Building Ordinary

One simple meditation step you can use every day

2012-01-12T21:15:00.000-08:00

Mom's garden, from the meditation bench
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

Yesterday, in Bliss in the Dentist's Chair, I promised to share the simple meditation technique I learned years ago that made my trip to the oral surgeon so easy.

For years I studied meditation techniques. All too often, I felt tension at the thought of sitting down to meditate. How in the world could I possibly empty my mind as the books and teachers suggested? My mind is never empty! One day, somewhere along the way, I read about a simple technique of focusing ever so gently on the breath.

I wish I knew where I read it, possibly in one of Pema Chadron's books.

Here's the gist of it: Set a gentle timer to let you know when the time is up. Ten minutes is perfect for a quick, restorative session in a busy day.

Sit comfortably, feet flat on the floor, or tucked tailor fashion.

Set your intention for ease. This is not about doing it right. There is no wrong way. Ease is the important word here.

Now, focus your attention on the breath coming into your left nostril. Cool air in.

Next, focus your attention on the breath coming out your left nostril. Warm air out.

That's it. Thoughts will come. Acknowledge them. Give them a mental bow. Thank them, perhaps. Or just gently acknowledge them. Then, just as gently, return your focus to the breath coming into your left nostril. Cool air in. Warm air out.

Repeat as frequently as needed until the timer signals the end of the session.

Remember, there is no right and no wrong, just gentle focusing and refocusing on the breath at the tip of your nostril. Cool air in. Warm air out.

For a more full version of this meditation, see Ten Minute Meditation. If you've never tried something like this, give it a go and let me know how it feels, will you please?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Bliss in the dentist's chair

2012-01-11T18:33:00.000-08:00

From Mandalas in Nature
© Sharon L Richardson - All rights reserved
Used with permission

The building is old, probably built after the 1906 earthquake. The elevator creaks as it carries us to the thirteenth floor. The bathroom is small and not too clean, the paper towel dispenser empty. I wipe my hands on my pants and head for the waiting room.

How tiny it is! Dimly lit, the black and white decor looks like something from a Mickey Spillane detective novel, but the neat, young woman behind the counter is no gum-chewing Mike Hammer moll. Ordinarily, I might feel claustrophobic, but I'm still in walking meditation, and the serenity of my earlier morning meditation stays with me.

Although I'm early, and before I've settled into one of only two chairs, the surgeon's assistant calls me to an equally tiny operating room, where I will sacrifice two wisdom teeth. This room, too, is sparsely furnished, the reclining dental chair narrow, with no support for my neck. I ask for and receive a pillow.

Artificial flowers in a vase of clear glass marbles stand on the windowsill. I wish they were real and notice, gratefully, that they are not dusty. I ask if the blinds can be opened so I can see the sky. The doctor adjusts them himself.

This is definitely a no-frills office. There is no overhead monitor, no offer of earphones and a favorite radio station, TV show or movie to distract me during the procedure. I am grateful for that, too.

The doctor asks how I am. I smile and say truthfully, "Fine. It's a beautiful day." We make eye contact, and I see again the peace I noticed in his eyes the other day, when I met him for the first time. This is a calm man, a man who is comfortable in his skin and his work. We exchange a few words, and I ask him to keep me informed throughout the procedure. "Tell me what you're doing as we go along." He says he will. In the beginning, he remembers. Later, when it's all over, he takes a moment to tell me what he forgot, or perhaps chose not to tell me, during the procedure.

Holding peace through a chemically induced panic attack

Yellow blossom with red center
Credit: Mandalas in Nature
© Sharon L Richardson - All rights reserved

A few days ago, during the consultation, we discussed my fear of epinephrine, the synthetic adrenaline in the numbing medication, and how, physiologically, it mimics panic attacks, from which I suffered terribly as a young woman. He explained his reasons for preferring this drug over other numbing agents and prescribed Valium to mitigate its effects.

I have chosen to accept his wisdom regarding the epinephrine, but not the Valium. (See Monday's Zen and the Art of Tooth Extraction.) I had Valium, or a generic version, once before and it knocked me out physically, but not mentally. The panic attacks for which it was prescribed kept coming. In a stupor that caused me to pass out repeatedly, I had no physical, mental or emotional resources left to respond to the persistent sensation that my ever-faster-racing heart was about to explode. I was a terrified mind in a body I could not move.

Monday morning, trusting in my ability to calm myself with meditation, I decide not to take the tranquilizer. So far, all is well. I have been in a state of utter peace all morning, and continue to feel--well, to be truthful--I feel bliss.

