Tonight I got to experience an old Camphill tradition, "Bible Supper". In it, everyone all dresses up in their Sunday finest, a dinner is prepared with the table set nicely, and an attempt at "higher conversation" is had. After dinner is over, everyone retires to a separate room to collectively read from the Bible and discuss the meaning contained in the verse therein.
The verse read tonight was about a woman who was sick for years. Then she one day came across Jesus. She knew that simply by touching him, she would be healed. She made her way through a crowd of people, touched his clothes - was healed. Jesus then said in response something along the lines of: "It was the faith in your heart that healed you".
The conversation following this I found to be quite interesting and meaningful. At one point someone said: "If faith can heal people, why can't we be healed from our disabilities?" It felt to me then that there was a sudden shift in intensity throughout the room. "You can't be healed from that", was said in reply. Resignation. Angst seemed to emanate.
I then felt struck to say, "Disabilities or not, there is always one fundamental thing that you can control, and that is your own heart. We can always choose to love or not, we can choose to be closer to God or not."
I admit, this sentiment did not originate from me. For one, there is Victor Frankl:
"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
And, similarly, there is the old religious sentiment of - have every moment be taken in prayerful communion with God. This too is a choice that one can make.
It may not seem like much, but at the same time it seems like an incredible foundation to start with.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
My new anthroposophical community-life
A number of folks have asked me what my new life here at Camphill Soltane is like. Here is a brief little description for you...
I've been getting more and more settled here at Camphill Soltane, with my own room, work that I enjoy, and people who I appreciate living with. Despite my initial anxieties, the living / working with developmentally disabled people thing turns out to not really that much of a challenge for me, since I see how they all have their unique talents, contributions, hang-ups and short-comings just like everyone else. Continued time and interaction has enabled me to feel more and more comfortable with them. There is still much to learn in this area, and I look forward to it.
My room is something that I really feel grateful and content with here, and I am increasingly finding it reflect who I am. It has a hardwood floor, a large wicker cabinet, a large comfortable padded wood chair, a desk with chair, a tall vertical mirror, a window-seat, and a door that opens directly to the outside that has a paved path connected to it that wraps around the house to the nearby parking-lot. In all of the places that I have lived, I have always wished to have direct access to the outside so that I could avoid interacting with people whom I lived with if I so desired, and now I finally have it. My room also has a door that locks too, which is helpful since a number of the disabled folks have a tendency to abruptly open doors if they can. A number of people have remarked that my room looks like a monk's quarters, and I love it. I guess I mention all of this stuff because it provides a place for peace, quiet, and solitude, as well as a "space of my own" which I have not had in a very long time.
The architecture here in general is something that I really love. A lot of the buildings here are designed in an anthroposophical style, most notably with very few right angles. A colors and decorations for the buildings too also has it’s own unique style, apparently prescribed by Rudolph Steiner to be the most effectively soothing and nourishing for the soul. The whole effect of it all on myself is really nice, I think that it supports me in having more of a sense of inner safety and stability that I really like.
The work that I do here is relatively easy, so far it mainly has been stuff like collecting trash & recycling, cleaning things, moving things around, and accompanying people places. I also help assist in a class here, and am working on designing my own new classes here in Nonviolent Communication. The challenging thing here is not the work per se, but the interacting with the disabled folks such that they feel a greater connection to and harmony with the work that we are doing together. I am also gradually learning how to cook here. I cook one meal a week for the house that I live in, and am looking to move that up to two so that I can get even more experience with it.
The house that I live in is an old traditional style farmhouse that was here before Camphill Soltane even got started. I live with seven other people - three volunteers and four disabled folks, and the name of our house / group is "Nantmel Farm". The group living quarters are separated by gender, with the men in the basement and the women upstairs, with the kitchen and two living rooms on the ground floor. I do feel a real sense of care and connection with the people that I live with, but often find it frustrating that the main topic of conversation is schedule-related matters - who is going to do what when. I would like to introduce more meaningful conversation topics for us all, and I believe that the work that I do with Nonviolent Communication here can contribute to that.
One thing that this culture has is a lot of meetings, meetings of all kinds, pretty much every day some group is meeting about something here. Some people are frustrated with the number of meetings that take place, but I really love it. For me, I view it as a way to have greater mutual understanding, awareness of what is going on, and trying to consider everybody's needs. I could easily see myself, if I am not careful, get totally overwhelmed and immersed with meetings here. I enjoy meetings, but I also see how I too have my limits with that, and I want to be sure to honor that.
The Rudolph Steiner / Anthroposophical orientation underlying Camphill I find to be really interesting, but I also recognize that it is not for me. I love religious and spiritual matters, but when it comes down to it I am just not a Christian or an esoteric-minded guy (despite my previous flings with Gurdjieff and 2012). I do hope that I can learn and grow spiritually and personally through the Anthroposophical stuff here though.
I am eager for it to become Springtime here, for I have a sense that what I have been experiencing of Camphill Soltane is just a fraction of what is possible here. Being able to go outside and enjoy outdoor activities and leisure time here seems like a whole other world here that I have yet to experience. I have seen pictures of this places and the people here during Spring and Summer and I often find it hard to believe. It has been quite snowy and icey here, which I also greatly enjoy, but after a while I begin thinking about this season moving on.
Overall, I am finding my life here to be quite peaceful and enjoyable. I feel very content here, and I can very easily see myself being here for longer than the one year that I signed up for. I enjoy the connections with the people, the shared values with folks, and the structure and stability of the place. I love the overall sense of awe and beauty that I feel for this place, what it is trying to do, and the whole area surrounding it (two other Camphill communities and a Waldorf school are nearby).
I am wishing you all the best, my beloved readers!
I've been getting more and more settled here at Camphill Soltane, with my own room, work that I enjoy, and people who I appreciate living with. Despite my initial anxieties, the living / working with developmentally disabled people thing turns out to not really that much of a challenge for me, since I see how they all have their unique talents, contributions, hang-ups and short-comings just like everyone else. Continued time and interaction has enabled me to feel more and more comfortable with them. There is still much to learn in this area, and I look forward to it.
My room is something that I really feel grateful and content with here, and I am increasingly finding it reflect who I am. It has a hardwood floor, a large wicker cabinet, a large comfortable padded wood chair, a desk with chair, a tall vertical mirror, a window-seat, and a door that opens directly to the outside that has a paved path connected to it that wraps around the house to the nearby parking-lot. In all of the places that I have lived, I have always wished to have direct access to the outside so that I could avoid interacting with people whom I lived with if I so desired, and now I finally have it. My room also has a door that locks too, which is helpful since a number of the disabled folks have a tendency to abruptly open doors if they can. A number of people have remarked that my room looks like a monk's quarters, and I love it. I guess I mention all of this stuff because it provides a place for peace, quiet, and solitude, as well as a "space of my own" which I have not had in a very long time.
The architecture here in general is something that I really love. A lot of the buildings here are designed in an anthroposophical style, most notably with very few right angles. A colors and decorations for the buildings too also has it’s own unique style, apparently prescribed by Rudolph Steiner to be the most effectively soothing and nourishing for the soul. The whole effect of it all on myself is really nice, I think that it supports me in having more of a sense of inner safety and stability that I really like.
The work that I do here is relatively easy, so far it mainly has been stuff like collecting trash & recycling, cleaning things, moving things around, and accompanying people places. I also help assist in a class here, and am working on designing my own new classes here in Nonviolent Communication. The challenging thing here is not the work per se, but the interacting with the disabled folks such that they feel a greater connection to and harmony with the work that we are doing together. I am also gradually learning how to cook here. I cook one meal a week for the house that I live in, and am looking to move that up to two so that I can get even more experience with it.
