Here is the link to an article I just finished writing.

Watching the modern film Beowulf and reading some of it again gives rise to these thoughts.

The story symbolizes the death of the old, the dragon, and yet the survival of the old world in the mother, and the rise of the modern patriarchal mechanized sterilized world, but not without a cost to that new world, for it is born out of violence and the gradual disconnection from the spirits of Earth and the rise of monotheism.

This made me think about Permaculture, and some of the language I have used about "return to sustainability" and other such references to bringing back elements of the past. I see, now, more clearly that the work is to integrate the modern with the ancient, not to return to anything, and not to leave everything behind.

I'm sure this is not a unique idea, but it feels like an "aha!" to me. Working with an underlying principle of bringing together the truly ancient and more recent with the skills of the present we should be able to create something that really works!

It's hot and sunny here in southern Liguria. It's been hot and sunny for a little over a week. It's very bright and hot during the day, and then an hour or so before the sun sets behind the western mountains, the moisture collects in the air and changes the colors of the light, and there is a cool breeze blowing this moist air. It's lovely.

I just had company! A friend I met in New Orleans was here for a couple of days on his way back to Paris. Also my nephew was here just heading out on his open-ended solo journey. It was great to see the exchange between these two late 20's guys sharing questions, suggestions, experiences. i dropped my nephew off today. He stuck out his thumb, heading towards Rome.

I noticed, hanging out with those two, that I am not in my late 20's and don't feel up for any really physically challenging adventures. And I feel the loss of being that adaptable. I travelled around North America when I was in my late teens, but then spent the next 25 years mostly in one place. It's been nearly 3 and a half years since I set out on this journey. I love traveling, it's so exciting and fulfilling. I also like being in one place. It's an ongoing inner dialogue.

This vacation relax time here has been and continues to be really great. Life is slow. It gives me time to think.

A friend recently asked on his blog some questions about kindness. I replied "Practicing kindness, for me, includes choosing to perceive relatedness, the sameness, of “myself” and “others.” When I practice this...on the street, the train platform, in a social setting, in a ritual setting, anywhere. Then I experience loving, which emanates outward from me, through me, and removes my own feelings of alienation. This molds my behavior into kindness, intending the wellbeing of everyone, everything, and behaving accordingly, making the effort not to cause or add to anyone’s suffering."

Some of the most effective teachers in my life have been animals, dogs and cats in my care. As I write this, Chloe the cat is sitting in my lap. She is 15+ years old. Chloe is a Siamese cat. She can be persnickety, has a loud voice when she wants to, and her face has a black mask. Sometimes to me she looks utterly alien. Other times all I see is the sweetness and trust she offers me. She is a dainty little creature, purring right now. She has snuggled with me almost every night of her life. She came to me when she was 9 months old, and except for 6 months in 2007 and occasional times when I was away, she has spent her nights cuddled up next to me. When we’ve been apart, I am told by the people who have cared for her, she is inconsolable. I’ve been good to her for the most part. There have been a few times when she complained loudly and pissed me off, or rather, her Siamese scream set my nerves on and over the edge, when I have been unkind to her. There have also been a few times when she woke me up by getting fur in my face and I reacted strongly, pushing or throwing her away physically. Despite these incidents, of which I am frankly ashamed, she is completely attached to me. When we are together, like now, I kiss and stroke her. I tell her how beautiful and amazing she is. I tell her that it is my job to make sure she has a good happy life. I have no idea what goes on in her brain, what she thinks and feels, how she thinks and feels. Sometimes I think she is just a little furry nervous system that eats and shits and sleeps. Sometimes I think she is an enlightened being. Whatever is true, she is one of my teachers because I respond to her and that provides me with opportunities to look at my responses, to learn about my own nature, to question my reactions, and to make adjustments within myself. Chloe is a creature of instinct. I’m sure she cogitates, but in ways that are inscrutable to me. I think she is neither kind or unkind, she just is. I am a creature of instinct and also of cogitation, and I can be kind, and unkind. I can consider my actions. I can choose.

Chloe is purring on my lap. I am stroking her as I type (no small feat!) and she occasionally gazes up at me with a look that conveys trust and comfort and belonging.

Recently I read a report about the medical effects of torture inflicted by US personnel on detainees at the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp. I also read an interview with a whistleblower about the black market in nuclear weapons technology which the US government is involvement in. This kind of information brings up a lot of sadness in me, and makes me wonder, for the umpteenmillionth time, how can people treat each other so? I have heard arguments about protecting state security and I understand that people can fear for their safety, but this goes beyond that. This goes to questions about those who choose profit over life. This goes to questions about how humans can see other humans as alien, as not deserving respect, as “less” than human.

