Holiday Traditions of Love

Yet another N.Y. Time submission and yet another unprinted blurb. Maybe I need to change my name to that of some Hollywood actor, they seem to make the cut. 

The holidays are upon us which means traditions. The traditions associated with this time of year, many times, carry heavy emotional attachments. Not all of the emotions are positive no matter what the newest Nexflix or Halmark movies are trying to feed us. Likewise many of the emotions that are positive stem from the past when we were the center of attention for a day and the world seemed to magically manifest toys, food and cheer just because we were alive. There are few things as heartwarming to watch than a child opening a present and seeing the reaction of surprise, joy, and elation wash over them. Often the younger the child the more purely authentic and consuming their reaction; as their expectations and desires are so much less. Without the expectation the little things can touch us deeper.

No matter ones faith or lack of faith this time of year brings up emotions. Even atheist, if they look, may find similar emotional patterns coming up year after year. Though granted it, their emotions may be more deeply aliened with being true to their own beliefs during the cultural onslaught they face. It is hard to impossible to fully capture the feeling of the past. Sometimes one succeeds or surpasses their emotional expectations during the holiday; sometimes. Feelings and emotions during the holidays often become more habitual over time. The words, traditions and habits are synonyms though “tradition” is most glorified. One wants to engage in traditional holiday cheer not habitual holiday cheer. “Habitual holiday cheer” somehow sounds additive. As a culture it is OK for one to work on their habits to change them but not so with traditions. New traditions can be formed and the old ones must not be forgotten. Whether one wants to hang the sign on tradition or habits the fact is both over time become out dated and a new way must emerge.  When one is dealing with habits of the heart they die hard.

This essay could start looking like the annual tradition of the non-commercial Christmas op-ed but it is not. I can not judge someone who works hard and deals with the emotional stress of our society wanting to find places in the year to momentarily forget the hecticness and relax. Nor can I judge the joy of a child or the parent that wants to bring joy. Any day one chooses to show the ones they love that love, in any form, is a good day. Having days when the whole heart is allowed to speak is an exceptionally good day.

The holiday season is a time of love and hope. The love part is more emphasize earlier on in the week leading to hope at New Years. It is through love one often finds hope. This is true for all times of the year. I have found recently more and more of my friends, colleagues and neighbors have become less hopeful. Humans do continue to love which waters a lot of different seeds, like happiness, but why is hope not growing so well?  Maybe it is time to re-examine how we manifest love towards others; how we show love is a cultural expression which changes over time. This can happen slow or fast. It was a short time ago that society only allow males and females to marry each other and public declare their love. Now that idea seems outdated to a majority Americans (gallup poll). Things have change. When it comes to deep seat traditions these changes are often slow to be addressed. It may be easier to change traditional emotions and their manifestations by looking at how one uses these emotions habitually at certain times of the year. There are ways to change and evolve our perspective on how we manifest love that can indeed lead to a more hopeful future.

Love is a long term prospect. Sure it is caring for someone in the here and now and there also a component of goodwill for that person into the future. It is probably easier to love in the here and now, as often there is the reward of the love being returned immediately. To project love for another into the future comes with little reward from the outside world. An example of this would be how we love our children. Often a parent does things for their children in the moment that manifest outcomes in the future, like letting them know they are loved. By telling children they are love it does feel go in the moment but for the child  the deeper reward is their self image in the future. A child who know he/she is loved by the parent love themselves more deeply in the future and in is obvious that creates better outcomes in life.  It does give one a warm heart, knowing one can love without reward is reward enough. This is the exact place one can start to explore new ways of expressing love this be especially true during the holiday season.

I realize we live in a time of instant gratification and the joy of sharing gifts falls into the quick fix of emotional rewards. Though heartwarming and cozy inside the feelings last only a few seconds after the gift is unwrapped. There may be some residual pleasure watching another using your gifts, there may not. Then there is the thank you; yet another reward. Yes we give for the other and yes we give for ourselves. With the state of climate change there is a gift that will be only for the other and that is a future. By giving less I will be giving more. This is especially true for children. This is true all year and more so when cultural traditions dictate otherwise.

