fire, had boiled water to ease the plucking of feathers, had breathed the vibrations of diggery-doo and guitar into the growing dusk. But no matter the physical and spiritual preparations, death is a difficult act to bestow upon any creature, especially one you have watched grow from egg and chick. I do not want to get over-sentimental, but at least now I understand why I do not normally ingest chicken. Their death throes are particularly shocking and the skin emits a pungent odor once dosed in hot water, the feathers sticking to your fingers as you pluck the body bare. The disemboweling was less dramatic than I had anticipated, possibly made objective by science class conditioning years ago. We separated out the heart and the liver, boiling the rest into a stew for the dogs, and burned the head and the crop in the fire. The meat, cooked with corn, onions, garlic, and green pepper in a disc over the fire, was delicious I am told. I can only attest for one-fifth of his heart and a bite of his liver, both a first for me, with smooth textures and strong flavors.

Oh, young, head-strong Pebbles, I thank you for you life, as short as it was. You were just one of our too many roosters this year with a particularly raucous voice that never quite grasped the concept to morning song and with the obnoxious habits of regularly startling the hens and beating on your more beautifully plumed brother. Your murder was not punishment for your faults, though these traits did guarantee that you were the first. If el gallo de passion wasn’t already too old and so small, he would have taken your place, but breeding gave you strong legs and wings, and after all, this was not a game in choosing favorites.

It was an exercise in doing something completely commonplace and ordinary. Something so basic to our human heritage, an event which occurs daily billions of times over, something that usually deserves no afterthought, never receiving reflection, and yet something that I, in my 30’s, had never before experienced first-hand. How strange this modern age where many millions of the over-fed collectively, willingly forget where their food comes from, how to clean it and prepare it for the table. How stranger still, both sides agree, that one should actively seek to peel back the cloak of naivety and to stare at the gruesome details, raise a creature with the intention of getting blood on one’s hands when processed and plastic-wrapped versions are so readily available. But that is after all, the point: to fully experience our humanity and all that is necessary to sustain us, to shed our ignorance and to remember the forgotten arts.

Thank you, young Pebbles, in teaching us through your dying about the nature of life. I take a piece of your heart into me and hope to transform that energy into creative expression.

Letters Home from Chihuio

2010-03-18T15:14:00.000-03:00

I tell you, friends, good news to tell: the Shire is doing fair and well…

I am much relieved to be on vacation in a quiet cabin in a small valley nestled between two forested ridges lush with Ulmos bursting white among the deep greens. The river rushes clear over rocks and the sound reminds us all of our ocean days. I can not remember the last time the four of us went on holiday together, it seems so long we had been taking shifts in Los Brujos, hosting guests or stealing away as individual couples. Here in Chihuio, bathes overflow day and night with the intoxicating warmth of water pouring from the mountain’s secret hot springs. We lounge into our days bathing and dreaming, and relax through the nights the same. The Shire, my friends, is in excellent health. Sheep fatten on the steep, green slopes, oxen haul out firewood, and berries and hard fruits ripen for the picking. In this modern age of urban apocalyptic fears coming true, I am much relieved to disappear for a long weekend into a different dream where life rises and falls to a rhythm closer in tune with nature’s cycles. Certainly even here modern conveniences and temptations have dotted the landscape with satellite dishes and pick-up trucks, but though rural and urban consciousness mingle daily here, the memory of sustenance and survival also thrive. Should the outside world collapse, this place, these residents could continue without much exclamation, without much drama. And of course, they have their baths: rich, mineral drenched water of deep mountain heat flowing freely into steam, smoothing skin, relaxing muscles. This is true paradise, glowing green with lichens and moss, steamed warm from the mountain’s depths.

********

On the way home from Chihuio, logging dusty kilometers on foot on gravel, country roads following the river’s windy course past fertile pastures of sheep and cows grazing below the Andean skyline, past ancient forests in late summer splendor and houses with yards filled with flowers, with the shining plumage of strutting roosters and their hens, we arrived too late at the crossing to catch the last bus back. But this had always been a vacation based on blind faith and although we had only seen a handful of vehicles (either passing or even parked) in the whole of the afternoon, we continued on hoping to manifest some miracle to return home. We had luck with two rural school vans, one which took us to Chabranco, the other allowing us to pile in with the bewildered children, hula hoops and driftwood collections pressing against the ceiling and cramped seats, leaving us in el Sector de Las Quemas, still more than a dozen kilometers from the small town of Llifen and on a stretch of valley pastures without a single shade tree or residence along the road which cut straight between the mountains. Facing the prospect of walking all night under a moonless sky as another pick-up truck sped past, four cab seats open and the flat-bed empty, leaving a wave of billowing dust, the driver’s out-stretched palms claiming innocence in our plight, the patience of blind faith finally extended us a miracle: on that late Monday afternoon, a European from Switzerland was out driving a rental car on holiday and something about our pleading faces convinced him to stop. He had seen us on the road earlier in the day when he was driving in the opposite direction exploring the path toward Argentina which had ended in an oxen trail, forcing him to turn back. Hula hoops and road dust piling into our motorized salvation, sharing tales as we sped towards Futrono, Lago Ranco’s shining waters appearing as the roadway slipped into the smooth hum of pavement, and we knew we would make the last bus to Los Brujos.

Bless that funny European who lives in Switzerland, but who never told us where he was actually from or even exchanged names, who likes to pick-up hitch-hikers when he goes travelling to share stories and to better get to know a place. Bless him and all his kind who still believe we can extend a human hand now and again, step outside our boxes, trust positive energy, and share what we have to give. I thank that man for his whimsical kindness, but for more than just the ride and sparring us a sleepless night. I thank him for clearly demonstrating that even in a modern world of billions of selfish souls, in an apocalyptic age of disasters, natural and man-made, when the instinct to only protect one’s self and family is the driving force, that we humans are more than capable of overcoming such woes, in fact, some of us still actively seek to expel them. I went on our mini-family vacation in a moment of philosophical despair, the stories and news from the earthquake’s epicenter shattering my faith in the goodness of human nature as violence and fear plunges millions of people into a state of military curfews to restore order, families attacking one another for food, for water; if this is what happens in a small country like Chile, my mind shuddered, my heart waivered flashing through the list of crowded cities worldwide….

But the curative waters of Chihuio, supposedly one of the favored places poet Pablo Neruda visited before going into exile, had a magical effect and the tranquil landscape of a hobbit’s Shire recast a faith in ancient forests, in crystal, abundant water, in self-sufficient farming and the stories and skills that many in this new generation have willingly not forgotten. To be generously picked up three times on our way home by smiling strangers wishing us well was the final touch to the miracle as if the Universe truly wanted to make the lesson clear: have faith in the goodness of human nature, hold it sacred, and watch it manifest.

Terremoto

2010-02-27T21:13:00.000-03:00

When we woke in the middle of the night to the rattles of a house being shaken, the altar light was still glowing on the last strands of its wick. A candle we had left burning to help guide Gray and Marilyn through the portal to Los Brujos remained lit through the vibrations and rolls, the stumbling out of bed towards doorways, the quiet moonlight and the breezes of a forest come alive lunging in silence from above and below while Trigo panicked in fear and we just waited for the movement to cease, not knowing, just instinct, heart accelerating, chickens cackling screams. The candle remained lit on our altar as Marcelo and Andres came up the path, radio searching for signals getting only static except for one faint voice from Argentina where, too, people were stumbling out of their houses in a daze under moonlight. The boys hurried on toward the view of Valdivia, not a light lit, not even the closest cell tower, and we were suddenly cut-off from the world and also profoundly connected in shared experience with countless others whom we could feel, but no longer hear or see. As we stood among the radio static under our house altar, commenting on our perspectives, wondering where this quake came from, the candle that had stayed lit burned out.

An earthquake registering about a 7 on the Richter scale passed through our region bursting water mains and electricity lines, winding down from an 8.8 at its epicenter where its vibrations smashed bridges and buildings, cutting transportation north to Santiago. And yet, we were essentially untouched. After the aftershocks passed, the last sending us stumbling out of bed back towards doorways again, we awoke in the morning to nearly a typical day routine, except that the guests who had slept in tents were now realizing something big had happened and were finally awake at the door anxious to contact family, hear news; startled that the rumble they had felt while asleep on the ground in Los Brujos could elsewhere have taken many lives. There was only to wait and distract oneself from the flood of energy, equal parts worry for those we hadn’t heard from as the phone lines began to clear, and waves of love and support swirling from afar as news of the quake wrapped the internet ethers.

Like lights on little altars, I felt the vibration of love generating amongst my closest family and friends even as our internet connection continued to fail. I was anxious to let everyone know we were fine, so I concentrated on painting window frames and breathing peace. In the afternoon, the internet again came on-line and the sensations I had felt were confirmed in the many beautiful notes written by friends and family. But the limited information we had gleaned from the radio was also suddenly confirmed as well in graphic imagery, digital snapshots of collapsed roadways and stricken faces, families without houses, without potable water.

We had enjoyed a delicious, hot lunch for 12, our drinking water tank completely full, solar-power recharging all cell phones and internet connections, and not a thing had fallen off any of our shelves; all structures and beings were standing and accounted for. I have no idea why the Universe works this way, why in the end Gray and Marilyn were spared a chaotic stranding somewhere in South America, whisked back stateside mid-flight as Santiago’s airport closed, why we have been left unscathed while around us there is panic and tempers flaring, why any of it at all, as I try to sort our my new emotions. I only know that when we woke to those first rumbles, the altar light was still lit and our ancestors’ faces were smiling down. I thank our dear ancestors, this forest, this mountain. I thank the Universe for its protection and I ask to share this love with all those tonight whom I could and continue to feel, whom we can not as of yet hear nor see.

When You Hear a Baby Cry...

2010-02-07T16:47:00.001-03:00

At 3:14 on a Tuesday afternoon, every baby through the age of 3 the world over began to cry, inconsolably, day and night without pause for 3 days. Parents could not sleep, neighborhoods found no rest, businesses closed, offices stayed empty, and the hospitals filled with complaints. Where no human babies could be heard, small mammal and bird babies took up the cry, great schools of fish vibrated their unrest and swarms of insects droned the air with the beating of their wings, their clicks and calls. Even the quietest of the world’s reptiles put emotion to sound and the rumble of discontent shook the entire surface of the earth without end.

But as sudden as the cacophony of miserable cries started, it ended all at once like a symphony coming to a close, every pair of lungs silenced, every pair of eyes dried; humans, cats, dogs, birds, fish, lizards, and bugs, everyone silent. And in this pause, this quiet reprieve, the entire world collectively slept. A hush so deep not a single being stirred for 4 days. And in those 4 days the world dreamt marvelous things, incredible places, images of love and abundance, cascades of liquid light, music and art of otherworldly delight, ripples of laughter and vibrations of joy sharing with long ago loved ones and meeting each other for the first time, cycling again and again so that the world collectively passed out of time and stepped into a new consciousness. When they awoke, the physical world was exactly as they had left it, only inside every being knew, as clear as you know your hand from you face, their connection to one another.

