19 May 2008

Last night I dreamt over and over (waking up, going back to sleep, to the dream) about my mother's murder. I wasn't dreaming of the actual event but of her being missing, finding out she'd been killed, and feeling powerless and enraged. Over and over. I woke up feeling sad and heavy.

I read, a couple of days ago, about a bomb, which came out of Gaza and killed a woman. I thought about how tragic that was, and all the other tragedies, the daily deaths in Gaza, all equally tragic. I wrote to a friend who lives in Israel, what will it take for people to learn? Her response, that we are learning and that love is the answer, rings true. I believe it.

What is belief? A mental construct of reality, a lens through which to perceive, a set of guidelines that we use to determine trajectory and behavior. Belief, as a human activity, is and has been the basis of our species' path for thousands of years, whether we call it religion or ideology. Now we are on the brink of self-destruction. Through our heedless actions we bring about the daily extinction of life forms on earth, climate change continues to accelerate, cultures clash and a minority ruling elite continue to amass resources at the expense of the non-elite majority.

I travel and teach love, joy, personal empowerment, connection with spirit and self, belongingness. I believe in all of it. I feel good when I teach it. I see others feel good when they work with these ways.

Here in this quiet valley, in this stone village which has stood for hundreds of years where people have been growing food, making olive oil and wine and cheese, where the church bells ring hourly and birds sing, flowers bloom, people are born, live, die; here in this place I find myself. Through the amazing technology of internet and wireless microwave transmission I read articles, peruse newspapers, dialogue with friends.

Somehow there is a space in the world that I fill. I touch some lives, and hopefully they are enriched by this touching, and they touch my life too. Sometimes the love and kindness blow my mind. Sometimes I encounter tightness and scarcity in others, and in myself. I do my best to work it through when I encounter it in myself, to get back to kindness and generosity. When I meet those walls in others I do my best to be compassionate, and to find ways to get/do what I need to when others are not sharing. Sometimes I do this better than other times.

I feel fear about the collective situation, and I feel fear about my personal situation sometimes. Rarely do I find myself immobilized. In my dream last night I felt immobilized, in a bed on the street in Burlington outside if the old Grand Union, people walking by, and I was invisible to them. I knew she'd been killed and I couldn't find her.

The government of Nevis covered up my mother's murder because they didn't want to damage the tourist trade. The government of Nevis, along with the US Consulate, the FBI and the Dade County Coroner, lied about what happened in order to protect their financial interests and political affiliations. How disgusting is that? And yet it is certainly no more heinous than the daily killing, through direct and structural violence, that occur in so many places on this beautiful planet; violence perpetrated by governments and their agencies, by corporate policies and practices, and ultimately by the complacency of regular people who, for whatever reasons, collude in order to maintain the familiar comfortable status quo.

Words like hope, despair, futility, possibility, all crowd my mind and make me wonder, as I face the sun and the infinite sky, about the great mysteries we humans have contemplated for millennia. What are we? Are we spirits in bodies? Are we just biomachines with nervous systems and built-in self-preservation mechanisms? How is it that we can feel and share so deeply and at the same time turn our backs on life itself in order to be comfortable? Are we evolving towards a more fully realized existence or is this a wheel spinning conundrum which we must pass through on our journey to whatever lies beyond the veil of this life?

17 May 2008

This post is in response to Shahar's comment from a few days ago.

I think probably everyone has different reasons for getting married. The couples I have married all seem to do it because they want to be married to each other. What that means to them, I cannot say.

I have never been married so it's ironic that I act as priest in wedding ceremonies. The weddings I have done have all been fun and sweet and my intention in doing them is to offer a kind of supportive energetic as the couple takes what is for them an important life step. My job is to priest the ritual as I would any ritual, bringing my best and making a space for the mystery to be experienced. I've been to weddings where people spent tons of money and ones where people spent very little. It is an interesting practice, marrying. I really am not sure why people do it. I do think, though, that if it is something two people want, to marry each other, analyzing it can be useful and can also be useless. If one wants something, does one have to understand it rationally 100%?

16 May 2008

I'm back in Italy after spending a few days in Marseille with a dear friend. It is cloudy and cool and rainy here. The cherries are ripe, and there are baby birds in a nest chirping in the grapevine outside the room where I am now staying. I haven't felt like I had a room that was “my” room in so long, I just realized as I was unpacking my altar items and a few little things how nice it feels to spread out in that way. I have pared down the amount of stuff from a house packed full to this little bit, and some stuff in storage.

This room is at the bottom of the house. It has a door and a half oval window on the south wall, through 30” of stone wall. The north of the room has a few stairs up into a hallway with two closets, and a new wooden door at the end leading out into what will be a bathroom and an exit to the north yard which is down the hill from the rest of the village. There is a new very comfortable single mattress, a red tile floor, white cemented walls and ceiling...the room is a big arch, so the walls curve up and meet at the peak. The south wall is not painted or plastered, it is exposed stone. The room is not quite 4 meters long (north <-> South) and 3.5 meters wide. The peak of the ceiling is around 3.5 meters. Outside the door are stone stairways, a perpendicular door on the east leading into another part of the house, and west the stairs go down to terraced ground where the wedding ceremony was held. This is where there are some of the cherry trees. Looking south one sees the mountains that are between us and the sea.

Marseille is a big city, not tall, built mostly out of limestone and concrete. It is a port and has been for centuries. This city has trafficked in slaves, guns, drugs, opium, and who knows what else. There are numerous big consulate buildings and residences. Many countries have a presence here. One can assume that there are still big deals being made here, and probably for the same things as hundreds of years ago.

This is a Mediterranean city with a pretty mild climate. My friend is looking to do a bunch of interesting permaculture type things, including a balcony garden. Like every city I have visited there is huge potential for energy and food production, potential, which is not being explored on any significant scale yet. And like every city there are people doing things quietly, on their own. These people will be more prepared for food shortages, blackouts, etc.

The Urban Permaculture workshop in the Netherlands is coming up in early July. It feels so timely to me, and yet I feel like I don't have the contacts to promote it as effectively as I'd like. If anyone reading this has contacts in Europe who you think may be interested in the workshop or linking it on a web page or posting it in a forum, please let me know or just send them the link to our site http://urban-permaculture.blogspot.com/

I have concluded that my body is reacting to the toxins I've been exposed to in New Orleans, and most recently in Israel. I got dosed twice times in Israel with toxic chemicals. Once in Haifa we happened to be there while there was a chemical leak, which we heard about later. When we were there, though, my body went into reaction; my eyes were burning, my throat was getting sore and swollen...and those things subsided when I left the city. The second time was in a car where there were three people wearing a lot of chemical soaps and scents, and we drove by a place where there are known toxic fumes due to some industrial plant. Both of those times I had strong physical responses to the chemicals. Lately what I experience is more bouts of low blood pressure, a feeling of weakness in my limbs though if I choose to go for a walk or open a jar I can do it, and heat sensitivity (due to heat exhaustion in Israel most likely). I feel a need for sleep and down time, and I have some in front of me now. Also clean food and good water! I feel like I am spending physical capital on doing things I believe in, but which take their toll.

I am watching the US politics, and world politics in general. It is so pathetic to see the US Congress continue to lamely give Bush & Co. what they demand, more money for war; to watch the election circus spin along merrily when the reality of rigged presidential elections in the US continues not to be investigated and corrected; to see the obscene profiteering by corporations while people pour their life force into working for the corporate masters, and have lives filled with meaningless stuff and stress. People have it within their power to free themselves, and most people don't know it. Many don't even see how enslaved they are. I do think that is changing. I think in the US more and more people are seeing the horror that the country has become, and most of those people feel powerless to change anything. Awareness, though, is a big step, and out of that can come new choices. Neccesity is the mother of invention, and as the US economy collapses, even those who had been wealthy will have to make some significant changes in their lives. I hope that brings out creativity and kindness in people. That's what I saw in New Orleans, in the ruin of the city people brought their creativity and kindness, and it mattered.

10 May 2008

It was a beautiful sunny warm day. The wedding was really wonderful. This old Italian stone castle house was filled with flowers and the cherries on the trees are almost ripe. The peaches and almonds and apricots and figs have a ways to go. Roses are blooming, and lavender. The people were decked out, friends and family from the south of Italy, the UK, the US, came to celebrate. The ceremony was sweet and real and beautiful. I officiated in Italian and English, which went well, and was fun and exciting. Afterwards there was antipasto and wine at a the B&B in the village, and then a 10 course meal down the hill in the valley at the ristorante of the mayor, that was just amazing. By the end of the meal, after all the good-byes, I came back to the house and crashed.

After napping for a few hours I woke up and checked my email to find that the IRS has decided that they are taxing me on dividends for the year 2006, and the tax is more than the dividends! My only course is to appeal it in tax court. I realize as I write this that there is a kind of taboo against discussing tax issues openly. I am pretty pissed off about this. How the IRS can tax me $1010 on $270 of dividend income is beyond me. I have provided them with the information which verifies this, but they don't accept it so I have to deal with this bullshit. Of course they have nearly doubled the amount with interest and penalties. I made $7000 in 2006, and less in 2007. It’s annoying, and rocks my equanimity, but it’s also a good exercise in perspective, balance, and trust.

