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Carrying On

And the dog walked, walked… site

And the dog walked, walked… painting by Nolan Winkler

“Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn’t music.” William Stafford

We are feeling pampered and special because the power went back on after a two-day outage. We know there will probably be another outage when the next storm hits, but for now we’re on Easy Street. No more cooking on the woodstove. No more boiling water in the old kettle to wash dishes. No more writing by candlelight. Our computers work again. We can take showers. Luxury!

The first article to pop up on my computer when I ignited the machine after the outage was about Professor Guy McPherson who says, “There’s no point trying to fight climate change. We’ll all be dead in the next decade and there is nothing we can do to stop it.”

The second article was entitled “Why getting farmers to switch from tobacco crops is a struggle.”

Email brought an announcement from my niece, a yoga teacher, informing us that her Yoga and Art and Cooking retreat in Italy is sold out ten months in advance.

My sister called and told me of her summer plans to go camping in the environs of Mount Rainier. She is a biologist and knows well of the forces threatening the biosphere, but she carries on with her life as if we will all not be dead in the next decade. She catches her rainwater for watering her drought-resistant garden, walks to work most days, and looks forward to her children eventually producing a grandchild or two.

Speaking of grandchildren, since Marcia and I do not have children and grandchildren of our own, we enjoy availing ourselves of the offspring of our friends. For this holiday season we had several fun visits with Nick and Clare Bokulich and their nineteen-month-old son Vito. I was especially pleased to introduce Vito to the music of Ray Charles, Vito and I played some stirring blues on the piano, Vito ate many bananas and apples, and we had nothing but fun.

During the storm and accompanying power outage, a few large branches fell from our surrounding redwoods and narrowly missed the house. Then the pump in our well gave up the ghost, and despite the torrential downpour, the savants at Mendocino Coast Water Works rushed to our aid, removed the old pump and pipes, and installed a new and improved super duper pump and water transport system that will last for many years longer than Professor MacPherson says we have to live.

Marcia and I took advantage of not being connected to the outer world via computers to clean our offices and get a start on this year’s income tax. And I discovered the domain name of my web site Under the Table Books was about to expire. So I called the domain site people and spent a pleasant ten minutes talking to a nice young man who convinced me to re-up for another three years. He was pleased to find my piano tunes available for listening on YouTube and my novels downloadable to his Kindle.

Yes, our phones worked throughout the storm, though we had no electricity. We do not have smart phones or cell phones, and even if we did, there is no service for such here in the redwoods, but we do have good old land lines that for some reason almost never go down in these storms that routinely take out our electricity.

Hearing from friends about the latest sculpting of Big River Beach by high tides and a fantastic outflow of rainwater in the river, we trekked down to Big River to walk along the banks of the huge muddy torrent. Several dogs and their owners were out on the pristine sands, enjoying the sun and all that room to run. The formerly No Dogs Off Leash beach is now a prime destination for dog owners wishing to let their dogs off leash.

Fortunately, the dogs we encountered were all friendly or disinterested in humans, and one dog in particular, a magnificent roseate Malamute, ignited my dog-owning fantasies. But then I recalled the enormous dog I used to take care of in Berkeley when his owners were out of town, and how that delightful mutt ate more in a day than I did in a week, so I let my doggy fantasies go.

Home again, I got the fire going and found myself thinking about life in the context of everyone being dead within ten years—virtually all living things on earth extinguished by super heat and lack of oxygen; and I became immobile with grief.

When I was in my twenties and thirties and forties, I persistently lobbied my friends and politicians and the Sierra Club and local, state, and national government to take action to address the problems of overpopulation and our earth-destroying dependency on cars and gasoline. My proposals were received by nearly everyone in those days as the ravings of a nutcase, and I eventually stopped trying to convince anyone of anything. I came to realize that people, for the most part, believe what they want to believe, despite evidence to the contrary.

Now that my ravings, which were based on the work of many farseeing scientists, are shared by millions of people, and there is still little being done to address the processes that have brought us to this frightening phase of human and planetary life, I realize that whether Guy MacPherson is correct or not in saying we will all be dead in ten years, what is true is that Nature, not humans, will take the lead in saving the biosphere.

Perhaps some humans will survive the coming environmental crises, perhaps not. In the meantime, the sun is shining, the first plum blossoms have appeared in Mendocino, the ebullient teenagers swarm down from the high school to buy lunch at Harvest Market where gigantic pickup trucks crowd the parking lot and a hardworking fellow assiduously cleans the market windows.