It hurts my heart when I hear 24.3 billion dollars were spent from black Friday through Cyber Monday this year, 2019 (Digital Commerce).  I love children, all children. I want them to be happy. I wish their parent happiness and I realize we have been taught this is the way to express love, but is it really? All the plastic, fuel, paper-carbon that was sent into the air for a few moments of joy sadden me when I think of those children’s future and their children’s future. The pain in my chest wants to grow into anger and judgment, but how can I let it? Everyone is giving out of love; it is just misguided. It is tragic to the point of tears seeing love condemned the future.

I, in no way, am advocating to stop giving gifts but maybe less, maybe greener, maybe giving the experiences of spending time together.  In this age we need to redefine many things and many ways of being. What was once a gift could now be a death sentences. If we all just start taking a minute to ask ourselves before we act, “is this REALLY loving for my children and their children and their children?” This does not just go for the holidays and if this is the season of love on earth there is no better place to start. It may feel as if we are suffering on some level to start embracing this heartfelt reality. On some level, in the present moment, it seems like less. No one wants to suffer over the holidays. There is a quiet peaceful still joy, an embracing of hope, that this gift of a future will give to you and your lovers, friends, children and even the earth itself if you let it in without the ideas of tradition of the past.  Suffering with love is not a loss but the gift.

True Community

I worked at San Geronimo Valley Community Center (SGVCC-https://www.sgvcc.org/) from 10/2007 until 8/2013. It was a great experience! During that tenure the" Great Recession" hit and I became the Human Services Director. They have a quarterly newsletter- Stone Soup- which is mailed to everyone in the Valley. This is the article I wrote for the Spring 2011 issue. Enjoy-

We are in a process of breaking down out dated believes and systems. There is always a choice whether that breaking down is painful because we were in denial that a situation we were involved in was falling apart or if by conscious design we navigate the challenges we find ourselves in. No matter how you cut it a birth of a new paradigm is difficult; the degree of that difficulty can be seen around us. One thing the economic crisis has shown us is we cannot depend on large faceless entities like corporations, banks, or governments to take care of us.   Words, promises, even tax laws that were voted for and were set in stone (such as the cigarette tax support First 5) mean little to nothing when the economy tanked.    The old American concept of “Bigger is Better” has fallen on its face.

There is an older American tradition that could be a phoenix in this situation. That is the tradition of sticking together, of helping your neighbor; that is the tradition of community. There are places were this tradition never died such as Amish communities. I have lived and worked with and around Amish communities and their degree cooperation, cohesion, and sustaining each other is beyond most comprehension.  There were many commune started in the sixties that tried to embrace the spirit of community. Some succeeded and really none failed, just in the act of trying they succeeded. These communities took many forms, spiritual, hippy, back to the earth, art colonies and the list goes on. I live in a spiritual communities and again the love and support I experiences was beyond believe.

I moved to Eureka Montana in the early nineties with a goal to start a commune. We had 20 acre and three families living on it. We were a big extended family of 13 members all in the same soup, all believing in what we were doing. As with many families we had our dysfunction but in the long run it brought us closer.  The town of Eureka itself at that time was a magical place. There was a strong community of woods hippies and we all functioned like an Amish community. We help each other build homes, harvest crops, shared home when the temperature dripped to -30 to save and share fuel, we lived as one. There were elders who brought wisdom and all brought wisdom. Much in the Jerry Garcia tradition none would accept a title of leadership and with the Anarchist philosophy most of us embraced none would bestow such a title. There was respect instead of hierarchy.

These times have showed me that deep caring community is not only possible but essential for human to survive. Community does not come from big government, security does not come from money in big banks; happiness, trust in life, peace in one’s mind does not come from the new biggest thing form big corporations. No one leader can save us.  All things that highlight the highest human potential come from community. It is the knowing, opening, and share of all things human that community gives us the canvas to explore. The bigness that America has become give us only uniformity, conformity and a sterile environment where the true human in our light and dark fades and dies.

