Nature Always WIns

I just finished reading Verlyn Klinkenborg's inspirational piece in Environment 360 on yale.edu 'The Folly of Big Agriculture: Why Nature Always Wins'.

Klinkenborg has written a beautiful treatise against the mainstream of industrial agriculture and in favor of nature.

"...nature's big idea is to try out life wherever and however it can be tried, which means everywhere and anyhow. The result — over time and at this instant — is diversity, complexity, particularity, and inventiveness to an extent our minds are almost unfitted to conceive."

He goes on to say that we really ought to be rethinking the way we do agriculture.

"A reasonable agriculture would do its best to emulate nature."

Read the article at yale.edu: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_folly_of_big_agriculture_why_nature_always_wins/2514/

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Tar Sands in Maine

The Sierra Club Maine and the First Parish Church Environmental Justice team are co-sponsoring a public forum on Thursday, November 29th at 7PM in Fellowship Hall in Pilgrim House of the First Parish Church (on Cleaveland Street, Brunswick).

They will talk about a proposed plan to pump tar sands (diluted bitumen) through a 60 year old pipeline from Canada through Maine's Lakes Region, past Sebago Lake and to Portland Harbor and then shipment on Casco Bay.

The forum will feature a presentation about the realities and risks of shipping tar sands through pipelines, including the economic and environmental impacts to communities on and near the pipeline route from Bethel to South Portland and the impacts on climate change. Presenters include: Glen Brand, Director of the Sierra Club Maine, and Montreal attorney, Shelley Kath, who is a Senior Consultant for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington DC.

Please go and invite friends in the community.

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Nordic ethnobotany and conservation

Hotspots of biodiversity continue to be the focus of conservation efforts and ethnobotany explorations around the world. This makes sense since hotspots are the places that harbor the majority of the world's species. However, loss of species and habitats also happens in “cold-spots” of biodiversity such as Iceland and the Faroe Islands. I happen to be from one of these cold-spots and have witnessed a big loss of biodiversity in my lifetime. 

I used the opportunity of my Masters Thesis work at University of Kassel, Witzenhausen to find out about more about how other people from cold-spots use native biodiversity and if there is any relationship between use and conservation. I was inspired by David Quammen's ideas about Island Biogeography, so eloquently expressed in his book 'Song of the Dodo' and by Karl Hammer's various articles and books on the ethnobotany of Italian Islands. 

My 'explorations', if I can call them that, took place back in 2009 but have since been published in the journal Human Ecology as well as the open access archive Organic eprints. I thought it might be a good idea to share a bit about them here for any interested friends.

Icelanders and Faroese live in fragile ecosystems that have been changed since the Vikings cut many of the forests and then introduced rooting and grazing of livestock changing the forests to grazing lands around 1,000 years ago. Today there are many conservation minded islanders that are attempting to generate a more sustainable relationship with their environment. I was hosted by the people of Slow Food Iceland and Terra Madre Nordic to name a few and funded by the Partridge Foundation and my alma mater College of the Atlantic. I spent the summer of 2009 learning from Icelandic and Faroese wild collectors about their use of plants as well as algae and fungi for food and medicine. 

Some of the species like the Angelica, Birch and Icelandic Moss are used by many people. These are important and their habitats are often conserved by the people who like to use them.

A lot of the people I spoke with feel that the potential exists for a more diverse harvest and for sustainable management (e.g. Organic certification). Also spreading knowledge about the use of these species can increase their cultural conservation. This seems to be largely about food, which appears to be paramount for increasing the cultural importance of a species.

Organic eprints http://orgprints.org/22897/

Human Ecology doi 10.1007/s10745-012-9517-0

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Spiritual Materialism; How Westerners Miss the Mark

The Buddha reportedly told people that they were also Buddhas. He said he was the same as everyone else but that he was awake and they were still asleep. - He said that everyone has Buddha Nature or the ability to be awake if we can aware of it.

According to Doubting Thomas, that well traveled old apostle, Jesus Christ said it too:

Jesus and Buddha

'When you become acquainted with yourselves
then you will be recognized
and you will understand
that it is you who are children of a living father.

But if you do not become acquainted with yourself
then you are in poverty and it is you who are the poverty.'