The house that I live in is an old traditional style farmhouse that was here before Camphill Soltane even got started. I live with seven other people - three volunteers and four disabled folks, and the name of our house / group is "Nantmel Farm". The group living quarters are separated by gender, with the men in the basement and the women upstairs, with the kitchen and two living rooms on the ground floor. I do feel a real sense of care and connection with the people that I live with, but often find it frustrating that the main topic of conversation is schedule-related matters - who is going to do what when. I would like to introduce more meaningful conversation topics for us all, and I believe that the work that I do with Nonviolent Communication here can contribute to that.
One thing that this culture has is a lot of meetings, meetings of all kinds, pretty much every day some group is meeting about something here. Some people are frustrated with the number of meetings that take place, but I really love it. For me, I view it as a way to have greater mutual understanding, awareness of what is going on, and trying to consider everybody's needs. I could easily see myself, if I am not careful, get totally overwhelmed and immersed with meetings here. I enjoy meetings, but I also see how I too have my limits with that, and I want to be sure to honor that.
The Rudolph Steiner / Anthroposophical orientation underlying Camphill I find to be really interesting, but I also recognize that it is not for me. I love religious and spiritual matters, but when it comes down to it I am just not a Christian or an esoteric-minded guy (despite my previous flings with Gurdjieff and 2012). I do hope that I can learn and grow spiritually and personally through the Anthroposophical stuff here though.
I am eager for it to become Springtime here, for I have a sense that what I have been experiencing of Camphill Soltane is just a fraction of what is possible here. Being able to go outside and enjoy outdoor activities and leisure time here seems like a whole other world here that I have yet to experience. I have seen pictures of this places and the people here during Spring and Summer and I often find it hard to believe. It has been quite snowy and icey here, which I also greatly enjoy, but after a while I begin thinking about this season moving on.
Overall, I am finding my life here to be quite peaceful and enjoyable. I feel very content here, and I can very easily see myself being here for longer than the one year that I signed up for. I enjoy the connections with the people, the shared values with folks, and the structure and stability of the place. I love the overall sense of awe and beauty that I feel for this place, what it is trying to do, and the whole area surrounding it (two other Camphill communities and a Waldorf school are nearby).
I am wishing you all the best, my beloved readers!
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Coming & Going: Reflections on 2008
I would characterize my experience of the year 2008 as: my holding a fierce determination to "change" my life in some radical way, come hell or high water, for better or for worse, often in a blind thrashing-about kind of manner.
I will elaborate.
The year began in Jacksonville, Florida, alone, lonely, and confused. Then it continued on in Jacksonville, with family. From mid-March on the experience was a wild cross-country excursion of (in my own mind, at least) epic proportions. In late October, I turned 30, adding an additional layer of meaning & importance on all of this for me.
I write now from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awaiting my new life to begin tomorrow - literally. Perhaps this sentiment of the heart is one that I have carried with me all throughout the year, coloring the whole experience everywhere I went: My new life begins tomorrow, somewhere else.
For the sake of posterity, and for my own aging memory, I will briefly list all of the places that I have been in 2008:
Jacksonville, Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Folsom, West Virginia
Washington, D.C.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Warm Springs, Georgia
Williamburgh, Virginia
New York City, New York
Acorn & Twin Oaks Communities, Virginia
Takoma Park, Maryland
Troy, Pennsylvania
Canton, New York
Athens, Ohio
Rural southeast Ohio
Mieggs county, Ohio
Lee, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Boise, Idaho
Seattle, Washington
Vashon Island, Washington
Tacoma, Washington
Eugene, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Skokie, Illinois
Pecatonica, Illinois
Madison, Wisconsin
London, Ontario
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Springfield, Missouri
Austin, Texas
Bradford, Pennsylvania
Egbert, Ontario
Toronto, Ontario
Roseville, Michigan
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
This list is roughly in chronological order for the year. Many of the places in the list I went to multiple times throughout the year and I did not bother to write them out more than once here. To qualify for the list means that I spent the night there and had a reason for going there. There are a number of places that I was planning on going to this year, and that I wish that I went to - such as the San Francisco Bay Area, New Orleans and Las Vegas - these I will have to forever keep in the "I wonder what would have happened if..." pile.
I went to all of these different places in search of meaning, purpose, and direction in my life. I have gone to all of these places to see where I can be.
The funny thing is that I did this same thing (with a somewhat different list) the year before. And the year before that. And the year before that. Ad nauseum.
In fact, I have a long tradition now of going out, seeking my meaning, purpose and direction in other places. It's my own yearly pilgrimage. I believe the novel thing for me now is to find these things in one place over an extended period of time. And that is exactly what I intend on doing in 2009.
Every year has it's own themes, I believe, and here are some for this one.
Deeper meaning of Nonviolence
In 2008 I read a number of books. The author who had the biggest impact on me this year by far was Mohandas Gandhi. I was also affected by reading a book by a Buddhist monk on "the Noble Eightfold Path", a book by a Buddhist nun on doing social work during wartime Vietnam, "Island" by Aldous Huxley, and "A Confession" by Leo Tolstoy.
Altogether, these books have helped me to see nonviolence in a different way than before. Both inside and out, I see how this is a beautiful value to strive towards. I also see the importance of having a living faith in God to back it up - to sustain it, to give it energy.
Reading these books, I am left with a renewed inspiration and commitment to live out nonviolence in my own life.
Straightedge by not brahmachari
Inspired by reading Gandhi, I have considered and toyed with the idea of taking the vows of Brahmacharya. These consist of refraining from consuming intoxicants, caffeine, sugar, animal products, and spices in one's diet. Sexual desire is also curbed. In place of all of this, there is daily prayer & meditation, periodic fasting, and a general focus on & devotion to God.
In September and October I took some vows in hopes of becoming a brahmachari. By November they had mostly fallen apart, broken & disregarded. One thing did come out of all of this, however - I became Straightedge.
Straightedge is a lifestyle that came out of the punk rock scene which consists of abstaining from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, eating meat, and engaging in casual sex. The definition of "straightedge" is debated a lot, but this is how I define it, and this is how my life has shaped out - with ease.
There were times in my past when I could not have imagined that I would not desire meat, marijuana, and sleeping with whoever I found attractive - and now these desires have all just slipped away. I am grateful for that.
I still do desire the path of Brahmacharya - I want that in my life. The time-period this year where I was living up to my vows was a time where I found a particular kind of peace & contentment that I really enjoyed. I see Brahmacharya as best being done in steps, in increments, instead of all at once.
So this year, beginning on New Years, I renounced caffeine and sugar once again - and I have the headache right now to show for it. My intention is to gradually eliminate animal products and spices from my diet, and to establish a new daily routine once I have moved into my new home which includes regular prayer and meditation. I would also like to engage in fasting on a periodic basis, in a context other than riding a Greyhound bus or being broke.
The intention behind Brahmacharya, for me and in general, is to purify one's mind & body and to re-direct one's attention to that which is truly important - devotion to God.
Service to others, changing the world
My deep desire for a long time has been to be a positive contribution to others and to help to bring about meaningful social change (revolution or otherwise). I don't think that I've been that good at it.
This year I volunteered at a Vipassana Meditation course - twice, at two separate locations. These experiences, and the ethic and context in which they are done, "dhamma service", gave me a new insight into how this kind of service can practically be carried out. Most importantly, the spirit behind this way of doing service was made clear to me, experientially, beyond just books & writings. I am grateful for these experiences, and hope to embody dhamma service more & more in my life.
Now, thanks in part to the recommendation of some friends, I am joining a Camphill community as a volunteer for a year - 2009. Camphill has a policy that they call the "80/20 Ratio" for their volunteers - that is, 80% of one's time, energy, and attention is to be spent on serving others, and 20% on one's self. In the context of a Camphill organization, I have faith that this is a good structure to aid me in carrying this out.