Community is not based in organizations or institutions it is based in the heart. Where the social support system set in place by big government have pulled back funding when those in need needed it most our Valley has increased its donations locally.  This is not to say the individuals working in government lack heart, as many are quit empathic but that the people who feel and see their neighbor’s difficulties step forward to make a difference.  Neighbors supporting neighbors is where the future lays. Whether someone is giving time, thoughts, prayers or money it is the giving of self that is the start of community. It is the giving of self where humans find their highest potential.

The Valley has the heart and desire to form community. Many who move here are stuck by the sense of community they feel. Still I would like to challenge all of us to really looking inside ourselves to see how we can deepen our bond with our neighbors. Many times hardship brings out the best part in ourselves; which is desires to help and how can we help when things seem good. If you were a senior living the Valley what kind of support would you want from your community? If you were a parent what kind of community would you want your children to be surrounded by?  If you just got diagnoses with a disease or a hardship happened in your family why role would your neighbors play? If you are having a great day how do you share that with your neighbors? When you feel abundance, security, or at peace with yourself how do spread that throughout the Valley? This Valley has made great strides in building a community mostly unseen in present day America and would it not be great to go deeper? The next steps to create a more meaningful community do not lie in all the great strides the Valley has made towards community but rather in the steps that have not been taking yet.  Let’s take those steps! Let’s continue to move away from the illusion of security offered by big faceless institutions and embrace what is real- our neighbors, our Valley, our community.

Copyright © 2019 by Joseph and Human Anonymous
First published 2011 in Stone Soup

A Sad Day For Humanity

This is an op-ed submitted to the N.Y. Times in 3/2019. It was not accepted. To bad it is something people need to hear.

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”
Nelson Mandela

What a sad day for the human race! On March 15, 2019 children walked out of schools across the world to protest adults’ inactivity towards climate change. They are demanding that we adults do what we should already be doing naturally, protecting our young. We are now one of the few more evolved(?) species on the planet who seem to being putting our own selfish interest in front of the care of our children.  Grizzly bears, wolfs, as well as most other mammals, many birds and even some fish will sacrifice their own life’s to protect their young from dangers. It is as if humanity is de-evolving.

On the NPR reporting on the subject (March 15, 2019, All Things Considered) it was mentioned that some had problems with children missing school for political protest. Here in lays one of the many obstacles that are plaguing the adults into inactivity and abandoning their duty to children globally. Is a hurricane political? Is a tornado? What political party does a drought belong too? There is nothing political about forces of nature or the devastation they can create. In fact after such calamities most involved at the ground level forget about the abstract world of politics and band together to help each other as humans. The responses of government may become political but the actual natural events themselves can not be political. Adult humans in this day and age seem to be able to label and or make anything political.

There are some who think that climate change is a political issue so let’s take the whole “climate change” idea out of the conversation for a minute. With or without climate change polluting the planet is not in the best interest of our children. When agriculture chemicals are creating algae blooms and poisoning drinking water or are sterilizing the soils so that future generations can not farm, we are not protecting our children. When petrochemicals are burned polluting the air, spilled killing oceans and land, or drilled contaminating ground water, we are not caring for our children. When burning coal makes air so polluted that in India and China people need to wear mask just to breath, we are not providing for our children. When strip mining in removing whole mountains and poisoning water and land, we are no longer nurturing our children. When adults condone clear cutting forest therefore eliminating the filter systems that clean air and create oxygen all future generations to breath, not to mention just the appalling prospect that at some time in the future our offspring may not get to see an old growth forest, we are not cherishing our children. When there is an extinction under way, today, and there is more focused on loud mouthed political figures than trying to save the planets animal and plant creations we are abandoning our children’s future. We are on the threshold of losing our humanity and the one of the most precious instincts we have, lovingly nurturing our young.