Every citizen of every nation shed their old skins of identity, stepped out of the concepts of patriotism and race and saw themselves as children of a collective planet. Everyone understood one another on a profound plane of existence having known and walked in one another’s shoes a thousand lives or more. The world collectively approached the surrounding built and natural environment with reverent understanding and indescribable love. They, every man, woman and child, got to work right away.

Collectively called by deep, inner memory, every human being the world over began exploring their greatest passion, finding and creating their personal sanctuaries in harmony with others who shared their dream resonance without infringing in the least on the dreams of others. Like bees in a hive driven by a higher order of organization, the world was transformed in 3 days of noise and 4 days of rest. In the following hours, days, and weeks, garden plots sprung out of the ground in backyards and parking lots, on rooftops and terraces. The unnecessary tasks of moving paper through buildings were forgotten and there was more than enough housing for everyone. Food banks arose, distributing nutritional meals from the plethora of groceries the world prior had accumulated while passionate growers and farmers and anyone wanting to learn and help began pulling in local, abundant harvests to feed and share. Wastes were composted, water was not soiled with chemicals or unnatural materials, but was filtered after use, reused or recovered and the air cleared, filling happily working lungs with song, stories, laughter. Every answer to every problem, every past hesitation, was available immediately in the world before their eyes; their collective passions individually playing out in accordance with a higher balance that made each life’s path sacred while also enabling, inspiring, cooperatively organizing every other being’s own sacred path, everyone enjoying all that they and the world collectively could need.

In those weeks and months following the world’s collective re-envisioning of itself, before the disharmony of ego and fears began to creep among the edges of the world’s thoughts, the cityscapes and the countrysides, the wild untouched places and the most densely populated, teemed with a lushness of spirit and love, a celebration of life from the cloth-draped balconies of former ghettos to the wind-swept plains of the highest plateaus. Customs and ways of seeing were set in place so that even when worries arose or anger ignited, the flames of interaction were collectively embraced and quieted. The collective harmony restored what individual emotions had once tried to selfishly isolate. The loneliness, the ache of feeling separated or abandoned faded into memory and no longer being nourished collectively, eventually melted away so that even its memory no longer pained. The world and its inhabitants, willingly born anew, pursued passion and creativity, imagination and dreams, drawing forth abundance and talent, new perspectives and solutions to every wonder, every child’s how, why, and when. And everyone, everyone was amazed at how simple it all began.

So every time you hear a baby’s cry, remember this story and the secret wisdom that cry is trying to call to wake from deep within us. We have only to dream, to know, to remember, and then bring our imaginations to life.

Lessons of the Ox

2010-01-19T21:30:00.002-03:00

We have well entered the final moon cycle in the Year of the Ox and I sense the breath of the sleeping Tiger that awaits. The discipline of the Ox guides me daily through an exercise routine designed to strengthen my stomach muscles and back so that I may some day soon return to my hammer and saw, but I find another hidden meaning in the daily practice: opening my inner channels of energy, connecting the physical and spiritual in the warm currents of Chi flowing freely in the concentrated efforts of flexing and reaching. Thoughts turn to reflection and I begin to see the hidden rhythms with different meaning as the cycles close and open.

At the end of the last cycle of 12, in the Year of the Dog, we loyally followed the Universe, sniffed out its hidden path, and landed in a wild and abandoned forest. The Year of the Boar was quickly upon us and we accepted the pig’s dream to fly, casting ourselves completely into a leap of faith, building a home among the trees and spirits. The new cycle of 12 began again with the cunning Rat as we meticulously made lists of priorities, set goals and plans in motion for a sustainable future, studied our environment and gave name to the land. In this current Year of the Ox we have reaped both physical and spiritually kharmatic harvests, honey and fresh eggs, vegetables and herbs, solar electricity and self-pumped stream water, but also disillusionment and sickness, frustration and the collapse of physical strength.

I found myself pushing towards exhaustion, attempting to follow the Ox’s stride to finish my projects, but as my material gains mounted I let crumble my spiritual discipline, stopped actively meditating, no longer remembered my dreams, incessantly stirred awake in the night obsessing over the next placement of nails or joists or beams. I wrote less often, drew fewer images, and in the forgetting of my art I fell off my path, slipped on a stair from which I had never before slipped, and crashed in the dark. “The kharmatically physical and the spiritually material,” snorted the Ox, “are all the same to me.” I could not physically continue with the material work before me, though I tried with the well-known stubbornness of the laboring sort, and only worsened my physical state. The Ox then whispered through the electrical pain of another discipline which drives her forth. “I am known,” she mused, “for my physical strength, but it is my spiritual discipline that allows me to continue without tiring.” Head shaven, unable to move, I was humbled into succumbing to the true message of the Universe, turning physical, daily exercise into meditational reawakening. “The Tiger arrives next,” warned the Ox, “and he has no patience for the weak.”

The Tiger, the Tiger, the coming Metal Tiger. Associated with war and the greed of the power-hungry, the Tiger flashes gambles of high risk and great gains. The yawn of the Tiger awakening in the physical realm of our fragmented world already in endless conflict sends a shudder through me, but I steady my resolve with the Ox still at the helm. We need not battle against the Tiger, we must in fact become it, for a Tiger in the house protects against robbers and fire so that his energy may be our greatest threat and our greatest defense. This is the razor’s edge marked in the clear lines of a tiger’s coat, the ever-present spiritual divide of Ying and Yang, the chaotic twist necessary to spurn fractal, infinite, creative possibilities. And like all ruling animals of the zodiac, the Tiger will strike in both the physical and spiritual realms.

Powerful world leaders deeply embedded in the machine-driven, military consciousness are deceived to use the force of the Tiger for destruction for a Tiger can never be controlled and will lead to their own undoing. In the space of corrupt folly the Tiger can summon forth a new consciousness, give it strength and form. If we artists and lovers and believers in peace become the Tiger within our deepest spiritual selves and allow that energy to work through us into the physical world this year, what can we finally lose or shed and what will we gain? “You are learning,” laughs the Ox, “but keep practicing.”

My Shadow Witch Meditation

2010-01-13T21:25:00.002-03:00

At 4 in the morning while the city and the house slept, I awoke without knowing why. As I tried to go back to sleep, fears and scenes from last year’s robbery started to reappear, trying to gain a holding and grow into worse and repeating scenes. Over the past year, I have tried to vanquish them, have tried to forget, to let pass, to stop their reoccurrence in that subtle space of my imagination where I know myself to be responsible, where without protection the negative can manifest itself as physically as wishes, drawn from the occult places of fear with as much imaging attention as a gardener watering and caring for plants. The fears in that pre-dawn witching hour poured themselves into a shadow form, having had been nourished here and there by my inescapable thoughts for months, and this shadow with the presence of a small witch began gnawing on my left hand and arm.

I had confessed to Christine yesterday my inability to forget the fear of last year’s robbery and my growing concern that I might actively be calling such fears into manifestation through my thoughts and fearful visioning. She suggested that I practice a meditational exercise: the next time those thoughts and fears begin to arise, I should imagine filling myself with light, expelling all shadowy and creeping thoughts with this light so that in its brightness the fear literally disappears. At the first sensation of the shadow witch’s gnawing, I began trying to calm myself into a meditation, humming quietly a hu song vibration, and then imagining my body slowly filling with light until my body was glowing, was shining. But the small shadow witch did not disappear and in the light I could see her form like a small child. I brushed my lighted hand across her cheek and I suddenly recognized this shadow witch, this manifestation of my fear, my creeping thoughts and negative emotions, she was a part of me and my path, and that she had to be loved to be transformed. I pulled this shadow witch, this abandoned child of my deepest self and embraced her to my chest, pressing her into my heart-center, transforming her shadow into pure light of love, holding her as part of me. I repeated the imagery over and over again, sensing her gnawing, filling with light, touching her face, embracing the cast aside parts of me, transforming fear into love.

Then I re-imagined everything in our bed with our house in Los Brujos, holding my shadow witch close, her shadow melting into light, all of us part of the same. With my breathing I imagined lapping waves and began to draw forth waves of liquid light over me, filling the room, expanding back and forth with my inhale and exhale. I filled our room, the bathroom, the rest of the house and loft, and pulled forth a burst of extra light as the golden liquid reached the altar, pushing toward the ceiling, every crack filled with liquid light. Then I let the liquid light overflow through the windows and door, fill the cats’ house and the dog’s houses, wrap the water tower, flow over the bee hives, fill the workshop construction project. Liquid light spilling over the worm compost and the henhouse and the woodshed, bursting extra light from the altar as I filled the greenhouse and sent a wave of liquid light down over the lower garden and up through the Puppeteers’ house-site. Outside the boys’ house I paused at the door and asked permission before entering, the door opening and then filling the house, the kitchen, the bathroom, the workshop, the bedroom, washing golden liquid light over the two sleeping boys. A final extra burst of light from the boys’ altar and the liquid light shone in beams, spreading out in all directions across the forest, leading the liquid waves over the neighboring properties, washing over our entire island of regenerating native, temperate rainforest. And now, from this oceanic base of liquid light, I pushed the wave toward the front gate.

I called forth the shadowy images of thieves coming up the path and sent my wave of liquid light over them, transforming them into their small, abandoned, fearful selves of shadow and these too I recognized as parts of myself. I embraced them to my chest with my shadow witch, I pulled them toward my heart center, I transformed their fearful shadows into love-filled light.

Now here hung the giant tidal wave of liquid light at the front gate overlooking the gravel road, the pine plantation beyond. The scarred landscape stretching down the hillsides studded with three-year pines among their predecessors’ stumps and passed-over branches, the left-behind tracks of giant machines still compacted in the hard, orange clay. And I sensed the hollow sadness of the forest, the anguish for what had been robbed of itself, and this pain too I recognized as part of myself. A rumbling lumber-truck hauled itself up the road and I launched my liquid wave of light as it passed, pouring light as love over and through the truck and its driver, all as a part of myself, and sent the wave freely flowing over every pine, every surface down the hillsides, washing every crack with a wave of golden liquid light.

I watched the wave flowing away out across the countryside, the neighboring forests and farms and plantations, from the resting trunk of El Brujo, the last pine to fall in the clear-cut harvest. The dogs and the cats joined me and together we sat against the remaining trunk of El Brujo with my small shadow witch quietly sitting beside. Everywhere around us glistened from the passing of the wave of light and my heart-center felt at peace, our sanctuary protected and healing. There I ended my visioning, my imaginative meditating. I know I will practice this exercise again and again in different variations and contexts depending on how fear and misgivings may next arise, but I am very content in the form the transformation adapted and the simple truths which were revealed in the unfolding: to love my every part of me.