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Paradigms Shifting

(This article appeared in the Anderson Valley Advertiser November 2012)

“I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.” Henry David Thoreau

I am writing the first draft of this essay with pen on paper and using a big hardback copy of Buckminster Fuller’s Tetrascroll as my portable desk. I am sitting on a rug a few feet from our woodstove, the fire therein making our living room the most appealing room in our otherwise chilly house. Should I create an essay I want to keep, I will venture into my chilly office, ignite the electric space heater adjacent to my desk, and type these words into my computer to ready them for sending to Bruce and Mark at the Anderson Valley Advertiser. Marcia is in her office, a world apart just fifteen feet away, and I am thinking about several events and ideas and technological changes that have commandeered my consciousness and are asking me to write about them.

Yes, I believe that ideas and stories from sources outside our individual consciousnesses, perhaps propelled by unseen spirits or equally fantastic invisible forces of Universe, are constantly seeking willing portals (creative beings) for expression in our dimension. I know that sounds like hackneyed spiritual crap to some of you, but it rings true to me.

For the past week, Europe has been gripped by enormous simultaneous protests involving millions and millions of people in several countries, though the American media has barely covered these historic events, and we know why. Our overlords don’t want us getting any ideas about imitating our European brethren who are rising up against their governments to say: We will not allow you to keep punishing us in order to benefit the bankers and swindlers who created this economic mess.

Of course the economic mess is Europe is intrinsically connected to the economic mess in America, and messes made by the bankers and swindlers and governments here and abroad are now so huge that nothing short of near total (or total) collapse and reconstruction using new operating paradigms will improve the situation. And new operating paradigms will not be allowed to take hold until the crooks and swindlers are replaced by highly intelligent people working for the greater good.

Meanwhile, as a kind of case in point, the company that has for too long made Hostess Twinkies is going out of business, which means 20,000 American will lose their meaningless jobs along with their deeply meaningful salaries and retirement benefits, and some other company, very possibly a Chinese company, will become the new manufacturer of those nutritionally worthless and physically harmful gobs of refined white flour and refined sugar and refined chemicals. Hostess went bankrupt shortly after being bought by a group of hedge fund swindlers who ran the company into the ground in no time, crooks who will no doubt profit from their crimes and use a portion of those profits to enter politics or elect other crooks and swindlers. Is this a great economic system, or what?

Meanwhile, through a series of what I consider miracles and what those who don’t believe in miracles might call a series of astonishing coincidences, all of my long out-of-print novels are now available as e-books—kindles, nooks, apples, googles, etc.—and I may be on the verge of benefiting (we hope) from a technology I don’t use and am not attracted to but that will nevertheless bring my stories back to public life after decades of unavailability following their very brief lives in-print.

And at the very moment of the birth of the kindle nook apple versions of Forgotten Impulses, Louie & Women, Night Train, and Ruby & Spear (joining Buddha In A Teacup and Under the Table Books as e-books) not one but three well-meaning people sent me articles detailing the evils of e-books and how these downloadable digital editions not only deprive readers of the sensual delight and healing power of reading and fondling real live books, but e-books (these articles contend) are doing terrible damage to the market for real live books. To which I say: given a choice between people reading my books as e-books or not at all, I’ll go with the e-books and trust that the sensual healing power of my stories will get through to readers regardless of delivery mode.

Meanwhile yet again, there come more dire reports of the ongoing environmental holocaust underway on planet earth that will soon dwarf and exacerbate the current global economic turmoil and make the demise of Twinkies and the coming of e-books seem like nothing of much consequence, though all these things are related and intertwined. How so? Well, I would say that the gestalt of the events and ideas and technological changes engulfing us today suggests we are in the midst of several major turning points adding up to a global turning point that rivals the Industrial Revolution in scope and impact.

As I sit on this rug (made in India) writing longhand on 100% recycled paper (made in Canada) with a pen (made in China) by the light of a lamp (made in Indonesia) and lit by energy made from oil (pumped out of Alaska or Texas or Saudi Arabia) while keeping warm by a woodstove (made in Norway) burning wood (trucked from Boonville to Mendocino), I am keenly aware that the earth cannot sustain for much longer my level of material ease and affluence for billions of people unless everything manufactured henceforth on earth is entirely and efficiently recyclable and produces zero pollution before, during and after manufacture while employing 100% renewable energy sources in the manufacturing and shipping processes. Now there’s a paradigm shift that only a few nations have embraced and are beginning to implement, while the rest of us earthlings continue our suicidal coal burning gas burning nuclear power burning ways.