In a recent blog entry I discussed the phenomenon of belief. Human beings live on and through this mental function we call belief. We form beliefs from our experiences, and then we see subsequent experiences through the lens of those beliefs. Religion, political ideology, relational patterns and social behavior, are all governed by the beliefs we hold onto. The psychologists and doctors who aid the torturers, the religious zealots who decapitate other human beings, the politicians making deals for weapons, the religious zealots who passionately oppose equal rights for sexual “minorities”; these are just a few examples of behaviors dictated by beliefs.

It seems to me that any belief which suggests or directs one to harm another is a belief in need of adjustment. How can it be morally right to cause harm to anyone or anything?

I used to be a vegetarian, even vegan at times. I felt disgust with the consumption of animals for food, the enslaving and slaughtering of other life forms. I still do. When I reached my 40’s and my spinal injuries (which I received in my late teens) began to assert themselves more severely, my wonderful chiropractor in Vermont told me that I had to eat meat or things would just get worse. I resisted, but finally relented because being in constant pain was unbearable. What happened was that the episodes of spinal pain and restricted mobility began to be less, so I have continued to eat the flesh of animals. I still have these episodes, and deep down I still find flesh eating to be basically revolting, but I suppress my revulsion and eat meat because I believe that my presence in the world as a functional person who is not in constant pain, has value. I thank the creatures I eat in my mind before I eat them, and I go out of my way to eat meat that was raised ecologically, where the animal had a life. I can’t always find meat raised thus, and I do eat commercially grown meat when I feel the need for the protein. I still feel that it is essentially unkind to the animals for me to eat meat, and yet it is a kindness to myself to eat things which strengthen my body.

I believe there is value, for each of us, in examining our own attitudes and behaviors relative to kindness.

Blessings on this solstice full moon!

We are entering the solstice, that time of balance, when day and night are of equal length for a few days. May we each find and feel that balance within ourselves, and manifest it around us.

May our choices be guided by wisdom and clear vision as we face our world with open minds, open hearts, aware of spirit, and with gratitude to all the creatures and life forms, for the pleasures and the pains, the ease and the challenges, the learning which comes easily and that which is more difficult.

May awareness of the awesome beauty of Earth fill us, even if just for a moment, or for a lifetime, or many lifetimes.

May our compassion be stirred and spread like compost, enriching, promoting growth, and remind us of the fecundity of life.

May truth be evident to us, different truths for different people, for truth is found when honesty is present. May we be honest with ourselves and with each other.

May the shadow, that which is hidden like the dark side of the moon, be acknowledged and honored even when it eludes our eyes. May we look upon the shadow even when it is a challenge to do so; let us not be guided into denial by fear of the unknown, but instead be willing to face the unknown even if we fear it.

May our love, which is infinite and irrational, steer us always in the direction of generosity, for we each have much to give, even when we don't know it. Even if sometimes we don't feel confident that we have gifts to give, may we find friends to remind us, family to appreciate us, and may we return that friendship and familial love in kind.

May the world be changed by our willingness to change ourselves, to grow and learn and be always in the process of discovery.

May our actions be motivated by love and ripple out, touching others, who touch others, who touch others...always rippling out and through the circle of existence. May our oneness with the cosmos be felt as real, and manifest in our beings, reminding and allowing us to be our truest selves.

Some years ago in the ruins of a flooded city I received a gift. It is this prayer, this teaching, this reminder:

Listen more than you speak
Hear what is really being said
Transform the behaviors that don't work
Let your feelings flow in balance
Remember where you come from
Remember what you're made of.

Blessed be.

P.S. Addendum posted 19 June - a friend wrote and reminded me that equinox is when the day and night are of equal length...duh...how funny of me. For some reason this solstice, when the day is at it's longest and the night at it's shortest, brought up all this stuff about balance, so I went with it. What does it mean? I'm not sure...that I am forgetful, that inspiration is irrational, that I am working on balance in my own life...all that and more I'm sure.

I just watched a film called “The Lives of Others” on the recommendation of a friend. Watch it. You’ll be glad you did. It’s not easy, but it’s important, valuable, inspiring.

The sun is hot, it’s beautiful here. I just saw an amazing insect...a large black bee with irridescent blue wings. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Wow!