Pondering the Seven Life Lessons of Chaos (John Briggs and F. David Peat)

2010-01-10T14:26:00.003-03:00

We live in an incredible jungle-world of fractal diversity. Waking up again in the forest with light rain dripping from vine tendrils, leaves pushing forth new waves of growth, every surface blossoming moss-lichens, grasses stretching so tall that their heavy seeded heads droop with the added moisture, ferns continuing to unfurl, glistening green of lush chlorophyll filling the lungs and senses… this tangled kaleidoscope of growth outside my window enjoying a pro-longed and endless Spring. So this is a vibrant temperate rainforest finally, after 3 years of Summer droughts, we approach mid-January rich in moisture, rain barrels overflowing, the forest stretching itself awake, filling blossoms with nectar, reaching out toward sun and sky. The long days no longer a dusty meditation through the hours awaiting the cool of night stars. Clouds pass and clouds cluster, winds sending rain and then ushering in sun, and the forest basks in the balance, the smallest details underfoot not shrinking away, but enveloping, grappling, surging forth into any open space weaving growth among growth in competition, in collaboration. This forest, an infinite open-loop system of creative potential and me at its doorstep looking in, drawing inspiration, becoming part of the swirling stream, giving and receiving love.

There is no comparison with man-made environments. Even the most intricately planned city-scape or botanical garden can not compare with the energy that a vibrant forest emanates. There is an ancient consciousness present here that fabricated spaces, no matter how detailed, fail to capture. Somewhere in their fabrication a loop is closed, the fractal potential cut-off, diversity homogenized, wave functions collapse into a few or one; we are held separate in our boxes and isolations seeps in. We may have 20 choices of drink flavor, hundreds of ringtone sounds to fill our days, but there is always a limit, a finitely produced quantity and the greater energy potential is masked, lost, forgotten.

For the first time in human history we as a planet are raising a generation of primarily urban dwellers whose daily existence is delineated by fabricated, man-made spaces where no matter the amazing high-definition digital detail the true energy and diversity of Nature’s potential chaos is packaged, limited, or completely absent. Our incredible bodies and souls have been ever-connected to Nature’s chaotic flow throughout our existence on this planet and we have thrived on that cosmic inspiration. Will this new generation recognize its absence? Will we find a balance or conform to our mechanized engineering? Would we willingly shed the essence of our humanity for a controlled and limited environment? And will Nature miss us as we distance ourselves into our plastic and steel and glass towers? Will She come calling us home? Can we ever truly plan and build and defend a physical space on this planet that does not in its foundation succumb to Nature’s chaotic will? What are our intentions as a People on this planet, inside this Universe? What are we losing in our daily choices, what potentiality do we absent-mindedly dismiss with our actions, our thoughts, our emotions? Are we each truly wanting to live in a fragmented world, that is, do we fear our unknown, unexplored potential so much that we can not even recognize how we choose collectively to empower the prisons surrounding and separating us?

I am a child born of privilege, have had every avenue open to me to pursue my heart’s desire. I could be a successful businessperson, a government executive, any leadership role. I could be materially successful with an ample, dry-wall house, two-car garage, vacation cruises, and technical devices for my play-things. There are probably many people who wonder why I did not choose that path, others who actively wish that I had. Instead I have run off to the forest where wild edges still linger and ask lofty questions of the Universe. Am I arrogant, am I selfish? Any more or less than the average corporate salesperson? I want to touch inspiration, believe in magic, find that cooperation and dreams are real, that love is stronger than fear. And to know that this modern-age too shall pass, with its expectations and hierarchy, its power and the powerless.

The forest yawns and smiles and Nature’s fractals, of which we are each an inseparable, entangled part whether we acknowledge it or not, continue to unfold.

Accepting a Physical Transformation

2010-01-05T14:21:00.001-03:00

I am to spend the next 2 weeks flat on my back day and night healing a slipped disc and strengthening the muscles surrounding it. Healing completely so as to one day return to battling 4” nails and aged oak, finishing the workshop-temple, manifesting other construction projects.

It is a strange commitment to make, to resist movement, even those once most-basic bends reaching down or turning over or sitting up. Every pass now slow and calculated or quickly advised against with nerve flashes of electricity and aching; my own body in conflict with itself. And muscles fatiguing without use, that physical therapy isolate in order to strengthen. Frustration and concentration to rebuild the fibrous wall that broke or bent along my spine beginning some 2 and a half months ago with a night fall from our loft and then aggravated by my daily chores and projects. I am shocked at the effort to lift my right leg while lying down, where the sciatic nerve had been most pinched. I recall how I had bounced about the past year, in retrospect actions bordering vain arrogance, with my physical body enjoying possibly its most fit state, flexing biceps in mirrors, leaping up and down stairs, hauling boards and beams, sawing and hammering any and all angles, carrying heavy loads from town up the graveled road, splitting firewood in one blow. And now reclined, made quiet, observing and waiting, on to another schedule out of time where artistic hobbies take precedence, meditation replaces thought, pushes away worry, because I am on my path, exactly where I am supposed to be, the Universe guiding and sending me the exact care necessary.

Hadn’t I asked for physical transformation? Here I am, a serpent shedding old skin in stages, on many levels. But slyly taken care of, the support pieces almost premeditatedly arranged so that my collapse falls exactly within Christine’s summer vacation and one of our closest friends is a professional physical therapist, not only offering to guide and orchestrate the healing process, but also giving us a room in her home in order to stay in town and receive my daily treatments of ultrasound and electrical current and isolated muscle rebuilding. Accompanied at every pass, this serpent eases into a new skin unhurried, unpressured, able to listen to and heed every call from the body to rest, to grow, to heal. The Universe lovingly bestowing hard lessons with gentle care and I know myself to be more than fortunate, more than privileged.

I watch as other members in our universal family struggle with their own back pain, resigning to life-long limitations on their movement, trying to compensate with brute strength and a stiff upper lip because there are bills to pay, mouths to feed, no nest egg to cover examinations, no connections to call on, no options, no other path. My reposed vacation from my life appears pampered and I know the shame and envy that hangs at the edges, has evolved unfairly across world empires and economic history. It sets my resolve further to heal completely. Anything less would be an insult to these gifts, a mockery of their pain and a disgrace to the Universe’s unique opportunity. I know not what else I can do. My path carries this dimension ever-present for a reason yet unknown and I can not deny nor claim ignorance to the injustice. I can only follow this path, invoke humility and sacred gratitude, and set my heart towards a future consciousness in which such marked differences do not exist.

A Personal Transformation

2009-12-16T13:35:00.001-03:00

On the thirteenth of this month, just before the close of the new moon cycle, I undertook a physical transformation to accompany my present spiritual journey shaving away all the past months’ emotions of pain and suffering, as had accumulated in the hair on my head, down to naked skin and gray shadow. Exposed and fragile yet clear and fresh, I had stood naked on the bathroom tile under the drip of cold stream water for 2 hours shaving to the scalp until trembling from cold Christine helped me finish the back of my head and rinse off in a cold shower as the sun began to set. A meditative awakening jolting me back in resonance with my heart center, eliminating the ash that had been clouding my inner vision and connection as of late. Fascinated I gently traced my fingers over the newly exposed skin trying to recall whether in this physical life these places over my skull had ever been touched so directly, with so much wonder. Spaces so soft and then like shark’s skin in a different direction, spaces finally shedding a barrier to direct contact even as new hairs pricked to the surface, recording new emotions.

So strange the sensations, strangers looking at you as if you were terminally ill or a devout religious fanatic or plain crazy or overlooking you completely as just another shave-headed young boy. And the letting go of ego in not placing any importance on the thoughts of outsiders, just trying to let the inner and the outer meld, become each other. Letting go of what one gender is permitted or not permitted to do or express in their physical appearance, letting go of the concepts of beauty and ugliness, letting go of stereotypes, expectations, and prejudices, of labels and categories, letting go of the historical images of freshly shaven women locked in asylums, taken to the gallows, tied to the stake. Many have been my inspiration to shave away my hair, burning a past in a ritual of cycles closing, cycles opening, awareness ever growing, ever learning.

I am certain my experience, my revelations are not unique, that many other men and women have felt similar cathartic release in exposing their scalp, have meditated on its personal meaning, have used the physical shedding as a foundation for a new beginning as well as a closing. For me the act marks a commitment to my spiritual practice and to self-healing and self-care; a commitment to meditation and reflection, pressing and holding open a connection to spirit so that the Universe’s energy may flow through me without stagnation. My shaved head is a reminder to make a physical space in my daily life for such meditation and observation; that my true purpose on this earth is not to cater to the whims of ego or even current societal expectation. In fact despite such weighted and ever-present distractions I must follow the path of an inner consciousness, an instinct of spirit long in evolution and memory, a connection that, I have found in practice, is held open though intentional invitation, concentration, meditation, imagination, envisioning. Whether one accesses this realm of being through repetitious chanting, prayer, humming vibration, or physical movement is irrelevant. The importance is the act of connection, of releasing stagnation, of allowing Spirit to flow, of recognizing divine expression, of filling our heart centers with gratitude. What words or dogma or activities we need to begin the journey are those which resonate with us at this very moment and from there we can become the imaginative, spiritual explorers of our destiny. For me this re-beginning of re-connecting is physically marked with a shaven head, but we each create our own rituals to demonstrate commitment, to self-remind. That we each seek out what deeply resonates within us, nurture that instinct, and commit to its exploration in the physical and spiritual realms of our lives; that is the Universe’s unique message to us, entrusted at our birth for discovery. Go seek it.

Poema A La Chinena

2009-12-11T00:49:00.002-03:00

In September I submitted this poem to a government-funded collection of rural, Chilean stories, but have not heard anything. Still, thought it might be nice to share...