Tonight, after everyone went to bed, I was sitting outside under the waxing gibbous moon and wondering...what happens next? The world is turning and the human wars are escalating. Environmental change is escalating and will reach some kind of crisis point in the relatively near future. Perhaps if humans make some drastic changes we may stave some of the worst, but perhaps not. With that awareness, afer eating one of the most extraordinary meals of my life, I sat under the moon and wondered, what do I do next? I can be here until mid September. There are workshops, classes and possibly other teaching opportunities in front of me. The US is not an appealing place. Where shall I go? How shall I live? Not new questions for me, or for this blog, but they presented themselves strongly again tonight.

I realized something. By letting go of a lot of material and human attachments a few years ago, traveling and web spinning from community to community, I have made many attachments with people. There are so many people I love, and who love me, all over the place, which means I am always not with some of the people I really love, including Lasky. I am most of the time with people I love who love me,which is the greatest, but I don't have a primary family or even a primary community like most people do. It's a sticky web in some ways, it both connects and , as I travel and makes web connections, the web becomes a way of measuring distance too.

I no longer think in the way I used to about finding the safe place to be when the shit hits the fan. I am thinking more in terms of...if things happen that make it that I have to stay where I am, wherever that is at any given time, how will I make that work? What resources are around me right now that I can use for survival? What can I offer to make myself valuable, worth keeing around and feeding etc.? It's very different in different places of course. In Tel Aviv the resources are very different, and would be I think harder to access, than in the Italian Alps. The Bitterroot Vallley in Montana offers a whole different set of resources and challenges than the ranch in Sonoma Cty. California. What I can offer seems to be differen tin different places too. Some of the skills and talents I have are needed more in some places, and others in other places, so as I travel I am always needing to notice and adjust myself accordingly. It's an interesting exercise.

07 May 2008

It's sunny and warm today. I planted a vegetable garden. It feels so good to dig and plant, and I am aware that physically I have very little stamina right now. Some of it is that I haven't eaten much meat lately, and also I feel that I am still recovering from the heat exhaustion I experienced in Israel.

There are two more workshops scheduled for me to teach. Here are links to the websites:

Urban Witchcamp
and
Urban Permaculture

Both feel timely and significant. Luckily they are both in July so I have some time to rest up before heading into the intense schedule of two 3-day workshops.

05 May 2008

Today it is a bit cloudy and cool, windy even. The house has been a bustle of activity in preparations for the wedding Saturday of the two people who live here. This is a 500+ year old stone house, with a tower room, that the couple marrying have worked on for the last 10 years cutting windows through the stone and reinforcing them with concrete, making tile floors and putting in plumbing, electricity, telephone, wood stove and fireplace; it’s a beautiful place but not opulent. It is simple and rustic. I know the woman because her mother has been a friend for a long time and I have been around as the bride was growing up, and we are friends. Now she is in her mid 30’s. I am only getting to know the man in the couple. He is from Genoa but moved to this village because of family connecions, bought this little castle, and has been fixing it up. Outside there are many kinds of fruit trees, grapes, terraces...it’s quite a wonderful place. The wedding will be here on saturday morning. I’m performing the ceremony.

Today we have been selecting music. It’s great to have a music library. It’s a very pleasureable task to select music for a lovely event celebrating love.

I have been reading the news and see things developing, food crisis, more disaster, riots, more and more blatant corruption and greed driven violence as the corporate government monster is also moving towards it’s demise; it struggles and will continue to do so ever more intensely as the crisis builds. This is going to get ugly. It fills me with a sense of dread to read what I just wrote. I am a pretty positive person and I take great joy in living and I am not blind or in denial. The avalanche is just starting and a lot of people are going to be burried before the mountain stops collapsing. Sadness doesn’t even begin to describe what I feel about what’s coming. Horror is more like it. I know that many wonderful things are and will continue to happen, and I am all for it, but I see what I see.

Now, notice that this is exactly what the news is designed to make me feel. The news that is covered and the way it is covered is designed to make me feel that I am about to go under, that all is despair and woe and that I have no power, that I am not free.

Horse hockey! It’s just time to plant food, grow soil, save seed, and share! The more people do that the easier it will be to transition away from the multinational global economics of food distribution and get back to people and Earth, which, by the way, used to work. It still does ina lot of places! If everyone would plant something, and also buy locally grown food, there would be a huge shift in the economic base away from the ruling elite and towards local people involved with local Earth.

30 April 2008

Are you ready for the next installment? I am in the Budapest airport coffee shop with WiFi and a wall plug. Hooray!

The four of us visited Wahat al Salaam/Neve Shalom/Oasis of Peace, the intentional Arab Jewish Christian village after the workshop at Adamama.

This village is on a hillside overlooking a valley with a long history of battles. The land was granted to the village by the monastery that owns a lot of the land in that valley. This happened in the 1950’s I believe. We had been invited by the wonderful woman we met who came to the drumming with her son (I don’t use names in my blog) and it was a real pleasure to sit with her, drink tea and eat brownies, to see her family’s beautiful very Arabic marble with archways and fruit trees in the home which she designed, to meet her husband and sons, and see her mother’s paintings. We discussed the workshop we’d just experienced, saw her collection of Goddess figurines from Europe, India, and the middle east, and relaxed. We four were sleep deprived, I was coming out of sickness, and we were all in workshop re-entry. Her neighbor came to visit and asked many interesting questions about magic, witchcraft, and Reclaiming, and then she told us about the House of Silence, a building in the village made as a place for people to go and express themselves in whatever tradition(s) they observe. We all jumped on that and wanted to see it so our hostess took us there. It is a large egg shaped concrete space with a stone floor and the most amazing acoustics. Every sound is amplified. You can sit and listen to your heartbeat. The four of us started to tone and chant and sing and it was so beautiful to be in the sound, to feel it move through me, and to hear the harmonies. It was perfect after the workshop, and to be in that place on the hill looking out at the valley and hills and city in the distance was very moving; the beauty, the contradiction of land and industrial sites in the distance. I will return there. Our friend let me know very clearly that I was welcome to come stay with them anytime, and made a point of letting me know she meant it, and was not just saying it as a courtesy. Her generosity is a beautiful and moving gift.

This village has 55 families there, a guest house and café, a library and more I did not see. Currently there are 300 families on a waiting list to move there. The municipality which governs the village will not allow them to build more houses. They will not allow the correct name in Arabic to be on the signs. Even in a peace oasis beaurocracy and fear have a grip. I am relating what I experienced and learned, which is a tiny fraction of what there is to experience and learn there.

I said to our friend, before I met her husband that he must be a very interesting man to break so with tradition. This is a modern home, and our friend is an accomplished academic, not easy for a woman in Arab culture. She said to me “Yes he is extraordinary, and we are Palestinians who do not do provocative things so we are not perceived as a threat.” That was interesting to me, and kind of sad too. The sadness was about the cloud of suspicion that can exist around people because of their ethnicity, or religion, or skin color, or whatever.

Our visit was short as it was night, we were tired, and we still had another friend to meet for dinner. I don’t feel that this writing does justice to the quality of the visit or the people or the place, so as you think about what I’ve written and the tone of my experience, multiply the beauty I have written about by a factor of 10.

28 April 2008

Saturday we finished our workshop at Adamama. This started Wednesday afternoon and concluded Saturday before lunch. Adamama is a permaculture farm in the south of Israel. The nearest town is Netivot. This is just east and slightly north of Gaza, so occasionally one hears bombs. We had our big workshop there last year as well. This year the workshop was called Aspecting and Shapeshifting.

Tuesday evening, before the workshop, a bunch of folks gathered at a very amazing horse rescue home for an evening of drumming for peace. More on that shortly.

Wednesday the heat wave started. When I say heat wave I mean temperatures around 43 or 44 C, which is between 105 and 110 F. This was uncomfortable for me on Wednesday, but by Thursday it began to be debilitating, and by Thursday evening I was quite ill, with a high fever, sore throat, body aches etc. Basically, the flu. By Friday afternoon I was nearly unable to function and stopped actively participating in the workshop. Saturday morning I was much better and by the time we devoked our circle I was better still. Of course I had invoked fire on Wednesday, and when I devoked it on Saturday the fever left me completely. And people say there is no magic in the world. Hah!

The drumming was sweet. The intention was drumming for peace with Jews and Arabs. In my naïveté I had hoped that there would be more of a “mixed” crowd. There were two persons at the drumming who are Arab, a woman who had come to a workshop the previous week, and her son. I mentioned them in a previous blog entry. The little boy is around 4 or 5, a real cutie who played with the dogs, and danced around. His mother drummed and watched him a lot as he was sometimes a little close to the fire. This is a very wonderful woman who I will write about more shortly. The other people were mostly 20 or 30 something “Jews” pagans, most of the people who would attend the workshop starting the next day, and two of my land mates (a couple actually) from California, one of whom is Israeli.

Now something I am coming to understand more is that here, an Israeli is either a Jew or an Arab, even though “Jew” is a religious designation and “Arab” is a cultural identity. One can be an Arab Jew, Christian, Muslim, or even Pagan, but if you are descended from Jews and you are Israeli then you are considered a Jew as your cultural identity. This is the only place where the name of a religion is inseperable from the cultural identity. This use of language is powerful in defining and in maintaining a sense of difference. The Jews who moved here to make a homeland and later founded the state of Israel were doing so under duress because of religious persecution, so the need to affirm identity and to have a place of safety were deeply intertwined, which has led in part, a few generations down the line, to the current set of conditions.