Add to this mix of ideas and events the amazing (to me) news that Nigeria is one of the largest markets in the world for mobile phones, especially the Blackberry mobile phone. Selling for two hundred dollars in Nigeria, a country where sixty per cent of the population lives in dire poverty, the demand for Blackberry phones even among Nigeria’s poor far outstrips supply and…

I suddenly had a vision of a future world wherein Americans and Europeans and people all over the world have voluntarily given up many of the creature comforts that are, through their manufacture and deployment, the causes of global warming and global pollution, in exchange for being able to have cell phones and computers and a fast and exciting global internet system. In this future world, most people walk and bicycle and take electric shuttle buses and drive groovy ultra-light electric vehicles for local travel rather than driving cars running on gasoline, and capitalism as we know it today is a thing of the past replaced by millions of worker-owned cooperatives and organic farms and splendiferous public transportation systems; and we have this vivacious absolutely free computer interweb global infrastructure. Most people live materially minimalist yet comfortable lives, jet travel is an extreme rarity, international trade happens on slow boats and solar electric gravity powered trains, superb healthcare is absolutely free, and we have a super cool internet and world wide web providing everyone with marvelous cross-cultural connectivity, information, and culture.

At present I don’t own a cell phone or any sort of portable computer pad thingy and I don’t plan to own them, but could it be possible (imaginable?) that billions of people would be willing to dramatically reduce their energy consumption and assume the carbon footprints of the average Nigerian of 2012 in exchange for an ever improving lightning fast, mind-expanding, earth-saving interweb accessible through phones and pads and computers? Might we not harness this powerful desire for wide-reaching interconnectivity as a bridge to the wholly regenerative and undeniably socialist (in the best sense of the word) future?

So there I’ll be sitting on my rug (woven by weavers of the village weaving cooperative) writing longhand by the light of a solar-powered lamp I brought back on my bicycle from the village solar power collective store. The solar electric heater and the fire in the woodstove keep me warm while the six trees I planted for every cord of wood we burn are growing fast in the nearby recovering woods. When I get a draft I like, I will type the words into my computer and send the essay forth to Bruce and Mark at the Anderson Valley Advertiser and to those dozens of folks who enjoy me on the worldwide interweb.

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Humility

(This article appeared in the Anderson Valley Advertiser July 2012)

“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” T.S. Eliot

Several recent conversations with friends focused on how might we counter the cyber takeover of our society while at the same time fomenting positive change and a more vibrant local community; and the answer seems to be to invite people over to share a meal and talk.

“Four things come not back: the spoken word; the sped arrow; time past; the neglected opportunity.” Omar Ibn Al-Halif

A friend wrote that in an effort to regain the souls of her husband and children she instituted a rule that cell phones and cyber pads were not allowed at the dining table. The initial response to this rule was that her children and husband wolfed their meals and rushed back to their devices. So she instituted a second rule that dinner had to last half an hour. After a week of dismal dining experiences filled with complaints, her children and husband adjusted to the brief nightly respite from tweeting and staring into little screens and “there have even been some nights when the family lingers at the table after the half hour is up because we are so engrossed in conversation.”

“Any genuine philosophy leads to action and from action back again to wonder, to the enduring fact of mystery.” Henry Miller

One of my favorite Isaac Bashevis Singer short stories is about an outwardly successful man, pious and wealthy, who is not very nice to his wife and children and other people. He rigorously follows the religious and civil rules of his society and continuously wins the economic battle, but no one likes him. Eventually this man’s sons and daughters want nothing to do with him, his wife is perpetually distressed by what a sourpuss he is, and he finds himself more and more isolated and unhappy. So he goes on a journey to a famous spiritual teacher and explains his situation (as he perceives it) to the teacher, and the teacher whispers a little something in the man’s ear.

Having gained the sage’s advice, the man returns to his home and is so changed that his wife and children and business associates can hardly believe he is the same person. In just a few days, this tight-fisted, judgmental, self-righteous egotist has become a generous, open-minded, loving, humble sweetie pie ready to lend an ear to anyone who needs a good listener, a hand to anyone who needs help. And as the years go by, the man becomes so loving and wise that he is regarded as a saint.

One day the man’s oldest son, who previously hated his father and now adores him, asks his father what the spiritual teacher whispered to him all those years ago that so transformed him. And the man reveals that the teacher suggested he pretend to be generous and loving and open-minded, and to continue pretending until the pretense became his habit and transformed him.

“What this world needs is a new kind of army—the army of the kind.” Cleveland Amory

I recently had a visit from a friend who arrived armed with an Iphone, an Ipad, and a Kindle reader. “I don’t know how I ever got along without these,” he said as he searched for something on the screen of his phone.

“I remember you without those,” I told him, “and you seemed to be getting along pretty well.”

“I’m a thousand times better organized now,” he said, continuing to scroll around on his phone. “Much more connected to everything. No more waiting to get news or books or movies. Everything I want fits on these three devices with room to spare.”

He gave me a tour of several apps on his Ipad, took photos of this and that with his Iphone, instantly posted the photos on three social network web sites, and then downloaded an e-book version of my novel Under the Table Books onto his Kindle.