I
Yo nací en America del norte
Donde han convertido los campos en los perfiles de la capital a barrios altos
Tierras fértiles y bosques han sido cambiados por sótanos y piscinas privadas
Los frutales han sido reemplazados por árboles uniformes y rectos que no dan ninguna fruta
Cemento, plástico, vidrio, asfalto son los elementos que mandan
Mucha gente allá ha perdido su conexión al campo

II
Yo vine a America del sur en búsqueda de una escala humana
La encontré en el sur chileno entre las montañas y el mar
La gente humilde, toman té al lado del fuego bajo cielos plateados con lluvia y viento
Cazuela a la pedida, queso hecho en casa, los chanchos se engordan con los rastros de un almuerzo de domingo
Pero el trabajo es duro, la vida un baile a la orilla entre la luz de vela y una noche de tormenta
La gente de la tierra no ha abandonado los elementos sagrados ni olvidan la fuerza de nuestra naturaleza

III
Me llaman la chinena por tener raíces chinos, por vivir en el campo chileno
Acá hice mi casa con mis propias manos bajo los arco iris de un bosque lluvioso
Vivimos con mucha luz las noches de luna llena
Lavamos muchas cosas los días de tormenta
Muchos queridos nos tienen por locos, cómo vivir tan duro, caminando por kilómetros de ripio encargados
Compartimos la miel de nuestras abejas, huevos de nuestras gallinas, papas, tomates, ají de nuestra siembra
Porque vivir con la naturaleza es sentir la vida completa, su fuerza y su abundancia
Eso no quiero nunca olvidar

IV
Vivimos una fusión de campo y ciudad, urbana-rural, de las historias America norte y sur
Los cerros antes bosque también traen este recuerdo, esta lucha, como si pasara un espejo por el ecuador sur y norte
Hectáreas tras hectáreas monocultivos de pino y eucalyptus en vez de monocultivos de maíz y soya, los mismos daños con otros nombres
La gente estresada, no hay trabajo, quieren las cosas rápidas inmediatamente
Más autos, menos buses, más plástico, menos género, más cárceles, menos escuelas, más energía, menos agua
Dónde el equilibrio, los elementos sagrados lo están abandonando
Si se cambia la tierra por algo fácil, no será tan fácil recuperarla después
La fusión se colapsará, un lado eliminará al otro
Los gritos de la historia dan ecos de cuidado

V
En mis sueños vivimos en paz como los rojos de los copihues en un bosque de ulmo
Encontramos cada uno su santuario en la Tierra sin prevenir que el vecino haga lo suyo
La gente de la ciudad recuerda la gente del campo cada vez que compran en las ferias
La gente del campo invita la gente de la ciudad a meditar al lado del fuego, dejar sus ansiedades, construir con las manos
En las noches vemos huellas de estrellas y no sentimos solitos, sentimos apoyados por los millones que nos acompañan
Encontramos alternativas del camino, consciencias nuevas, fusiones del pasado y futuro
Celebramos la abundancia de los campos, los diversos artes de la ciudad, hasta que las fronteras se borran
Así nunca perdemos nuestra conexión con la Tierra

Rethinking Mass Production

2009-11-23T23:06:00.001-03:00

In fourth grade I remember being introduced to the concept of a plantation. We were given Styrofoam trays and we colored paper cut-outs of each aspect of an historically working Maryland plantation, which we then pasted onto the tray in physical relation to one another so that eventually the centered plantation owner’s house was surrounded by all the gardens and out-buildings necessary to sustain it. Integral to this lay-out were the slave quarters. In face, we were told, the plantation could not sustain itself without slaves.

Nowadays, I am told, the modern plantation system has overcome the need for slaves through increased mechanized technology. But I wonder how true that is. With the invention of flood lights and generators, the harvesting of massive-scale palm oil or sugar cane plantations and corn or soy monocultures and pine or eucalyptus tree plantations can continue 24 hours a day with petroleum flowing through the engines and chainsaws, but humans still work the levers, still haul the harvest, still fight off sleep and boredom and rage. All these harvests must then be transported and processed again on a massive-scale, with humans working vats of steaming heat or of corrosive chemical fumes where bureaucratically negotiated thresholds of waste matter, bodily fluids, rat bodies are permitted into the mixes. Humans protected by thin films of plastic or cloth or just their sleeves, sort and mix and bundle and dump raw harvests which eventually are transported to other large-scale factories, many times across international boundaries, across oceans; so far are the modern worker quarters and out-buildings geographically located from the centered owner’s house.

At these next factories, the original plantation harvests are incorporated by humans with the strength of machines into recognizable products: snack foods, condiments, sauces, cooking oils, and all their packaging, labels, boxes, crates. Hundreds, thousands of humans and long, hard labor-hours have been involved in the plantation harvests and product processing. Thousands, millions will benefit in the direct sale and consumption of these products as palm oil, refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, ethanol, soy meal, cardboard, paper napkins, toilet paper….

Modern-day humans are so emotionally attached to the sweet-sugar-salty-fats and paper products of the age, we are willing to ignore where they come from, the human energy entailed. In fact, we attempt to justify our continued consumption by the number of jobs such a system of harvest and production offers to the poorest of the world’s poor. The anonymous masses and their families who suffer night shifts and sickness, compensated by just enough money, just enough housing, not enough time-off, who may be beaten at work and who are always worried of being fired when production slows because consumption thousands of miles away slows, when harvests fail, when the land dries up, when the pesticides and fertilizers stop working, when the factories move on to a new location with new natural resources to exploit and less human-right protections or over-seers. These jobs are bought and sold, traded on whims of financial speculation from offices and cell phones thousands of miles removed. The faces of the workers and their families are always anonymous because they are exchangeable and temporary, oftentimes seasonal. And yet, they are integral to the greater economic system. The world-wide, modern plantations can not sustain themselves without them.

We humans have not changed much in our consciousness in the past few centuries. Our overall business practices are very much the same, our social acceptance-level and tolerance for individual ambition has increased and is continuously encouraged to expand. Our dedication to creatively masking the details of our lifestyle is as eagerly pursued as our dedication toward uncovering and exposing corruption. Despite bookmarks on the Civil War and lawyered acts of political promise, we humans in the modern age have never really confronted our slave-driven consciousness and our dependency upon a system of haves and have-nots, of conquistadores, of military control. And unless we do so, how can we ever open our consciousness to the possibility of the world lived by 6 billion and more humans in any other way? The web of our modern consciousness prevents us from dreaming any other outcome into being.

In my fourth grade classroom, with our integrated colors and cultures and sensitivities, we asked our teacher whether we could leave out the slave quarters on our Styrofoam trays. Someone asked if the slave quarters could be the center of the plantation instead of the owner’s main house or if the two houses could be placed side-by-side. It pained our teacher to explain to us that this layout had already been decided by history, that the world of the old Maryland plantations was separate and unequal; she was just teaching the curriculum, please finish the assignment quietly. But we had so many questions and no one to answer. We wanted to change history, to change the present, to change the future. A shift in consciousness is inherent and its unfolding can be systematically stifled for a time among a room of well-behaving fourth graders, but we fire-snakes are turning 32 this year and the world is preparing for a shift in power as our teacher and bosses retire. Can we dream a new vision creatively now that our borders are well-beyond Styrofoam trays and the limits of colored pencils and Elmer’s glue?

Seagull Showers

2009-11-09T17:11:00.001-03:00

Learning cycles by observation, scientists track annual meteor showers across our night windows like celestial migrations, and somewhere a child in a field makes wishes on falling stars. Here in Los Brujos I too have been recording cycles of celestial visions, patiently waiting for annual repetition finding nature’s hidden symbols to mark the seasons, cycles large and small.

From the last weeks of October through early November, hundreds of Andean gulls flash white wings and black hoods through the quebradas of the coastal mountain range, steering toward the wetland plains, following the rivers to the sea. They pass overhead in the muffled wind of wing beats one flock at a time sometimes calling to each other, sometimes in uniform silence, just over the blossoming branches of the Notro trees arching red flowers. A vision of beauty, stark white formation passing at speed against a backdrop of spring greenery like watching the tail of a falling star suddenly blaze and then dissolve in the distance.

They are a symbol of the sea these gulls that migrate across our mountains, connecting us to the coast in their presence, their calls. At sunset drawing dusk in between Spring storms, the seagull showers bottleneck up our quebradas, flocks passing within minutes of each other, sometimes sharing the same breezy lift and then calling their kin back towards their group as they dive down the northern slopes of the pine plantations towards Valdivia and the sea. Their wings bent like aircraft they dive and spin and try to avoid the attention of raptors also soaring overhead.

On clear evenings I like to watch the seagulls pass, wish them well on their journey from atop the pine plantation hill across the street. Salvia and Trigo eagerly accompany me to search out quails or mountain pigeons in the grasses, foxglove pushing up green leaves preparing to unfold future flowers. But my attention is fixed elsewhere, standing upon a clear-cut stump like the Lorax, I gaze in every direction the horizon, as through mist and sun the seagulls come, great showers of flashing light, black hoods and darting white so close overhead or alongside you feel their beating wings in the air and they are gone. The seagull showers of middle-Spring, carrying us toward Summer, out of Winter, with a graceful migration worth pausing for, staring up in awe, a smile, a wish, a wave.

In memory of Mimi Hipps, Lou-Lou, and Grandma French who now all share this week in November as their time of transition, a lifetime’s migration, to distant shores.

Dissolving Gender

2009-10-30T13:05:00.000-03:00

Waking up from a dream transgender ant, conversations with Noelle conjuring up old memories of my own childhood questioning, wondering over the divisions of gender in society, trying to imagine a different world-view…

What if when babies were born, no one examined between our legs and no one proclaimed us more one way or another. We could just be babies awakening into this world. In childhood we could play in the games of imagination, trying out the interests towards which we were most inclined, the hair lengths and clothing most comfortable, without adults always clucking out their expectations, without categorizing our actions. And when we reached an age of sexual awareness, we would not be divided by our physical bodies, we would not have to leave behind any part of our us in order to conform to a two-gender system. No one would ask us: Boy or Girl? Nurturers would keep expanding their nurturing, organizers their organizing, all artists would explore their artistry, what you had to share would be shared: inherent talents defining your path, your contribution, your focus in your community, your place in society.

What kind of world would we then live in? What kind of harmony, an inner calm, could replace those anxious years of conformity and failure, self-doubt and depression that now so plagues the Western concept of adolescence? If we could somehow remove the guilt and shame of being divided and defined by our visible/invisible sexual organs, not lose all those years in repression of self-expression trying to fulfill limited roles deemed acceptable by society, what kind of beauty could we collectively dream into being, each and every one of us giving the best part of themselves?

No one would fall through the cracks. We could find and nurture and let blossom the creative aspect imbedded within each and every one of us: our true birthright, the power of our divine imaginations. Our relationships between lovers, friends, families would be richly diverse, satisfying our spectrum of needs from platonic to sexual based on connection, on energy, on the universal spark without the overarching opinion of society interfering, limiting, confining, defining. Remove the concept of Man and Woman and we can return to being Human, like the Smurfs before Smurfette or like the Care Bears where emotions and feelings and natural talents defined their roles.

Give a child Love and Space and watch them shine. We have forgotten the art of observation, we are losing our intuition, so defined and pre-ordered have we made modern life, there is no wonder that we find the chaos and strife of human suffering so present. How many children are growing up today already feeling like failures at such a young age, categorized as misfits, in the endless competition to be the Alpha Male or Female; roles of which there are by definition only a limited number, non-inclusive by expectation. We Humans are many-faceted, diversely talented, uniquely created and our defining characteristics and roles should reflect these aspects. Value and worth can only be embraced, not compared.