The workshop itself was intended for experienced practitioners of magic, so the material was predicated upon the ability of the participants to manage their energies and consciousness. Wednesday afternoon and evening was focused on arrival, intention setting, all the beginning stuff you do in a workshop. Thursday morning we worked with aspecting, which is the process of making space for and inviting deity or another presence (i.e. love, unity) to come into one's body and inhabit it for a (usually brief) time. Sometimes a person feels called to invite in a particular deity or sometimes a person calls to a particular presence, perhaps an ancestor, or an element. This worked well. I tend to stress the “health administration warnings” (as one participant put it) involved with this work because I take it very seriously. I view aspecting as a very useful tool but one which is actually not needed often. The reason for teaching it to this group is that these folks wanted to deepen their skill levels. These people are priestessing in the world and as they are mostly young people, they are especially aware that they are in training for what is to come in their lives, in the world. And this is Israel! There is a lot of magical work to do here!

By the time this piece of work had finished it was so hot, it was not possible to continue with focused work. The woman who co-taught the workshop with me (a truly fantastic priestess and teacher who taught with me last year as well) and I had planned for the afternoons to be break time and ritual planning for the evenings, since we knew it would be hot. We just didn't know it would be so hot.

This was the second unseasonal heat wave of the year. Usually Israel gets winds from the east, from the desert, as heat waves starting in May. This year the first one was in March and the second one in April. Last year we had the first heat wave of the year during our workshop at Adamama, make of that what you will. In any case, climate change is apparent here.

The group (those who wanted to) met Thursday afternoon to plan the ritual for that night, and through a process of dropped and open attention came up with a pretty amazing ritual intended to shift perspective on one's relationship with duality, working with the history of this land and Goddesses from Babylon and Egypt, Ishtar and Black Isis respectively, in aspect.

It was, however, so hot, that we decided not to do the ritual, or anything else, that evening. I went to bed early in the little cob dome house I was staying in, and had a night of deep sleep and lots of fever and sweat.

Friday morning I felt significantly better, and we did a morning session of shapeshifting; moving consciousness into different forms. People worked with fox, butterfly, fly, flower, and other natural beings. By mid day though it was very hot again and I was not doing well at all, so after lunch it was suggested that I be taken to the B & B where one of the participants was staying, about a kilometer away, so I could nap in a cooler space, before we finished planning the ritual. The group also had their own Beltaine ritual to plan, which will happen after I leave Israel. I napped, it was good, we planned ritual, and then I felt again so sick that it was clear I would not participate in the ritual. All along my internal dialogue had been about whether or not to deep witness this ritual, and while I participated in the creation of the ritual plan and felt very interested in it, somehow this wasn't my ritual. This was for the people living here. This intense magic, summoning and asking for help from two Goddesses to a mud house on the edge of the desert, near a war zone, to work on issues of duality and shifting awareness, needed to be made by people of this place. I am a visitor. I come to offer what I can, and willingly to sacrifice, in this case my comfort and temporarily my health, and the work was not mine. So I went to sleep and did not attend the ritual.

The next morning I felt a lot better, and people told me about the ritual. I am not going to write the details they told me because that is theirs to tell, and I wasn't there, and that was clearly part of the magic. Suffice to say that this ritual went deep and was not easy or comfortable, and fear was transformed. This was not living room magic. This was on the edge of the world magic. And all the tools we worked with last year in our workshop, and this year, and the work people have done before and during this year, all were brought to bear.

We spent Saturday morning debriefing from the ritual, making sure the aspected deities were completely gone, and integrating the work, preparing people to leave. We had lunch and then we left, but not before visiting with the woman who made the amazing Earth Shrine cob building where we did our work. She is the priestess of that place and lives 10 meters away up a little hill.

Four of us left Adamama together to visit Wahat al Salaam/Neve Shalom/Oasis of Peace, the intentional Arab Jewish Christian village not far from Jerusalem. More on that next posting.

21 April 2008

Dear Mira:

I know you are not a hater. I know you are a beautiful person who loves, who is doing their best to grow and learn and who wants peace. What you wrote moved me. We are really all in this together endeavoring to find our way to truth and healing and love and peace. And this process of transformation which I personally am experiencing, which we as a world are in together, is confounding and can be confusing. As you said before, there are not simple answers. Even the questions are not simple! I want you to know you are not in this alone!

love,
Baruch

18 April 2008

I feel I must respond to Mira's comment.

I am not saying there are not terrible acts perpetrated by both "sides" in this conflict. I am also not faulting anyone who doesn't choose to cross the green line.

Something I have learned living in the racist US is that when an oppressed minority retaliates, while it may be truly terrible, it is somehow different from when a powerful majority perpetrates a terrible act. An ongoing argument or discussion regarding race in the US has been...can african-americans be called racist when they hate euro-americans, given the history of euro-americans oppressing african-americans? The context plays an important part in how we view events.

There is a child's game called "Who will stop the hurting?" where kids take turns punching each other, harder and harder, until finally someone chooses to stop. It seems to me that it is incumbent upon the strongest to stop punching first, even if they end up taking the last punch. Maybe that is naive of me, or too idealistic. I don't know how else to see it though.

Mira I do not in any way mean to diminish the pain and suffering of Israelis who are hurt or injured or who lose loved ones. I do think, though, that the one with the most weapons and the most force at their disposal has got to be the one to stop the fight, to extend the olive branch. Otherwise it just keeps going, as it has for so long.

17 April 2008

Last night we had a workshop which was new, something I have never tried to teach before, based on a dream I had many years ago. The gist of the dream, what I was attempting to communicate last night, is that everything is love; all matter, all of the universe. I didn’t do a great job of communicating this, but the real reason for the workshop was something else, which became clear.

The promotion for the event was not particularly effective for a number of reasons. Only two people responded that they would come, so we ended up doing it at the home of one of the organizers rather than at the spiritual center where it had originally been scheduled to happen. The two women who came are Arab women. One of them has been working as a therapist. She is currently in the process of transitioning to different work. The other woman works as a professor at university teaching gender studies to jews and Arabs, which is no small thing!. This woman lives in the only village in Israel which is an intentional community of jewish and Arab people. It is called Neve Shalom, which means Oasis of Peace.

The discussion that happened, after I presented my material, was really amazing. I mostly sat and listened, realizing that I know nothing about Arab culture. I didn’t know about pre-Islamic Arab goddesses. I saw that I don’t even know what it is I don’t know about Arab culture and her/history. It was humbling and I feel so honored that these two amazing women came to a workshop taught by someone named Baruch, clearly a jewish name, to the home of a stranger, to learn about something relatively obscure. They had read the book of one of the people who host and organize my workshops, a priestess here in Israel who is of jewish ancestry. She teaches magic in Israel; not new age “pop” magic but Reclaiming and other practice of the craft, which is also very unusual in this “jewish state.”

We invited them to come to the Drumming for Peace event happening next week and the woman from Neve Shalom said she would come and would also invite people from her village. I am SO looking forward to this! This is what I was hoping would happen. I have been wanting to meet and connect with Arab people here, and not found a way to do that with my Israeli friends. There is such a deep racism here against Arabs, and the government promotes so much fear and maintains the sense of difference. Most of my friends here are afraid to cross the green line (the line drawn by the 1967 war) because they have been told they will be arrested, or they will be killed if the go to the other side of the line, so I haven’t found anyone willing to go with me across the line.

Last night was the beginning of friendships (I hope!) and connections. Now my dream of somehow participating in peace work here begins to manifest, to take shape. Where this will lead I don’t know, and I am very excited to find out! I am very small in this. Small as in young to it, and a small singular person, while there are actually many people here who live peace work.

13 April 2008

Israel! It's hot. I am in the north where it is surprisingly green though I am told it has been a very dry winter. We did a workshop yesterday on ritual skills that culminated in a ritual that was pretty amazing.

This is a short entry as I am sitting outside a McDonalds in Karmi'el using my (lousy!) battery.

I am moved to tears often here. The people I am with are beautiful and working hard to grow and learn and contribute. Energy moves through me here. I never wanted to come to Israel but there is no denying that this is a power spot on Earth, and I feel it.

Today I am 48. I spent time thinking about my mother who gave birth to me 48 years ago today, and the amazing journey I have been on ever since.

I am filled to overflowing with love and gratitude. It may sound corny, but it's real and such a gift.

09 April 2008

Tomorrow I fly to Israel. The day starts with an early bus (which I won't miss this time!) then a train to Milano and then on to the airport and to Budapest then Tel Aviv.

My mother's grandparents were from Budapest. My fathers parents were from somewhere in the AustroHungarian empire (as it was called then) so not too far. One of my brothers has lived there with his family. I will have 2 hours in the airport but it's still closer than I've ever been to my ancestor's bones.

It is raining in the mountains today as it rained yesterday; light drizzle and clouds shrouding the peaks.

I've been recording and editing episodes of my new radio show "Stories from the Road" which will hopefully start to air on http://wbkm.org sometime in the next month. I will post the time slot when that's been finalized. These episodes have been really fun and emotionally satisfying to make. It is also a process, becoming accustomed to talking to my computer. My intention is to relay not only the story but some of my feelings about the experience. Each episode is followed by a song or two which I have chosen for relevance. I think these will move people in some way.