Whether one wants to call it climate change or pollution or global warming or ecosystem devastation it makes no difference, it is not about politics. This is an issue of whether we as adults of the human race are going to be true mothers and fathers to our children or not. Are we, as the care takers of the next generation, going to love our children enough to give them a world better than we found it or not? Our childern's childern's children are depending on us adults, in the present moment, to start this healing process.  One can make list about banning poisonous agriculture chemicals or halting all petrochemical  extraction and infrastructure projects but this is not about to do lists, this is about our heart. It is about love and respect for those who we care about most. It is about caring and care taking of those we bring into this world. It is about protecting our children from the mess we played a hand in creating. It is about loving our children, period.

These students are shaming us adult, rightfully so! This is not only a wake-up call it is an embarrassment that things have gotten to the point where the young need to demand for their parents to protect them.  It should be a given, as it is with most mammals, that we would do whatever it take to ensure the survival of our off spring. We are humans; we should start acting as such and love our children into the future.

My hat is off to these brave youths and my heart cries for them to finally be heard. As adults it is time for us to change what we are doing for them and their children. It may cause some hardship and be difficult in the extreme. We are adults and adults should bear those burdens for their children. Suffering with love is no longer suffering but a gift. It is time we give a gift to our children and not just words.

Joseph
Father,
Small Farm Organic Farmer,
Bellfountain, Or.

Copyright © 2019 by Joseph and Human Anonymous

Hard Climate Change Facts

This is an op-ed submitted to the N.Y. Times in 12/2018. Not surprising it was not accepted. It is very direct and something most people refuse to fully grasp. De Nile is a beautiful river and the consequences just keep flowing whether one wants to see them or not.

I have had it with this whole climate charge debate! It is dire and is just getting worst; still no real charge is happening. CO2 levels are increasing, ocean levels rising and the oceans temperature is rising with it. There is a mass extinction happening and somehow, we feel we are immune. It is guilt producing. Looking at our kids and grand-kids how can it be anything but when the realization is we are killing their plant. It does not seem like there is enough that the average individual can do to stop the momentum. We can recycle, turn down thermostats, reduce electric consumption, stop using plastic bags, and placate our guilt for the time being. Still the news keeps coming- more needs to happen.

We are addicted to this society of convenience and carbon. It gives us what we need, food, clothing, shelter. What more do we need? Throw in mind distractions like, internet, smart phones, Facebook, and TV to forget the guilt. Yet, through it all, the news keeps coming and the guilt re-emerges.

Food is the main culprit. We have learned to get food not produce it. It is called produce because one needs to work to make it happen. We go to the food store and there it magical is. Whether that food is Coco Puffs or organic carrots it is all based on us buying into the carbon system that created it. The US government realized the power of food in the “Indian Wars”. Kill the Buffalo and the natives fall into line, more accurately food lines, depended and well behaved. The corporations of today, who are the real unelected governing body of our country, get it. Control the food and no one fights back to hard.

What do we as a society do to get food? Drive our cars to work, many with one person in them, therefore buy gas. Work jobs that mostly support on some level the society which is killing itself. I have worked for non-profits and guess what they need money to operate. They seek donations and the biggest donations come from those entrenched in the societal structure that are killing what the non-profit is working to alleviate. There is no job that on some level does not add, no matter how little, to the down fall we ignore before us. Every dollar made or spent on some level contribute to the down fall of the planet. The food we are offered to buy is grown, packaged and shipped with carbon. If one is rich enough, they can buy “Organic” food and easy their conscious a bit, the poor have no choose it is full on carbon food. I cynical laugh at seeing that organic food packaged in plastic, is the plastic organic? This brings up the plastic delusion. Plastic creates carbon. If plastic is put in everything then everyone buys it. How convenient for the plastic companies and inconvenient for our poor Earth. I saw plastic on metal paper clip the other day, why? In my compost some how a “paper” soda cup ended up. When I found it the paper was gone, what was left was a plastic coating with logo readable. There is hardly a product anyone can buy any more without plastic, therefore carbon, in it.