Why do we waste so much time and energy in false rules, planned disappointments, absurd expectations in propagating a clearly failing Western gender model? We have convinced ourselves that there is actually an archetypal Male and Female, have built science and religion and politics around this concept, and then spend the rest of existence being surprised by and attempting to categorize the continual flood of anomalies; the current, popular catch-all being Gay or Queer. No more labels, no more definitions. Let experience and our stories, our unique emotional paths and propensities guide us. If we can open our hearts and minds to Love’s many forms, the human experience can be an explosion of creative expression, connection and joy from which no one need be left out or behind.

Human Transformation comes from reaching beyond our personal fog, through the think cloud cover societal fears place between us and the stars. We center our focus, become the superheroes of our dreams. Through peace, through love, our ever-present connection to the Sun we recognize our True Selves; unravel the myth and enter. Our imaginations individual and collective are limitless and so shall be the boundaries of our experience.

All Hail the Heirloom Hen

2009-10-25T21:06:00.007-03:00

We let our first broody hen sit on two of her fertilized eggs as an experiment. And we were pleasantly blessed with a miracle of life as our first two chicks, Guavaberry and Pebbles, hatched a little over a week ago after being incubated naturally for exactly 21 days by their mother hen Wilma, whom has been diligently caring for her small brood ever since, teaching them all they need to know to find food and drink, keeping them warm and safe from harm. All hail the heirloom chicken breeds that not only still know how to care for their own, but that do so completely independently of, and really in spite of, human intervention!

The majority of poultry in the world, raised for commercial purposes, have been so regressively bred from their ancestors that their very survival as a species, their instinct to mate, to lay, to incubate, to hatch and to raise their young has been almost completely bred out of them. The majority of commercial poultry are extremely dependent on the intervention of humans for feeding, the treatment of illnesses, insemination, and electrical incubation so that even though they remain biological beings, commercial poultry have been transformed into little more than commodities in a system of food production. The widespread prevalence of these human-dependent breeds makes small-scale poultry raising difficult and expensive in costs, time and energy. But through the internet and special interest community groups, stocks of heirloom breeds are becoming more and more available to all aspiring self-sustainers the world over.

Thankfully, finding and raising fairly self-sufficient heirloom breeds of chickens or other domesticated farm animals and seeds is still the norm in southern Chile, which has made our forays into the raising of poultry one more of observation rather than aggressive intervention. We receive an egg a day from each of our hens all year round with our only feeding being a little handful of grain in the morning and again before sundown. They graze on grass and insects and their egg yokes are a deep orange from the natural diet. With a rooster at the lead, our few hens graze freely among the forest undergrowth under watchful protection and come home every night to roost in their coop. This is the way chickens were raised in all those old idioms repeated down from our great-grandparents, where the animals on a farm lived in a rather cooperative exchange with humans, at least more so than can be found on the modern, large-scale industrial farm. Come Spring, any visit to the farmer’s market in Valdivia is a colorful display of heirloom eggs for sale, blues and greens, every shade of brown and cream laid by hens of a whole range of colors and patterns. It leaves much to aspire to. In the meantime, a toast to our dear Wilma and her beautiful instinct toward motherhood and the raising of two healthy chicks!

The Solar Revolution in Los Brujos

2009-10-13T18:32:00.004-03:00

We started experimenting with solar energy passively in Los Brujos. Our second year in the forest (February 2008) began with the installation of a passive hot water system on our roof; really just running some water through a few giant coils of black tubing in the sun. Although the temperature of the water was divinely hot, the gravity dependent pressure of the system was sometimes barely a trickle and when water resources became scarce towards late summer, the roof system would not even refill and eventually we abandoned the passive solar heat for the more controlled system of summer bathing by heating water over campfire and then pouring the water over ourselves with a tin cup rather than actually showering. But the Sun had our attention and we knew that our roof received plenty of direct solar rays….

Fast forward to the beginning of this year, our third year in the forest when we installed a single solar panel (putting out 1500milliAmps) under peak summer sun and suddenly we were able to charge our and our guests’ cell phones, mp3-players, and other small electronic devices like camera batteries. Unfortunately, the laptop battery proved too much for the single solar panel and visions of connecting to the internet through mobile wi-fi and amplifying speakers for spontaneous dance parties were placed on hold. But we kept observing and monitoring the solar panel’s ability to charge our small electronics, and it did so flawlessly even through the Winter Solstice as the sun’s rays grew weaker, the days grew shorter, the rain clouds swarmed in an impenetrable fog. Through cloud cover and planet tilts, the solar panel gave us electricity and we knew that we could safely invest in more of the same technology. The Universe granted us an extra bonus for our patience and put a free-shipping sale on our Sunsei brand solar panels so we ordered two, which my in-laws graciously brought down to us during their recent visit, a secret goal of which was to bring us into the 21st century. And so they have. Thank you, Gray especially for your persistence and encouragement.

And so I now type alongside my wood-burning stove where I could once only scribble thoughts, hoping to recapture a moment of inspiration to send during my next visit to a cyber café in town. The final investment in our electric system was a deep cycle battery to store charge for non-solar moments and it glows green even with the laptop plugged-in and the panels under partial cloud-cover. Such successes in alternative energy really do leave one wondering, if it can work in a Valdivian temperate rainforest, where else could the options be tested? Here’s to joining the revolution!

The Year of Harvests

2009-10-10T15:14:00.001-04:00

I heard somewhere that the Year of the Ox in the Chinese zodiac calendar is a year of harvest. Through labor and dedication, the Ox helps the land bear fruit. This second year in the 12 year Chinese cycle, our third year in the forest, has pushed us toward the harvesting of various resources in Los Brujos: drinking water from our stream at the end of January, honey from our bees in March, the first eggs from our chickens in April, and now in the budding spring of October, enough solar energy to recharge a computer to connect our patch of forest to the digital age. It may seem odd to place basic water and food achievements on equal footing with something so seemingly mundane as internet communication, but if we can not share our journey, how can we inspire others to dream and seek and imagine into being their own adventures?

We have spent so much time and energy in just establishing our presence and ensuring our comfortable survival in Los Brujos over the past two years that communicating the experience, demonstrating the transformation in words and images and dialogue has been an afterthought or something scribbled in the night into a journal and not shared beyond the forest’s borders. It is my hope the our launching some of the stories from Los Brujos into the ethers of the digital internet will reconnect us, will help to inspire us and expand our dreams as well as those of others. I have come to understand in my few years of technological hiatus that the worldwide web is exactly that: a channeling of a modern consciousness, training wheels for a telepathic mind. It is that imaginative inspiration I next wish to harvest…. But in the meantime, a special note about how we harvested our drinking water:

The Atlas Ram Pump is an ingenious invention which pumps water without the use of external energy sources, only the kinetic energy of falling water. We used the design outlined by Don Wilson in his book All About Hydraulic Ram Pumps and have had amazing success, even through a severe summer drought which limited our water pumping to only an hour a day. Nearly all visitors to Los Brujos at the end of January this year actively helped assemble our system, whether by hauling water tanks, gathering stones and running pipe, or by building platforms and piecing together the pump itself, altered check-valves and tightened fittings. All the pieces are common items found in any hardware store (the pressure tank is actually just a bicycle tire inflated inside a confining PVC tube) and can be assembled without the use of power tools. It is an ideal way to pump water from a stream or spring source, using gentle slopes to create the funnel of pressure necessary to run the pump, and best of all, by assembling it ourselves we know exactly how to maintain or trouble-shoot the system. Our Atlas system utilizes a 1000 liter cistern that collects the water from our spring source through a filter and then water falling about 3 meters from the cistern through a 15 meter drive pipe to the Atlas pump is pumped vertically 30 meters over the distance of approximately 100 meters to the water tank above our cabins, supplying fresh drinking water to our home. The Atlas is only about 10-15% efficient in pumping water since most of the water that descends the drive pipe is used as kinetic energy to make the pump function so that, in our case, we pump approximately 100 liters in an hour. This sounds like very little, but it really adds up, especially since the past two years of water trials have ingrained in us a new appreciation for water scarcity. We are very conscious of our water use and needs and regularly consume our harvested rainwater for whatever cleaning or flushing or watering needs as appropriate and available. I hope to build a second Atlas pump further down our stream where we have greater water flow; animal and forest traffic may not warrant this water useful for drinking purposes, but it's a perfect source for agricultural water needs in the summer months. May the harvest continue.

Long Story Short

2009-01-01T15:14:00.002-03:00

Well, long story short, Christine and I moved into the house with 13 roof rafters sometime in November 2007, once all major construction had ceased, the floors were sealed and most of the walls were covered from the inside. I had been working on the house practically alone since June 2007 when our dear friends Loreto, Jorge, and Horacio had to head back to Santiago, but help always appeared for the more difficult passes: Christine, Marcelo, and Chayito assisting on the most stubborn windows, Erin tackling the sub-floor, Anita and Teri stuffing insulation while Christine and I developed a rhythm for interior paneling (foro), and of course Moises ever teaching and guiding each pass when he could come up. We inagurated the house with a fine half keg of Torobayo and much merriment among friends and family, toasts to all those present and not just before heading North for the winter holidays.

Upon our return, we celebrated the beginning of a new cycle of 12 in the Chinese calendar, welcoming the Year of the Rat with Christine's family present, all of us snuggly in the new house. Recalling our ancestors and all the magicians that have walked before us in this forest throughout history and for all those that will walk these paths after us, we named the land Los Brujos under a strange and beautiful eclipse of the full moon in February 2008.

The last important detail, the house hearth, in this case a black wood-burning stove from Temuco, arrived in March 2008 as Summer headed toward Autumn and the chimney popped out of the roof in April 2008, just in time for the first rains. We have been warm and dry ever since. The finer details of sealing all the windows and making the house a home have been and will continue to be in process, but such is home-ownership I am told.

As for the house's name, we have adopted the symbol of the Mayan integer 13: ruler of the lunar cycles, feminine energy and transformation. Fittingly, the symbol is painted on an abandoned pine disc from the plantation across the street, rescued as the pines came down and our first beams were being erected.

And the transformations continue, as always, Los Brujos ever growing, construction projects in the works, new creatures invited to stay as we strive toward the dream of self-sustainability, creativity, freedom and love.