07 April 2008

This morning I woke early so I could take the 7:00 bus (one of two per day) to Albenga. I managed to miss the bus...I thought it would come on the other side of the road than it did...duh...so I walked a couple of km down the mountain and then hitched a ride to Albenga. The guy who picked me up dropped me off a few km from the center of town so I walked, which felt good.

The bus back to Vesallo happens at 12:55 and again at 18:30. Before catching the earlier bus I walked around Albenga's old city parts of which date from ancient Rome. I bought food. I sat at the station and waited for the bus.

I was sitting on a cement bench leaning against the urn at the end with my legs stretched out on the bench. A motorcycle cop drove by, stopped and glared at me. I put my feet on the ground and then he drove off. Wow. That was weird. Maybe I was violating some etiquette but most likely the cop was just uptight and being officious, as many uniformed people often do.

A correction...I am in the village of Vesallo in the town of Castelbianco in the province of Savona in the region of Liguria.

I leave for Israel on Thursday. truthfully, I am feeling a bit daunted by the intense set of workshops I'm scheduled to do. I feel a little shaky. I cranked through a lot of energy in March and self doubt rears its head now.

I know the work and I know I can do it, and there is ample reassurance from the invisible forces that I am on the right path, but I am not feeling strong today. The sadness is flowing. I know from experience that this makes space for more to move through me, and is in fact part of the process of creativity, but it doesn't feel good at the moment. I miss my friends. I will be with friends again soon.

Odd as it may be, I seem to have become an extravert. People who have known me for a while will laugh. I appreciate time alone for quiet and for creative work, but I really enjoy most things more when sharing the experience with a friend. With family really...and I count a lot of people as family. I guess one of the things that brings up the sadness is being around a lot of people and not sharing that sense of family with them in some open way. I'm kind of like a little kid that way.

05 April 2008

Here are some more photos!.

03 April 2008

Wow. I am in Italy in a stone house on a hill facing a valley of steep cliffs and ancient terraced herb and tree gardens.

The journey was intense. Train from Schiedam to Amsterdam, train from Amsterdam to Milano through Bonn and Frankfurt and Mannheim, Basel, Vienna...all places I have heard of all my life and not yet visited. Chloe the cat had some rough times with the travel until I figured out (with encouragement from a friend thank you!) to use the leash halter thingy I have. She rode in my lap from Holland to Italy and that was fine. Schlepping the disintegrating duffle tied together with rope weighing 50 pounds and a drum bag and a computer knapsack and a cat in a cat cage...this was challenging, but we did it!

I went to the TIM store in Milano station and got a gsm phone and a usb internet modem similar to the one I have in the US, so I can do my online work here. Woo hoo!!

Here are some photos.

31 March 2008

30 March 2008
10:00 on the platform in Schiedam waiting for the train, heading to Amsterdam. I'm seeing people, and feeling the oneness. I experience us as the same. Eyes meet, or not, we are in proximity more or less. I notice how much energy we spend pretending we don't know each other, pretending we are not the same, pretending that we do not recognize our cousins.

22:00 on the train from Amsterdam back to Schiedam, listening to Yoko Ono Kiss, Kiss, Kiss. People get on and off. We are soft flexible life forms in these metal serpents speeding over this marshy place, each with our own stories heading to our own place. In this expansive micro-moment of universal time waves of light and particles of universe coalesce into our experiences, us wearing bodies moving through space time, many times believing the stories to be definitive, when they are really just flashes of motion, some of which we can sway with our intentions, and flow with, or not.

I don't know why this is happening to me, but I am changing. The word that best describes what I am becoming is "transparent." Not so much in the visual way of being seen through, but more like..I feel like life is flowing through me, and is less obstructed than in the past. Not so much gets stuck and stays with me.

28 March 2008

Skies are grey, it's spitting rain. It's wonderful to see friends here in Holland. I am still working out the travel logistics to get to Italy next week.

Back in 2006 I attended a round table discussion about mental health issues in post Katrina New Orleans at an American Psychological Association conference held in New Orleans. The discussion was very interesting, and out of that has come a series of articles, including one by yours truly. Check them out.

26 March 2008

Chloe and I arrived at Schiphol yesterday morning to be met by our lovely friend who is putting us up this week. It was snowing! Trains were affected, people were coming back from a 4 day weekend and the platforms were packed. It was an adventure!

Flying with a cat is an unusual experience. Chloe did very well. She did escape her box when we got on the plane in Dulles, but a flight attendant caught her right away. She slept mostly. I tranquilized her at first but then even after that wore off she slept. I took her to the bathroom on the plane every hour or so to takje her out of the box, hang out with her, giver her water. The travel to Italy by ground will be interesting!

And after all the shots and the microchip etc, Dutch Customs was, as usual, very nice and easy.

Proceeding with plans for continued travel and work, and happy to be here.

17 March 2008

Music! I have always loved music, since I was a kid listening to my big brothers playing Bob Dylan and Jefferson Airplane and Traffic. Music has always mattered to me. I also love to share music that is special to me with others, so I have created Music for you! which you can see on the right hand side of this page. This is a collection of music files for download. I hope you enjoy my selections.

By the time I was a teenager I had been listening to Laura Nyro, and in 1974 I first heard Joni Mitchell. Laura died some years ago. I always thought we'd have liked each other. Now Joni is receiving accolades and honors for her genius, and it's all well deserved.

In 2007 Joni Mitchell released her first album in many years, Shine. It's beautiful, strong, and well worth listening to. Here is a teaser, one song, called This Place. The whole album is worth buying.

Herbie Hancock, another brilliant musician of our age, has recently released a set of recordings; interpretations of some of Joni Mitchell's work. It's called River - The Joni Mitchell Letters. Here is Tina Turner singing Edith and the Kingpin.

Music can move one in one's soul, open the heart, blow fresh air through the mind.

My friend Eric Koval with some partners has started an internet radio station, WBKM.org. He's playing great music for the people. Check it out. I hope to be sending in some recorded stories or interesting somethings to WBKM.org in the near future, tune in!

08 March 2008

Yikes! We are snowed in just east of Cleveland in a motel. Level 3 emergency declared in the county so I am going to stay over for the day and the night and head out tomorrow.

I went out to get some food. It's great out there. You can't see the road at all, and it's snowing pretty hard, so everyone has to drive slowly and pay attention, there really is no choice. Something about more intense climate stuff brings out our common humanity.

These long drives offer me time to think, to be, to sing, to cry, to laugh. It's like review time. All of what I've been experiencing is somehow distilled into intense emotions. It's good. I feel connected with a lot of people all over the world. I feel the connections. I know they love me, and are thinking of me. I love them and am thinking of them, and they know it. I remember when I lived in Vermont I used to feel lonely, mostly for a partner. Now I feel ... well the opposite of lonely, I feel connected with so many partners. I sure do love getting older.

Talking with people when I buy gas, or food, or whatever, is always interesting. So far I have had some really great experiences. I don't even start the conversation about how challenging things are in the US these days. People must detect a sympathetic ear and it just comes out when they are with me. I just read how the FDA doesn't want to release the names of companies selling recalled tainted meat because it would be bad for business. I see that, and I think about the people I meet, and there is such a total disconnect. The FDA is just one example of how government is now blatantly against the people.

I was driving through South Dakota. I heard radio station KINI FM, out of St. Francis, a Native station. The gentleman was speaking slowly and deliberately. he said "Today we are going to talk about what is good for the people." He went on to discuss respect for elders, and then introduced two high school girls who each shared a little about how they grew up with their mothers, aunties, and grandmothers. They both talked about how they had been taught to be kind and generous and to respect elders, and how when they made a mistake their grandmother (usually) would sit down and explain to them what they did and why it was wrong and how to correct it. I was struck by the dignity and especially by the attention to kindness and caring and respect as important practices.

06 March 2008

We just crossed the Mississippi River. I send my love into the beautiful living river, may it carry my love south all the way to New Orleans and the Gulf.

I'm experiencing lots of gratitude as I drive. I'm so excited about the Healing Magic class. People are enrolling, and from many countries. This can really be the start of a fantastic international healing project, community, school, life!

I had more to say when I planned to blog today, but somehow it's all evaporated.

New blog feature...music for you! Today's song for the day is For Everyman by Jackson Browne. You can listen to and download it on my new page, Music for you! Listen to the words.

03 March 2008

Here we go! Early tomorrow morning we climb into the truck and start heading east. It may be snowing, but once I get out of the Montana mountains the weather looks pretty clear until the Great Lakes region.

I *think* I have enough gas money. With oil at $102.65 a barrel today, I wonder what I will encounter. My fingers are crossed!

One of the things I love is that when I set out to do a project, with all of the preparatory steps it takes to get there, by the time it's time for me to show up and do the gig, I'm ready. I feel that readiness building in me as I prepare to go "out there" and teach. It's an exciting feeling. I know that I don't know what I will encounter, and that there is no way to prepare for the unknown, and I'm traveling on faith. It's not the first time, most likely won't be the last.

I hear from friends in various places that there is a lot of sickness, flu, pneumonia. I am hearing this from California, New Mexico, Montana, Vermont...feels like a plague, eh? The bugs sure do get tougher and more virulent. It makes me think of the algae bloom and it's ultimate fate.

But, possibly depressing thoughts aside, I have loved being in the Bitterroot Valley and expect to return here in the not too distant future.

