Day 12

 

David Daniel lives with his wife and daughter in Winnsboro, Texas, about two hours east of Dallas and close to Texas A&M University. He is a homesteader with twenty acres who built his home with own bare hands. Today those calloused hands were cuffed behind his back with plastic zip-ties. He was arrested for unlawful assembly at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He was not alone. Hardly. One hundred ten others, including six members of Sustainable Living Roadshow, were frisked, photographed, and fined.

Today was Day 12 of the Tar Sands Action, a intelligently-organized protest against the Keystone XL Pipeline, which President Obama has the power to prevent. There is deep public distress about this project and it is the objective of this non-violent direct action to communicate that reality. As of this evening, 706 persons have been taken away in police vans. They'd traveled to the nation's capitol from every region of the United States, teenagers to octogenarians. Last night, SLR, under the covert nom de geurre Sustainable World Action Team, or SWAP, attended a mandatory, four-hour workshop held in St. Stephens and the Incarnation Episcopal Church, at the corner of Newton Street NW and 16^th Street NW, in the District of Columbia. Things pretty much went down today the way we were told they would. The police gave two unequivocal warnings and the chance to disperse. Yours truly handed off his protest sign and peeled away after the first. Arrests began after the third warning. In a show of chivalry, women were taken first, every one of them, before the first man was taken. From the barricades the SLR-peppered crowd cheered on Emma, Bridgette and Kelsey, then Tom, Daniel and David as they were put through the system. Fists were raised, songs were sung, cheers were chanted. It's important to keep the message clear, the energy high.

While there is widespread support from the Usual Suspects, The Tar Sands Action is spear-headed by Bill McKibben's 350.org, dedicated to reducing atmospheric CO2 to 350 parts per million (ppm); currently it's about 390 ppm. The Athabasca Oil Sands are located in Northeastern Alberta, Canada, and in a broad stroke and textbook example of Eminent Domain, the XL Pipeline would cut a swath from there, down across America, to processing plants along the Texas Gulf Coast, and smack dab through the middle of David Daniel's property. Along its route, the pipeline will pass over the Ogallala Aquifer, a 10,000 square mile subterranean body of water and a major source of water for the High Plains. Intensive farming has depleted nearly half of it, an amount equal to Lake Erie. After the ineptitude and debacle of the Deep Water Horizon Incident, we can't chance anything happening to this precious resource.

The Athabasca Oil Sands, as a precursor to petroleum, is one of the dirtiest energy sources around. It takes almost as much energy to produce as it will eventually yield. Only the high price of gasoline, the lure of job creation, and the politics of importation from a friendly, neighboring nation have made this extraction viable.

Last night's training in non-violent direct action and civil disobedience was one thing. Actually standing on the sidewalk in front of the White House tempting fate was quite another. “There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear.” Wrong! It is perfectly clear. What's happening here is that I've changed. They say total immersion is the surest way to master a language. By the same token, I have immersed myself in a circle of souls out to change the status quo. An adage espoused in AA proposes that if you hang around a barber shop long enough eventually you get a haircut. In this instance, I've gotten more than just a trim around the ears.

Martin Luther King, Jr. believed non-violent action is the sword that heals. If that's true, it's high-time for this citizen to break out his sharpening stone.

Nothing is Easy

Ian Anderson was so right when he sang that lyric in the Jethro Tull song by the same name. Even the simplest action or decision requires deliberation, consideration, administration. To wit, the Clueless Husband whose Concerned Wife sends him to market with the admonition not to buy [fill in the blank] if it contains BHA or BHT or Red Dye #2 or High Fructose Corn Syrup or Trans Fatty Acids or Aspartame or Gluten or Refined Sugar, Also, only buy [fill in the blank] which are Organic or Pesticide-Free or Locally-Grown, is Fair Trade-Certified, Kosher, and has 100% Post-Consumer Recycled Packaging. Or better still, No Packaging.*

I'm riffing here, but seriously, we have spawned a nation of nervous nellies afraid to step on a crack, or they'll break an oppressed monkey's back.

The Label Readers, a Novel by John Grisham. A New York Times Bestseller. Printed with non-GMO soy-based ink on organic phyllo dough.

In days of yore, when suburbanites covered their sofas in clear vinyl, all you had to look for was the Good Housekeeping Seal. Things were so easy then. Shopping used to be a gentleman's sport, like lawn bowling. One could buy almost anything without a second thought, let alone a pang of guilt. Nowadays, shopping requires the skillfulness of a gymnast on the pommel horse performing a high-difficulty-factor routine. And if that weren't enough, the Russian judge had one too many shots of vodka last night and the Chinese judge is none too happy with what was posted on his Facebook Great Wall this morning.

Even though they are on sale, those tulip-perfect, pesticide-questionable peppers from Holland, which are a joy to behold, come all the way from, well, Holland. That's a costly commute. On the other hand, the locally-grown, organic, sustainably-farmed peppers cost an arm and a leg and really don't look so great. But I've a romesco sauce to prepare, damn it, and I need peppers! I'm Keanu Reeves in Speed and Dennis Hopper is posing an on-the-horns-of-a-dilemma question, What are you going to do, hotshot?

Ultimately, I compromise in my choices. Striving for balance and moderation, I eschew the straight-jacket of orthodoxy. See, Aristotle was so right also, when he proposed striking a middle ground between two extremes. And who I'm I to dispute the wisdom of The Golden Mean?  It's progress what counts, not perfection.


That last part is something I've learned in my other program.

Oh, and that romesco sauce?  Yum.

*In.gredients in Austin,Texas.

The first package-free, zero-waste grocery store.