Los Tijerales

2007-04-28T13:02:00.000-04:00

The celebration of a roof raising is a sacred event in many cultures and in Chile Los Tijerales are a great excuse to get together with the friends you haven´t had a chance to see while you were busy working on your house and also to thank those close friends who have supported you day in and day out. Instead of a traditional barbeque, we served fish with empanadas del horno and toasted much beer to our three passionate flags handing from the highest part of the roof: gay pride, aliens, and la patria. Also, Marcelo invited two of his students, volunteer teachers from Japan, who shared the Japanese tradition of throwing candies from the roof to bless the house. A good time was had by all and the sun shined gloriously. May our roof be blessed and now for the rest of the house.

Roof Raised and the Pines Start Coming Down

2007-04-23T16:23:00.000-04:00

The day of San Jorge, we finished installing the principle roof of the second cabin during a brief break in the clouds, the last nails pounded in as the wind shifted from South to North, the mist returning to rain. We paused to reflect in the work done in little less than a month’s time without electricity, impressed at how our muscles had grown and our luck in learning new skills, but also a little daunted by the remaining tasks at hand. As if plaguing our thoughts, that same night the chainsaws in the pine plantations crept closer than ever before, tearing holes in the night with the shattering of trees and the grinding of machinery in the darkness.

Rafters and Rain

2007-04-09T16:06:00.000-04:00

After a weekend of heavy lifting and overcoming the fear of heights, 13 roof rafters were finally in place and the second cabin began to take real shape, but the return of Autumn rain sent us in a rush to cover the whole structure with plastic sheeting, creating a bizarre scene in the forest reminiscent of NASA’s invasion of Elliott’s house in the movie E.T. Still, only a slight set-back as there are always support beams to attach and walls to finalize under the plastic.

And the stray dog that followed Christine home from the busstop some weeks ago and who we have come to know as Trigo (for his wheat-like color), was finally granted the permission to stay, even though he did participate in the eating of our baby ducks. El Bosque continues to teach us many lessons in patience and understanding.

Septic Ready

2007-04-03T16:01:00.000-04:00

We welcomed Loreto back from her quick visit to Santiago, where she put her house up for sale, with a new and fully operational septic system. Thank you, Chayito! Once again we could return to washing the dishes inside the cabin and flushing the toilet, though Rocky insists on continuing the family tradition of “making protests” in the pine plantation across the street (good dog). The remarkably sunny weather continued and we plugged away at the second cabin supports and scaffolding, (with the amazingly precise aid of a new hand saw that really shows the difference of having good tools; thank you Bahco of Sweden!) hoping to get the roof in place before the more typical rains of Autumn return.

Feliz Cumpleaños Carlitos

2007-04-01T15:56:00.000-04:00

The first vertical beams, to become the front porch supports, were lifted into place on the second cabin and we began leveling concrete footers for the “extension,” which, should all go well, will contain the bathroom and a small sunroom for Christine to study in the morning light. It was also the 10th birthday of dear Carlitos, Marcelo and Queno making a trip to Los Molinos in the late afternoon to wish our shamanic friend many happy returns of the day. Feliz Cumpleaños, Carlitos!

Major Construction Begins

2007-03-28T15:44:00.000-04:00

The day of ground-breakings: we began digging 15 holes for the second cabin’s main concrete footers and Chayito beginning the arduous task of installing a new septic and drainage system for the original cabin. Earth and clay, roots and stones uplifted with care (always asking permission from the forest) as the foundations began to take form.

St. Patrick's Day en El Bosque

2007-03-17T15:28:00.000-04:00

We ushered in St. Patrick’s Day with the arrival of our first international guest, dear and near-sister Erin, who taught us all the importance of drink and merriment to wash away water and septic woes. With a toast to the Leprechauns and a shout of joy, water began flowing through our cabin pipes from our newly filling water tower, all made possible by the hard work of Chayito, Marcelo and Jorge, and the generosity of our neighbors Yvette and her son Jean Paul, who last month gave us permission to tap into the excess water pumped through their system until we can begin pumping from our own sacred stream (a project best reserved for Spring weather and hopefully the expertise that time will offer us by then).

Also, the night before we celebrated in Valdivia to the music of Los Jaivas and the dance of the Kari Kari group of Rapa Nui as Valdivia officially became the capital city of the new 14th Region of Chile: el Region de los Ríos. Que lindo Valdivia!

Realizing the Dream or the Dream Realizing Us

2007-02-28T14:58:00.000-03:00

Long story short... In the course of January vacations State-side, Christine and I found out that we were to be evicted from our fishing village home on the account that our landlords' daughter announced her wedding for February and our dear neighbors wanted to gift her our house (of course we were still invited to the wedding). In our rush to return home to pack and move and to figure out where to, Christine's grandfather passed away suddenly and we delayed our return nearly another 2 weeks. Asking the Universe what all the chaos meant, we already knew in our hearts that we had to leave our fishing village, that it was our destiny to plunge ourselves into the dream of being on our own land. Stained glass tokens of Grandpa French in tow, we decided to pursue the sustainable path immediately, carrying the energy of our ancestors with us in the hopes that the combined effort of dreams past and present might help us realize a new life in el Bosque. The Universe was convinced we were ready so why resist?

We arrived to the reality that the cabin in el Bosque had been broken into since our December visit, pipes connecting the rainwater system broken, the kitchen sink and gas stove stolen, and the wood-burning stove, though still there, lacking its chimney. But, thankfully, we were not alone in our quest for the sustainable path, Rocky our old dog friend from the coast joining us, followed shortly by a seemingly multitude of perfectly timed February guests (Marcelo’s sobrinas Judi Helen and Mariel our first angels in disguise to arrive) all eager to help us paint, varnish, clean, and construct the basic water and waste systems necessary to turn the forest, with its initially alien-like inhabitants and habits, into a home we more readily recognized or at least accustomed ourselves to.

Our greatest gifts arrived just after the Chinese Lunar New Year welcoming in the Year of the Boar: the expansion of our family to include Jorge, Loreto, and their son Horacio, accepting our invitation to join us in our adventurous pursuit of a sustainable life in the forest, moving from Santiago to do so, and providing more balance to our chaos than they can possibly ever know. And of course the near-adoption of Marcelo's father Chayito, our expert plumber keen on supervising the construction of a water tower and a new septic system, and dear Moises, who agreed to act as our guide in building a second house on the property, all by hand, the old-fashioned way.

At every turn and obstacle of the beginning weeks, we discovered a guide to lead us, teach us, show us a better way. And it is no mere coincidence that the land where we live, the forgotten forest, lacks a name save el Camino al Kaman, translated from the language of the Mapuche people to be "the way to a guide.” Living literally on the road to a guide is certainly not without its challenges, frustrations, and wayward obstacles, but it is also an incredible existence of inspiration and creation, that a friend once put it, “in the way that humans are meant to be challenged.” I heartily agree, but ask me again next month when and if the septic system is up and running.

The Dream: El Bosque

2006-12-10T15:14:00.000-03:00

The day that the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet passed away, we were far from the chaotic bombardment of news clips and sensationalism as frustrated activists and military-conservatives battled for the airwaves infront of La Moneda. Instead we enjoyed an afternoon picnic in the forest with our young, shamanic friend Carlitos, dreaming of whether this mountainside retreat just south of Valdivia was finally the land we had been looking for. The dream, as we have come to call it, is to live more sustainably with the natural environment, building a home and maybe an artist family while raising chickens and planting potatoes. We had been spending our weekends these past months searching out properties along the coastal mountain range, thwarted again and again by prices and accessibility or strange indigenous land-use laws written only for large forest companies to pillage the last remaining stands of olvillo, coihue, and ulmo, the same stands we want to live among, to protect and be protected by. This site was too small, that one too far to reach by bus for daily commutes to the University or Queno's clothing design workshop... we struggled with whether our list of requirements for trees, water, and sky would ever be met. Dream-realizing, it seems, is a tricky business of being in the right place at the right time, following signs and having plenty of patience.

And then our friend Moises (Moses in Spanish), offered us the chance to visit his land in a regenerating native forest (clear-cut about 15 years ago, but growing back very healthily) where he had been keeping his honey bees among the flowering ulmo trees. He and his brother, Lalo, had been thinking of selling the land, hoping to relocate their bees closer to the coast where they spend most days and nights running the general stores in our fishing village. Four years ago they had bought the 4.5 hectares (about 11 acres) of temperate rainforest now springing back to life among the mountain slopes just south of Valdivia, an island of native forest in a plague of foreign pine plantations, and had built a small cabin there all by hand without electricity; the hope being that they could protect at least a small portion of native forest from the forest company chainsaws. Naturally, in selling the land, the brothers wanted to be certain that the new stewards would follow in the same tradition of respect for the natural environment and of course, the challenge is precisely what we are looking for.

So, that sunny afternoon while Santiago erupted in tear gas and the televisions continuously looped the same pathetic displays of conservative worship for the passing of a man whose most memorable achievements include the authorization of thousands of secret kidnappings, detainments, torture and death, we, on the other hand, innocently unaware, visited with hummingbirds, wandered the forest, drank from the mountain streams, and sat in silence taking in the vistas of the mountain ranges that mark the south of Chile, following the clouds and passing flocks of parrots overhead. And in one afternoon it was decided to accept the offerings of fate, the chance friendships and paths that had led us to a small fishing village two years ago and now to a forgotten patch of forest a little further south and a little more remote, with just enough space to begin realizing the dream of becoming part of El Bosque.

That evening, heading back to the coast, we toasted the death of the dictator and the beginning of a new path toward peaceful living among the trees. What challenges await us, we can only imagine, but the dream is already in motion, moving from conversation to realization, concrete in the faith (blind as it is) that we are ready for this next adventure.

Contra Celco: Citizen Movement in Los Molinos

2006-10-22T20:32:00.000-03:00

Today I participated for the first time at a community meeting in our small fishing village organized by a group of impassioned activist students, Mapuche leaders, and local subsistence fishermen. On this rainy afternoon, a group of 20 or so came together as a community in a room owned by the fishermen union of Los Molinos, constructed on wooden stilts with a wall of windows looking out above the working pier. Much of the meeting was dedicated to exploring our own diversity, special interests, and stereotypes for each other, the floor often getting away from the young student in charge of keeping speakers in order, but organically we eventually fell into common ground on the issues of contamination and the impacts felt both physically and spiritually within the borders of our small bay and up the coastline.

The general goal of the meeting was to raise awareness among the coastal community of the growing and continuing threat of pollution generated by the Chile-based, largest forestry company in South America, Arauco (Celco) who, among other polluting industries in the area, sends toxic waste water down river to the ocean and billows of carbon gases into the atmosphere, directly impacting local plant and marine-based ecosystems. Celco’s factory outside of Valdivia began operations in early 2004 as just one of several pulp mills operated by the company in Chile, which collectively produce the third largest amount of wood chips and paper pulp in the world, materials essential to satisfy the insatiable paper-product needs of especially the Asian, North American, and European markets. The industry thrives on massive tree plantations of foreign, fast-growing pine and eculyptus species, which encroach on the unique, temperate rainforests of southern Chile, create ecological dead-zones for native wildlife, and shed toxic pesticides throughout their growth. In the conversion process, Celco applies enormous amounts of toxic chemicals necessary to breakdown the large, mature tree matter into wood chips and pulp, which are then simply flushed out as waste water directly into area rivers meant to channel the toxins to the ocean.