I'm thinking of all the people out there who I love, and how good it feels to love you all.

22 February 2008

Everything's coming together. The Healing Magic class is all set to go! The lessons are online, the discussion boards are set up...now it's ready for more enrollment! My kit for travel is coming together. The truck and camper are both for sale and in process...lots of interest.

This is a quickie entry...I am looking for funds for tires. My tires are getting smooth and I am about to drive across the country. I can get new ones for around $120 apiece. Anyone want to help out with part or all of a tire? I only need 4!

20 February 2008

Sunny, in the 20's F, snow in the canyons and mountains, none on the valley floor.

It has been my good fortune to have this time to move at my own pace, to work on projects in my fashion which is to have many going at once and gradually work a little on each thing...moving from project to project. The online class Healing Magic is set to start in a little more than a month. The materials are in good shape. It's a joyous opportunity, to put together and offer material that will, hopefully, be transformative as well as informative for the class participants.

I wonder what it would be like to live in a society where we were all encouraged to move at our own pace, to work on projects which inspire us. In my position of privilege as an American I have been able to carve out niches of time and space to live in this way. I know others who do so as well. It seems to me that one either has to have so much resource that one can afford to set one's own pace, or have so little that you are not beholdin' to a job or rent or mortgage. The folks in the middle are certainly being squeezed.

When I meet people who appear to be living less "in the box" they tend to be folks who have chosen to follow a path that is true to something inside of themselves. That takes courage, especially when there is so much encouragement, even demand, for conformism. Courage is interesting. Using my own life as a frame of reference (the best one I have!) I am struck in moments with how I have changed my life in the last few years, and how it could be scary except it isn't for the most part (notable exceptions having to do with physical health). It's pretty exciting.

Then I think about the trip I am about to embark on and go...whoa! What the...?! Can I really do this stuff?? I know I can, and it's exhilarating to keep realizing that.

11 February 2008

The snow has mostly melted here in the valley. There is still plenty in the mountains though, and I can see that it is still snowing in the mountains.

It's good to have this time with Lasky. I see her age is catching up with her. She was 15 human years old in December. Now she is a little less strong, and appears to be slightly disoriented occasionally. She's still pretty much herself, but it is like watching her start to run down, knowing that eventually she will stop. She's still a love.

I'm working out my money and infrastructure for getting across the country and to Italy. Things are coming together. It's a process.

My days here are pretty quiet. I'm not doing much media in the way of news.

04 February 2008

It's cold and partly cloudy in the Bitterroot Valley tonight. There's some snow from a few days ago and a dusting from last night. It's quiet.

I'm here with critters for the month housesitting for a friend who has gone off on a mission. She's a nurse herbalist street medic who's gone to join The Longest Walk 2 to provide a mobile clinic for marchers and people they encounter along the way needing free health care. I met this person in New Orleans at Common Ground Health Clinic. She's pretty awesome and does a lot of good. As it is she can go on the walk for a month. The walk is 5 months long. My friend needs $500 a week to pay her bills at home since she has to take time off from her work in an ER to do this. Any donations would be extremely helpful and would go directly into providing patient care along the walk from Alcatraz in the San Francisco Bay to Washington D.C. Please email me for info on how to donate, or just go to their website, The Longest Walk 2.

There are a lot of projects for me to work on and complete before heading east in a month. I am finishing up the curriculum for my class Healing Magic and for the workshops abroad.

I've been watching the media coverage of the presidential race. I can't help but feel hopeful about Obama. I know it's probably a mistake to do so, but what the heck. I saw Hilary with her makeover, eyebrows plucked, more eye makeup...wow. She looks and sounds exhausted.

21 January 2008

EAT ended Saturday. It was really good, exhausting as any 2 week intensive can be, and inspiring as ever. The most difficult part for me has been the nerve pain in my legs, and the occasional moments when my legs give out from under me and I start to go down. So far it's a short enough moment that I recover control of my legs before I hit the ground. May it get no worse!

I'll be sticking around here for the rest of this week and then heading to the Bitterroot Valley in Montana for the month of February, then on to VT, and on to Netherlands and Italy etc.

I haven't jumped back into the media stuff so I have nothing to say about any of the latest shenanigans of our mentally ill government.

Some words about the folks who attended EAT; there were 23 people, mostly women between 20 and 30 years of age. Most of the group was queer identified. The group included amazing musicians, poets, filmmakers, artists, teachers, and more. This was such a low drama group, I would even venture to say no drama. They pitched in and worked their butts off. The class comes to an end with small groups working together on permaculture design projects. This EATs batch of projects was great; realistic, significant, creative. There are so many amazing people out there, and I tend to focus on the younger ones, overflowing with ideas and willingness. Any community would be fortunate to have an EAT grad settle there or come through offering what they have to offer.

Public appreciation to the folks who have been underwriting my work with donations! I don't name names in this blog, but you all know who you are. Thank you for being willing to support my rendition of traveling priest and teacher. I know for some folks the apparent lack of convention in what I'm doing brings up some discomfort. I want you to know that you are supporting the flow of work that comes through me, which is all designed to serve. Helping me to buy gas and food now actually supports the folks in Israel and Europe who will attend my workshops in April. In Israel especially people do not have a lot of money. Flying me in, driving me around, feeding me, and maybe putting some shekels in my pocket when I go, is a lot of financial wrangling for those folks. Helping me to get there makes a difference.

Cash flow continues to be an issue I am focused on. I am looking for $1000 to get across the country at the beginning of March. There continues to be the option to make tax deductible donations. For more info on that email me.

Love and Gratitude, gets me through every day!

12 January 2008

EAT is halfway through. It is so great to be with all these folks who are so focused on finding, creating, and implementing solutions to some of the human made problems on Earth.

I am well. My health is good. My spirits are up. I am a bit exhausted from the EAT schedule, but that's part of working an intensive. Lasky and Chloe are both well and happy too.

My schedule for travel to Europe is in place. Workshops are happening. It's all very exciting. I'm looking forward to February in Montana too.

Being in a rarified situation like EAT I don't see much media, so when I do get to see "what's going on" it's a combination of some shock and blasé "oh yeah it figures." The presidential circus grinds on. I'm amazed that anyone can get it up for this nonsense. The candidates, except for Kucinich, all look to me like amazing liars. I expect that from Repugs and Dems, but it's still disappointing.

I'm sure I will vote, as i can't see not voting on the off chance that it could actually matter, but my thinking self understands that the preselection and placement of the new president is in no way in the hands of the voters.

Today is the second sunny day in a row...lovely!

09 January 2008

I’m back in CA student teaching EAT. There have been big storms here, and we were without power, or phone for 4 days. Many roads were closed, towns without power...now power and phones are back and today it has been cloudy but not raining. Thanks to anyone who sent me anything in the mail...I haven’t been able to get to the post office yet but I will on Saturday.

A friendly amendment to the post preceding this one. The number of deaths cited includes all veterans and active duty military who died during the time period. It’s a lot of people, over 73,000, but they were not all fighting in the middle east.

I see the Clinton machine is running on course. Ugh. I am disgusted by the condescension and clear allegiance to and commitment to remaining among the power elite that both Clintons demonstrated in their remarks about Obama this past weekend. If she is the nominee I will write-in Kucinich, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. If the Dems want to win they better pick someone other than Clinton. Oh I forgot, there is no picking, the nomination is a bought and paid for thing, as is the presidency. My bad.

28 December 2007

I just downloaded a pdf file from a government site, specifically a Veteran’s Affairs website. Here is the link. http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/GWVIS_May2007.pdf Please download it, read it, distribute it, talk about it. Here are some highlights to pique your interest:

73,846 U.S. troops killed in the gulf region since 1990 (on page 8 of the pdf))

The upshot of this is that since Papa Bush we have been at war in the gulf region, and the real human cost just in american lives is way more than the government has been publicly declaring. The real numbers are direct from the VA. Check it out.

It's the end of 2007. Wow what a year it's been. Just in my own life a lot has happened. I've done some good work in this past year, which is gratifying. I'm not always sure I'm "on track" but 2007 was pretty good in that regard.

Then of course there is all the bigger picture stuff that's happened in the last year, including the terrible murder of Benazir Bhutto that happened a couple of days ago. Watching the world, feeling with the world, intending to effect the world...all cause to take a deep breath.

Now I am planning 2008. Oy vey. I have manifested another set of teaching engagements abroad. I'm pretty excited about the workshops, the enthusiasm of the folks I am working with, and the adventure of more travel.

I'm also feeling mixed, like it would be so nice to find a little cabin in Montana and just settle in.

Ironically, yesterday evening I was thinking about the difficulties I am having finding funds to do things like...buy food, service my truck, buy an airplane ticket to Europe. I started to panic a little, and then I calmed myself and considered...maybe I am not going abroad. Maybe it isn't happening. Maybe I just can't get that together, and I should stay stateside. I felt some relief when I thought this. I even went so far as to imagine getting a counseling license in Montana and working in the field of psychology again. Then I slept on it.

This morning I received email from a friend who may be willing to float me the price of my ticket until I sell the truck in Vermont in February. That casts a whole new light on the situation, and gets me back into thinking about taking this trip after all. Never a dull moment in my life!

27 December 2007

This is a fascinating article about the Bush family. I encourage you to read it and share it.