Music on the Mountaintop

It's Friday night at Music on the Mountaintop, in the shadow of Grandfather Mountain, ten miles from Boone, North Carolina. Sheltered from an incessant light drizzle under the soundboard canopy, I stand enthralled song after song to the music of Railroad Earth. This six-man Bluegrass group delivers tight, harmonically-dense, rhythmically-vibrant, Phil-Spectre-Wall-Of-Sound Newgrass. The best group I'd never heard of. The last time I encountered them was at the annual Harmony Festival, a three-day celebration of music, art, ecology, healthy living and spirituality held at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. SLR set up an Eco Village right in the thick of it, within earshot of the main stage. While I had previously volunteered with them at the Rejuvenation Festival the month before in Santa Cruz, this would be my first time living with the Roadshow. Five days and four nights later I was hooked.

One of the big draws for me was their love of music – Old, New, Borrowed and Blues. SockHop, PunkPop, ShockRock. (Say that three times fast! ) Almost every SLR volunteer sings and plays at least one musical instrument. Between our collective memory we seem to know every piece of music ever burned, magnetized or digitized onto vinyl, tape, or CD. If breaking into song is a penance, not a word, phrase or off-the-cuff reference goes unpunished. Parodies are a way of life. The first order of business before any setup or breakdown is plugging in a sound system and hooking up one of the numerous iPhones, iPods or Macbooks that litter our work space. The Seven Dwarfs were on to something back there in '37. Whistling while you work works. Even the most mundane or repetitive task is elevated In the presence of song.


It's now late Sunday night, we're locked and loaded, ready for departure tomorrow morning. We have the campground to ourselves and with the able assistance of Nick, I cooked our last dinner here - quinoa with locally-grown Patty Pan and Yellow Crookneck squash, Yellow onions, Shitake mushrooms, Red peppers and basil. Meanwhile, Bridgette prepared a fruit salad for breakfast – kiwi, Carolina-grown White peaches and Gala apples, oranges, hand-picked mint and lemon juice. After having foraged for firewood, several others expertly started a fire, around which we ate. 
 
With guitar, banjo, mandolin, djembe, and jar harp in hand, we take turns leading tunes, our voices resonating and rising to meet a starry, moonless sky. Kelsey, who has been insularly practicing a song several weeks running, has taken the guitar I've handed her. Smoke and sparks usher forth from the fire. When she begins to pick out a few chords, everyone quiets. She has a beautiful Gaellic voice and the song she sings from the 1970s is fragile and heartrending. It's an existential moment and when I look above the ridge of Grandfather Mountain The Big Dipper is decanting a spirit, one even I can imbibe. My heart runneth over.

Gypsy, Nomad, Vagabond

Gone and run away with the circus. That's what he's done.

It didn't help that I perpetuated that image. At the time, it functioned as shorthand for conveying the journey upon which I was about to embark. To be sure, there's no Big Top, Lion Tamers, or Daring Young Men on the Flying Trapeze. Children do not run up alongside our caravan as soon as we appear on the outskirts of town. However, we do drive hundreds of miles in a stretch, arrive under cover of darkness, set up our show, open to the public for a limited run - only to break down and depart. Without leaving a trace. Of debris, that is. For if we fail to leave behind something palpable, a giant (non-carbon) footprint or two, showing the way to a more sustainable existence, than we have failed in our mission. To fully comprehend what Sustainable Living Roadshow is doing, it's useful to understand the Latin roots for education. This from Wiki Answers:

'Education' is known to have several root words. It is popularly known to be derived from the Latin root 'educo' meaning to draw out. It also has the root words, 'educare' and 'educere'. Educare, meaning to rear or bring up (referring to child rearing), 'educere' meaning to draw out from within or to lead forth.

We are more than simple gypsies, nomads or vagabonds traveling through the heart-land of America without purpose. We are humble leaders wishing to draw out the primal and ancient knowledge that resides in each and every one of us. Elephant, Donkey, Chimpanzee. Red, White or Blue State. Planet Earth is an island, a mere speck in the vast Milky Way, with limited and dwindling resources. What we do have, here and now more than ever, is an abundance of social capital, along with God-given smarts and an innate ability to bond together for a common cause. It shouldn't take an attack like 9/11. Some fuses just have slower burns.

Loretta Bolt, an SLR's volunteer, formerly a stagehand and steel rigger with Big Apple Circus, shared with me a different way of looking at my opening sentence. According to her, “I wasn't running away with the circus, I was running to the circus, away from the insanity of the world”.

Wasn't sure where I was headed with this entry, Loretta. So thanks for your bolt from the blue. And I don't know whether it qualifies as fiber in my diet, but it sure feels good to have sawdust in my veins.

Plan C

Last night the entire SLR team had a pow wow. We call it a heart circle, an opportunity for the group organism to re:view re:calibrate, re:juvenate, re:turn – I could go on. There are so many re: words in the dictionary, in fact, sometimes an exasperated OED throws in the towel. I remember learning about language's hidden-in-plain-sight structure some thirty years ago from a woman with whom I had a brief affair. I was way out of her league, but sex, the great equalizer, leveled the playing field. Anyhow, she turned me on to de:constructions like reponse-ability and dis-ease. English was never the same.

We've had daily, sometimes twice-daily, meetings, going over set-up, breakdown, big picture logistics and storm contingencies, but we'd yet to sit down for a serious session of props and grows, where each of us can give proper credit due and/or constructive criticism at group level - what's working and what ain't. Each person who chose to share was able to tell the group what was going on with them.

In the rooms of AA, cross-talk is forbidden. Everyone is given a safe space to share their strength, hope and experience, often within the focus of a suggested topic. WAIT, a clever acronym, which stands for Why Am I Talking? should be taken under advisement at all times. There are even sponsors who, in the beginning, set down strict guidelines for their sponsees. “Take the cotton out of your ears, and put it in your mouth”, is one such admonishment. It's predicated on the principle that when you were in charge of your life things got pretty unmanageable. Why don't we see what happens when you get out of the driver's seat for awhile. No, not riding shotgun, either. Try the backseat.

Unlike in AA, where meetings last an hour, 90 minutes tops, our heart circle lasted four hours. It was exhaustive, deep, thorough. There were tears and there was laughter. We considered what it would look like to push the envelope - vis a vis our audience, as a group, and as individuals.

