​

I showed him this video from this summer's Working Song ---
as we sing Laurence's song,
   "Busy yourself making beauty,
    busy yourself making love,
    busy yourself making friendship,
    and everything else will work out,"
​--- Mike is heartened. 

​He says, on the ferry, people used to talk to each other, play games, and now everywhere you look people are on their phones. But here we are, building the culture of working together again!
"Keep up the good work!" He says. 

​Seeing these old videos of the Railroad Gandydancers is inspiring, and also humbling. We are doing good work for sure, and we have a ways to go, continuing, as we engage in this work as free people. We can make it the norm for us to work together again, to talk with each other again, to sing with each other again, and with every generation, better than before. With every generation, more just than before. With every generation more beautiful, and more healing. People have always -- long before the railroads, long before slavery -- done this, this work of singing together, of working together, of being together. Sometimes to merely cope with the grief of life and the need to live and work despite the circumstances. Sometimes out of pure joy. Sometimes more seen than others, but it has never died, and it will never die. We can only be carriers, continuing to use these tools we have to create a better world, every day, today, right now. 

We have a long ways to go. Let's keep working.

Here is two more recent videos of some working-and-singing together, as we prepare and install an earthen floor at the Port Townsend Ecovillage. 

​​The opportunity to work on this project came at a turbulent time for me... things were stressful, and I realized I needed a daily practice and could think of only one thing that I really wanted to do every day --- swim in the ocean. Day One of this personal commitment, members of the Ecovillage were also at the beach, at our regular swim spot. They expressed a need for help with their earthen floors. I happened to be out of work for the rest of the month. 

While I was an answer to their immediate prayers, they were an answer to a specific prayer I made back in the spring, for clients who would offer my opportunities within my skillset where we would create something beautiful on their land with people I love. 

The whole project has been full of mutually beneficial expressions. A consistent stream of angels passing through Port Townsend have put their love and song into the mud. Thanks especially to Marlow, Searra, and Liat, helping hands from out of town, Dan for your commitment to helping with what ever is happening, and Gretchen for your neighborly enthusiasm. Thanks also to the crew of a dozen or so friends who helped us harvest clay that had fallen from the high cliffs down onto the beach where we swim (and I'm so grateful we only got a warning and not a ticket for our illicit activities!) Thanks for Terri & Jim for being amazing people, coordinating the whole project and working harder than anyone, and being open to collaboration, and for Bekka entrusting us to work on your room. To everyone who brought and taught and sang songs. It's an honor to work with all of you. This project has had a lot of ups and down and I'm proud of us for persisting and finding solutions through trial-and-error-and-error-and-embracing-the-process-and-error-and-working-and-success. 

The floor is dry and ready for oil this week. 

One more story I'd like to share from this job site. 

Yesterday was a slow day, mostly at spent at home, contemplating, grieving, creek swimming, sun laying. I finally came to work in the late afternoon. I was there about ten minutes, making a whole bunch of noise chopping straw with a weed whacker. At some moment, I looked up and saw a huge heron walking across the lumber pile. Ha! I couldn't contain myself... since the weed whacker was then off, I yelled, "What are you DOING here? You're so beautiful!" It was the closest I've ever been to heron, the pleating dark and white neck feathers, the subtle colours, the graceful movements of its neck. I called Jim out of the house to see, and it didn't pay us much mind as we kept our distance enough.

With my yelling out of the way, I followed silently for some time and my heart felt like it was generating a bubble of happiness the size of the entire neighborhood block. The heron walked the rest of the lumber, back to the foam insulation, across the sand pile (I'm peeking around the big machine of a mortar mixer to see it), around the house, and through the neighbor's garden, finally flying over me toward the swing set... all in hot sunny-September dry-land. How unusual! Earth and its creatures know just the right medicine needed for these kinds of days; awe and a little bit of humour. A heron on a lumber pile. Hearing protection and respirator dangling off my face. Unexpected and odd beauty. Goodness. 

I have been oscillating much recently with the work-track I've gotten myself on or into, somehow, busy with building projects. I often doubt that this - building - is really what I'm "supposed" to be doing. I feel like Jaber Crowe, in the novel by Wendall Berry, who comes upon barbership in his life pretty much by continuous happenstance.

But I think I made peace with doing building projects; there is no need to force another way of being in the world prematurely. This is good, how it is, now. I used to hesitate when I would say, "I'm a builder." Am I? I'm a poet. Am I? I'm an astrologer. Am I? I'm an organizer. Am I? I'm a gardener. Am I? I'm a griever. A healer. Who am I? 