I’ve spent the last few days on my back, taking ibuprofin. Coming to terms with the reality, that for the rest of my life this spinal issue will be present, is a challenge for my mind. It’s hard to accept. The periods of respite are so great. It’s easier for me to feel creative and motivated when my body feels good and I am mobile. Accessing that creativity and motivation when I am in pain and can’t move easily is another story.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush yesterday in the US House of Representatives. This is a moment that could become a groundswell if ameicans will build the momentum. If you haven’t yet, please write to your congressional reps and your local newspapers and tv stations, and insist that they get behind Kucinich and cover the story. It is not too late! See more on this at CommonDreams.org

My radio show "Stories from the Road" has been moved an hour earlier to Sundays 7 PM Eastern time at http://wbkm.org I hope you'll listen in!

I read this in today’s Guardian:

Polar bear shot dead after 200-mile swim

This is a perfect example of human stupidity. This beautiful creature’s life wasn’t worth the effort of saving. I weep for the polar bear, and I weep for us.

Today I feel hopeful. My personal world is good. My spine feels a lot better, which makes all the difference in my outlook. Pain and impaired mobility can really drag me down.

Barcelona Spain is out of water. A ship with 5 million gallons of water was brought to the city this week, and there is a fine of 5 million euros for watering flowers. Australia, China, Israel, all in water crisis. Los Angeles is going to start rationing water.

“Theft” of used cooking grease from the fast-food poison food oulets is increasing as people now know how to use this substance for fueling vehicles. At least those outlets are producing something useful!

It’s all happening. The many gradual changes are mounting. The wave is building momentum.

I have spent my adult life consciously preparing for these changes. That doesn’t mean I am prepared, but the feeling of waiting for the shit to hit the fan is being replaced by awareness of the shit actually hitting the fan...from the frying pan to the fire? Yet, it’s a relief not to just be waiting.

It must seem odd for those bits of information to follow a statement about feeling hopeful, but it makes total sense to me. The state of waiting challenges my sense of ability to respond, but as the waiting ends and the situation becomes clearer, I find myself more easily mobilized to act. The experience of my spine and mobility alongside these thoughts about waiting and acting “fits” to me. I wonder how many other people have a similar experience, or even a similar feeling.

Yesterday the server was down for one of my email accounts. I couldn’t get a number of US websites to load, like the New York Times and CNN. I wondered, has the government closed down the US internet? Has there been a bombing? Neither of those things had happened, but it was an interesting moment. These things are very possible, and how will I respond? How will people be affected?

I don’t mean to be a doomsayer. In fact I do not feel impending doom. I do feel change in the wind. The corporate governments are scrambling to retain control, and gradually it is slipping away from them, and as it does they become more desperate and oppressive. Humans, however, cannot control nature, and we are part of nature. As situations become increasingly dire, the mass of humanity will become less and less malleable by the manipulators. Even Katy Couric, corporate whore, said this week that she felt pressured by the government to promote the war. Scott McClellan, former Bush spokesliar has come out with his mea culpa book “exposing” the dishonesty of the Bush cabal. Rats deserting a sinking ship? It’s a pity the rats didn’t speak up sooner but hey, I’m sure they were caught up in fear-based self preservation, and status seeking, and belief.

It is increasingly clear that it is up to each of us to choose how we will be part of solutions. I imagine and hope that even people who have been duped and complicit are beginning to see beyond their beliefs and fears. There are seriously dark clouds coming...they are closer than the horizon, and the storm they bring will uproot and scour, and isn’t that nature’s way? I don’t mean to sound so biblical, being such a pagan and all, but a good metaphor is hard to resist.

I teach this class online, Healing Magic. The gist of the material is to stimulate awareness, a sense of being part of the web of life and thus able to act in support of life. I know this blog reaches a relatively small number of people, many of whom I know personally, and know to be actively involved in supporting life and solutions and all that good stuff. I visualize Earth and the people I know here who are doing this work each in their own way; maybe a few hundred that I personally know. And they all know more people doing the same thing in their unique ways, and they know more, and on and on. Today I choose to be aware of the millions, maybe billions, who do see, who do want change, who do what they can, or at least what they think they can, and that adds up to a lot of people doing a lot of amazing things within themselves, their families, their communities. I’m cheering us on! We can do it, we can do more than we even know we are capable of, and it matters.

Chloe the cat is curled up on the bed, sleeping, comfortable, her person nearby, her belly full.