Afterwards, realizing I've been derelict in my duties, I want to bring you up to date about certain significances.

First some nuts and bolts stuff. The 3^rd bus, The Run Bus, never joined us for the tour. Without going into details or casting blame, let it suffice to say it did not live up to its hype. The plug was pulled about two weeks ago and we moved to Plan B. We bought a bio-diesel generator, which the 3^rd bus would've provided for concert sound. We pushed ahead with just Priscilla, Julia (its trailer in tow) and Roxanne (nee Roxy Boxy). Then yesterday, shortly after phueling in Philly (sorry, I know I'm being incorrigible), billowing smoke began emanating from the exhaust pipes of all our vehicles. Since it happened right after the pit stop, and following some sharp detective work, we concluded that the bio-diesel we pumped contained kerosene. However, in Priscilla's case, the smoke told a different story. She's in a bad way and probably will require an engine transplant.

Enter Plan C.

Late last night, after our gathering, we re:sorted (ha!) the bays, and moved most of the kitchen equipment and foodstuffs from Priscilla onto Julia. Leaving a strategically-small task force, the rest of us departed Philly at the crack of dawn, bound for Boone, North Carolina.

My sponsor, Mike, finally read my blog entries. I was actual starting to feel some resentment toward him about that. As his own man, he had positive comments. As my sponsor however, he had some concerns. Alcoholics tend toward exhibitionism and self-regard. I should be careful - a blog might be a trap.

I'm not sure I agree with his apprehension.

I'll look at that in the next few days.

In the past, I would've taken it personally.

Now it's just food for thought.

Forbidden Fruit

 

As if a crop of settlers had been harvested and taken to market, the Old Pond Farm field, now moist, matted and barren, showed nary a sign of the village that for close to a week staked claim and payed homage to the legacy of folk music, historically-aligned with respect for the planet and its inhabitants.

A genre of music that is at its very core political and socially-conscious, Arlo's dad, Woody, had it right when he sang:

It was a bright Sunday morning,

in the shadow of the steeple, at the relief office I saw my people,

as they stood there hungry, I stood there wondering

if this land was made for me and you.

This lost, little known stanza prevented This Land is Your Land from becoming our National Anthem. Too controversial in the tainted atmosphere of the the Red Scare. Putting the fear of God into, or pandering to the native paranoia of the constituency when it's convenient or suits its needs, has been and will always be the currency of the power elite. We like to think we live in a democracy, that our vote will make a difference, but doesn't it seem like it'll always be politics as usual, that congress will be perpetually grid-locked and that its just like it says in that country song lyric, "it's the same old wine in a brand new bottle", a bottle we think will be recycled when we drag it out to the curb, only to learn it ends up as landfill when the commodity price of glass drops too low. Few among the populace are familiar with the concept of social justice, let alone the plight of the family farmer, or the obscene underfunding of public education. They're just too preoccupied making ends meet in an upside-down mortgage, and locating studs strong enough to hold a still bigger, flatter, higher res, Made-in-China TV.

Too young to vote for John, I met and shook the hand of Bobby, only to see him slain. I let the tears of hope flow when Obama defied the odds, only to find myself resigned to another disappointment.

If it sounds like I have a bee in my bonnet, you'd be wrong. Honey bees are dying in unprecedented numbers.

These divine pollinators, the unsung heroes of agriculture, are facing a crisis not of their own making – taken to its extreme it'll insure Eve is empty-handed when it comes to that part of the story when she tempts Adam.

Easy Does It

Before I went into recovery for my alcoholism, I’d see the above phrase on bumper stickers and wonder. What’s the dealio? Is it connected to that Christian Fish thingy? Or that 11 99 equation that’s missing a mathematical operation? While not shy about wearing my heart like an armband, I’ve never been one to adorn my Volvo’s bumper, fender or hood with beliefs, opinions or jokes. I don’t, however, begrudge those that do. In fact, it’s sheer joy to encounter drivers whose vans are carpeted wall to wall - on the outside, that is.


At my very first AA meeting, I saw an Easy Does It sign. Turns out there were many sayings, slogans and mantras in the program. Like One Day at a Time, Keep It Simple, Stupid (K.I.S.S.), and First Things First. Early on, it’s critical to slow the landslide. Crucial to shore up the levees. Vital to ratchet down a notch or two. Somewhere along the way chaos had taken over. Without the daily drama, life was just a series of boring scenes. 


Need an example? Okay, here goes...


Discovering you’ve locked the keys in your trash-laden Camry an hour before your parents are due at JFK. Taking a cab to the airport, realizing too late they’re actually arriving at La Guardia. Attempting to call them on your iPhone, but the battery’s dead. Sound far-fetched? Wait, there’s more. Somehow you manage to drum up a charger from a stranger, only to find your service has been suspended due to non-payment of your AT&T bill. In desperation, you find a phone booth, swiping your debit card. Does the call go through? Well... that’s a bit optimistic. See, your checking account is overdrawn.


Seems comical now. In real time it was pathetic. Often tragic. You wanted to scream, lash out, cry. Instead you poured yourself a stiff one. And another. And another. Somewhere along the way, life got away from you and no matter how fast you ran, always stayed just out of reach.


On page 86 of the Big Book, there is a passage some of us rely on each morning, almost as much as that first cup of coffee:


In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine what course to take. We ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or decision. We relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.


I've tried this for awhile. Turns out life in the slow lane gets me where I'm going just fine, thank you. Bumper sticker or not.

Hell Hath No Fury...

 She warned us. No one can say she hadn’t.

Thursday night Mother Nature released a trailer of coming attractions. It was about 5:30 PM and I had just rounded the corner into the Alferd E. Packer Memorial Dining Tent when a capricious gust reared up, throwing a flurry of leaves at me. In my mind’s eye, I was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. A weather vane nearly impaling me, I had to duck to avoid a hapless cow. Without preamble, bolts of lightening lit up the muted sky, a clap of thunder announcing the downpour.