In the case of the Valdivia factory, Celco’s waste water dumped in the Cruces River was heavily absorbed by the vegetation of the Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary wetlands before reaching Valdivia and the ocean at the coastal fishing villages of Niebla and Los Molinos. The excessive pollutants and chemicals in the Nature Sanctuary led to the sudden destruction of plant life, including the main food source of southern Chile’s once largest population of black-necked swans. Within a few months of the Celco’s factory opening in 2004, hundreds of these beautiful swans were found dead from starvation in the Sanctuary and in the backyards of Valdivian residents as they wandered ashore seeking food. Many other hundreds migrated away in search of food. Protests ignited national debate and sanctions were proposed against the forestry giant, which closed factory production for several weeks at the peak of the public outcry. However, after re-examination the government soon approved Celco’s standards as in-line with Chile’s minimum environmental protection levels and without any change in filtration or waste-water management, Celco returned to full pulp-production in 2005. Soon afterward large chemical stains were regularly seen in the river from the bridges of Valdivia and local fishermen began noticing the stunted growth of once abundant shellfish beds at the river-mouth.

Currently, the forestry giant’s proposed solution is to channel their waste-water directly to the ocean through a duct to be placed at the fishing village of Mehuin (north of Los Molinos) on a sacred Mapuche religious site, a proposal that the community of Mehuin has fought against for the past 10 years. Celco claims that this proposal is the most efficient and refuses the development of a zero-discharge, internal waste-water cleaning and recycling system, as used in the Finnish pulp mills where environmental integrity is highly-regulated, as too costly. Frustrated by the arrogance of the forestry giant, the compliance of the government, and Chile’s growing burden of local contamination for international products (ironically, paper products in Chile such as print materials and notepaper are outrageously expensive to purchase), activists are calling for the closure of Celco’s pulp mills and national seizure of the tree plantations. Although this political goal may be extreme and unlikely (and personally I’d much rather pressure Celco toward the costly internal waste-water management system), given the alternatives where a government sells national land to corporations with powerful foreign investors and then relaxes environmental controls on that land in the face of political pressure, what else can young Chilean activists, coming to age as the first generation not living under daily fear of a military dictatorship, hope to achieve?

So, eventually our community meeting came down to that point, that the people of Los Molinos stand by the coastal community of Mehuin in defending their environment and way of life as equally as our own. We decided to distribute signs to be posted in the street-facing windows of houses, restaurants, and stores that call for the end of the pollution and the closing of the forestry giant. I shared free copies of recent issues of El Ciudadano that have well-informed articles on the issues facing Mehuin and the political dealings of the Celco pulp mill (all themes I sketch out bi-monthly in my comic for the paper, No Sólo Cisnes), and I actually spoke up (my political will overcoming my personal nervousness to speak out-loud in my bumbling Spanish) to invite our fledgling group to participate in Chile’s up-coming national march for the environment, October 28, which everyone agreed was a good idea, immediately launching into planning a demonstration in Los Molinos with documentaries and a march.

Returning home to make a late lunch of fake-meat lasagna as the Spring rain continued to fall outside, I felt a new charge of energy to know that my own neighbors, so often quiet in their political thoughts, too busy untangling nets and setting out to fish at farther and farther distances, our lives so completely opposite, actually shared my sense of urgency at the environmental challenges facing southern Chile and the quickened pace at which outside influence is rapidly declining daily life. And for the first time I felt accepted within the community, certainly not for my limited grasp of the language and un-deniable foreignness, but for our shared understanding and desire to protect the unique beauty of this place. Now, to work on my protest sign to carry in the march….

Noam Chomsky's Visit to Chile

2006-10-17T20:11:00.000-03:00

U.S. philosopher and out-spoken critic of conservative politics Noam Chomsky visited the south of Chile this week (specifically the city of Temuco), speaking on topics as diverse as indigenous rights, grass-roots land movements, and the ability of individuals to resist the capitalist machine. I went into Valdivia today to help the El Ciudadano staff translate an informal transcript of Mr. Chomsky’s recent talk for publication in their periodical (edition 37), amazing even myself at my fledgling ability to read text written in English out-loud in Spanish. Granted, Mr. Chomsky spoke in a vernacular, simple prose with circular and repetitious points, and I’m far from Christine’s academic ability to translate complex literature theory text out-loud at a fluent pace, but still, a nice surprise.

Some of the interesting points that Mr. Chomsky highlighted in his talk included praise for the International Peasant Movement coming out of Brazil: La Via Campesina. The group is not only gaining momentum and inspiring similar movements in India, Africa, and other areas, but is now seen as a respectable section of Brazilian society with their own, hard-fought for, land holdings. The movement holds regular meetings all over the world where seeds and techniques are exchanged to help spread the knowledge of subsistence farming and the defending of land rights. As the gap between the rich and the poor widens here in Chile and as the same financial pitfalls that befell small farmers in the U.S. in the early half of the 20th century begin to increase pressures on the agricultural majority of today’s Chilean countryside, such lessons in land rights and sustainable farming will become all the more essential.

The diverse Mapuche tribes of the Chilean south have spent centuries defending their rights to self-government with limited support from even their farming and fishermen neighbors, as equally endangered by the pollution suffered at the hands of giant forestry companies who replace native forests with plantations of foreign trees lacking eco-diversity and contaminate area rivers and the coastline with toxic waste water. Hopefully the south will awaken to the fact that the struggle for independence from the centralized and capital-hungry policies coming out of Santiago is not just an indigenous-rights issue, but a Chilean issue to create a more just and citizen-oriented society; not a society that only caters to the dollars wielded by powerful, trans-national corporations.

Mr. Chomsky further encouraged the simple mental resistance of refusing to accept the definitions for such concepts as “globalization” as handed to us by those in power, which he defined loosely as the “rulers”: bank executives, corrupt politicians, and heads of trans-national corporations. Instead of viewing globalization from the capitalist perspective as a series of financial transactions leading to the inevitable homogenizing of cultures into markets for exploitation, Mr. Chomsky encouraged the view of globalization as a coming-together or voluntary opportunity to spread cultures and ideas among diverse, international groups. Instead of defining concepts like globalization from the perspective of those in power, he chooses to define such concepts from the perspective of the marginal fringes of power, to explore the positive opportunities presented by a more global and conscious society.

In many sectors of Chilean society at the moment, reflecting the trauma experienced at the hands of colonization and successive dictatorships, the idea of valuing individual perspectives and local definitions over the definitions mandated by those in power borders on revolutionary and is stained with the low-self-esteem common for those countries like Chile, branded as “third-world” by the mysterious “first-world” that continues to enforce its status daily through international cable television and foreign name-brands sprouting up in identical shopping malls. But it is in these spaces more than anywhere else where the messages of critics like Noam Chomsky and other revolutionaries are necessary, pertinent, essential to building citizen movements and resistance to the McDonalization of the world community. In whatever language these messages may present themselves, I believe that they are more than lessons worth listening to, they are lessons worth acting on and soon.

Chilean Time Change

2006-10-15T19:54:00.000-03:00

Just a warning to our lovely and extremely appreciated international callers that Chile “Sprung Forward” in time last night so we are currently 1 hour ahead of the U.S. East Coast, 2 hours ahead of the U.S. Midwest, and 4 hours ahead of the U.S. West Coast. However, in the not so distant future most of the U.S. Northern Hemisphere will “Fall Back” in time and that will complicate things further (please do the math yourself). For the mid-term, please adjust your calling schedules accordingly. Suffice to say, we in Chile are entering that half of the year when we are no longer on U.S. Eastern Standard Time, gloriously taking in more sun in eager servings. For our other friends and family scattered in other parts of the globe, we never know what time it is with you anyway so this information changes nothing and matter’s not. Paz, abrazos y chau!

Southern Hemisphere Moon Festival

2006-10-06T21:38:00.000-04:00

Happy Chinese Harvest Moon Festival! However, being in the Southern Hemisphere, we are not exactly celebrating an Autumn harvest, rather a Spring planting and sprouting season. Our vegetable garden is just beginning to sprout, the beans first to break the soil, their early leaves now spreading green and shining. Hopefully the potatoes will soon follow and we will have plenty to enjoy before the end of the season in March. Nonetheless, a good excuse to fill the house with fruit offerings, incense, and warm thoughts of our friends and family all over the world. Christine and I celebrated alone this year for the actual offering of fruit, but later in the night met up with friends in Niebla (the neighboring coastal town), toasting the Moon as it flirted with us from behind the clouds and cast an enchanting glow over the ocean waves below. Although Chileans do not typically salute the Moon in October, the celebration's essence was definitely embraced. Happy Moon Festival!

Viva La Concha en La Capital

2006-10-01T18:40:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we brought the Viva La Concha movement over 800 kilometers to the streets of Santiago, chanting at passing buses filled with Saturday shoppers and smiling abuelitas, waving our sign, flashing our t-shirts among our rainbow-clad Sureño contingent from Plaza Italia to La Moneda all as part of the 10,000 or more active participants in the Marcha del Orgullo Gay 2006. The dykes on bikes honked their horns, the ladies of the Otra Marcha paused in their seriousness to smile and laugh, while still many others celebrated with photographs and the waving of their own banners in support. All in all, a successful day for the budding message that the Concha, the most sacred part of the female anatomy, which is constantly the object of derogatory comments in Chilean slang, deserves a renewed place in the language that embodies nothing less than Love, Respect, and Celebration. Viva La Concha!

Fiestas Patrias 2006

2006-09-18T16:20:00.000-04:00

September is a month of patriotic festivals in Chile, which culminate around the 18th, Independence Day. However, celebrations and merriment, flag waving and the sounds of cueca, the eating of empanadas and the drinking of chicha, as well as the decorating of even the smallest of spaces (including our tiny Expreso a la Costa bus terminal) as make-shift dance spaces (ramadas) with green garlands and leafy tree branches, are common throughout the month. This year our sleepy coastal community came out of its Winter hibernation early on the 17th to celebrate with a horse race on the beach, calling out area huasos to challenge each other along the tidal edge. A large number of area families came down to see the race, but mostly to converse and smile with neighbors, watch their children fly kites, and to pet the horses. The posturing among race participants and organizers was impressive as some rode out with full traditional wear, showing-off the beautiful workings of silver, leather, wood, and wool that adorn the horse of a true huaso. But possibly most impressive of all were the few that arrived bearing nothing, riding their steeds without even a saddle or reigns save a thin rope loosely thrown around the horse's neck, and still coming in first across the finish line. Regardless of the political nature of the national holidays, whose dates have been repeatedly changed throughout the country's history to serve various dictatorships and elected leaders alike, the heart of the month is in the gatherings of family and friends to dance, sing, drink, and celebrate in the mix of traditions that hold this country together, and all in at the edge of Winter, the threshold of Spring. Feliz Dieciocho y Salud!