So what is our problem anyway, we are also floating here in empty space on the thin crust of life with the same amount of nothing as the buddhists and Taoists... and yet... with thousands of years of this beautiful spiritual philosophy we miss the mark. As John Giorno complains 'none of us here got enlightened.

I have a dear friend on the way to Plum Village now and I talked with her about it:

I told her that I have been listening to a lot of Thich Nhat Hanh and San Francisco Zen Centre podcasts and that they help me to clear things up 'life and death and all of the thoughts and ideas I have about them... Like a crystal clear lake to reflect the world in... somehow expanding my mind and heart while making them both clam and quiet.'

She said 'i know this feeling when i finally manage to meditate... its getting calm and warm and i feel deep trust in everything... i feel the oneness and the all love... Metta'

I told her a fourth hand story I heard that explains why it is so hard for westerners to meditate: Thai monk told an American meditator that Westerners do it all wrong. He said that if you want to build a table you have to follow a process: first go to the forest to select a tree, then cut the tree and mill it onto boards, then draw and carefully cut the pieces, then put them all together. Then, and only then, you should start to sandpaper and make it smooth. But we westerners go to the forest with sandpaper; we try to meditate although we have not yet worked out what kind of practice we are doing.

My friend said: 'i understand, and also westerners are used to just go to the stores and buy a table'

We just listen to the dharma like we are in a shop. Like we are shopping for a new table. Trungpa Rinpoche called it 'Spiritual Materialism'. We like to wear Metta and Buddhism and Compassionate living like a new dress from the shop, like a new table in the kitchen.

She said 'We can not just take this old coat off so easily.'

Thousands of years with the beginnings of enlightenment, all clouded by greed and manipulated to create and support violent and oppressive power structures. We have a big heavy old coat to remove and a chilly environment to do it in.

We need all the Metta we can give.

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Resource Rights

I have just come across a new paper and am incredibly impressed. It's a great piece regarding villager's resource rights in 'National Production Forests' and 'National Protected Areas'.

Porter-Bolland L., Elllis E.A., Guariguata M.R., Ruiz-Mallén I., Negrete-Yankelevich S. and Reyes-García V. 2012. Community managed forests and forest protected areas: An assessment of their conservation effectiveness across the tropics. Forest Ecology and Management.

The authors offer an assessment of 77 case studies from around the world. Their work reveals that tropical forests managed by communities show a lower annual deforestation rate than forests within official 'Protected' areas.

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The Birth of Engaged Buddhism

Thich Thay Nhat Hanh

Shambala Sun's John Malkin asked Thich Thay Nhat Hanh:
"Will you describe the origins of Engaged Buddhism and how you became involved in compassion-based social change?"

Thich Nhat Hanh replied:
"Engaged Buddhism is just Buddhism. When bombs begin to fall on people, you cannot stay in the meditation hall all of the time. Meditation is about the awareness of what is going on-not only in your body and in your feelings, but all around you.

When I was a novice in Vietnam, we young monks witnessed the suffering caused by the war. So we were very eager to practice Buddhism in such a way that we could bring it into society. That was not easy because the tradition does not directly offer Engaged Buddhism. So we had to do it by ourselves. That was the birth of Engaged Buddhism.


Buddhism has to do with your daily life, with your suffering and with the suffering of the people around you. You have to learn how to help a wounded child while still practicing mindful breathing. You should not allow yourself to get lost in action. Action should be meditation at the same time."

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The Grand Canyon at Sundown

Bob Dylan
Rolling Stone

This morning I am left asking myself what this whole thing is really about. 

What are we doing here?  

The thing to do really is just to hit the long grey dusty road again road and find out. 

Here is most of Bob Dylan's 'Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie' - Without the angst and frustration in the middle. 