With a Zoom H2 field recorder on my person and no rain poncho to protect it or me, I was stranded long after I'd finished my meal. The rain finally eased up and after asking the kitchen help for, and wrapping my device in a spent bread bag, I made my way back to camp. While T-storms and rain had been predicted (30%), we hadn’t expected anything that extreme. With inventory to protect, later in the evening we secured tarps over nearly everything.

Cut to: Friday afternoon. I had taken the company bike, a retro-fitted model with an extended rear skateboard cargo rack and saddle bags, along the Pokieman Creek Trail. Taken all the way, you end up in Valley Forge - where Washington was holed up one bitterly cold winter. I only took it three to four miles to the Township of Green Lake. Heading back the way I’d come, I stopped briefly at a place in the creek where it widens, for a quick cool-down swim. As soon as I got back on the bike, I heard the roar of distant thunder. Uh oh.

Wanting to avoid getting drenched and hoping to make a Friends of Bill 6:00PM meeting at the Camp Stage, I pedaled to the metal. I’d hardly set the kickstand at our Priscilla encampment when the sky opened up like a chasm cleaved by Thor.

Lights. Camera. Action! 

In the end, protecting the Green Market’s goods or the After Dark stage’s bamboo awning was a fool’s errand. In the concert area, four lashed-together carnival games flipped backwards into the dining area. By the time the tempest subsided, SLR’s infrastructure had taken a solid hit. It looked as if a tropical cyclone had plowed through.

Pulling back to a wide angle: Several people were taken to the hospital for minor injuries, though gladly no one in the SLR crew. In the center of the field a steel camera-tower came down like a felled tree, a miracle no one was hurt.

Nothing of this sort has happened at the Philly Folk Festival for twenty years, when in 1991, a storm flattened the entire campground.

Shit happens all the time. That’s just the way it is. What counts is how we respond to adversity. And if that’s the measure of character, then the SLR troupe gets high marks.

By early this afternoon everything had been repaired, replaced or set right. 

Except for us, no one was the wiser.

War on Thugs!

This morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer featured a front-page article about Sustainable Living Roadshow’s contribution to the greening of this year’s Philadelphia Folk Festival. Bluegrass, meet Greengrass. A photo of Zachary Carson, donning a wide-brimmed straw hat, a full beard and that warm, beaming smile, accompanied the piece. We're thrilled that Zach and SLR has gotten the kind of PR we hope will precede us as we make new inroads into the American environmental landscape. It wasn’t always so, though, for Zach. As PI’s staff writer Sandy Bauer’s relates, “A few years ago, he had to pay to get into festivals. Then, organizers started letting him in for free. Now, they pay him to come.”

Some battles are fought uphill. So, it is with the environmental movement.

At the same time that the Philadelphia Folksong Society staged its very first folk festival, now in its 50^th year, an American marine biologist and conservationist named Rachel Carson, already renown for her writings on natural history, became a social critic when The New Yorker began serializing her soon to be published book, Silent Spring. Ms. Carson (no relation to Zachary Carson, at least bloodline-wise) is credited with launching the global environmental movement.

It’s now 2011 and we’ll still in hand to hand combat with forces that would place the pursuit of money above the health of Planet Earth and its citizens. Sometimes it seems that we’re swimming upstream, one that is invariably fowled with the effluence of toxic industry.

Which is precisely why the time has come to declare a War on Thugs. With people like Zachary Carson leading the charge, perhaps the hill won't seem so steep.

Camping is Intense!

With tents as far as the eye can see - three to four thousand - and a veritable taxonomy of types, styles and sizes, Melvil Dewey would have had (ahem) a field day. We’re here in Schwenksville at the 50^th Annual Philadelphia Folk Festival. Starting tomorrow, headliners will include Arlo Guthrie, Tom Paxton, Jorma Kaukonen and The Levon Helm Band. If the Bohemian Grove’s annual stag enclave is where the rich and powerful (Republicans) go to misbehave, this is a retreat for the rest of us. There is an energy flow here on a direct lineage to Woodstock. And what Max Yaeger was to Woodstock, the Godshall family is to the PFF. (When not having a small circle of 25,000 friends over for the weekend, the land is farmed for animal feed.)

SLR has two exhibit areas, one in the concert area, where we've set up our Conscious Carnival, as well as a stage for sustainability workshops; the other is in the camping area, where we have our Green Marketplace, the best yet! plus a stage for After Dark performances, amplified then unplugged, until 3:00 AM. Priscilla, a SLR banner draped across her passenger side like a Miss America sash, provides the backdrop for this stage. Since the rear of Priscilla are my sleeping quarters, I am not sure how much shuteye I’ll get. On the other hand, I love good music and suspect I wouldn’t be wanting to sleep anyways.

Noteworthy and so worthy of noting, is the inclusion for the first time of the Philadelphia Jug Band on the Main Stage. I met several of its members last night as they strolled by. Forty-nine years ago, PJB first began coming to this production of the Philadelphia Folksong Society. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, they persevered, coming back year after year after year, content to play the campground stage.

In a way, they will be the real stars this weekend, once again proving… every dog has its day.

Pennsylvania

The Pennsylvania sun rose at 6:14 over the Beltzville Reservoir. Several hours would pass before it would shine upon the sleepy heads of Sustainable Living Roadshow’s caravan. En route from the MidWest ReggaeFest, Priscilla had successfully completed a NASA-like docking maneuver with solutionaries Ben and Daniel – whose trajectory had brought them from Louisville, Kentucky, to the intersection of Interstate 76 and PA 18, Big Beaver - thus rounding out SLR’s first leg troupe.