Grounding out, moving forward
The ironic thing that I find now in my life is that in order to move forward I need to stop traveling. I already have plans for this, like I mentioned. More than anything, I want to build myself up as a solid and capable person. In order to do this, one needs a solid foundation and a steady hand.
I have certainly learned, the hard way, what the lack of all of this is like and what it results in. Now, I want to take concerted steps towards what the positive is like. I want to see what the previously-missing qualities are like when present, in practice.
What this entails now for me is going to Camphill. Beyond that, it can look like more volunteering at Camphill communities and/or Vipassana centers. It can look like me going back to college to complete my degree. It can look like me going abroad to teach English. It can look like me getting a normal job or getting married.
All of what I do with these "next steps" I think are best done when planned out, thought out, connected with my needs & values, and surrounded by adequate "spaciousness" through regular meditation, silence, & stillness.
I want to increase my capacity to serve others, and I want to grow & develop as a person as well. If anything, 2008 has been a series of "trial & errors" with different people, places, conversations, and series of events unfolding with the same themes threading through them all.
The Obama election and the responses to it from both the NVC scene and the anarchist scene have all given me hope for the future. Most important, though, is realizing that hope can be found from within myself and that there are practical skills to use to do it.
There is much to be learned.
To positive growth, development, health and well-being!
Happy New Years!
I will elaborate.
The year began in Jacksonville, Florida, alone, lonely, and confused. Then it continued on in Jacksonville, with family. From mid-March on the experience was a wild cross-country excursion of (in my own mind, at least) epic proportions. In late October, I turned 30, adding an additional layer of meaning & importance on all of this for me.
I write now from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, awaiting my new life to begin tomorrow - literally. Perhaps this sentiment of the heart is one that I have carried with me all throughout the year, coloring the whole experience everywhere I went: My new life begins tomorrow, somewhere else.
For the sake of posterity, and for my own aging memory, I will briefly list all of the places that I have been in 2008:
Jacksonville, Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Folsom, West Virginia
Washington, D.C.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Warm Springs, Georgia
Williamburgh, Virginia
New York City, New York
Acorn & Twin Oaks Communities, Virginia
Takoma Park, Maryland
Troy, Pennsylvania
Canton, New York
Athens, Ohio
Rural southeast Ohio
Mieggs county, Ohio
Lee, Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Boise, Idaho
Seattle, Washington
Vashon Island, Washington
Tacoma, Washington
Eugene, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Skokie, Illinois
Pecatonica, Illinois
Madison, Wisconsin
London, Ontario
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Springfield, Missouri
Austin, Texas
Bradford, Pennsylvania
Egbert, Ontario
Toronto, Ontario
Roseville, Michigan
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
This list is roughly in chronological order for the year. Many of the places in the list I went to multiple times throughout the year and I did not bother to write them out more than once here. To qualify for the list means that I spent the night there and had a reason for going there. There are a number of places that I was planning on going to this year, and that I wish that I went to - such as the San Francisco Bay Area, New Orleans and Las Vegas - these I will have to forever keep in the "I wonder what would have happened if..." pile.
I went to all of these different places in search of meaning, purpose, and direction in my life. I have gone to all of these places to see where I can be.
The funny thing is that I did this same thing (with a somewhat different list) the year before. And the year before that. And the year before that. Ad nauseum.
In fact, I have a long tradition now of going out, seeking my meaning, purpose and direction in other places. It's my own yearly pilgrimage. I believe the novel thing for me now is to find these things in one place over an extended period of time. And that is exactly what I intend on doing in 2009.
Every year has it's own themes, I believe, and here are some for this one.
Deeper meaning of Nonviolence
In 2008 I read a number of books. The author who had the biggest impact on me this year by far was Mohandas Gandhi. I was also affected by reading a book by a Buddhist monk on "the Noble Eightfold Path", a book by a Buddhist nun on doing social work during wartime Vietnam, "Island" by Aldous Huxley, and "A Confession" by Leo Tolstoy.
Altogether, these books have helped me to see nonviolence in a different way than before. Both inside and out, I see how this is a beautiful value to strive towards. I also see the importance of having a living faith in God to back it up - to sustain it, to give it energy.
Reading these books, I am left with a renewed inspiration and commitment to live out nonviolence in my own life.
Straightedge by not brahmachari
Inspired by reading Gandhi, I have considered and toyed with the idea of taking the vows of Brahmacharya. These consist of refraining from consuming intoxicants, caffeine, sugar, animal products, and spices in one's diet. Sexual desire is also curbed. In place of all of this, there is daily prayer & meditation, periodic fasting, and a general focus on & devotion to God.
In September and October I took some vows in hopes of becoming a brahmachari. By November they had mostly fallen apart, broken & disregarded. One thing did come out of all of this, however - I became Straightedge.
Straightedge is a lifestyle that came out of the punk rock scene which consists of abstaining from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, eating meat, and engaging in casual sex. The definition of "straightedge" is debated a lot, but this is how I define it, and this is how my life has shaped out - with ease.
There were times in my past when I could not have imagined that I would not desire meat, marijuana, and sleeping with whoever I found attractive - and now these desires have all just slipped away. I am grateful for that.
I still do desire the path of Brahmacharya - I want that in my life. The time-period this year where I was living up to my vows was a time where I found a particular kind of peace & contentment that I really enjoyed. I see Brahmacharya as best being done in steps, in increments, instead of all at once.
So this year, beginning on New Years, I renounced caffeine and sugar once again - and I have the headache right now to show for it. My intention is to gradually eliminate animal products and spices from my diet, and to establish a new daily routine once I have moved into my new home which includes regular prayer and meditation. I would also like to engage in fasting on a periodic basis, in a context other than riding a Greyhound bus or being broke.
The intention behind Brahmacharya, for me and in general, is to purify one's mind & body and to re-direct one's attention to that which is truly important - devotion to God.
Service to others, changing the world
My deep desire for a long time has been to be a positive contribution to others and to help to bring about meaningful social change (revolution or otherwise). I don't think that I've been that good at it.
This year I volunteered at a Vipassana Meditation course - twice, at two separate locations. These experiences, and the ethic and context in which they are done, "dhamma service", gave me a new insight into how this kind of service can practically be carried out. Most importantly, the spirit behind this way of doing service was made clear to me, experientially, beyond just books & writings. I am grateful for these experiences, and hope to embody dhamma service more & more in my life.
Now, thanks in part to the recommendation of some friends, I am joining a Camphill community as a volunteer for a year - 2009. Camphill has a policy that they call the "80/20 Ratio" for their volunteers - that is, 80% of one's time, energy, and attention is to be spent on serving others, and 20% on one's self. In the context of a Camphill organization, I have faith that this is a good structure to aid me in carrying this out.
Grounding out, moving forward
The ironic thing that I find now in my life is that in order to move forward I need to stop traveling. I already have plans for this, like I mentioned. More than anything, I want to build myself up as a solid and capable person. In order to do this, one needs a solid foundation and a steady hand.
I have certainly learned, the hard way, what the lack of all of this is like and what it results in. Now, I want to take concerted steps towards what the positive is like. I want to see what the previously-missing qualities are like when present, in practice.
What this entails now for me is going to Camphill. Beyond that, it can look like more volunteering at Camphill communities and/or Vipassana centers. It can look like me going back to college to complete my degree. It can look like me going abroad to teach English. It can look like me getting a normal job or getting married.
All of what I do with these "next steps" I think are best done when planned out, thought out, connected with my needs & values, and surrounded by adequate "spaciousness" through regular meditation, silence, & stillness.
I want to increase my capacity to serve others, and I want to grow & develop as a person as well. If anything, 2008 has been a series of "trial & errors" with different people, places, conversations, and series of events unfolding with the same themes threading through them all.