September 11 in Chile

2006-09-11T12:43:00.000-04:00

Today is September 11, which I think, as a U.S. American, semi-obligates me to re-live the crashing, torturous scenes of the twin towers falling in downtown Manhattan. But I am in Chile and here it is a quiet day, a somber day where the choice may or may not be exercised to reflect on what happened so many years ago on this day in 1973… It was the era of the Cold War, the same self-declared arms race between the super-powers of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. that sent ammunitions over the borders of Afghanistan and that intended to more than meddle in whatever other country’s local politics in order to demonstrate that the cult of Capitalism was indeed all-powerful.

On September 11, 1973, the then Chief of the Chilean Army Augusto Pinochet, with the support of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which had given $8million (USD) to destabilize Chile’s fledgling socialist government, stormed the Presidential Palace in Santiago and overthrew the democratically-elected, Socialist President Salvador Allende. Allende broadcasted a poignant farewell to his “Chilean children” on national radio before his death at the hands of a machine gun. He may or may not have pulled the trigger himself, but given the circumstances and the cruelty later inflicted by the Pinochet dictatorship, it is not difficult to reason that even if the Socialist President had committed suicide, the decision was not entirely an exercise of “free-will,” especially as bombs fell over the palace, smoldering in ruins. For the next 17 years, the Pinochet dictatorship would empower the conservative, right-wing minority with violent acts against the people, resulting in hundreds of deaths, thousands tortured, and many hundreds to this day still unaccounted for. Even though Pinochet is no longer the self-proclaimed leader of the country, the dictator wrote himself a permanent seat in the National Congress, hides from international prosecution behind his own amnesty laws, and his Constitution is still official Chilean law.

Only now are the first generations of Chileans coming to voting age who have never had to suffer the terror and censorship of the military police. Yet, still they must deal with the left-over residue of the dictatorship: the infuriating right-wing minority that protects big-business at the cost of Chile’s natural beauty and the health of its people, that refuses to reform the Pinochet-created educational system that leaves most children, especially in rural areas or from poor families, far behind their private school compatriots, and that scatters crumbs to the masses as the distance between the rich and the poor rapidly expands.

I look out the window at the rain, this beautiful Chilean countryside where even here at the end of the world Fox News now broadcasts daily over cable into nearly every home, and my thoughts stream back a little angrily to the Northern Hemisphere, to the innumerable connections between Chile and the U.S. Seeing the buildings, the rescue workers, the crying families in my mind’s eye triggers a sadness within me that is beyond memorials and testimonies. What have we, U.S. citizens, done as a people since the planes fell from the sky five years ago to really make the world a better place? Have we drastically changed the policies, the politics, and the state of affairs that caused the hate to react, the hate that hate made? Have our aggressive dealings and patronizing meddlings in our global neighborhood ceased or, unfortunately, have they increased? What will future generations think of how we have and continue to behave? What hardships are we now creating and leaving for them to solve? If we do not learn from the lessons of past mistakes and the global effects of our actions, all the memorials in the world will not make the pain and hurt go away. Instead, we will actively create new regimes, new generations of anger, and more complex and expensive situations to remedy.

I think of the final words of Allende this fateful day in 1973: “I have faith in Chile and in its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment…. You must go on, safe in the knowledge that sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open once more, and free men will march along them to create a better society….” Those days are in motion in Chile, 33 years after the fall, but I hope we will not have to wait as long in the U.S. for the same pendulum swing. I fear the world can not afford to wait that long.

No Cacho Ni’una Huev’a

2006-09-08T09:30:00.000-04:00

If you’re not Chilean or never visited Chile for an extended period of time, actually interacting with Chileans, then you have probably never heard this expression, which translates roughly to: “I don’t understand a damn thing.” But if you have traveled and or lived in Chile, not only would you understand it, you would probably find yourself thinking the concept in your own language well before you even grasped the Chilean version. For anyone who has dared to live outside their own culture for a time, the concept of culture shock is more than a theory with set phases (euphoria, denial, anger, resentment, frustration, acceptance…), it’s a way of life, a bewildering experience of breaking down those cultural barriers that our ancestors and society worked so hard to form in order to protect and shelter us from the unknown.

To prepare myself for the big move from Washington, DC to rural, southern Chile at the end of 2004, I laughed with the rest of them reading David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day and jogged my memory for all that analysis long-ago read in Anthropology classes. I comforted myself with the thought that at least I would be with Christine, who was already fluent in Spanish and Chilean culture, having lived in Valdivia for a year in 1997 and having visited nearly every year since then. In 2002 we had visited for a couple of weeks with Marcelo and Queno, extremely close friends of Christine then living in Santiago, whom we were now planning to move-in with on the southern coast outside of Valdivia in a tiny fishing village. It would be the first time that Christine and I would be living with other people as a couple, especially gay Chilean men, and it would be the first time that Marcelo and Queno would be living with women, especially lesbian gringas. Not to mention that I would be leaving the income and, what status there is, of working in an office while Christine would be role-reversing to the status of graduate student at the Universidad Austral de Chile, pursing a master degree in Latin-American Contemporary Literature. All of these changes complicated all the more by EVERYTHING being in Spanish and within a completely different cultural context.

There were many days of headaches, struggling to communicate basic needs, unable to describe my innermost feelings or to express my thoughts, and quite a few Sedaris “me cry alone at night” moments. My emotions fluctuated like a pendulum on a roller coaster: becoming enraged one minute by the incomprehensible differences in opinion on the definition of hygienic dish washing, weepy that I was such a wreck the next, then euphorically in bliss by the beauty of where we were and the kindness of our new Chilean friends… back to weepy for not being able to fully contribute to the love everyone was pouring over me. I needed support to know that I was still an intelligent human, only unintelligible for the moment. Christine needed support in her quest to comfort me, and as she struggled with the stresses of pursuing a graduate degree in another language and a new academic culture where deadlines aren’t consistently critical and errands can take seconds or weeks, depending on who you talk to.

I didn’t answer the phone for the first 3-4 months. It would ring and I would cringe and pretend it wasn’t there because I knew there wasn’t any way that I would understand what someone on the other line might want or need or care to say. In the beginning it was fine because we arrived in Summer, New Year’s Eve December 31, 2004, and there was always someone else around, strings of guests arriving announced or not, staying for hours or weeks, to deal with the phone, but in March when Christine started teaching English at a language institute and getting ready for classes, it started to become a problem. I finally had to just start using that blasted device. After a short while of heartache and anxiety, it wasn’t so bad, but it took a lot of time and a lot of learning to even get to that point. I had to accept, not just theorize, but really accept the fact that there are no absolutes in the world, nothing is inherent, and everything is relative.

Additionally, one has to understand, that is to say we have had to learn with reminders every day, that not only are Christine and I foreigners, but we are highly educated, independent women without boyfriends who had not lived at home with our parents for years, and we come from a culture only understood in the area where we live as that Hollywood stereotyping which is broadcasted over global cable television. In the highly machista society of rural Chile, the very fact that our landlords even let us live here (obvious to the entire fishing village that we are two gay couples, though no one will ever say it out loud) is a miracle, but I think we have our emissary Marcelo to thank for that, having moved here a few months before us and quickly falling into their hearts as a near adopted son.

Although by now, nearly two years later, Sra. Pati and Don Raúl are basically our Chilean parents as well, we continue to misunderstand them and to be misunderstood by them on a regular basis. We are from different planets. Even the stars that shine at night are different overhead. But even though we may never truly understand one another or be able to see each other without our own, stubbornly-ingrained cultural mirrors, we do love one another and that’s a lesson even better than understanding. That’s finding family and the rainbow that comes after the rain.

Intro

2006-09-07T09:05:00.000-04:00

The Moon has just passed being full, but it continues to toss me awake these past two nights. Maybe it’s just some phase of being Cancer, but I’ve got too many ideas bumbling about in my head to be contained. The idea of blogging intrigues me, but let me be clear that I worry that it’s an ego-centric business, an off-shoot of the post-capitalist era.

Some years ago I stopped saving my “Sent Messages” on my email account. This was before you could have 1 Gb or more of space and I found the extra messages bulky. When email accounts all over the net bumped-up their memory capacity, I considered re-instating the “Save Sent Messages” function, but made the conscience decision not to; I had lived quite peacefully for some time without them and they were indeed unnecessary baggage. After all, what kind of egotist would I be to think that my words are so important that every little blurb or advice or description or comment that I had sent out to friends and family over the years is worth saving for all time? Let my sent messages be sent, a cyber-version of a Buddhist mandala made in sand and washed clean in water, out in the universe, but never again to be seen.

So, when the blogging craze began, I considered it akin to saving your sent messages, only now they can be public and anyone can read them and I thought, “We really are becoming very ego-centric.” I avoided it, but still the possibility was out there. People told me that I ought to have a blog, that it would be interesting to read about a pescatarian, bi-racial Chinese-U.S. American lesbian who left the corporate-government world to live abroad in Southern Chile with her partner and their gay Chilean friends, trying to live a more artistic and human existence on the coastal countryside where a river meets the sea. But hey, that’s just life. Breaking myself down into categories and then publicly touting my life story as interesting, that’s marketing. And I abhor marketing. Everyone’s story is interesting if you sell it right; I mean, I read somewhere that over 50% of U.S. Americans consider their lives worthy of a book and if that’s not ego-centricism, I don’t know what is. Do I really want to be a part of that?

Then I decided to go out and read some blogs, to see for myself what is really going on there in cyberspace. And I found that there’s opportunity here to do more than glorify yourself and your life experiences. There’s the possibility of adding to the voices, sharing another unique perspective, giving your political views a little added weight. A friend once told me that the modern-day equivalent to oral tradition is the internet, and although I only agree with that in some senses (oral tradition is an art captured in the moment, an expression dependent on the telling… like implying that a recording of a live concert can replicate the real experience), I’d be a terrible lover of culture if I didn’t do my part to participate. After all, the internet provides power to the individual to just be the many diverse beings that each of us are in a world where more and more often cultures, places, and ideas are becoming mono-chromatic and, at best, binary.

So here goes… misgivings aside, trying to keep the ego in check, and to share a little love from the Chilean coast, or at least until the Moon let’s me sleep again at night. Enjoy.