I was up before the others to greet Mr. Sun and lay out the makings for breakfast: hot water, three French presses, a supply of Peet’s coffee and yerba mate, baby rolled oats, hemp seed meal, ripe strawberries, Flame raisins, honey, light brown sugar, almond milk and Saigon cinnamon. Late the night before, the caravan had stopped at this Pennsylvania state park to catch some zzz’s. Thus far, the tour’s dissemination of information has been on a need-to-know basis - perfect for someone living one day at a time - so, like an excitable schoolboy, I was filled with pure joy to discover that across the parking lot was a lake, its waters warm to the touch, just like Quarry Lake's. With breakfast in my belly, I grabbed a towel and headed over to the boat ramp to wade in. A lone fisherman was unpacking tackle, so I ambled over and introduced myself. It’s said a good reporter has a nose for the news. This blogger believes everyone has a story to tell. You just have to catch ‘em at the right moment.

George Rodgers had decided to spend the morning of his 52^nd birthday fishing with his son, Jarret. There are catfish and Striped bass to be caught. Striped bass, I learned, are a cross between freshwater White bass and saltwater Striped bass. Different from genetic-modification (GMOs), hybridization is a seahorse of a different color. The egg from the White is fertilized with the sperm of the Stripe. (Not to be confused with the White Stripes, the musical group.)

As with many sport fishermen, they planned to release the small ones and take anything larger home. When I asked how big they got, he took me back to his recently T-boned truck (he wasn’t injured), to proudly show me snapshots of his children holding up some of the ones they’ve kept. He has four boys.

Out-spoken in a measured way, George said he loves his country, but hates its politicians. Too many of the heroes we’ve revered end up criminals. The current economic climate? “What’s a family to do”, he asked rhetorically, “when both husband and wife work for the same company, and get laid off at the same time?”

Beltzvile Reservoir is the product of a flurry of mid to late 1960’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s flood control projects. After Delaware floodwaters rose suddenly taking the lives of four boys, there was a strong impetus to prevent future tragedies. In April, the lake was clouded with algae, the result of phosphates that had entered its watershed eight miles upstream. With abundant rains, however, the lake had healed itself, so that on this August morning its waters ran clear.

There’s a spiritual lesson here, if I don’t cloud it up with my intellect.

Where There's Smoke

The vehicle with the plate FYR LDY, registered to a professional fire-fighter, was parked next to the High Moon Photo Gallery booth, displaying images, each different from the next, of curling swirling unfurling plumes of smoke against a coal-black background. Mary Moon (yes, I know) was coyly noncommittal revealing what kind of smoke was depicted, but the hit I got? Marijuana. Ms. Moon’s abstract photographs were reasonable priced, yet I’ve also seen stunning, massive enlargements, no different than Mary’s, exhibited at San Francisco’s MOMA. On youTube there’s a DIY video on how to take smoke pictures yourself. Which brings me to Elinson’s Law of the First. For example, we’ve all experienced just how readily burrs attach to socks when traipsing through a waning summer field. It took a Swiss amateur- mountaineer and inventor named George de Mestral, though, taking a nature hike with his dog, to put two and two together and invent Velcro.  Mark Rothko’s rectangular fields of color? Picasso’s bicycle seat bull? I could’ve done that. But you didn’t, did you.

Firewood is a hot commodity here at Nelson Ledges Quarry Park. $10 a wheelbarrow. At every camping site – and they number in the hundreds - there is a fire ring. You get the feeling that burning wood is part of the attraction. But what am I saying? Of course it is. One of the Four Elements, Fire will forever hold an allure for us humans. To be sure, fire is dangerous and destructive, but it’s also mesmerizing and magical. It provides warmth and illumination. Sitting around a fire resonates deep within our DNA. I am firmly convinced, and not the first to notice, that TV sets usurped fireplaces as the thing around which we Americans congregate; but it’s a faux warmth, an ersatz illumination. Wow, I just thought of something! What about a remote for fireplaces! Oh, it’s already invented. The gas control knob. Right.

Which brings me to my last point - the trend, especially in urban and suburban areas, of grandfathering out fireplaces. In other words, the hearth, as in hearth and home, is being phased out. Just one more thing that’s going the way of the horse and buggy. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am well aware of the health concerns which underpin these ordinances. We do live in communities, not in isolation atop a mountain. But still, people.

So…even though the multitudes of little infernos fouled the pure Ohio air, casting a noxious, and possibly toxic, haze over the lake, as I strolled deep into the woods this last Saturday night, I was drawn back in time to the campfires of my youth. At night, always at night –  enraptured listening to ghost stories at sleepover camp; huddled around a ringed fire pit, still wet and sandy, at Playa Del Rey Beach; and of course, in anticipation, roasting marshmallows to perfection only to flatten them between two graham crackers with a chunk of Hersey’s chocolate.

S’more. I want some more.

The Program

God doesn’t give you more than you can bear.

This spiritual truism has guided me in difficult times, but never more so than in the first 90 days of recovery. Cunning, baffling, powerful! Alcoholism is the one disease that tells you don’t have a disease. It will befriend you when you’re riding high, it will call to you when you’re in the depths of despair. While seated at a meeting, it will cool its heels in the parking lot. It will allow you to think you’ve got this thing licked, then when you least expect will swoop down upon you like a bird of prey, carrying you off in its talons. I don’t know how many times I got this close to letting go, giving in, buckling under. 

It is in Chapter Five of the book, Alcoholic Anonymous, where the 12 Step Program is first revealed. Early in the evolution of AA, there were but six steps. In essence it can understood in just three – trust God, clean house, help others. That’s it, nothing more, nothing less. AA is at its core a simple program for complex people. All you really have to change is… everything. Rigorous honesty is at the foundation of the program. Unless you are willing and able to be honest with yourself, recovery will forever remain elusive.

So, there it was. Fear. I was afraid of what was on the other side. I knew I was powerless over alcohol and that life had become unmanageable. The 1^st Step was realizable, but when I looked at what was expected of me in the next eleven, I just couldn’t go through with it. It was way too much!

The excerpt below, which immediately follows AA’s suggested program for recovery, became my bridge to the unknown:

Many of us exclaimed, “What an order! I can’t go through with it.” Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.

      Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventure before and after make clear three pertinent ideas:

      (a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

      (b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.

      (c) That God could and would if He were sought.