The Obama election and the responses to it from both the NVC scene and the anarchist scene have all given me hope for the future. Most important, though, is realizing that hope can be found from within myself and that there are practical skills to use to do it.
There is much to be learned.
To positive growth, development, health and well-being!
Happy New Years!
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Mirrors & guides
This is a reply to a blog post written by my friend bel.
I enjoyed reading your post, and I always appreciate a good ole' Rogerian shout-out as well. :-)
One thing that I was thinking about, regarding this topic... There is an approach to these spiritual / personal growth stuff that says basically that people are so un-self-aware, so very mechanical & predictable, and the old repetitive patterns that they carry out when left to their own devices are so self-destructive, that what is best for people to do is to find & totally dedicate themselves to someone who is more wiser, evolved, aware and more developed than they are for guidance. In other words: find your Teacher and commit yourself to them. I think that the Sufi tradition is the best example of folks who take this approach.
To a much lesser degree, this same mentality shows up in the NVC scene as well. I have found places where great importance was placed on having a "mentor" relationship with a certified trainer, or emphasizing "coaching" as the primary mode for learning. The whole Focusing partnership process, and Focusing-oriented psychotherapy as well, also has an air of a wiser person pointing the direction towards what is best for the person to focus on in the moment. As a result of all this, the whole question of "non-directivity" vs. "directivity" within a helping relationship is a huge one in the Person-Centered Approach scene. Regarding this Gendlin once told me: "be shamelessly directive, but always pause and check in with the person's experiencing".
Speaking for myself here, I recognize that it really *can* be quite helpful for me to have someone who is more aware than I am at the moment to guide me back to more "sanity" or balance. There have been moments when I have felt very weak or confused that you have served that role for me. Sometimes I just get so very caught up on my own thoughts and reactivity that it is quite helpful for someone to say "Stop. Breath. Step back, and look at *this*"
However, at the same time, I notice also that I feel much more free, happy, and I generally just enjoy myself, humanity, and life in general so much more when I take the straight-up Rogerian approach that you talk about here. In other words - TRUSTING PEOPLE, trusting life, trusting yourself, is all so much more uncomplicated, free and at ease, I find.
Perhaps a crucial part of the "empathy session" relationship, one of the things that makes it such a helpful experience, is that at that moment one of the people is more grounded, balanced and aware than the other, and the two are having an honest open-hearted conversation. Eventually, the person who is distraught and "receiving empathy" takes guidance and inspiration simply from from this way of being of calm groundedness & awareness that the other is embodying.
Conversely, perhaps part of the helpfulness of the Carl Rogers approach is that it is a set of stories, particularly, stories that say that you can trust people, that you can trust yourself, and that we all have it naturally built into us already to grow, heal, and to develop in positive and healthy ways. That story almost goes hand-in-hand with a big sigh of relief for me.
So perhaps in the empathy session, with the Focusing partner, the Teacher or guide - it best can be seen as being a kind of mirror for yourself. In other words, the parts of yourself that you want to see, that you want to remember, you go find this mirror... to reflect.
I enjoyed reading your post, and I always appreciate a good ole' Rogerian shout-out as well. :-)
One thing that I was thinking about, regarding this topic... There is an approach to these spiritual / personal growth stuff that says basically that people are so un-self-aware, so very mechanical & predictable, and the old repetitive patterns that they carry out when left to their own devices are so self-destructive, that what is best for people to do is to find & totally dedicate themselves to someone who is more wiser, evolved, aware and more developed than they are for guidance. In other words: find your Teacher and commit yourself to them. I think that the Sufi tradition is the best example of folks who take this approach.
To a much lesser degree, this same mentality shows up in the NVC scene as well. I have found places where great importance was placed on having a "mentor" relationship with a certified trainer, or emphasizing "coaching" as the primary mode for learning. The whole Focusing partnership process, and Focusing-oriented psychotherapy as well, also has an air of a wiser person pointing the direction towards what is best for the person to focus on in the moment. As a result of all this, the whole question of "non-directivity" vs. "directivity" within a helping relationship is a huge one in the Person-Centered Approach scene. Regarding this Gendlin once told me: "be shamelessly directive, but always pause and check in with the person's experiencing".
Speaking for myself here, I recognize that it really *can* be quite helpful for me to have someone who is more aware than I am at the moment to guide me back to more "sanity" or balance. There have been moments when I have felt very weak or confused that you have served that role for me. Sometimes I just get so very caught up on my own thoughts and reactivity that it is quite helpful for someone to say "Stop. Breath. Step back, and look at *this*"
However, at the same time, I notice also that I feel much more free, happy, and I generally just enjoy myself, humanity, and life in general so much more when I take the straight-up Rogerian approach that you talk about here. In other words - TRUSTING PEOPLE, trusting life, trusting yourself, is all so much more uncomplicated, free and at ease, I find.
Perhaps a crucial part of the "empathy session" relationship, one of the things that makes it such a helpful experience, is that at that moment one of the people is more grounded, balanced and aware than the other, and the two are having an honest open-hearted conversation. Eventually, the person who is distraught and "receiving empathy" takes guidance and inspiration simply from from this way of being of calm groundedness & awareness that the other is embodying.
Conversely, perhaps part of the helpfulness of the Carl Rogers approach is that it is a set of stories, particularly, stories that say that you can trust people, that you can trust yourself, and that we all have it naturally built into us already to grow, heal, and to develop in positive and healthy ways. That story almost goes hand-in-hand with a big sigh of relief for me.
So perhaps in the empathy session, with the Focusing partner, the Teacher or guide - it best can be seen as being a kind of mirror for yourself. In other words, the parts of yourself that you want to see, that you want to remember, you go find this mirror... to reflect.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Changing
This up-coming October 29th I turn 30. I've decided to celebrate it by going to a 10 day Vipassana Meditation retreat and volunteering there ("dhamma service" they call it). I've also decided to take two more vows, to add to my six other ones.
7) No eating meat
8) Meditate for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening daily
These two vows I will experiment with for a full year - until I am 31.
I suppose that these two vows both fall into the "cleanse yourself of unnecessary toxic crap and have more awareness & focus instead" category. All of this I am doing out of a desire to improve myself, to change myself more into the kind of person that I want to be.
7) No eating meat
8) Meditate for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening daily
These two vows I will experiment with for a full year - until I am 31.
I suppose that these two vows both fall into the "cleanse yourself of unnecessary toxic crap and have more awareness & focus instead" category. All of this I am doing out of a desire to improve myself, to change myself more into the kind of person that I want to be.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Taking Vows
In a sense I feel as if my life fell apart recently on Vashon Island. Alone, lonely, hungry, broke, cold, wet, and without any plans for the future, I had the opportunity determinedly stare me in the face asking me - "What the fuck are you doing?"
Since then, I have been looking at everything, how this happened, and what is going on.
From this, I have determined that I am wanting to move into more of a disciplined way of life. I would like to on more of a regular basis identify my needs and take responsibility for these needs being met or not met through my choices & actions. Part of this, I see, involves foresight into the future, anticipating my needs for the future, and planning and preparation for taking actions to get those needs met.
One of the things that I see as supporting me with that is having more structure that I am a part of. That is: agreements, expectations and standards which I and others around me hold around the choices that I make. This all presupposes me being really clear on what works and what doesn't work for me in terms of effectively meeting my needs. The structure would be applied & implemented around this understanding.
I have been able to identify some of my actions which have consistently distracted my focus from that which I want to focus on or have lead to my energy going into areas which I don't see as effectively meeting the needs that I want to prioritize meeting. I have written some about this here.
From that line of thinking, and also inspired by the vows taken and applied in the life of Gandhi, I have decided to come up with and apply some vows to myself. I am viewing these as being experimental religious vows.