“See,” he said, grinning triumphantly. “We did all that in no time at all.”

And because I love the guy I said, “Amazing! Truly amazing.”

“The twin elements of a life lived intelligently are fidelity and spontaneity.” Edward Hoagland

The late great Juliette White of Albion was a master of the spontaneous dinner party. Sometimes she would invite us the day before the party; sometimes she’d call an hour before the food was ready. To our question, “What can we bring?” she might reply, “Just yourselves,” or “Salad” or “Anything.” Of the twenty or so spontaneous dinner parties I attended at Juliette’s, the largest number of people in attendance was ten, the smallest number was six. The most remarkable thing to me about these gatherings was that there was nothing remarkable about them, yet I always felt I was taking part in Holy Communion.

Humility (from Buddha In A Teacup)

Thomas is seventy-seven. His wife Denise died unexpectedly in her sleep a year and a month ago.

Thomas’s work—the completion of the seventh and final volume of an exhaustive history of the English language—has not progressed a word since Denise’s death. An oppressive sorrow has lain upon Thomas for these thirteen months, and he has little hope of living beyond his grief.

A tall, lean Englishman with pale blue eyes and red hair going gray, Thomas is roused from his stupor at the kitchen table—his bagel and tea untouched—by loud rapping on the front door. His first thought is to ignore the summons, but the rapping persists, so he reluctantly rises and goes to the door.

“Yes?” he says, frowning curiously at an enormous young man with dark brown skin, a shaved head, and muscular arms covered with tattoos.

“I’m Oz,” says the young man, holding out a piece of paper to Thomas. “You the tutor?”

“I don’t believe so.” Thomas peers at the paper and realizes through a fog of despair that his daughter Maureen must have gone ahead and fulfilled her threat to sign him up for after school duty.

“Got the address right,” says Oz, his voice deep and sonorous. “Seven seven six.”

“I stand corrected.” Thomas chuckles at his daughter’s audacity. “Come in.”

“Like a library,” says Oz, stopping on the threshold to gaze around the living room, every inch of wall given over to bookshelves. “You read all these books?”

“Most of them more than once.” Thomas scans the thousands of volumes for any he might have skipped.

“Smells old in here.” Oz wrinkles his nose. “You got a sunny room?”

“The kitchen,” says Thomas, leading the way. “I’ll make a fresh pot of green tea.”

“I ain’t never had no green tea,” says Oz, pausing in the hallway to look at a picture of Thomas as a young Oxford scholar. “Get a buzz?”

“There is some caffeine in green tea,” Thomas replies, gesturing to the kitchen table. “Make yourself at home.”

“Coffee jitters me bad,” says Oz, taking a seat from which he can observe Thomas. “Green tea don’t do that, do it?”

“No, it’s more subtle.” Thomas fills the kettle. “It invigorates in a wholly different way than coffee.”

“You show more accent than your daughter,” says Oz, nodding his approval of the cheerful room. “Me likes.”

“Oh, so you do know my daughter.” Thomas sets the kettle atop the flame. “That was my supposition.”

“Word,” says Oz, grinning at Thomas. “She chose me special just for you.”

“Why is that, do you suppose?” Thomas peruses his collection of teas and decides on a pungent green from Taiwan.

“She flunked me twice.” Oz nods slowly. “But she knows I’m not stupid.”

“No, you’re obviously exceedingly intelligent.” Thomas clears away his lunch dishes. “May I offer you something to eat?”

“No.” Oz looks glumly at the floor and cracks his knuckles. “How come you use that word? Exceedingly? Means more than enough, yeah? Like you think I’m very smart. Which I am, but…how come you think so?”

“The way you take things in.” Thomas sits down opposite Oz. “The way you listen and respond. We’ve been in real conversation from our very first moment together, and that’s quite rare in my experience.”

Oz nods. “You write books?”

“I have written books,” says Thomas, studying Oz’s handsome face, the chiseled cheeks and jaw, “though I doubt I will ever write another.”

“How come?” asks Oz, hearing sorrow in Thomas’s voice. “Must be nice to write a good book.”

“I have lost my inspiration,” says Thomas, thinking of Denise and how everything he wrote, he wrote for her. “I’m old now. Tired.”

“So why you want to be a tutor?” Oz rises to quiet the whistling kettle.

Thomas is about to reply that he doesn’t want to be a tutor, that this is all his daughter’s doing, that he’s very sorry but he’s just not up to it. Instead, after a thoughtful pause, he says, “Perhaps I can still be useful to someone.”

“Someone maybe like me,” says Oz, shaking dry tealeaves into his hand to inspect them. “You wanna show me how to make this drink?”

“Ah,” says Thomas, raising a knowing finger. “The art of tea.”