The Bush Dynasty of Death

Here is some interesting and useful information, sent to me by a friend who is in NOLA, about what's happening in New Orleans right now regarding the destruction of housing. Please take an action on behalf of the disenfranchised in New Orleans.

The Ongoing Struggle for New Orleans Public Housing

"We finally cleaned up public housing. We couldn't do it, but God did." Congressman Richard Baker (R-LA), September 9, 2005.

After New Orleans’ floodwaters receded, many local organizations and their national allies identified the right of evacuated survivors of the storm to return and rebuild as a top priority. Remarks like Baker’s were typical in the immediate neoconservative frenzy to use the disaster in order to implement right-wing programs such as privatization of public education and healthcare, construction of new prisons and immigration detention facilities, elimination of labor laws, and of course, closure of public housing developments.

The current situation for New Orleans' public housing is evolving rapidly, but one thing is clear – the demolition of some buildings is imminent, and in fact, already begun. For background information, please read on further below, but check it out – right here, right now, here’s what we’re asking of you:

The Coalition to Stop the Demolition calls on our national and international allies to support our demands, which are as follows:

1.    No demolitions – reopen the existing units and rebuild dignified housing at former public housing sites.

2.   Guaranteed one-to-one replacement for all public housing residents.

3.   All available public housing units should be made available for the homeless and those likely to face homelessness from the pending loss of rent vouchers and trailer recalls.

4.   The Federal government needs to suspend demolition until they complete their own investigation of Housing and Urban Development head Alphonso Jackson regarding the illegal no-bid contracts he awarded to his cronies.

5.   Rent control (at pre-Katrina rates) to provide deeply affordable housing so that all will be able to return to the city.

6.   Stop the privatization and gentrification of the city.

Concrete ways that you can support those demands are as follows:

1. Come down and help! We need for as many people who are able, particularly Black and other oppressed people, to come to New Orleans to assist with making art and banners, helping with outreach, coalition-building, and base-building, and engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience in line with the resident council’s principles (see below) and the Coalition’s pledge of resistance statement (see www.peopleshurricane.org). To engage in this initiative, we ask that you contact the Coalition at action@peopleshurricane.org.

2. Pressure Senator Vitter! We need to continue bombarding US Senator David Vitter with calls, faxes, and emails demanding that he support the Gulf Coast Housing Recovery Act (Senate Bill 1668) and allow the bill to move from the committee to the Senate floor for a vote.

3. Demand action from that committee! We need to get all members on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, where 1668 is currently stalled, to move it to the Senate floor. See below for a contact list of committee members.

4. Pressure Senator Mary Landrieu! Now that prominent members of her party have come out against the demolitions, we must push her to demand that the Federal government, via President George W. Bush and the Justice Department, suspend the demolitions at least until the federal investigation of Jackson is complete.

5. Make media and get the word out! We need to reframe the struggle to stop the demolition based on the demands of the Coalition. To this end we need everyone to

a. Write letters to the editor for your local news outlets,
b. Blitz the major newsprint, TV, and cable media networks and demand that they cover the issue
c. Write articles on the issue based on the Coalition’s demands and post them to as many listserves, blogs, and websites as you possibly can.

Topics to cover include connecting the New Orleans struggle to what’s happening in your community; the violence used to try and silence and suppress dissent at the City Council hearing on the 20th; and the recent letters and statements from Pelosi/Reid, Edwards, Obama, Clinton, and Mayor Nagin’s letter to Alphonso Jackson.

Finally, we need some financial resources to carry out this work. Some of the specific things we need resources for include:

1. The "Stop Da Demolitions" Mixtape made by Sess 4 – 5, Nuthinbutfire Records, and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement for the Coalition the Stop the Demolition. We need $1,400 to produce and print 2,000 CD's for youth outreach and education.

2. We also need resources to help with transportation, food, and accommodations for both residents and volunteers.

3. We need resources the cover the Coalition's cell phone expense. If any individual or organization is able to donate a phone and cover its bill, that would be ideal; currently the Coalition is using our members' private phones, which is not sustainable over the long term.

4. We need resources to cover printings of outreach materials (flyers and posters).

5. Finally, we need materials to produce banners and other mobilization props.

Donations can be made out to the Mississippi Disaster Relief Coalition (MDRC) and mailed to P.O. Box 31762 Jackson, MS 39286. Please indicate on your donation "Coalition to Stop Demolitions". All donations are tax-deductible.

Background
The vacant promises of mixed-income housing, solutions to growing homeless populations, and of disaster recovery assistance are not new, nor are they unique to New Orleans. As governments and corporations value people based not on their inherent humanity and dignity, but rather, on their level of participation in the market economy, we see and hear of folks from Oakland to New York, Miami to Los Angeles, and across the whole hurricane zone from North Carolina, across the Gulf South, and throughout Mexico, the Carribean, and Central America struggling for homes, clamoring to rebuild, fighting for community. Though the spotlight for these issues, laid bare by Katrina, is so often on New Orleans, we guarantee that if you look for it, you’ll find disasters in your neighborhood, your community, your city.

As human rights lawyer Bill Quigley wrote recently, “What is scheduled to happen in New Orleans is happening across the United States. It is just that New Orleans offers a more condensed and graphic illustration. The federal government is determined to get out of housing all together and let the private market reign. A 2007 report of the Urban Institute confirms that in the last decade over 78,000 low-income apartments have been demolished by HUD. That is why locals are receiving support and solidarity from residents and housing advocates in Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and New York.

“Destruction of housing for the working poor is also a global scandal as corporations and governments push entire neighborhoods out. In India, traditional fishing villages destroyed by the tsunami are being forcibly moved away from the coast and the land where they lived is being converted to luxury hotels and tourist destinations. The International Alliance of Inhabitants, which opposes the demolitions in New Orleans, points out poor people's neighborhoods are also being taken away in Angola, Hungary, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.”

Here’s what we can share with you about the struggle in New Orleans: African-American residents and their allies are particularly concerned that plans to rebuild the city will eliminate African-American neighborhoods. A brief overview of the events in the first year after the flood shows the deep urgency and validity of these concerns.

1). In October 2005, thousands of renters faced eviction based upon notices attached to the doors of their apartments, despite the fact that they had been evacuated.

2). On Christmas Eve 2005, the City of New Orleans announced it would begin demolishing homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina -- without notifying homeowners. Community organizations were concerned that many families had not yet retrieved their salvageable mementos and belongings and many were still in disputes with FEMA and their insurance companies.

3). In April of 2006, the Sierra Club released results of their study of FEMA trailers having dangerously high levels of formaldehyde. In July, FEMA announced that they would conduct their own testing. But it wasn’t until December of 2007 that testing actually began; the results are expected sometime in early 2008. Meanwhile, many internally displaced people living in trailers are sick; unfortunately, their way out is that FEMA announced in November 2007 that all 50,000+ trailer residents will be evicted by May of 2008.

4). In July 2006, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would demolish 5,000 of the 7,700 public housing units in New Orleans. Within months of the storm, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson asserted that New Orleans would never again be as African American as it had been. As many homeowners lost everything, many public housing residents' homes sustained no damage but were boarded up. 

Since then, things have continued to accelerate. A federal court has refused to stop the demolitions. A class action filed on behalf of 5,000 public housing residents was thrown out of court. Public housing residents offered evidence showing that the buildings were structurally sound and that the local housing authority itself documented that it would cost much less to repair and retain the apartments than demolish and reconstruct a small fraction of them. The New York Times architecture critic described them as “low scale, narrow footprint and high quality construction." The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that requires one for one replacement of any public housing demolished, but Senator David Vitter (R-La) has effectively killed the Senate version.

Reduction of crime was supposed to be a major reason for destroying thousands of public housing apartments--yet crime in New Orleans has soared since Hurricane Katrina, with over 200 murders in 2007 alone. The real crime related to public housing is coming from Alphonso Jackson, who is currently under federal investigation to determine the extent of his involvement with rigging bids to redevelop New Orleans’ public housing to enrich himself and his friends.

HUD has approved plans to turn over acres of prime public land to private developers for 99 year leases and give hundreds of millions of dollars in direct grants, tax credit subsidies and long-term contracts. This is the biggest tax-credit giveaway in years. Until the investigation is concluded, it is inappropriate to move forward with any of these illegally awarded, no-bid demolition and rebuilding contracts.

Current Situation
On December 20, 2007, New Orleans’ first majority white city council in over 30 years (elected in large part due to widespread disenfranchisement of African American New Orleanians) voted unanimously to execute Senator Baker’s blatantly racist vision of “cleaned up” public housing. When former residents of public housing and their allies arrived to attend the meeting and testify, they found the chambers already packed with people in favor of the demolitions. Those most affected by the plans were shut out of the meetings, and when they expressed their legitimate anger and frustration that they not be allowed to participate, several of the handful who had made it inside were attacked by police and security guards and shocked with Tazer guns before being brutally ejected from the chambers and arrested. Meanwhile, outside City Hall, police tazed and pepper sprayed the crowd who was trying to attend the meeting, sending five people to the emergency room and arresting fifteen more.

Video of these events can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMBWAXfGsc4

"The City Council’s vote to demolish in the midst of the ever-growing housing crisis is an egregious violation of human rights. It is beyond callous, and can only be seen as malicious discrimination. It is an unabashed attempt to eliminate the Black population of New Orleans." said Kali Akuno, of the Coalition to Stop the Demolition.