When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb

When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb

When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace

In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race

No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up

If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup

If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holdin' on

And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone

And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it

And the wood's easy findin' but yer lazy to fetch it

And yer sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long

And you start walkin' backwards though you know its wrong

And lonesome comes up as down goes the day

And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away

And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin'

And yer rope is a-slidin' 'cause yer hands are a-drippin'

And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys

Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys

And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe's a-pourin'

And the lightnin's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashin'

And the windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops a-shakin'

And yer whole world's a-slammin' and bangin'

And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm

And to yourself you sometimes say

"I never knew it was gonna be this way

Why didn't they tell me the day I was born"

And you start gettin' chills and yer jumping from sweat

And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet

And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air

And the whole world's a-watchin' with a window peek stare

And yer good gal leaves and she's long gone a-flying

And yer heart feels sick like fish when they're fryin'

And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet

And you need it badly but it lays on the street

And yer bell's bangin' loudly but you can't hear its beat

And you think yer ears might a been hurt

Or yer eyes've turned filthy from the sight-blindin' dirt

And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush

When you were faked out an' fooled white facing a four flush

And all the time you were holdin' three queens

And it's makin you mad, it's makin' you mean

Like in the middle of Life magazine

Bouncin' around a pinball machine

And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying

That somebody someplace oughta be hearin'

But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head

And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed

And no matter how you try you just can't say it

And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it

And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head

And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead

And the lion's mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth

And his jaws start closin with you underneath

And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind

And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign

And you say to yourself just what am I doin'

On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin'

On this curve I'm hanging

On this pathway I'm strolling, in the space I'm taking

In this air I'm inhaling

Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard

Why am I walking, where am I running

What am I saying, what am I knowing

On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailin'

On this mandolin I'm strummin', in the song I'm singin'

In the tune I'm hummin', in the words I'm writin'

In the words that I'm thinkin'

In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinkin'

Who am I helping, what am I breaking

What am I giving, what am I taking

But you try with your whole soul best

Never to think these thoughts and never to let

Them kind of thoughts gain ground

Or make yer heart pound

But then again you know why they're around

Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down

"Cause sometimes you hear'em when the night times comes creeping

And you fear that they might catch you a-sleeping

And you jump from yer bed, from yer last chapter of dreamin'

And you can't remember for the best of yer thinking

If that was you in the dream that was screaming

And you know that it's something special you're needin'

And you know that there's no drug that'll do for the healin'

And no liquor in the land to stop yer brain from bleeding

And you need something special

Yeah, you need something special all right

You need a fast flyin' train on a tornado track

To shoot you someplace and shoot you back

You need a cyclone wind on a stream engine howler

That's been banging and booming and blowing forever

That knows yer troubles a hundred times over

You need a Greyhound bus that don't bar no race

That won't laugh at yer looks

Your voice or your face

And by any number of bets in the book

Will be rollin' long after the bubblegum craze

You need something to open up a new door

To show you something you seen before

But overlooked a hundred times or more

You need something to open your eyes

You need something to make it known

That it's you and no one else that owns

That spot that yer standing, that space that you're sitting

That the world ain't got you beat

That it ain't got you licked

It can't get you crazy no matter how many

Times you might get kicked

You need something special all right

You need something special to give you hope

But hope's just a word

That maybe you said or maybe you heard

On some windy corner 'round a wide-angled curve

But that's what you need man, and you need it bad

And yer trouble is you know it too good

"Cause you look an' you start getting the chills

...

And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin'

Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burnin'

Where do you look for this oil well gushin'

Where do you look for this candle that's glowin'

Where do you look for this hope that you know is there

And out there somewhere

And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads

Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows

Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways

You can touch and twist

And turn two kinds of doorknobs

You can either go to the church of your choice

Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital

You'll find God in the church of your choice

You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it's only my opinion

I may be right or wrong

You'll find them both

In the Grand Canyon

At sundown

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Participatory Research

Action research process
Post Growth Institute

It turns out that participatory research is not such an easy task.

All the investigations we do are expressly done to benefit the community and biodiversity - to work collaboratively with local healers and wild collectors and to produce outcomes which directly benefit them; offer tools and methods for the conservation of biodiversity and traditional practices; empower the people to tell about the role they play in conservation.

We are just there to interpret the story of the people an their relationship to nature. We look at it with researchers eyes, trained to be systematic and attempting to be as objective as possible. - (In-cognito?)

The interpreter has a role to play in the subject though. 'Any half-awake materialist well knows - that which you hold holds you.'

Here is another poem by Walt Whitnam 'When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer' - It speaks volumes to the issue of speaking about and trying to do 'science' with people.