As one of my fellows pointed out in their share, it isn’t required that God be found; only that an attempt be made to seek him out.

In doing so, this drunk found salvation.

Nelson, Ohio

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

California, Nevada, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio.

Priscilla finally caught up with Julia yesterday as we turned right off of Rte. 282,

and pulled to the entrance of Nelson Ledges Quarry Park, site of the MidWest ReggaeFest, and Sustainble Living Roadshow’s 2^nd event on our tour.  I can’t help but notice the prominent, hand-written No Illegal Substances signs. Hmmm…A Ganja-Free Reggae Festival?  Isn’t that an oxymoron? What next? No Tie-Dyed Clothing? Apparent the DEA has a strong presence at this year’s festival. There are plain clothes agents wearing, what else, Tied-Dyed Clothing. Clever.

For me, of course, this has become a non-issue. When I threw in the towel October 12, 2010, I committed to a program of total abstinence from all mood-altering substances. Vodka and marijuana, once my daily bread, are no longer part of my repertoire. I never thought I’d say these words, but I’m high on life.

And what a life it is! This is one beautiful setting for a festival. 250 acres of woods, fishing lakes, meadows, streams, beach, rocks and Quarry. The site where the Quarry is located was, in the late 1940's and 50's, an operating quarry. It employed many people in the surrounding area, and mined quartz and sand. As the story goes, one day in the late 1950's, the machinery hit one of the many springs, and the approximate thirty acre area filled within days, leaving peninsulas, rock shelves, and an island in the middle. The water is claimed to be the cleanest in Ohio and I believe it. However, I’ve not taken a shower since last Friday night, so when I take the plunge I wonder if its pristine reputation has been compromised.

After drying off and getting into clean clothes, I waste no time setting up an outdoor kitchen between our two buses. Jonathon has done a bang-up job of parking parallel to Julia at a distance of ten feet, the exact dimension of the King Canopy pop-up tent. There are two of them and it creates a cozy café setting for al fresco dining.

The crew worked late into the evening setting up the Conscious Carnival, the Green Market, and the Tea House. I made a simple dinner of Green Lentils, Quinoa, Romaine with Early Girls, and served the last of the Hummus. We are now a troupe of 24 and it feels like family. An intentional family.

Now Playing!

A Compendium of Films for Future Solutionaries

 

A River of Waste           

The Hazard Truth About Factory Farms

“A River of Waste is a powerful expose about agribusiness and the harm it causes

animals, the planet and public health. WATCH THIS FILM and show it to your friends and family. – Paul Shapiro

A Film by Don McCorkell 

Sprawling From Grace

The Consequences of Suburbanization

“As important a film as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.” – KCUV-AM 1510

A Film by David M. Edwards

Dirt! The Movie

A story with heart and soil

Inspired by William Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth.

A Film by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow

The World According to Monsanto

From Agent Orange to Genetically Modified Crops

A Film by Marie-Monique Robin

Hempsters, Plant the Seed

Follows seven activists as they fight to legalize industrial hemp in the United States. Over 25,000 products can be manufactured using industrial hemp.

Executive Producers: Rod Pitman  Andrew Hudson  Johan Schotte

GasHole

What the Oil Companies Don’t Want You To Know

“pulls back the curtain on the hidden hand of the Oil Industry, exposing how it steals from our bank accounts, our economy, and our climate. A Must See Film” - OilWatchDog.Org

A Film by Scott D. Roberts and Jeremy Wagener

Fuel

Change Your Fuel…Change Your World

He world is addicted to oil. It’s time for an intervention.

Featuring: Richard Branson, Woody Harrelson, Sheryl Crow, Larry David, Willie Nelson, Robert Kennedy Jr., Neil Young and many more…

A Film By Josh Tickell

Sweet Misery

A Poisoned World

Reveals the truth about the harmful and deadly effects of aspartame.

If you love diet soda or are addicted to foods that contain artificial sweeteners.

This movie will be an eye-opening revelation that could save your life.

A Film by Corie Brackett

BlueGreen

Our Connection to the Ocean

An exploration of the human connection to the ocean, through a surf centric lens.

A Film by Ben Keller

Until the next post, the balcony is closed.

Tale of Two Rest Stops

 ...between the East of my youth and the West of my

future  -  Jack Kerouac

Iowa is at the center of writing in America and home of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, the first creative writing degree program in the United States, and served as the model for writing programs across he country. Over 40 Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded to writers with Iowa connections.

A towering pen’s nib stabs the ground and greets visitors at the entrance to this Johnson County, Iowa, rest stop. Its scale would do Klaas Oldenburg proud. A river of ink flows from the foyer floor into the interior part of the building. The above quote from “On the Road”, Kerouac’s 1958 beat novel, floats on its surface. So begins an impressively-curated, integrated art installation acknowledging the seminal influence of Iowa and the importance of the written word.

Jack Kerouac, like a specially-trained Torah scribe, wrote the entire manuscript on one continuous scroll measuring 120 feet. The novel chronicles Kerouac’s romantic passion and celebrates mid-century American culture by way of the highway.

100 years earlier, Americans moved to the beat of a different drum. A strain of rugged individualism was being bred into the American genome, epitomized by the pioneers who sought and found a better life in Oregon and California.

At another rest stop, this one in Lincoln County, Nebraska, there is a tribute to this chapter of the American experience. Groupings of steel hoops, evocative of wagon's wheels, punctuate the fields behind the rest stop’s facility. The location of this sculptural installation in this verdant field is no accident. The Overland Trail once passed through.

The common expression stuck in a rut, dates back to this era of territorial expansion and referred to a tendency of conveyances to get stuck in the well-defined grooves carved deep into the roadbed by the teaming river of hooves and wagon wheels flowing westward. In order for a individual to turnaround or go his own way, he would literally have to lift a wagon’s wheels out of the ruts.

So it was with this writer.