And it's clearer to me now: it is much easier to manifest a feeling than an actual thing, a path, a picture. And the feelings of working with people who value song, ritual, deep connection, grief, patience, healing, love... this is coming to me through the building world - to my surprise? Not really, surprise, but sort of surprise. Definitely humble delight. Now I say, "I'm a builder," and underneath my words, I know what I mean. I mean something literal, and I mean that I doubt myself sometimes and that's okay. I mean I build with and share my life with people who value song, ritual, deep connection, grief, patience, healing, and love. And it's maybe just for now, and it's certainly only one part of me. But it is a reflection of all of me, and all of us, and we're doing it well, as well as we can. 

I am - we all are - souls in a body, growing slowly. We are always in a continuous state of becoming. Becoming ourselves. Coming home to ourselves. We are messy and ungraceful and full of boundless creativity. And we're here to grow. To bump into each other and learn from each other, honor each other, let go of each other, embrace each other, be alone, be together, sing, dance, yell, sit, express, silence.

And we absolutely need each other, to hear each other's stories, to work together to protect our Home. To fight for our Home. To stand up for what we know is right of us, right for Earth, right for water, air, soil, people, creatures of all kinds. We need each other to do this. 

​It all reminds me, magic exists everywhere, every day, every way, with every one.
​Singing thanks.

This poem is from my body resting on the beach by the Point Hudson Marina in Port Townsend.
​8/23/2015

Being adopted, "nature, nurture" is always been interesting to me, and it continues to have many layers. The soul quality and the active circumstance, the personality and memories, the tendancies and patterns. 
​
My friend Paul Crawford, reflects on this poem:

     "I feel the grains of sand beneath me and they are ancestors going back dozens or hundreds of generations  They're all there.  Every one is propping me up as needed.  And other grains are experiences, my own and those of all those ancestors.  Places we've been, things we've done, things we've learned.  Family and friend, those past and those still with me. Wild places.  And music.  Always music.

     "Oozing out of the firm conforming sand is LOVE.

     "It's a question of whether all those grains are molding me or whether I'm doing the molding.  Are those grains of sand conforming to me or I to them?  The answer must be "Yes"."

What is the purpose of being on this planet, anyway? Well, we spend a lot of time sharing videos of cats doing funny things via the Internet. 

This is proof that we actually do understand that the whole purpose of being here is to generate good feelings. 

It seems, increasingly, we live in a hurried place of destruction and negativity, and yet all of us know in our hearts that something different is possible, in some way or another. The trouble I often see is we ball up all the anger and heaviness and we get together in groups that say things like, "We must save the environment!!!" Or, "We must fight for social equality!!!" And we wonder with irritation why some video of a cute animal will go millions-of-views viral but our very important environmental awareness event was scantly attended. 

Imagine right now you are speaking to a dog. Say to the dog in the angriest tone possible: "I love you! You're the best!" Be really mean, in your imagination. Completely horrible. If you can't imagine for yourself, I'll tell ya, the dog's response is not affectionate. Now open your heart to the dog. Smile, all the way through your chest. Empty yourself of the day's woes for a moment, fill yourself up with Love and tell the dog, "Oh, you're so dumb. I don't get you at all, you weird creature." Well, the dog is into it!! It wags its tail and gladly accepts your loving attention. 

What I see is too many people are taking their anger and only giving it different words. They turn "I hate my job!" into "save the trees!" but the energy is the same. They're still angry. They're bitter and they turn their bitterness on the "other side".
They say "Those [Republicans/Democrats/Whatever] - they're so terrible! We will not tolerate their intolerance!"
"Those loggers they don't know anything!"
"Those police they're so power hungry and violent!"
"Those corporations, they're so evil!"

So people, who are otherwise going about their lives as normal, look at your activist group from the outside and they sense the anger, and they don't come. They don't "join the cause". They know somewhere deep inside of them, even if they can't describe it, that your cause is really no different than the life they know they are really tired of living. They want the world to be a better place, but they "won't participate" in bettering it in the way you think is right because they feel the anger. So instead they spend their time sending on funny videos of cats to their friends because they know it is a good thing to laugh and bring joy. It brings them closer to the goodness of Life they sense is not only possible, but indeed already there. 

Well, of course, we need to take the idea of changing the world and sharing funny things over the Internet and bring them a bit closer together. 