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

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Mekong Youth Alliance for Organic Agriculture and Agro-ecology Occupy Your Life Manifesto

I have just returned from the Toward Organic Asia workshop 'Mekong Youth Alliance for Organic Agriculture and Agro-ecology' on the Tha Thang Organic farm in Pakse Laos.

During the workshop young farmers from Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam collected their thoughts for a collective vision for agriculture and we drafted it into the following 'Mekong Youth Alliance for Organic Agriculture and Agro-ecology Occupy Your Life Manifesto':

We are the Mekong Youth Alliance for Organic Agriculture and Agro-ecology. We write this manifesto in support of happiness in a system of agriculture, which includes healthy and abundant nature, healthy communities and a thriving economy.

Occupy Your Life follows the general principles of the Occupy Wall Street movement but focuses on the regaining of livelihoods of young farmers. Taking back responsibility and reclaiming our role in food production, instead of outsourcing to supermarkets grow our own food and get close to our food source. We should reclaim our health and consume healthy food rather than relying on hospitals and medicine.

Innovative, young, small-scale, diversified farmers are the future of agriculture. In order to secure our agricultural future we need to preserve biodiversity and manage the landscape in harmony with nature, use waste wisely and ensure fair access to fresh and clean water, offer respect for people to work with dignity.

We need to build on the creative potential of youth to solve global crises. Small-scale farms that work in harmony with nature and are run by young farmers are the solution to many global crises in that they offer climate change adaptation and mitigation, stop erosion, create sustainable and healthy local food systems, keep young people in rural areas and prevent urbanization and stop the loss of cultural diversity and traditions. These small farms help to change the course of things for rural people by alleviating poverty and creating food sovereignty.

Nature

Nature is beautiful, that has a value in itself.

Forests are a source of food they are the mothers of rivers and they form the foundation of watersheds. They are an important source of medicine, culture, and spiritual fulfillment.

We need integrated holistic thinking and philosophy in farm design, utilizing synergistic relationships within farming systems and in harmony with nature.

Our health, and the health of our communities, depends on healthy soil. Farming should work toward building soil organic matter, preventing and controlling erosion, preserving soil biodiversity and respecting soil life. We should practice farming with a long term focus, using more permanent crops and poly cultivation.

We need to preserve the genetic diversity of seed and livestock through building and supporting regional connections for small-scale diversified farms.

Economy

Young farmers are redefining economy with respect toward the values of nature and society. We need to change the way we think about economy. We are part of an interconnected web of life - exchanges are more than just monetary units. We need to work together, focusing on cooperation and friendliness rather than competition.

We should strengthen networks and offer support for grassroots actions for farming with dignity, integrity and self-reliance and to promote a pro-farming society that makes wise use of resources including wastes.

We envision a world wherein the producer and consumer choose health and happiness; they should feel a kinship. People should eat healthy local food and get to know their farmer. Farmers should care for consumers and produce wholesome food. Mindful marketing community supported agriculture, and farmer's markets can support the relationship between the producer and consumer.

Small-scale farms should have access to fair and reliable funding, building up wealth for their families and in the farming landscape in the form of healthy communities and abundant biological resources.

Society

Viable agricultural systems require strong communities, grassroots movements and young farmer networks. These communities form their own agreements based on self-regulation and open systems of management according to tradition and local knowledge. They agree on clear and pertinent rules to follow that help guide community actions and serve as a fundamental building block for food security and access to healthy living.

Traditional belief and wisdom gives meaning to life offering insights for living together with nature and creating ecological farming practices. Farming systems should have respect for culture and traditional belief and thereby see an intrinsic value in the landscape.

We need clear information sharing and transparency in education. Schools should serve to support and increase traditional agricultural knowledge. Young people should have access to information and training about farming sustainably.

Education is a fundamental aspect of small-scale diversified farming. It provides young people with opportunities for growth and personal development, cultivating not just food but people. These farms operate within a participatory learning process where farmers share methodologies and skills and help to convey the mindset of an occupied and active life.

There is an intrinsic value in animals. They deserve to be treated as friends and with respect and care. Food from animals is a gift. They deserve fair treatment, good health, and good living conditions. We need localized closed systems where healthy feed comes from a diverse farm and local community.