In order to turn my life around, I had to lift myself out of the ruts carved deep from years of alcoholism. Thus, I found it somehow reassuring that Nebraska’s Tourism Bureau has embraced for its slogan the juxtaposition of just two words…

“possibilities…endless”.

 

E-I-E-I-O

That’s some fine radicchio you got there, Mr. McDonald.

Fine, fine radicchio. I'll bet that’d be real tasty grilled with a nice balsamic reduction. What d’ya think, Rick?

I don’t know, Dell…that’s so 5 minutes ago.

‘Be more inclined to grill some Georgia peach halves,

nestle them atop a chiffonade of your radicchio there.

Maybe a splash of raspberry vinaigrette.

Mmmm…nice, Rick. You been watching the Food Network again?

Anywho, we’re just a bit curious, Mr. McDonald, how you happened to come by seeds for your crop…what’s that you say? you’ll have to speak up, my hearing’s not too good. I was a Dead Head back in the day. You say you let some of last year’s crop go to seed?

Well, sir, there might a little bitty problem with that.  See, we not only mapped the DNA to that radicchio, we tinkered with its genes so it’d be resistant to wilting. Ergo, we own the rights to its use. Therefore, you’re infringing on our patent, sir. And that makes you a criminal.

Dell? Tell Old McDonald here what he's won.

I think you’d better come with us, sir…nice and quiet-like…so nobody gets hurt.

Garbage In

Zero Waste is a core concept common to both the sustainability and permaculture movements. In a nutshell (bio-degradable!), it is life without a garbage can. Those in the trash lane, who have been using their car windows like garbage receptacles, probably won’t notice trash cans have been removed from their bio-region. Others will respond to this ecological ideal with the perfunctory Yeah, right. It’ll be a cold day in Leningrad, when that happens.

However, if you already re-use yogurt containers for leftovers, bring your own mug into Starbucks, and actually manage to bring your ChicoBag into Whole Foods, this is just another turn of the wheel in the direction you’ve been moving all-along.

You may ask, What will garbage night look like in a Zero Waste World?

Well, you’ll still have curbside pick-up for those daily newspapers that pile up unread, and those magazines on auto-renewal you keep forgetting to cancel.

There will still be a green can for grass clippings, hedge trimmings and kitchen scraps. And, lastly there will be either an anything goes (in) recycling container or one of those duplex models for mixed paper on one side, plastic and glass on the other.  What you won’t have, though, or pay a premium to subscribe to, is the once ubiquitous garbage can.  How can that be, you chime? What will I do with all that stuff that isn’t compostable, bio-degradable, or recycle-worthy. In other words, how does one divert stuff from going into landfill? 

Have no fear, it’s Brennan Blazer Bird (AKA “B”) to the rescue. His Personal Landfill Device, or Bottle Brick, is a prime example of solutionary thinking. If necessity is the mother of invention, then B gets an A in the application of that principle.

The Bottle Brick is one of those inventions that’s so obvious, you wonder why nobody has thought of it before.

Here’s what you’ll need:

A plastic bottle (retain the cap for later), a short and narrow piece of dowel (about a foot long), a piece of string tied around the neck of the bottle (this maneuver is optional, but useful if you plan to go mobile with your PLD).

Here’s how it works:

Whenever or wherever you encounter something which can neither be composted nor recycled, deposit it into your bottle brick and tamp down to compress.

Things that go into your bottle brick:

Dental floss, candy bar wrappers, cigarette butts, weird thingies like those plastic sleeves that hold 6-paks together, Styrofoam peanuts, etc.

And when nothing else will fit in the brick?

Pour sand into bottle filling in any air spaces. Replace cap.

What happens next?

Gather bottle bricks in your community, sorting by bottle type. When your have lots of one type, use to construct schoolyard or public park benches.

And after that?

Sit down with somebody new and share your stories.

To learn more: http://www.bottlebrick.com/

Poetry in Motion

In a moving vehicle like Priscilla, anything that’s not lashed, tied down, blocked, bungee’d, velcro’d or otherwise Gorilla-glued promises to slide, flip, roll or go airborne around tight turns or with sudden stops. Like that large pot of Beet and Cabbage Borscht on the stove. That’s precisely why there’s a bungee cord securing it in place. Never thought I’d see that. But then, there’s a lot I’m seeing for the first time. Yesterday in Laramie, Wyoming, at still another truck stop, there was a Trucker’s Christian Chapel off to the side of the mega-convenience store. As a grateful member of Alcoholic Anonymous, who has spent countless hours in the basements and multi-purpose rooms of churches, I was intrigued. Besides, I hadn’t been to a meeting since leaving the Bay Area and this seemed like a close second. The chapel structure was nothing more than a converted semi-trailer once used as a walk-in refrigerator for a Burger King.

I went inside.

AA meetings come in every size and shape. Early in sobriety, after a particular rough night, I went to a 5:30 AM meeting close to home. There were nine of us. Six months later at the 39^th Annual ACYPAA Conference, I recited the Serenity Prayer along with 2700 others. It’s often said in the program that two alcoholics sharing a cup of coffee constitutes a meeting.

And that’s pretty much what happened. On its walls were the trappings of Christianity. And, as in the rooms of AA, there were lots of pamphlets available for the taking. AA has a pamphlet for just about everything.

Chaplain Don Martin, a beatific 67 year-old originally from Oregon, moved to Laramie with his wife in 1968. He has ministered to truckers here for some 14 years.

The chapel is open for drop-in reflective prayer Monday through Saturday from 3:00 PM until 10:00 PM. On Sundays, there are Morning Services and Evening Bible Study.

I sat down at one of the 14 forward-facing chairs, lifting a King James Bible off the floor. Like a heat-seeking missile, my fingers turned its pages to the Book of Ecclesiastes, from whence came the lyrics of The Byrd’s Turn! Turn! Turn!        

“To every thing Turn! Turn! Turn!

There is a season Turn! Turn! Turn!

And a time to every purpose under heaven…”

  

Don got up from his desk chair, taking

a seat across the aisle from me. After a tacit nod,

I read aloud from the beginning until I had completed the passage of verse Pete Seager had adapted and set to music in 1959 and that became a hit for The Byrds in 1965.