They are experimental in that I am doing them for an initial six-month period. After that time-period is up, I will re-evaluate how it all went for me, and determine then if I want to keep those vows, add to them, drop a few, or alter them.
They are religious in the sense as defined in this Youtube video Freedom Requires Religion (beginning on minute 1:25):
"When we say 'religion', what we are actually talking about, is something like ‘a series of values and guiding principles along with standards and specific behaviors that are designed to keep me in harmony with those values and principles.'"
The word "vow" also is particularly important to me, in that it is stronger, more binding, and cherished more personally than a "promise", "agreement", or "commitment" is. A "vow" is all of that, but done before God. It is a promise that you make with God, about your relationship with each-other. This chart here helps explain what I mean when I say "God".
Here are my vows:
1) No marijuana or other intoxicants (eaten, smoked or second-hand)
2) No coffee or other caffeinated beverages
3) No sugary foods or beverages
4) No alcohol or tobacco consumption
5) Celibacy – no romantic or sexual relationships, or masturbation
6) Daily prayer & meditation upon waking and before going to sleep
I am really seriously wanting to make some substantial changes to my life right now. I have seen myself play out the same self-defeating patterns in my life for years, if not decades. I have much understanding and desire towards certain things that I want in my life, but have not had the kind of movement and effectiveness that I'd like. I find myself perpetually craving direction, focus and meaning, and am repeatedly left feeling depleted, lost and anguished without it.
In the past I have gotten tattoos with spiritual significance and have even shaven my head a couple of times. I have read, written and talked spiritual/religious matters for hours on end. None of this has gotten me to the place that I want to be. I am wanting to take some new, clear, concrete steps towards the direction I want to go.
With all my thinking, and all my talk, when it comes down to it I do not trust myself on my own to know what it is that I should do with my life. I trust others' advice even less. I want to establish a stronger relationship with God. All other options seem empty, while those brief fleeting moments that I have felt close with God have meant everything to me.
With these vows, the sixth one is really what holds it all together, while the other five all support the clarity of focus in the sixth one.
I will take these vows tomorrow, September 11th, and will re-evaluate them on March 11th. These dates in themselves are significant, in that they are both days in recent history that have contributed much to the mass hysteria, fear and reactivity in our society. I really want more balance, peace and understanding all around.
With that, I imagine that I can do some more interesting shit.
Since then, I have been looking at everything, how this happened, and what is going on.
From this, I have determined that I am wanting to move into more of a disciplined way of life. I would like to on more of a regular basis identify my needs and take responsibility for these needs being met or not met through my choices & actions. Part of this, I see, involves foresight into the future, anticipating my needs for the future, and planning and preparation for taking actions to get those needs met.
One of the things that I see as supporting me with that is having more structure that I am a part of. That is: agreements, expectations and standards which I and others around me hold around the choices that I make. This all presupposes me being really clear on what works and what doesn't work for me in terms of effectively meeting my needs. The structure would be applied & implemented around this understanding.
I have been able to identify some of my actions which have consistently distracted my focus from that which I want to focus on or have lead to my energy going into areas which I don't see as effectively meeting the needs that I want to prioritize meeting. I have written some about this here.
From that line of thinking, and also inspired by the vows taken and applied in the life of Gandhi, I have decided to come up with and apply some vows to myself. I am viewing these as being experimental religious vows.
They are experimental in that I am doing them for an initial six-month period. After that time-period is up, I will re-evaluate how it all went for me, and determine then if I want to keep those vows, add to them, drop a few, or alter them.
They are religious in the sense as defined in this Youtube video Freedom Requires Religion (beginning on minute 1:25):
"When we say 'religion', what we are actually talking about, is something like ‘a series of values and guiding principles along with standards and specific behaviors that are designed to keep me in harmony with those values and principles.'"
The word "vow" also is particularly important to me, in that it is stronger, more binding, and cherished more personally than a "promise", "agreement", or "commitment" is. A "vow" is all of that, but done before God. It is a promise that you make with God, about your relationship with each-other. This chart here helps explain what I mean when I say "God".
Here are my vows:
1) No marijuana or other intoxicants (eaten, smoked or second-hand)
2) No coffee or other caffeinated beverages
3) No sugary foods or beverages
4) No alcohol or tobacco consumption
5) Celibacy – no romantic or sexual relationships, or masturbation
6) Daily prayer & meditation upon waking and before going to sleep
I am really seriously wanting to make some substantial changes to my life right now. I have seen myself play out the same self-defeating patterns in my life for years, if not decades. I have much understanding and desire towards certain things that I want in my life, but have not had the kind of movement and effectiveness that I'd like. I find myself perpetually craving direction, focus and meaning, and am repeatedly left feeling depleted, lost and anguished without it.
In the past I have gotten tattoos with spiritual significance and have even shaven my head a couple of times. I have read, written and talked spiritual/religious matters for hours on end. None of this has gotten me to the place that I want to be. I am wanting to take some new, clear, concrete steps towards the direction I want to go.
With all my thinking, and all my talk, when it comes down to it I do not trust myself on my own to know what it is that I should do with my life. I trust others' advice even less. I want to establish a stronger relationship with God. All other options seem empty, while those brief fleeting moments that I have felt close with God have meant everything to me.
With these vows, the sixth one is really what holds it all together, while the other five all support the clarity of focus in the sixth one.
I will take these vows tomorrow, September 11th, and will re-evaluate them on March 11th. These dates in themselves are significant, in that they are both days in recent history that have contributed much to the mass hysteria, fear and reactivity in our society. I really want more balance, peace and understanding all around.
With that, I imagine that I can do some more interesting shit.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Cycles
Here is an account of my summer from mid-May to early July this year. Much more has happened after that point, so much so that what I outline as my thoughts & feelings in this post seem pretty “old” to me.
And yet, I simply have not felt drawn to write about any of the newer stuff yet. I figured that since this piece was already-written, waiting to be released, I would just go ahead & post it. Those of you who have been out of the loop of my travels (inner & outer) can now get somewhat more of a glimpse into my life.
- (I)
___________________________________________________________________
It’s now after midnight, I’m waiting for the beginning of a massive Greyhound bus ride west. I don’t know if it is late, not going to happen, or if everything is all right. This sums up how I feel about a lot of different things right now.
I last posted on my blog here on May 15th – the beginning of my latest round of cross-country traveling. That post was not that thorough or explanatory, I admit, and I wrote it when I was tired & weird. Now I hope to be thorough & explanatory, while still feeling tired & weird.
Riding Greyhound is like entering into a massive circulatory system. Walking into a station is puncturing the skin – buying the ticket is being injected. From there, you have surrendered yourself to something much larger than you. Starting & stopping can not be foreseen, the omnipresent heartbeat is far beyond your understanding. All you know is that you will go, through whatever route is predetermined before you, when the force moves. Whatever filth or construction clogs the way, protector cells examining your every inch or synapses noisily clattering away, you move along, always, through a wondrous maze that seems endless.
The principles remain the same – you deprive yourself of oxygen, you’re dead. You jump track, you’re lost. Whatever happens happens. You surrender yourself to it – for what else is there to do?
You’re just along for the ride.
On May 15th I left the Acorn commune in central Virginia where I was for about a month, for Washington D.C. There, I stayed at an abandoned old Victorian mansion called “Common Ground D.C.” – the first of a number of interactions there. Based on the model of Common Ground in New Orleans, a group of volunteers had an arrangement with the owner to be able to live there for free and live semi-activist lives, in exchange for fixing up the place. Similar to Common Ground in New Orleans, the confusion, apathy and beaten down spirits lead one to wonder whether that will actually happen.