Take a slow and concentrate look at our everyday life’s. It is depressing, everyone of us is contributing to climate disintegration. What choose we really have? If one wants to eat one needs to contribute to climate destruction. Some more, some less, but contributing all the same.

We need revolutionary changes not incremental! Our elected official have no balls! I wrote my Oregon senators last winter about fertilizers and the algae blooms they create. I explicitly said “Are you brave enough to outlaw things that are killing our planet?” Both replied, and I paraphrase, “We are looking into it.” This Spring Oregon’s capitol’s drinking water was unsafe to drink. Why- Algae blooms!  Their looking into to it is not stopping the problem. Their courage is minimal. Who has the ball, male or female to stop this?

As I stated I am tired of the talk that goes nowhere. I am tire of seeing news over and over again of the impending doom that await my children! I am guilt ridden that my choose is not if I kill the planet but how fast. I am angered to the point of tears, (truly ask my wife) that I have no choose but to harm my grand-kids. If I want to eat, I need to play the destructive game.

We as a race we need to reassess our relation to Mother Earth. It is time to stop tell her how we want things to be and start listening how she needs things to be to survive. From there we can make long term plans how to dismantle our current dilemma and start working with within her natural laws. More importantly we need strong brave individuals RIGHT NOW! People who will stand against this cooperate money monarchy to create change- NOW! Thing like outlawing the production of gas-powered cars. Outlawing chemicals that kill. Outlawing plastics made with petroleum. Maybe buy a few less fighter jets at $80 million apiece and use the money for solar panels for individual homes. Make all new home energy neutral. Eliminate the insane idea and any laws suggesting that corporations are individuals or have rights as individuals. Even with these suggestions this is only a start. The whole social structure that produces these items needs to be re-examined. An electric car is still made with tons of chemicals, needs toxic battery, needs materials gained through strip mining, uses plastic. You get the idea.

 Such suggestions many will think impossible. Have we no faith in humanity? The first oil well was drilled in 1859 while the first car was made in 1885 and though we were already creating carbon before this with coal this is truly the beginning of our modern way of being. In just 160 years our society has created were we are today with little technology to begin with. Today we sit on a plethora of technological options at our finger tips to explore a petroleum free way of existing. We just need to move beyond our fears and the cooperate greed that keeps us entrenched.

None of this is hard, we just need to do it! We may feel like this will create some form of suffering. It may for the average citizen for a short period of time. It definitely will for cooperate America. Who owns the future? I want a choice that is not wrapped in guilt! When I think of the love I have for my kids and coming grand-kids, great-grand-kid, and on, I will sign up to suffers. Suffering done with love is not suffering at all but a gift.

Copyright © 2019 by Joseph and Human Anonymous

Plight of Human Services Workers

I worked at San Geronimo Valley Community Center (SGVCC-https://www.sgvcc.org/) from 10/2007 until 8/2013. It was a great experience! During that tenure the" Great Recession" hit and I became the Human Services Director. They have a quarterly newsletter- Stone Soup- which is mailed to everyone in the Valley. This is the article I wrote for the Spring 2013 issue. Enjoy-

There is a window from which only I can see. It looks out onto the world hidden from view. It is not clear, in fact, it is quite dirty- littered from a world which only I can know. The foggy glass is affected by the good, bad, and indifferent, by the remembered and the forgotten, by that which excites and that which is boredom. This is my mind and it always stands between me and reality. I realize what is real for me is not real for another and neither of us sees the real truth but our own version of it. Even the higher emotional states, like empathy, are clouded. I can empathize because I have felt pain and loss, but went I do it is my pain and loss I re-feel and not the other’s I am reaching out to. Do I feel love like all others? NO, I probably feel love closest to how my brothers and sister feel love because we were raised most similarly to each other. Still there are things my sister experienced which I did not. That taught her what love was, which I missed. I can empathize with others because we share the experience of love and I can never know the full depths of another love nor they of mine. Such is the isolated existence of life.