So, yeah, there wasn’t hot coffee waiting on a counter and nobody got up to read How It Works, from Chapter 5 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

But for a fleeting moment at a makeshift chapel in Laramie, Wyoming, Don M. and Michael E. got in touch with God, As We Understood Him.

Amen!

Evanston, Wyoming

We collectively came to life this morning, picking up an hour of clock-time in the wee hours as we swept into Mountain Standard Time. I slept like a baby – I think everyone had.  Tom and Emma, driver and shotgun of Roxy Boxy, enjoyed a few more minutes of well-deserved sweet slumber. Once again, we had muscled through the night, breaching the Utah border into Wyoming, coming to rest at a Flying J Truck Stop.

Now, down through ages many tried and true techniques (and substances) have been employed to keep ship captains, locomotive engineers and bus drivers awake and alert. Last night, as we began our U.S. 80 passage through The Twin Sisters, we added another. N.N.E. of Salt Lake City, Jonathon called an audible for Queens’s Bohemian Rhapsody. With apologies to Freddie Mercury, our Karaoke musical moment, as free-spirited a rendition as you’re likely to find anywhere, enlivened our spirits and brightened our vision better than Red Bull, or any in the herd of energy products that have stampeded the marketplace. 

Earlier, in the late afternoon, a hop, skip and a jump over the Nevada-Utah border, we stop at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah’s famed measured-mile site of world land-speed record runs. Stunning in its scenic simplicity, it appears as if we’ve just missed a snowstorm; a pristine carpet of white covers the excruciatingly flat landscape, charcoal gray mountains to the North. South of the highway, you can walk barefoot onto the moist salt-crusted earth.

As someone who is trying to walk the walk, I went for it.

It’s pleasingly crunchy and mushy at the same time.

Well, I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you where I went to high school and drop a name, simultaneously. I think that’s a three-pointer. Craig Breedlove holds the honor of being the first man to go faster than 400, 500 and 600 miles per hour. His personal best was 600.601. He did that right here on the Bonneville Speedway. You have to wonder at what early age little Craiger says to himself, I’m gonna make the fuckin' Autobahn look like a carnival kiddie ride.

Craig Breedlove graduated Venice High School, my alma mater. Home of the Mighty Gondliers, Rowing Not Drifting… I hadn’t thought of that motto in eons. Emblazoned upon a staircase-landing wall, it seemed somehow pat and meaningless. Funny how time changes nearly everything.

No longer a feather in the wind, I have found my wings and am learning how to fly. Maybe I’ll just go and break the sound barrier.

East of Winnemucca, Nevada

In a attempt to make up for lost time, our bus driver, riding in tandem with a fully-laden box truck, had powered through the Nevada desert night with a little help from a Guayaki Yerba Mate Energy Shot. The Band’s Chest Fever is blasting through our multi-zone sound system as I sit down to collect my thoughts this morning after a well-deserved slumber at a rest stop.

We are just shy of Winnemucca, which is roughly half-way between Oakland, CA and Salt Lake City, UT. The twelve of us woke up to French-pressed Peet’s coffee and oatmeal. Toppings included hulled hemp seed meal, Flame raisins and a Gravenstein apple and Asian pear crisp which I had prepared in the middle of the night. It was better in the morning than the hot, just outta-the-oven, obligatory sample. I guess its just that way with certain dishes – cold pizza comes readily to mind.

Last evening we had stopped in Truckee for a dinner break.

En route I christened our newly-completed mobile kitchen with a simple supper of collard greens, steamed over a sauté of curried yellow onions and garlic, and served over Thai red rice, a 40 pound sack of which was donated by Alter Eco. A two-fisted splash of Sriracha hot sauce and Bragg’s Amino Acids upped the taste ante big-time. After all, we are in Nevada and as they say in poker, I am all in.

As community chef for Sustainable Living Roadshow’s  Right2Know tour, I will be preparing three vegetarian meals a day for 30 kindred spirits over the next three and half months, and 100% organic to the extent possible.

Yesterday, at 3:48 PM, after a series of proverbial production delays, Jonathon Youtt, a founding member of Sustainable Living Roadshow, got behind the wheel of Priscilla, backed out of PLACE (SLR’s home base and nerve center) and finally started heading east on CA 80. Priscilla’s namesake is none other than Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the 1994 film about a bus called Priscilla, two drag queens and a transsexual who contract to perform a drag show at a resort in the remote Australian desert. Tom Llewellyn (AKA Thomas Clever - his carny name), is driving our custom-outfitted box truck, jam-packed to the gills with most of our gear and materials. The rest is stowed within the bays of bus.

The thirteen of us, seven women and six men, will rendez-vous tonight with the crew of Julia, a second bus, whose namesake and history of usefulness is forever tied to Julia Butterfly Hill, best known for living atop a 1500 year California redwood for 738 days – drawing attention to the plight of ancient forests in the era of indiscriminate clear-cutting. Zach Carson, co- founder of SLR, led the advance party to Salt Lake City last Sunday to be part of the Annual Outdoor Retailer’s Convention. With just a limited involvement at this Salt Palace-housed event, we have garnered the respect and admiration of several magazine publishers and vendors. The buzz has already begun and we haven’t even reached critical mass.

We, the 20 of us, need to arrive in Cleveland by Wednesday, where we will meet up with The Run Bus, the only vehicle in our caravan that runs entirely on vegetable oil (Priscilla and Julia are fueled by bio-diesel, which is processed from vegetable oil.)

By then we will be 30 strong.

We have each found our calling in the Summer of 2011. The Theory of Sustainabilty 101, no longer relegated to elective status, is now an urgent part of the curriculum of life on this planet; its handbook of principles and practices required reading.

Wow, that’s deep. Before I get all heavy on you, I’ll step away from the MacBook. Besides, stomachs are grumbling and there is a lunch to prepare.