I believe in magic. The fog on the mountains, the rain, friends and family and lovers; the snail on the leaf, the birth of a new life, the death of a loved one or even one I didn’t know who touched my life...

...even the pain in my body. I believe in magic. I call it...existence. Some say there is a creator who is separate from what we call creation. Some say that creation and creator are one. I call it a mystery, and that is also magic.

I’m listening to a song called “Apple of my eye” written and sung by Rosalie Sorrels. I went to school briefly with one of her sons when she and her family lived in Vermont in 1975-76. Here is someone who is still out there making music, who has lived a life with joy and pain. This is a voice worth listening to.

This week marks the passing if Utah Phillips. He was a true bard, an activist, someone who spoke truth to power, who put his life into action. His presence will remain in his music and the memories so many people have of him. I met him once or twice when he and Rosalie did benefits for our little free school in Vermont.

I’m happy to report that I am much better today. Yay! I can stand, sit, walk, and all with much less pain. Halleluja!

It is intermittently warm & sunny, and thunder & lightening here today.

It is looking like the Urban Witchcamp in Amsterdam is not going to happen. I’m disappointed, but so it goes. I still hope for enough enrollment for the Urban Permaculture workshop. It is such topical material, and yet I imagine that rising fear levels and shrinking economic resources make people more likely to stay home and spend less.

I am revisiting my plans for the 4th quarter of 2008. I may be returning to the US as originally planned in mid-September. I’ll be looking for a diesel pickup truck, so if you hear or know of one, please keep me in mind.

Something that confounds me is the experience of offering something of value and having it not be well received, like these workshops. I know I am not a person to attend lots of events, and so that is part of it for other people as well, but I am fascinated by the experience of having the workshops be well attended in some places, and not so in others.

I am open to possibilities and curious to see what happens over the next three months, and how that all will effect my trajectory.

A friend emailed me today, referring to yesterday's post and said "...wonder what it is you're supposed to be learning.."

Today, with ibuprofin and a back brace, extra sleep and basically no activity, I am feeling better. My lumbar spine still hurts, and my mobility is affected, but I feel better. I am able to work online, communicate with my project co-workers in Holland via email, do some promotion via email, and just be. The weather is intermittently sunny and cloudy.

So what I am learning, again, is to make the best of what’s in front of me and trust the flow, even when it is uncomfortable, uncertain, and scary.

It is still raining here, and the forecast sees no end in sight. Yesterday my back started to act up and today I can't stand up straight, moving in bed is very difficult..shades of last summer...shit. I have to get out of this cold wet weather system...it is supposed to be hot and sunny! My whole outlook and energy are affected by this.

It's still cool and rainy in prealpine Italy. The mountaintops are often shrouded in clouds, it rains daily, and there is that wet melancholy feeling. I am ready for a warm sunny day!

These periods between jobs when I am usually in a quiet place are necessary for me, and yet I always feel like I am shirking. Funny thing.

I'm reading a book called “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder. I highly recommend it! It's about a man named Paul Farmer, a doctor, medical anthropologist and what I would call a medical activist. The book, and Farmer, are fascinating, inspiring, wrenching, and well worth reading.

The first run of my 8 week class Healing Magic has concluded. Now I am preparing for the second run by doing some rewriting of the materials, making some additions to the reading list, adding a film list, stuff like that. It is scheduled to start June 2 but I think I am going to move that back to August or September. I haven't done much in terms of promotion yet.

I appreciate so much the comments that people have made on this blog. No matter what happens to humanity, all the journeys that we make in becoming more loving, more generous, concerned with more than just ourselves; this learning is a pure goodness in the universe, and it is a privilege to be part of that.

I was just out for a walk and ran into a couple who live in this village. They speak only Italian and I speak little Italian, so communicating has it's challenges, but they were picking roses and the woman gestured and with words telling me they were for a benediction for St. Rita as this is her feast day. I told her that my mother was named Rita and that it is her birthday tomorrow, she would be 80. Then the woman showed me some other roses, St. Rita's roses, some of the only pungent roses I have seen here. It was a very sweet moment, and particularly meaningful for me given some of the memories and grief I've been working with this week. Grazie St. Rita!

Here's some hot news. "Stories from the road" told by yours truly will debut on wbkm.org June 1, 2008 at 8 PM Eastern Time (US). To listen go to http://wbkm.org and click on the flower. If you want to be sure you can listen I suggest going to http://wbkm.org ahead of time to make sure your settings all work. See you on the air on June 1!

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?

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%?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Here are some more photos!.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.