This morning on the way to the jobsite, we stopped somewhere for an errand and I noticed this mural adorning a nearby building. It was so beautiful I felt inspired and touched. 

I appreciated the details with a huge smile on my face, knowing orcas do live in these waters, admiring the accuracy of the way light underwater lands on things, and remembering all the hundreds of mornings I have looked on the mountains pictured. And I thought -- because I had been thinking about cute cat videos -- okay, so here is a beautiful mural put on the side of this otherwise very ordinary building. It enhanced my experience of this place probably a thousand-fold. Why aren't murals everywhere to produce good feelings all over the place? 

The Internet's solution would be to take a picture of it, as I did, perhaps attach some inspirational words, and share it as a meme. Facebook pages like The City Repair Project might share it and hundreds of people would see it and some would share it, and some would even share it saying the same words I felt in my heart, "Why aren't beautiful murals everywhere?" 

But in an instant the photo is shared and it disappears down the news feed, and the moment of inspiration passes. A dim hit in a world of over-stimulus.

Sharing the photo doesn't make more murals happen. 

Sharing cat videos doesn't permanently help us generate better feelings on the largest scale. 

Similarly, I find the world stock-full of well-meaning advice that is way off target. At some point in a person's life, a realization hits, and in the presence of a friend, they were able to articulate it. The person and their friend both feel incredible Truth and Love from the wisdom. Then, they might try to repeat the advice to someone else later. Maybe over and over again for decades. When people repeat advice, they are investing in a kind of grasping onto words as a way to try to keep that moment with Grace, instead of investing in good feeling the kinship with their friend. Re-writing a metaphor from David Deida: "That advice is like a cloud passing in the sky: well-formed, coherent, and not necessarily relevant later. The cloud is an expression of the precise physics of water, wind, and air. The words are expressions of the physics of your feelings, the relationship, and the nuances of the present situation, seen and unseen. A moment later, these factors will change, and so will the relevance of the words." 

In that wave of advice, one can let it open the gateway to Love between people and let that be the thing that fills them up, instead of the words. In all actuality, just like with the dog, it matters most the feeling that exists under the words. If you invest in the feeling of kinship with your friend, then a sense of intimacy increases. You can build your sense of intimacy with your own Soul if you're alone. You can build your sense of intimacy with a plant while you're in a garden or on a walk. So when you're speaking: are you using words as a way of distancing yourself from true intimacy? Is it, in honesty, a distraction from the present moment with an ornate mask of wisdom or spirituality? 

I cannot help but laugh, thinking of the YouTube video by JP Sears, "How To Be Ultra Spiritual." 

Yes, words can help to accentuate expression. We can share Love thru words, actions, touch, energy... there is no one right way to do it. I know I often advocate for a strong "feeling" sensation, but that is just one way, that works for me. 

The reason I am bringing this up is not because I've been hit with a bunch of impersonal advice lately, but to bring us back to the cats. While it's nice to pass along videos of cats, because it generates good feelings, or share pictures of murals because they are beautiful, it is still a way of bringing us out of the present moment of potential intimacy with our life. Even the wisest advice, attached to the prettiest picture, shared in the most timely meme will come and go. In moving toward "real" change not just "change" with the same undercurrents of anger and corruption, I am interested in the question: "What is persistent?"

A friend, Janet Carter, was pondering a larger scale still: what are we as a planet are being exposed to now, given our current position in the Milky Way galaxy? It takes approximately 250 million years for our solar system to make a full rotation around the galaxy, so the last time we are at this point of the galaxy, humans were not yet on the planet. 

This is a wonderful thought for consideration because it's one way to invite some relaxation to some otherwise angry dispositions. When I was beginning to learn in specific terms about what's up on the planet right now, I was always confused why it mattered to much to people one way or another if "global warming" was real. I was looking around at what was happening right now, the physical reality of the effects we're already experiencing from social inequality to devastating our living planet saying, "Um. This is already bad." And working on our farm saying, "Wow, this is too good."

The fight about whether or not global warming is real or not is a distraction, another reason to fight, to take sides. Of course what we are doing is not only heartbreaking, it is cruel. But to continue to perpetuate the cruelty with anger and righteousness is pointless. My friend Jeff Peters adds, "The people with all the money and apparent power are the ones causing the most problems, and they are not paying attention to any of the outcry anyway."

250 million years ago, no one was hanging around on Earth wondering about whether or not global warming was real. And since that time, Earth has tried out all kinds of forms, from ice ages, to enormous dinosaurs,  and maybe overly emotional humans is just another phase and it too will come and go. The planet Earth is going to be fine. What matters is, how good is Life?