Then I flew to Jacksonville, Florida again to see my family. My youngest brother was graduating the 8th grade, this was my last opportunity (presumably) to see Jacksonville, and the whole family was there. Like before, I found it hard to avoid sinking into depression while being there. Being around my family’s collective narrative stories I find it difficult to maintain my own sense of direction and feeling within.
I did have an experience at Jacksonville that seemed quite remarkable to me. Using meetup.com I found a group of New Age spiritual-oriented people who were meeting while I was there. I went.
What the group ended up being was four hours of reiki and guided meditation on the beach under the full moon. This was among people whom I did not know and do not ever expect to see again. Yet, the sense of care & support was real, and that is what I find remarkable. Intimacy and mutual aid among strangers.
After that, I flew back to Washington D.C. in time for four days of workshops by the NVC trainer Robert Gonzales.
The first day-long workshop, entitled “The Way of Connection”, stands out to me the most in that the whole experience was on of great harmony, flow and grace. The whole day just seemed miraculous, perfect. I didn’t even stay at the actual workshop the entire time – just being in that space, the vicinity, seemed to have a kind of magical air about it. It was beautiful.
With the workshops ending, some friends & I met to plan out taking a big cross-country trip together. The trip with these people did not actually end up happening. We met and talked at the Common Ground D.C. house, where I later found ut that an assault happened. And then another. And another.
I was out staying at a separate place when the first assault happened. Similarly with the second and third. Apparently the guy who perpetrated the assaults was kicked out of the house and now has a criminal court case pending against him.
I say all this about Common Ground D.C. not to high-light how fucked-up it is, but out of a sense of frustration and yearning. Similar to Common Ground New Orleans, what I want throughout all the violence, drama and dysfunction is a solid base for an alternative volunteer corps to go forth and build something new in the shell of the old (so to speak). I continue to hold much hope with this model, provided that the process is gone through with sufficient attention, intention, thorough commitment and consideration.
Also around this time my relationship with my friend Geri shifted into something else. I never know how to discuss these things, nor do I know what label(s) to put on it – which is an unfortunate position to be in because nonetheless the whole thing is to me a meaningful factor in my life. I would like to have the words to discuss it, for it to e understood accurately, without any sense of expectation, narrowed role, or even guaranteed continuity implied. One way that has helped me to look at it in this was ys, based on the list of fundamental human needs, viewing the relationship as having made a shift towards meeting more of a full spectrum of the needs listed.
I then went to Pennsylvania.
In northern Pennsylvania lives my friend Martha Lasley, an NVC trainer, mediator, and professional coach. She also lives on a piece of land that she and her husband bought 20-something years ago in a house tat they built themselves, from the bottom-up. They used to live in a number of different communal groups in the 60’s & 70’s, and now live as an organizational development consultant and a property rental manager.
The two still hold to their old radical beliefs, of sorts – Martha into a kind of NVC-based social change thing and the philosophy of John Heron, her husband Dave focusing on the imminent collapse of the U.S. economy and the need for a new kind of socialism.
It was here, in Troy, PA, where Martha facilitated a mediation session between me and my father who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years. I wrote a long piece about that mediation in another notebook of mine, and then later lost that notebook in the middle of the night while transferring buses on Greyhound. So, just imagine something intense.
I then continued on north to up-state New York – “North Country”, they call it. It is here, the area around Canton, NY, that my friend Becky lives. She is a part of two separate intentional communities – Ness & Birdsfoot. These communities are both derived from the old “back-to-the-land” movement of the 60’s, and continue to survive with a large degree of self-sufficiency.
Birdsfoot is the oldest of the two, and the most developed in terms of infrastructure. They have a number of buildings built with materials on-site and have a large garden which supports a CSA, local food co-op, and a food bank. They also have a small private school on-site where children from the local area go for a one-room schoolhouse John Holt-inspired experience.
Ness, six miles away, actually has more people and acreage, but less history & momentum. That community is primarily focused around one guy who owns the property, built almost all the buildings, and has been there since the beginning. The people there recognize the power-imbalance in all of that, and slowly seem to be addressing it.
More interesting to me than either of these two groups is the surrounding local community. This is where a lot of the back-to-the-land hippies wound up, settling in the 60’s & 70’s and not moving out. Their lifestyles ranged from having cars to having horse & buggies, having full electrical conveniences to making almost everything themselves. But nevertheless, they have all built their houses themselves, grow a lot of their own food, and most importantly help each-other out. It’s an odd dichotomy of both isolation from the world and immersion in a local area.
To counter-balance it all, I next went to New York City. Emerging from the filthy subway, I had to exit through the emergency exit because my large back-pack wouldn’t fit any other way. Alarm blaring with nobody seeming to care, smog in my face and sweaty, I emerged above-ground to the crowd-filled streets of Manhattan – I felt at home.
I stayed at the home of my friend Sarton, a professional Manhattan psychotherapist whom I’ve known through the Person-Centered Approach scene. Despite the full amenities of modern life, everything all felt so… Short.
Choppy.
One thing that I’ve noticed about my NYC friends is the incredible difficulty of having a spacious conversation. The act of communicating with them often leaves me with the feeling that I am talking with someone who is flipping through the channels with a remote control, and it’s my job to provide interesting programming quickly before the next commercial break.
Whether it is perceived time-scarcity, overwhelm, panic, or the persistent changing of topic, I often leave the interaction with them extremely frustrated and with a desire to wrestle them to the floor and pin them down to a topic of interest for a period of time.
That all being said, NYC is still the age-old lover calling me at 3am inviting me to join the millions of others in their particular brand of insanity. As potentially self-destructive as that is, “moving” to NYC is still an option that I consider frequently.
Thanks to the Craigslist rideshare, I then was able to catch a ride out to Pittsburgh to meet up with Geri. The ride was with two other guys my age, one financial analyst and the other a real-estate broker. Seeing the finely-braded hair of the one guy, and the “Israeli Defense Force” t-shirt of the other, I wondered how I would connect with these two. Hours later, we were all talking about anarchism, alternative lifestyles, and 2012.
Now, as I write this, we are driving through the rolling prairies of Kansas. “Americas heartland”. I wonder where my own heart is now, given that every one of my travel plans has been changed, and I do not know where I will wind up.
I am fasting, now, as I go across the country on this Greyhound bus. We pass fields of cows and windmills, while the people in front of me talk world affairs. As always, I want where I go and what I do to somehow, in some way, be a positive contribution to the world. The fast is to help me to remind myself of my intentions behind this trip.
In Pittsburgh Geri and I stayed for about five days at an intentional community called “the Landslide”. This place consists of twenty-something twenty-somethings, two houses and a big piece of land. The twenty-somethings are anarchist activist squatter types with dreams of inspiring off-the-grid sustainable ways of life in Pittsburgh. The houses are old multi-story buildings, one of which has electricity, running water, and internet – the other with none of these things.
The land which the Landslide owns I find to be absolutely amazing. For one, everything is tilted – sliding off a hill. The property has a stunning view of downtown Pittsburgh and you have to climb up and down the hills in order to go anywhere.
About 40 years ago there was an enormous landslide in the neighborhood there, and that was how the name came about. This has resulted in the acreage that they own being pretty much rural land, with a forest, trees, plants all over it – with torn & cracked-up concrete of roads, sidewalks, and stair-cases interspersed everywhere. Tent and tarp structures are all over this property, forming a kind of squatter shanty-town – except that this property is owned, since property is so cheap in Pittsburgh.
The Landslide has a unique & interesting feel to it. It seems part income-sharing commune, part squat, part community outreach project, part back-to-the-land project, part typical activist house. It is hard for me to put an accurate label on it, and I thought that I would have gotten over that habit by now anyway.
That all being said, coordination & work seems to happen quite fluidly there, and the people seem happy. In the end, that goes a long way.