Happiness

We should promote happiness as a fundamental pillar of life. Our lives are dependent on all other life forms, when eating we should be aware and thankful for the hard work of farmers and to the web of life and society that brought us the food. Farmers are amazing people in that they work so hard to grow our food and get so little in return. We need to create agricultural chains and systems that support and acknowledge the hard work that farmers are doing and help create good conditions for them to work with dignity. Through their hard work farmers bring others happiness while fostering their own contentment like roots in the soil.

We should take care of people in need and 'share the abundance' through fair resource distribution.

Conclusion

We support happiness in farming, including healthy and vibrant systems of nature, community and economy. We need to take back the roles of young farmers in food production, reclaiming right livelihood.

Young farmers are the future of agriculture, which preserves biodiversity and an occupied life. They practice natural harmonious farming and offer respect and dignity for communities.

We need small and slow solutions in agricultural development and design in order to deal with the global challenges we are facing. Innovative young farmers offer those solutions we should support them.

In a world where resources are dwindling young farmers offer an abundant agricultural future and wish to share in the bounty.

Rain and Poetry

Sitting now in a serious rain storm in the mountains of Luang Prabang, The thunder and lightning seems to be carving new mountains and the rain is turning the streets to rivers.

I'm sitting here reading poems and thinking about the amazing chance we have here in all this mess of life, all the happiness and sadness, to see and to hear.

Here is a poem I am spending some time with from Philip Whalen, another vagabond American moving through Asia.

Hymnus Ad Patrem Sinensis

I praise those ancient Chinamen

Who left me a few words,

Usually a pointless joke or a silly question
A line of poetry 
drunkenly scrawled on the margin 
of a quick                        
splashed picture- bug, leaf,                        
caricature of Teacher            
on paper held together now by little more than ink            
& their own strength brushed momentarily over it
Their world & several others sinceGone to hell in a handbasket, 
they knew it- 
Cheered as it whizzed by- 
& conked out among the busted spring rain 
cherryblossom winejars
Happy to have saved us all.

October

News from the Common Ground Country Fair and the rich harvest from a good summer brings me spinning back to New England this morning. - It is October there and everything has changed, the chimneys blow smoke into the salt air and the leaves blow past. It is also October here but the place seems hardly to have noticed. - There is no morning chill, no smell of pumpkin pie, no cold hands digging the potatoes from the damp and frosted morning soil. Yet somehow we can all still feel the October-ness on our sunburned skin. - In the swell of the passion fruit and the bounty of the rice harvest. 

Here is Robert Frost's poem October:


O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

To-morrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow,

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know;

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes' sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--

For the grapes' sake along the wall.

Crossing the Mekong and Leonard Cohen's 'Anthem'

by Cory Whitney

When we look up the river we can see patches in the mountains, now new upland rice fields or seedlings for rubber or teak. The river bubbles and rages below our little cracked long boat. - The engine sputters and chokes.

We look downstream at the tall forests and the healthy green mountains and we hope that the engine will keep running - and we hope that the forests will remain - and we hope that the people will find a way to be full and healthy here.

Photo of Leonard
Rolling Stone 

Meanwhile, as researchers we try to grasp all the complexities of the situation and try to wrap our minds around the dynamics of it.

How can we know what is happening or why? - We are taking out boddhisatva vows to try and find some solutions in an endless sea of delusion and confusion. We attempt draw out some possible answers from the chaos of information and complex human and nature interactions. - Never saying we are certain and attempting to prove that we are wrong before saying anything.






This song came to mind as I was sorting through all the data:


The birds they sang

at the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

Don't dwell on what

has passed away

or what is yet to be.

Ah the wars they will

be fought again

The holy dove

She will be caught again

bought and sold

and bought again

the dove is never free.



Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.



We asked for signs

the signs were sent:

the birth betrayed

the marriage spent

Yeah the widowhood

of every government --

signs for all to see.



I can't run no more

with that lawless crowd

while the killers in high places

say their prayers out loud.

But they've summoned, they've summoned up

a thundercloud

and they're going to hear from me.



Ring the bells that still can ring ...



You can add up the parts

but you won't have the sum

You can strike up the march,

there is no drum

Every heart, every heart

to love will come

but like a refugee.



Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.



Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

That's how the light gets in.

That's how the light gets in.

Buddhism meets Animism

Bo Ton Mai ceremony for Ficus tree

The elders of a small village here were having troubles with illegal logging and over-harvesting in the communal forests - they took direct action to save the trees.

They organized a Bo Ton Mai ceremony and ordained all the trees as monks. The local pagoda and the most famous monks from the region came along with all the villagers and nearby people. The offenders who had been cutting trees and damaging the forests even took part in the ceremony and acknowledged the sacredness of the forest and the trees.

The problems with forest mis-use did not continue.

Read Susan Darlington's story about Buddhist Ecology in Thailand: http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ADM/susan.htm

Rain and Janis Joplin's Deepest Heart

Janis Joplin
Morrison Hotel Gallery

It is the rainy season here and I am sitting in the rain in the nostalgic early morning. - Thinking about a quiet saturday afternoon in the late summer. My father and I had just gone for a long walk in the forest and were rained out and made it back to his wood paneled ford station wagon. It smelled of woodworking and cigarettes.

He put on this tape by Janis Joplin and we listened to her speech a few times through while we sat in the dryness of the car with the rain drawing a curtain between us and the rest of the world. Just my Dad and me and Janis Joplin, she was totally hopped-up on some kind of crazy drugs and energy and sharing her heart.

Here is the poem that she shared on stage in the middle of a song. It might be titled 'You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow'.



I don't understand how come you're gone

I don't understand why half the world is still crying

when the other half of the world is still crying too, man
and it can't get it together.

I mean,
if you got a cat for one day
I mean, if you, say, say...
maybe you want a cat for 365 days, right?
You ain't got him for 365 days
you got him for one day, man.
Well I tell you that one day, better be your life.
Because, you know
you can say, oh man
you can cry about the other 364
but you're gonna lose that one day,
and that's all you've got.
You gotta call that love, man.


That's what it is, man.


If you got it today you don't want it tomorrow, man,
'cause you don't need it,
'cause as a matter of fact, as we discovered on the train, tomorrow never happens, man.
It's all the same fucking day, man.
  

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The Peace Of Wild Things

Mary Oliver
Cleveland Arts Prize

Sitting now in the breezy cool quiet after a storm in Luang Prabang. - All my colleagues are busily working on making maps and carefully preparing to present our research ideas tomorrow.

- Presenting the research idea to them all day was enough work for me so I am reading poems and eating bananas.

I'll sneak out for a beer now and look at the Mekong and the forests.

The Peace Of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.



— Wendell Berry

"I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world"

I'm now on the rooftop of the Mekong Region in Luang Prabang Province about to head off into the wilderness to work for Hmong and Khmu ethnic minority groups. I am lucky enough to be traveling with three incredibly hard-working and dedicated environmentalists and permaculturalists who are acting as translators and sounding boards for ideas about how to test the hypothesis - that utilization leads to conservation: all within the new model of Bio-Human Ecology (unpublished) by my boss and the Founder of the Social Policy and Ecology Research Institute (SPERI): Ms. Tranh Thi Lanh.

Life is exceedingly good and full of adventure mixed with hard work and laughter.

Here is a poem by Walt Whitman I am revisiting this morning:

Photo of Walt Whitman
Smithsonian Magazine

"This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body."

Sister Chan Khong

I've been listening to the songs in Thich Nhat Han's "Touching the Earth" for some time now and have basically memorized the song by Sister Chan Khong. - It took some doing to find out what the actual words were (I have been singing it to my friends and they catch a word or two as I get better at it).

Sister Chan Khong

Here they are:

Đây là tịnh độ, tịnh độ là đâyMỉm cười chánh niệm, an trú hôm nay
Bụt là lá chín, Pháp là mây bay
Tăng thân khắp chốn, quê hương nơi này
Thở vào hoa nở, thở ra trúc lay
Tâm không ràng buộc, tiêu dao tháng ngày.

Pure being is happening now
Mindfully smiling, reside in today
Buddha-nature is ripe
Clouds spreading over the countryside
The sangha is everything, everywhere
Inhale in as a blooming flower, exhale as a mountain
We are not bound, sailing among the islands of our days.

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