Some might look on this as being lost in space with no one who truly understands them. This, of course, is an option, which generally leads to some kind of despair. I choose another option, which is to validate that I am unique in my experience. This does not mean I am special like a princess or prince or any other label of superiority I can choose to hang on myself; just different. My mind, like all minds, at times wants to be special and will find ways I am somehow better than xyz. My mind, at times, also wants to perceive how I am less than or inferior to others. Then there are the times my mind wants to be both at the same time, which is true agony.  But no matter which way those voices in my head are shouting their dis-information, the closest thing to the truth is I just am, no bigger or smaller. I feel joy, sorrow, gratitude and loss similar to others, I see what others see, I experience what others have experienced and because of that I can relate, but I can never truly know without doubt what is totally going on with another. Somehow I find comfort in that. It is because of this uniqueness we can help others to see different ways of being and offer true advice and solutions that they may not be able to see. It is because of this that we as a species evolved socially.

Working in Human Services we need to be aware that we perceive the world from our own view point. Human Service can be a very tricky business. Just by the nature of it one is interfering in another’s life. I am not saying interfere as a good or bad thing just that one is getting involved with others lives. A lot of the time these involvements have to do with very primal issues like food, safety, housing, or isolation.  This can bring up all kinds of emotions for all involved. I know the first few times I used a food bank I felt defeated, embarrassed, guilty and just a loser in general. The people serving me were very enthusiastic about serving people. I came off as timid, maybe rude and aloof, and controlling of the intake process. None of this had to do with the people I was dealing with.  I now know it can be hard as a provider not to take others behavior personally.  As a provider it is helpful to realize I cannot know the full scope of emotions someone brings to a situation therefore I do not need to take it personally.

When we look at providing or expanding programming it is also helpful to be aware of the fact I cannot fully know another. As Human Service workers we plan programs to help others. My perception of what help is, is mine, and may not be true except in the recesses of my own mind. One must reach out to the population they serve to truly find out what their needs are and how they want to get those needs fulfilled. We recently started a Senior Council to direct Senior Programming. How can I as a 48-year-old know what people 68 need? I can read a book, talk to others, or have a survey and still it is in my head. I interpret the information from my 48 years of experience. Some things are better left to those who truly understand.

The food pantry is a simple and potent example of this. We, at the Community Center, have always let our Food Pantry neighbors pick their own food. When I got here I could see no other way of doing it. It just made sense to me that people know what they eat so they should get their own food. Also all the food banks I have ever used were this way so I never knew of another way. It did turn out that other pantries were actually handing out bags of packed food to their clients. These other pantries were not doing anything good or bad just what they thought worked best. As a former and maybe future food bank client I would have been a bit upset if I had no say to what I got to bring home. What if I had allergies or hated canned green beans? Since the San Francisco Food Bank has merged with the Marin Food Bank all the pantries are going to a self serve model. We could get all self righteous that we were doing it right all along but the reality is we did not see another way of doing it in our situation just as the other food pantries did not see another way. There was no right or wrong, just food pantries giving out food as they thought best. It is the client though who truly knew how they wanted to be served and when asked they have chosen for choice.

Only those who we serve can tell us how they need to be served. It gets more challenging because they all need to be served according to their own needs. Of course we cannot serve everyone individually and we can do our best to find a middle path. First we have to connect to those we serve and ask “How do you want to be served?” to find out what that path is. At times I have noticed with Human Service workers the tendency to believe they know what is best for their clients, which only leads to justifiable resentment on the part of the one being served. No one wants to be told they need to eat canned green beans even if they like them.  It is humility to accept that we do not know something and that brings us closer to knowing. It is an interesting road to lead with humility, as our society sees that as an oxymoron and we are not taught such things.  Or we can just listen to the wisdom of the Grateful Dead- “You who choose to lead must follow”.

Copyright © 2019 by Joseph and Human Anonymous
First published 2013 in Stone Soup