I realize that with each place I visit on this summer traveling journey, and each place that I consider visiting as well, always on the back of my mind is the question – is this a place that I can live at? This also happened back in 2004 when I traveled cross-county, the big difference now is that this time I have less money and more of a vision that I would like to go towards. This puts a very different lens on things.
The crippled man shuffles towards his seat, positions himself into his chair and moves his cane & legs into his space.
“This is what I call ‘war stories’. I might have a couple for you, my friend.”
And so we’re off, now leaving Boise, Idaho via Greyhound bus. I am now traveling along again, after being from Pittsburgh to Boise with Geri. I feel sad to be leaving her, and have the sense that once again, I am stepping out into the void.
I always return to the void.
After the Landslide, Geri & I got a ride from Pittsburgh to Athens, Ohio in a U-Haul truck with a man and his cat. They were moving. The man was an artist, and one of our first impressions of him was his artwork – a pink skin-colored monitor with a large vagina on the screen.
The deal was that we would help the guy load up his U-Haul in exchange for the ride. One of the most poignant moments is of us carrying and loading onto the truck these enormously large ceramic art pieces of what looked like huge bottles of “Tide” laundry detergent. Instead of saying “Tide”, however, they said “Terror”. Lugging these around, in the rain, across state lines, had an interesting incriminating kind of feel to it.
Then we went to the annual Earth First! Round River Rendezvois in south-eastern Ohio. The event was a week-long, camp-in-the-woods, communal meals, free, volunteer-based kind of thing. It was also anarchist as fuck.
Attending the Earth First! Rendezvous was a fall-back position, a second choice for me. My real heart and passion was in going to the national Rainbow Gathering, taking place in Wyoming. The intention behind that was to organize an “NVC Camp” there, an experimental place to offer Nonviolent Communication to people in public for free. I instead chose to prioritize other things.
I went to the Earth First! Rendezvous because I did not want to be alone. I had for months been anticipating a certain particular summer itinerary with a particular group of people. Faced with the soul-piercing prospect of possible loneliness, I chose the surest travel companionship I could find. It all happened semi-consciously for me, but I think that my other travel companions from Washington D.C. dropping out of the trip, combined with the changing nature of my relationship with Geri, lead to me being reluctant to go out to Wyoming by myself.
My actual experience of the Rendezvous was by no means horrible, nor is it something that I regret. My old friend Marc was there, who I unexpectedly got to spend some time with. I gave an NVC workshop, and I met someone who is working on creating a new federation of anarchist intentional communities, a project that is dear to my heart.
What struck me the most about this gathering was the anarchist ethic of organizing things. The low-budget, pooling resources, chipping in when you can, somehow-make-things-happen attitude – I totally love. This inspired me to thinking – what would an NVC gathering look like organized along these lines? Taking these same values, but applying them to learning & practicing the skills of heart-felt honesty, empathic listening and care for each-other? This challenge is something that really excites me - that I want to pursue.
And yet, I simply have not felt drawn to write about any of the newer stuff yet. I figured that since this piece was already-written, waiting to be released, I would just go ahead & post it. Those of you who have been out of the loop of my travels (inner & outer) can now get somewhat more of a glimpse into my life.
- (I)
___________________________________________________________________
It’s now after midnight, I’m waiting for the beginning of a massive Greyhound bus ride west. I don’t know if it is late, not going to happen, or if everything is all right. This sums up how I feel about a lot of different things right now.
I last posted on my blog here on May 15th – the beginning of my latest round of cross-country traveling. That post was not that thorough or explanatory, I admit, and I wrote it when I was tired & weird. Now I hope to be thorough & explanatory, while still feeling tired & weird.
Riding Greyhound is like entering into a massive circulatory system. Walking into a station is puncturing the skin – buying the ticket is being injected. From there, you have surrendered yourself to something much larger than you. Starting & stopping can not be foreseen, the omnipresent heartbeat is far beyond your understanding. All you know is that you will go, through whatever route is predetermined before you, when the force moves. Whatever filth or construction clogs the way, protector cells examining your every inch or synapses noisily clattering away, you move along, always, through a wondrous maze that seems endless.
The principles remain the same – you deprive yourself of oxygen, you’re dead. You jump track, you’re lost. Whatever happens happens. You surrender yourself to it – for what else is there to do?
You’re just along for the ride.
On May 15th I left the Acorn commune in central Virginia where I was for about a month, for Washington D.C. There, I stayed at an abandoned old Victorian mansion called “Common Ground D.C.” – the first of a number of interactions there. Based on the model of Common Ground in New Orleans, a group of volunteers had an arrangement with the owner to be able to live there for free and live semi-activist lives, in exchange for fixing up the place. Similar to Common Ground in New Orleans, the confusion, apathy and beaten down spirits lead one to wonder whether that will actually happen.
Then I flew to Jacksonville, Florida again to see my family. My youngest brother was graduating the 8th grade, this was my last opportunity (presumably) to see Jacksonville, and the whole family was there. Like before, I found it hard to avoid sinking into depression while being there. Being around my family’s collective narrative stories I find it difficult to maintain my own sense of direction and feeling within.
I did have an experience at Jacksonville that seemed quite remarkable to me. Using meetup.com I found a group of New Age spiritual-oriented people who were meeting while I was there. I went.
What the group ended up being was four hours of reiki and guided meditation on the beach under the full moon. This was among people whom I did not know and do not ever expect to see again. Yet, the sense of care & support was real, and that is what I find remarkable. Intimacy and mutual aid among strangers.
After that, I flew back to Washington D.C. in time for four days of workshops by the NVC trainer Robert Gonzales.
The first day-long workshop, entitled “The Way of Connection”, stands out to me the most in that the whole experience was on of great harmony, flow and grace. The whole day just seemed miraculous, perfect. I didn’t even stay at the actual workshop the entire time – just being in that space, the vicinity, seemed to have a kind of magical air about it. It was beautiful.
With the workshops ending, some friends & I met to plan out taking a big cross-country trip together. The trip with these people did not actually end up happening. We met and talked at the Common Ground D.C. house, where I later found ut that an assault happened. And then another. And another.
I was out staying at a separate place when the first assault happened. Similarly with the second and third. Apparently the guy who perpetrated the assaults was kicked out of the house and now has a criminal court case pending against him.
I say all this about Common Ground D.C. not to high-light how fucked-up it is, but out of a sense of frustration and yearning. Similar to Common Ground New Orleans, what I want throughout all the violence, drama and dysfunction is a solid base for an alternative volunteer corps to go forth and build something new in the shell of the old (so to speak). I continue to hold much hope with this model, provided that the process is gone through with sufficient attention, intention, thorough commitment and consideration.
Also around this time my relationship with my friend Geri shifted into something else. I never know how to discuss these things, nor do I know what label(s) to put on it – which is an unfortunate position to be in because nonetheless the whole thing is to me a meaningful factor in my life. I would like to have the words to discuss it, for it to e understood accurately, without any sense of expectation, narrowed role, or even guaranteed continuity implied. One way that has helped me to look at it in this was ys, based on the list of fundamental human needs, viewing the relationship as having made a shift towards meeting more of a full spectrum of the needs listed.
I then went to Pennsylvania.
In northern Pennsylvania lives my friend Martha Lasley, an NVC trainer, mediator, and professional coach. She also lives on a piece of land that she and her husband bought 20-something years ago in a house tat they built themselves, from the bottom-up. They used to live in a number of different communal groups in the 60’s & 70’s, and now live as an organizational development consultant and a property rental manager.
The two still hold to their old radical beliefs, of sorts – Martha into a kind of NVC-based social change thing and the philosophy of John Heron, her husband Dave focusing on the imminent collapse of the U.S. economy and the need for a new kind of socialism.