Not only does this halt any semblance of a democratic process, there also are serious conflicts of interest, misrepresentation of facts (such as a Times-Picayune article on the Sunday before the vote), a lack of consultation with the public, and the pending federal investigation of Jackson. The Council's deliberate disregard of these factors – not to mention holding their meeting behind locked doors, and during business hours – makes their vote illegitimate.

Despite the repression and coerced and discriminatory vote, the struggle to stop the demolitions and the human right to housing in New Orleans continues. The Coalition to Stop the Demolition is moving without pause to the next stage of the struggle and is calling on everyone to stand with us in this fight.

To successfully engage in the next stage of struggle, a concrete understanding of where the movement now stands is in order. While the shameful vote of the City Council approving demolitions was a temporary set back, our movement was able to force the council and Mayor C. Ray Nagin to make some critical concessions to several of our demands. These include:

• An expansion of the replacement units
• An expansion of the HANO Board from one to three people
• More resident inclusion in the “redevelopment” planning process
•  Thorough public documentation and review of all redevelopment plans, particularly their financing plans
• Federal guarantees for resident vouchers

The movement was also able to force several prominent national politicians and presidential candidates to respond and put pressure on George Bush to halt the demolitions and to live up to his September 2005 promises to rebuild New Orleans and confront the racism and poverty that underlined the catastrophe. These figures included John Edwards, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barbara Lee, Barack Obama, and most recently, Hilary Clinton.

While the concessions offered by City Council and Mayor Nagin are fairly significant, they do not provide sufficient protection guarantees for public housing residents, and more importantly, they do not concretely address the escalating housing crisis presently afflicting the city. What the concessions in effect attempt to do is give political cover to Nagin and the council through a façade of progress and false promises of home ownership and inclusion in the “ownership society” of Bush’s American Dream. What they offer in reality, however, is further legitimacy to the neoliberal Gulf Coast reconstruction program of the Bush regime outlined by neoconservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundationand administered through government institutions and agencies at every level, including the neo-colonial city administration of Mayor Nagin through his “free market recovery” policies.

If the concessions are administered, rents in the city will continue to skyrocket, homelessness will immediately escalate, more and more working- and middle-class Blacks will be forced out and further exiled, and the city will become irreversibly whiter.New Orleans already has a homeless population in excess of 12,000, and by the end of May, there will be more than 50,000 families evicted from closing FEMA trailer parks in the hurricane-affected region. The only legitimate solution is to reopen all available housing now.The Coalition to Stop the Demolition seeks to stop these calamities and asks you to join us.

For more background information, check out these links:

This Is My Home– a compelling video about why public housing must be saved and restored – go to: http://www.advancementproject.org/ourwork/other-initiatives/hurricane-katrina/video1.php

Info Packet compiled by the Advancement Project: http://www.advancementproject.org/ourwork/other-initiatives/hurricane-katrina/information-packet.php

Public housing: Rooting the struggle in past reconstructions –article linking past and present struggles: http://www.sfbayview.com/News/Editorial/Public_housing_Rooting_the_struggle_in_past_reconstructions.html

Resources:

Resident Principles for Guiding Action

I. All actions should be non-violent.
II. There should be no weapons or drugs at any actions, and no alcohol or drug or weapon possession at any action.
III. No destruction or defacement of resident property.
IV. No coalition meetings without resident knowledge and input 
V. No media without residents or resident knowledge.
VI. Focus on defending public housing and affordable housing in the city for all.

Federal Government Contact Information

George W. Bush - 202-456-1111
Alphonso Jackson, Secretary of HUD - (202) 708-1112
Mary Landrieu, US Senator, (D-LA) 202-224-5824; Fax: 202-224-9735
David Vitter, US Senator, (R-LA) - (504) 589-2753, DC Office (202) 224-4623

Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee contacts – demand that they approve Senate bill 1668:

Senator David Vitter: New Orleans Office (504) 589-2753
Senator Christopher Dodd (202) 224-2823
Senator Tim Johnson (202) 224-1638
Senator Jack Reed (202) 224-4642
Senator Charles Schumer 202-224-0420
Senator Evan Bayh (202) 224-5623
Senator Tom Carper (202) 224-2441
Senator Robert Menendez (202) 224-4744
Senator Daniel Akaka (202) 224-6361
Senator Sherrod Brown (202) 224-2315
Senator Robert Casey (202) 224-6324
Senator Jon Tester (202) 224-2644
Senator Richard Shelby (202) 224-5744
Senator Robert Bennent (202) 224-5444
Senator Wayne Allard (202) 224-5941
Senator Michael Enzi (202) 224-3424
Senator Chuck Hagel (202) 224-4224
Senator Jim Bunning (202) 224-4343
Senator Mike Crapo (202) 224-6142
Senator John Sununu (202) 224-2841
Senator Elizabeth Dole (202) 224-6342
Senator Mel Martinez (202) 224-3041

New Orleans Mayor and City Council Contact Information

Mayor Ray Nagin – 504.658.4900

Arnie Fielkow 504.658.1060 afielkow@cityofno.com

Jacquelyn Clarkson 504.658.1070 jbclarkson@cityofno.com

Stacy Head 504.658.1020 shead@cityofno.com

Shelly Midura 504.658.1010 smidura@cityofno.com

James Carter 504.658.1030 jcarter@cityofno.com

Cynthia Hedge-Morrell 504.658.1040 chmorrell@cityofno.com

Cynthia Willard-Lewis 504.658.1050cwlewis@cityofno.com

 

22 December 2007

Plans for the gentrification (white-ification) of New Orleans are in full swing. I don't know if you've been following what's going on down there but the new City Council (majority white for the first time in decades due to the preventing of people from voting by making it impossible for them to come home) voted unanimously to proceed with the demolition of low income housing. This will make way for expensive development which will insure that only people with money live in New Orleans.

If you haven't seen it yet check out an article I wrote after leaving New Orleans in 2006.
http://www.healingmagic.org/walterzeichner/DisasterMentalHealthCall.pdf

Here are some other recent pieces to check out.

New Orleans to Demolish Thousands of ‘Poor’ Homes
by Leonard Doyle
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/21/5948/

The Shock Doctrine in Action in New Orleans
by Naomi Klein
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/12/21/5956

What's happening in New Orleans is a prototype for domestic militarizing and plundering, soon coming to an american city near you!

18 December 2007

On the phone this morning with a friend here in Montana (an amazing person, one of the folks who started the clinic in New Orleans) we were talking about how, in this winter time, we just want to stay inside and nest. I have come to treasure this time around Yule, as it draws me inside. No matter where I am, the progressing darkness, short days and long nights, pulls me inside. It used to be depressing, and it is still sometimes a time when grief rises to the surface and moves out. And yet, this year, I am charged with some big pieces of work during this period. I am designing a number of workshops for Israel and Europe, putting together my online class in healing, and working out the logistics of traveling in 2008, which means finances, animals,, tickets, etc. Whew!

The point of this is that I found myself saying to my friend how amazing it is to have this job of coming up with ideas, taking them out into the world, offering them to people, and having all that make a difference. It is an honor.

I'm sure my process is different than other peoples. For me it involves a lot of doing nothing; just eating, relaxing, sleeping, reading, watching videos, standing outside and feeling the place, watching the weather and the mountains, being with animals, etc. Just living, just being, makes space for creativity to emerge. I can't push it.

I have been settling into this house for 9 days; getting used to the place, organizing the psychic space, listening to more music. Gradually I have been reaching into the idea pool, and emailing with colleagues in these ventures. Last week was the final week of the term at BVU so my class ended and there were lots of papers and exams to grade. That helped me transition into this work mode. Now that's done, and I still expect to be involved with writing and thinking every day, so those creative juices are now focused on this creating.

My current conundrum is whether or not to bring Lasky to Europe with me. Chloe will come. I can't leave her again, and a cat is easier to travel with than a dog in terms of size and overall impact.

My fundraising efforts have borne some fruits. A few people offered to send some money, which is great. That will take a week or so to get to me. Someone also offered me a computer! Wow. It is amazing to feel supported by people while I am in this work mode. I think sometimes that what I'm doing now might not look much like work to strong work-ethic minded people, and yet this is a full time job, believe me. I think I am still coming to terms with this form of work.

Gratitude and winter healing!

14 December 2007

I'm having a blast in Montana. It's real winter, which is beautiful (and Lasky is loving it!) and the Bitterroot Valley is one of my favorite places.

I put out a fundraising appeal earlier this week, and some folks have responded (thank you!!). I went through an interesting process sending out this appeal. I asked myself a lot of questions like, why should anyone give me money? Why don't I go out and just get a job? Am I entitled so being supported by others? It's a weird, somewhat uncomfortable position to be asking for support, and I wanted to really look at what I am doing. The answers I came up with, to those questions, are...no one SHOULD give me money, no one owes me anything. If it feels right to someone to gift me, then I accept that gift because it allows me to do my work (see below). If I go out and get a job, it would take away from the work I am doing, which feels valuable and important. I am no more or less entitled to support than anyone else. I am fortunate to know people who see value in what I do in the world, and who care to help me do it. I've said it before and I'll say it again; I am so fortunate to know the amazing people I know.