So what will you do with your Life? Please, whatever you do, do it with Love. And do it with all the messiness you know, in your honest dips of doubt and depression and suffering. Get mud all over your hands and your heart and stay. Stay with the feeling. The raw feeling of what's true with you and your loved ones right now. Stay on the edge of intimacy and generate good feelings. 

When we have strong relationships, we feel more at ease with taking risks, and when we take risks we're more likely to learn how to give our full gifts to the world. The world does not need us staying idle in a disheartening life, nor to be building fortresses around the "right" ideas. The world needs a wild party of people who are Loved, and therefore able to be truly Alive, giving their gifts and shining their light like no tomorrow. 

And, hey, if showing your Love means sharing that crazy cat video, as long as it is not subverting the current edge of your own creative life force, then do so by all memes. Oh, means, by all means!

All feelings, follow them.
They are a secret gateway to the joy
that is meant specifically for you
should you choose to invest in such curiosities.

Follow them as deep as they go
and be patient with yourself 
as you pause to laugh, or cry, or
do something else for a few days.

No turn of events will lighten your heart.
No one will make you feel Loved.
Joy is unconditional,
and the conditions are of multitude,
so what do you choose?

Together,
we are remembering an old story,
as if we recall the earthly smell of old books
and rocks, and fire-smoke,
that say, oh yes, We. Are.
Together.

Oh yes,
I am Alive 
and oh yes, 
I am of One
and oh yes,
I am Free.

And I choose Joy.

And should you encounter difficulty and stress,
you might pause and pretend...
pretend that moment perfectly pairs to your growing edge
your next 'level up' matched with a little shakin' up, 
a little thinking on your feet
a little life-hacking cheat
a little deep feeling 
a little healing
and a little humour.

You may also pretend
it is a dramatic collapse...
that we still must fight each other
and forever relapse.
And while we're pretending, 
let's pretend there's no such thing as mishaps!

We say,
our feelings are no accident
and our choices follow us along...
we can do this day the same old way
or we can lift ourselves out of the fog.

Breathe.
It is all one moment, gone.
And the relationship of all things
forever lives on.

It is the little things, the smallest daily actions, that have me falling in love with the world over and over again. The light through the trees, in the forest, by the sea, coming through the plastic bags out to dry. These had been stock piling for awhile, a landfill refusal accumulating in a heap on the counter. Then, they hung as temporary prayer flags and dried in the sun and the wind with a simple and strange kind of crinkly beauty I don't usually acknowledge of Plastic. 

Today I am preparing to leave for a week-long trip to Buckeye Gathering in Northern California. I have never been to this particular gathering, or even to this part of the world. For three years I have worked in the kitchen at another skills gathering in the North Cascades, Saskatoon Circle, and have found a deep level of Belonging in these types of ephemeral communities, among them also The NW Permaculture Convergence, and Singing Alive. 

For one week, we are not only learning the 'hard skills' of making knives, tanning hides, weaving baskets, or felting wool, we also practice the 'soft skills' of sharing songs and stories, holding each other accountable, and supporting each other in the learning process. For me, working in kitchens is one of the greatest joys - preparing nourishing food for people who have been using their hands and their hearts all day to create things - sometimes people are making things for the first time since they were very little kids... alongside children, alongside elders. Often being on kitchen crew means half a day of singing the food into existence as we chop veggies, stoke fires, stir, and prepare the meal. It's a fun way to serve!

In the mild and wet Pacific NW winters, clothes lines through the house and out of the rain produce the same effect as the plastic bags on the porch. A temporary array of clothes-pinned colours that say, "We're a part of your life!" and when I lived in a house of seven people, each others' laundry became our ever-changing winter decoration. 

When I was on the road for five months in 2013, I found that when I would arrive somewhere, setting up my "home base" helped keep the continuity of my Life grounded enough to pay attention and really sink into the place I was visiting. Unpacking my clothes, setting up a small alter, my pens, my journal... settling in. I have come to love the way the texture and colour of my shirts look folded on top of each other because they're soft and faded and familiar to me. 

I know I will bring the feeling of these plastic prayer flags, laundry lines, and stacked shirts with me to Northern California. All of them filling in a deep level of peace that I am in the moments of song and sharing, excitement and learning, and quiet times listening or alone. It's why my little theme for myself when I travel is "Walking Roots", because even temporary things give us feelings that may stay with us. Grounded wherever we are, simply by paying attention.