It was here, in Troy, PA, where Martha facilitated a mediation session between me and my father who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years. I wrote a long piece about that mediation in another notebook of mine, and then later lost that notebook in the middle of the night while transferring buses on Greyhound. So, just imagine something intense.
I then continued on north to up-state New York – “North Country”, they call it. It is here, the area around Canton, NY, that my friend Becky lives. She is a part of two separate intentional communities – Ness & Birdsfoot. These communities are both derived from the old “back-to-the-land” movement of the 60’s, and continue to survive with a large degree of self-sufficiency.
Birdsfoot is the oldest of the two, and the most developed in terms of infrastructure. They have a number of buildings built with materials on-site and have a large garden which supports a CSA, local food co-op, and a food bank. They also have a small private school on-site where children from the local area go for a one-room schoolhouse John Holt-inspired experience.
Ness, six miles away, actually has more people and acreage, but less history & momentum. That community is primarily focused around one guy who owns the property, built almost all the buildings, and has been there since the beginning. The people there recognize the power-imbalance in all of that, and slowly seem to be addressing it.
More interesting to me than either of these two groups is the surrounding local community. This is where a lot of the back-to-the-land hippies wound up, settling in the 60’s & 70’s and not moving out. Their lifestyles ranged from having cars to having horse & buggies, having full electrical conveniences to making almost everything themselves. But nevertheless, they have all built their houses themselves, grow a lot of their own food, and most importantly help each-other out. It’s an odd dichotomy of both isolation from the world and immersion in a local area.
To counter-balance it all, I next went to New York City. Emerging from the filthy subway, I had to exit through the emergency exit because my large back-pack wouldn’t fit any other way. Alarm blaring with nobody seeming to care, smog in my face and sweaty, I emerged above-ground to the crowd-filled streets of Manhattan – I felt at home.
I stayed at the home of my friend Sarton, a professional Manhattan psychotherapist whom I’ve known through the Person-Centered Approach scene. Despite the full amenities of modern life, everything all felt so… Short.
Choppy.
One thing that I’ve noticed about my NYC friends is the incredible difficulty of having a spacious conversation. The act of communicating with them often leaves me with the feeling that I am talking with someone who is flipping through the channels with a remote control, and it’s my job to provide interesting programming quickly before the next commercial break.
Whether it is perceived time-scarcity, overwhelm, panic, or the persistent changing of topic, I often leave the interaction with them extremely frustrated and with a desire to wrestle them to the floor and pin them down to a topic of interest for a period of time.
That all being said, NYC is still the age-old lover calling me at 3am inviting me to join the millions of others in their particular brand of insanity. As potentially self-destructive as that is, “moving” to NYC is still an option that I consider frequently.
Thanks to the Craigslist rideshare, I then was able to catch a ride out to Pittsburgh to meet up with Geri. The ride was with two other guys my age, one financial analyst and the other a real-estate broker. Seeing the finely-braded hair of the one guy, and the “Israeli Defense Force” t-shirt of the other, I wondered how I would connect with these two. Hours later, we were all talking about anarchism, alternative lifestyles, and 2012.
Now, as I write this, we are driving through the rolling prairies of Kansas. “Americas heartland”. I wonder where my own heart is now, given that every one of my travel plans has been changed, and I do not know where I will wind up.
I am fasting, now, as I go across the country on this Greyhound bus. We pass fields of cows and windmills, while the people in front of me talk world affairs. As always, I want where I go and what I do to somehow, in some way, be a positive contribution to the world. The fast is to help me to remind myself of my intentions behind this trip.
In Pittsburgh Geri and I stayed for about five days at an intentional community called “the Landslide”. This place consists of twenty-something twenty-somethings, two houses and a big piece of land. The twenty-somethings are anarchist activist squatter types with dreams of inspiring off-the-grid sustainable ways of life in Pittsburgh. The houses are old multi-story buildings, one of which has electricity, running water, and internet – the other with none of these things.
The land which the Landslide owns I find to be absolutely amazing. For one, everything is tilted – sliding off a hill. The property has a stunning view of downtown Pittsburgh and you have to climb up and down the hills in order to go anywhere.
About 40 years ago there was an enormous landslide in the neighborhood there, and that was how the name came about. This has resulted in the acreage that they own being pretty much rural land, with a forest, trees, plants all over it – with torn & cracked-up concrete of roads, sidewalks, and stair-cases interspersed everywhere. Tent and tarp structures are all over this property, forming a kind of squatter shanty-town – except that this property is owned, since property is so cheap in Pittsburgh.
The Landslide has a unique & interesting feel to it. It seems part income-sharing commune, part squat, part community outreach project, part back-to-the-land project, part typical activist house. It is hard for me to put an accurate label on it, and I thought that I would have gotten over that habit by now anyway.
That all being said, coordination & work seems to happen quite fluidly there, and the people seem happy. In the end, that goes a long way.
I realize that with each place I visit on this summer traveling journey, and each place that I consider visiting as well, always on the back of my mind is the question – is this a place that I can live at? This also happened back in 2004 when I traveled cross-county, the big difference now is that this time I have less money and more of a vision that I would like to go towards. This puts a very different lens on things.
The crippled man shuffles towards his seat, positions himself into his chair and moves his cane & legs into his space.
“This is what I call ‘war stories’. I might have a couple for you, my friend.”
And so we’re off, now leaving Boise, Idaho via Greyhound bus. I am now traveling along again, after being from Pittsburgh to Boise with Geri. I feel sad to be leaving her, and have the sense that once again, I am stepping out into the void.
I always return to the void.
After the Landslide, Geri & I got a ride from Pittsburgh to Athens, Ohio in a U-Haul truck with a man and his cat. They were moving. The man was an artist, and one of our first impressions of him was his artwork – a pink skin-colored monitor with a large vagina on the screen.
The deal was that we would help the guy load up his U-Haul in exchange for the ride. One of the most poignant moments is of us carrying and loading onto the truck these enormously large ceramic art pieces of what looked like huge bottles of “Tide” laundry detergent. Instead of saying “Tide”, however, they said “Terror”. Lugging these around, in the rain, across state lines, had an interesting incriminating kind of feel to it.
Then we went to the annual Earth First! Round River Rendezvois in south-eastern Ohio. The event was a week-long, camp-in-the-woods, communal meals, free, volunteer-based kind of thing. It was also anarchist as fuck.
Attending the Earth First! Rendezvous was a fall-back position, a second choice for me. My real heart and passion was in going to the national Rainbow Gathering, taking place in Wyoming. The intention behind that was to organize an “NVC Camp” there, an experimental place to offer Nonviolent Communication to people in public for free. I instead chose to prioritize other things.
I went to the Earth First! Rendezvous because I did not want to be alone. I had for months been anticipating a certain particular summer itinerary with a particular group of people. Faced with the soul-piercing prospect of possible loneliness, I chose the surest travel companionship I could find. It all happened semi-consciously for me, but I think that my other travel companions from Washington D.C. dropping out of the trip, combined with the changing nature of my relationship with Geri, lead to me being reluctant to go out to Wyoming by myself.
My actual experience of the Rendezvous was by no means horrible, nor is it something that I regret. My old friend Marc was there, who I unexpectedly got to spend some time with. I gave an NVC workshop, and I met someone who is working on creating a new federation of anarchist intentional communities, a project that is dear to my heart.
What struck me the most about this gathering was the anarchist ethic of organizing things. The low-budget, pooling resources, chipping in when you can, somehow-make-things-happen attitude – I totally love. This inspired me to thinking – what would an NVC gathering look like organized along these lines? Taking these same values, but applying them to learning & practicing the skills of heart-felt honesty, empathic listening and care for each-other? This challenge is something that really excites me - that I want to pursue.
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