The work right now consists of putting together curriculum for the various classes I am preparing to offer in Europe and Israel, as well as the online course. It is a wonderful gift to have the time and place to sleep, eat, be warm and dry, to sense and think my way through creating these classes so that they can be valuable for others.

The work is progressing nicely. I just sent a bio and class descriptions to Israel. The online class materials are coming together. I'm getting excited for this next teaching tour to get underway.

Here's a song for you from Billy Bragg called The World Turned Upside Down.

12 December 2007

I am hoping you will be interested in supporting my work with a tax deductible donation.

What is my work? I teach a variety of consciousness classes in the US, Europe and Israel.

Why am I seeking financial support? The classes pay enough to feed me and transport me regionally, but there are a few things that the class tuitions don't cover.

1. Getting me to Europe this spring...I need to raise about $2000 for travel expenses
2. Computer infrastructure...my iPod died and my computer is aging, looking to raise about $3700 to replace these.

I am currently earning money teaching through a college in Iowa, and am planning my own online course through my website http://www.healingmagic.org but I am very low on cash for things like...buying my ticket to Europe, and getting my computer stuff squared away, and frankly right now I am low on cash just for food and gas. So I am asking for help.

The tax deductible part comes into play thus. You would make a donation to the non-profit that I work with and they would funnel the funds to me.

Please email me baruch@mcn.org if you would like more information about my work, or for the address of the non-profit organization where you can send funds. Thank you!

10 December 2007

Hamilton, Montana. Light snow, temps in the 20's, nice! I'm staying in a house up the hill looking over the Bitterroot Valley. There are five cows to feed, a wood stove, great views, lovely quiet, heat, hot water (!) and it's very comfy. Lasky is enjoying the snow.

My gut feels about 99% better, another big cheer!

I've put myself out as a massage therapist, hoping to make some money for the drive back to CA, and for food. It's interesting living so hand to mouth. It has its own stress that goes along with it, but it's less stressful than having huge overhead and being behind on tons of bills, as I used to be.

I do need money, and I don't want to work a lot...a dilemma. Friends and family have been more than generous. Now what? Money, I invite you to come to me in forms that allow me to live the way I love, to do the work that I am called to, to be enough to meet the needs of me and the critters in terms of food, health care, transportation and housing.

A friend was talking to me about money magic, and part of the concept is to write a list of 100 things one would do with money if one had an unlimited flow. So far this is my list:

1. buy out weapons industry and convert it to plowshares
2. fund clinics in neighborhoods
3. fund gardens in neighborhoods
4. buy out chemical farms and convert to organic
5. fund libraries and schools
6. fund ecological transportation
7. fund telecommuting for schools and jobs to organic ag based communities

02 December 2007

I’ve been doing it again. Reading and posting in discussion forums in the online edition of the newspaper in Burlington, VT. The Opinion page always has letters about everything from taxes to the war to road conditions to climate change to politics to art. This forum draws posts mainly from a number of individuals who are pretty right wing in their opinions. They tend to be pro war, pro poverty (one person wrote that going hungry is a good life lesson for a child), pro Wal-Mart, pro Bush, and yet when they post it is usually to deride people on the left or their opinions with name calling and put downs worthy of a 9 year old in the schoolyard. They rarely ever actually discuss an issue on its merits.

Sometimes I post in these forums, anti war, facts about bush and cheney & co., my own opinions and also links to articles on other sites. This always results in a few posts that call me names, and which don’t address the issues I raised at all.

It’s a guilty pleasure. Posting there is sort of like baiting folks who can’t discern for themselves what is actually happening. I have a hard time crediting some of these folks with much smarts since they never actually say anything except put downs and party line. What do they really think? Do they understand what’s happening and not care, or perhaps they do not comprehend, due to some limitation, what is happening.

The missing ingredient seems to be compassion. The folks who post in this forum do not write about having compassion for people, for Earth, for anyone or anything. Everything is about putting people down, blaming liberals for their woes, plenty of criticizing, no critical thinking.

In my life I’ve borne witness to many situations and people. I have observed that the issue of our time is compassion. The world seems to divide into those who have it, who are empathic and relational or are evolving in that direction, and those who seem to lack compassion and are not empathic, seeing people and the world as commodity. Maybe some of these folks too are evolving in the direction of compassion. I don’t assume one way or the other. I’m sure I have all of that within me, compassion and lack of compassion, so I do see it as a part of my own growth to be more empathic with the rest of the world, seeing myself as part of the world. Maybe it’s this feeling of actual connection that makes me feel safe enough to stray from the square box. I am amazed, though, at people proudly proclaiming their compassionless positions and opinions as if they were great virtues. Giving obeisance to killing, suffering, cruelty, destruction, brutality, and every other word that belongs on that list, and mocking those who speak for life, for a future for Earth and all her children, for generosity and caring.

There is so much more to existence than that which the two dimensional mechanical view of the universe offers. The thing that sucks about it is that the folks who see things in that linear object oriented way are into so much destruction. The mechanical view has no respect for life, so, as has happened throughout history, the compassionless hold way too much power in the society.

Well shee-it. This ain’t right.

30 November 2007

Interesting to sit in a café and listen to two guys, around my age, talk about guns and the bible and "everyone's got to fight sometime" and stuff like that.

I'm pretty excited about the online class I'm offering starting in March through healingmagic.org. There have already been inquiries and expressions of interest. I'm putting the materials together and I think it's going to be fun and pretty interesting. There will be participants from various countries, so that will make it even more dynamic!

Still dealing with bad gut stuff. Latest possible diagnosis is salmonella. I haven't been this thin since I was in my 30's. Today I was listening to KPFA (kpfa.org is a must listen) and the report was on folks living in South Africa with no good water, food, sanitation, shelter...they said that there are 1 billion people on Earth right now living this way, not by choice but because of politics.

24 November 2007

Oh happy day! My gut is much better, and has been for a few days now. My fingers are crossed, it looks like I am nearly complete in recovering from the bad water experience. I did have stool samples and blood samples analyzed, all came out with negative findings, in other words, no detectable pathogens.

I am very grateful for the experience. I have always had good water to drink and to wash in. This is the first time in my life that I have had the experience of not having easy access to good water. And it was still relatively easy...I just had to drive down the mountain to get decent water. I'm fortunate. There are many people on this earth who do not have access to good water, period, end of story.

I shared this holiday with dear friends and their kids and grandkids. Not a Norman Rockwell family, they have their struggles, but there is love and caring and generosity and gratitude for all of what they DO have. It was very lovely to be with them, the food was all homemade and delicious (and organic!) and they love Lasky which is nice. I love watching her with other people who enjoy her. It's very sweet.

I'll be heading to Montana on Dec. 5 to housesit until New Years. More to be grateful for. Winter with snow! A wood stove! No ticks! And of course, good water!

Thinking of the many people I love, who I consider to be family, and sending out loving vibes and appreciation to you all!

P.S. My 2008 teaching schedule is available now. Click on Healing Magic.

18 November 2007

Last night I was lying in the yome in the dark, feeling my belly gurgle, asking my intestines for a night of NOT running out to the shitter every 15 minutes...and I got what I asked for. I slept and dreamt. Thank you gut! Today I am still sick with whatever it is, or at least the purging from within continues.

Back to last night in the dark, remembering the ritual death that precedes the rebirth of the shaman, embraced being in the dark, aware of "my situation." I have removed myself pretty far from mainstream america. I don't work at a job like most people. I don't have health insurance (well I guess that's pretty mainstream now). My bank accounts are nearly empty. I don't own "real" property. I have less possessions than at any previous time in my life save infancy.

All that brings me to an interesting crossroad in identity, in self concept. I could be afraid of being in freefall, of "not being ok." And I do have a touch of that, but mostly I feel the satisfaction of being on the right path. I have viable plans for 2008 which are congruous with my values. Relationships with people, animals, plants, and places all supersede my relationship with materialism. Life is good.

I've written two pieces recently and submitted them for publication. One is called "Hope in Troubled Times" and the other is "Setting Limits on our Sociopaths."

16 November 2007

Thanks to the folks emailing about my gut with concern and remedy suggestions. I just got test results...no parasites. Waiting to hear about bacterial infection. Still dealing with the same symptoms. There is a stomach flu going around here with similar symptoms, but it doesn't make sense to me that I would have gotten it right after starting to drink the nasty water, and that the symptoms would persist for so many weeks. We'll see, eh?

In other news, if you haven't been to http://commondreams.org lately, I suggest you check it out.

14 November 2007

Currently dealing with digestive problems from bad water. The water tank where I stay turns out to have contained, in addition to water, numerous dead mice and lizards. My gut has been a mess for weeks. Today I went to the local ER and left some samples for analysis. I hope they find and identify whatever is making me sick, and prescribe the appropriate drugs ASAP. In the meantime I feel crappy. Literally. Not fun.

Other than my personal digestive drama, I've been quiet a lot, listening to my thoughts, clearing my head. That feels great.

I continue to keep abreast of the political situation(s) with a combination of morbid fascination, horror, disappointment, and understanding that there is a lot of momentum in play.

As more and more americans make it clear that they disdain the dictator Bush and his crew, I expect Bush will keep tightening the screws. Pakistan is like a preview of coming attractions.

What I really don't understand is the collaborators. How can Nancy Pelosi, or Diane Feinstein, just to name two, sleep at night? What have they been promised?