I have never been more relaxed in a dentist's chair. When the chemically induced panicky feeling begins, I feel slightly detached. I notice my rapidly beating heart, my shallow breathing, and gently lay my hands over my chest, Reiki style, feeling immediate ease. The doctor asks if I am all right. I smile crookedly, through the mobile side of my face, and nod yes.

While my heart continues to pound, I feel none of the usual fight or flight panic, not even when the lower tooth breaks and he uses a shrieking drill to grind away the rest of the tooth. I come away feeling happy and at ease, my mouth stuffed with a wad of cotton between my now-void gums, my tongue thick as a caboose, the right side of my face swollen nearly twice its size.

Who knew one could feel joy after having wisdom teeth pulled?

Pink blossom
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

Blue sky is brilliant in the noon-time sun. Union Square is lively with people; chandeliers in an upscale jewelry store sparkle brilliantly. Plants in the new sidewalk mini-park on Powell Street seem vibrantly healthy and green. Cable car drivers ring their bells.

This comfort and feeling of well-being after a visit to the dentist for a routine procedure would be remarkable any day. After having wisdom teeth extracted, it is nothing short of a miracle, all because of the simple of act of spending a few minutes each day focusing on nothing but breath.

For years I struggled to meditate properly. Often as not, the struggle to clear my mind and attain total detachment and emptiness left me more tense than when I began. Then one day I discovered a simple secret that changed meditation for me forever. I'll share a bit of that tomorrow. For now, I am grateful for the power of meditation--this simple, small, regular practice--how it restores, informs, educates, and heals.

I know a number of you who read me regularly also meditate. How does meditation help you through difficult events? I'm interested in all stories, no matter how big or small the event. The more we share, the more we can learn from one another, would you agree?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Zen and the Art of Tooth Extraction

2012-01-09T09:55:00.000-08:00

Val's Purple Spiral
Credit: Sharon L Richardson - All rights reserved
Used with permission

Here I am in my sixties, finally getting two wisdom teeth pulled. I never really got into Zen, but I do meditate regularly. Turns out that routine practice is mighty handy today.

The entire procedure should take less than thirty minutes, but the surgeon wants me to arrive heavily doped with Valium. The pharmacist had a trace of alarm in his voice when he saw the dosage, a faux pas he covered quickly, but not before raising the already considerable anxiety I felt about taking these drugs to a whole new level, miles high.

The surgeon wants a calm, relaxed patient. If I'm passing out in his chair, I'll be outwardly calm, meeting his need, but I know from past experience that my brain and my body will be doing everything on the inside to counteract the effects of the drug. Very likely, I'll have a panic attack I cannot control with meditative focus or breathing. Fight or flight syndrome will rage through my mostly paralyzed body. I've actually considered cancelling the procedure rather than face that chemically induced fear.

I'm not too keen, either, on slamming pain killers afterward into my already heavily drugged body, along with the antibiotics I have to take.

Here's where routine meditation practice comes to the rescue. The past few days, I meditated more than usual. It helped me stay in a soft place, especially the walking meditation. Whenever I thought about the drugs, however, my anxiety spiked. My heart rate and breathing accelerated. I felt clammy.

This morning, during my routine waking meditation, I realized that I would be far more calm in the dental chair if I did not take the Valium. Years of practice lend the tools to be calm and responsive to the surgeon's needs without forcing myself into a crazy, drugged stupor that, paradoxically, has the opposite effect. Plus, I will eliminate one powerful drug from my body, leaving more energy for healing the wounds.

In a few hours, I will be home again, recovering, resting and giving my body what it needs to heal. I'm not keen on giving up a part of my body that has been with me all my life, but I understand this sacrifice will result in better quality of life for the remainder of my years, so I accept it. I accept, too, that antibiotics and pain killers may be a necessary part of my recovery. Letting go of the idea of chemically tranquilizing myself, knowing it tends to have the opposite effect, I have never felt so calm going into a procedure like this.

I give gratitude to all my teachers over the years, human and Spirit.

Hmmm. I wonder how this would work next time I get my hair cut.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Peaceful morning on our way to Stand for Peace

2012-01-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

January's fall colors as we head out to stand for peace
© L Kathryn Grace

It's a calm, peaceful morning as we two grandmothers head out to stand for peace.The neighborhood is quiet, with just a few folks grabbing coffee from the local shops, a few slow-moving cars. No honking!

As I prepare for our seventh stand, I ask for peace in my heart, peace in my soul, and a stillness of being that I might hear and understand next steps, not only for today, but for 2012.

More to come.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Standing for peace after Zap! Bam! Pow!

2012-01-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

San Francisco City Hall
Our sixth stand for peace
© L Kathryn Grace - All rights reserved

Okay, it wasn't exactly Zap! Bam! Pow! We had words. Saturday, the last day of 2011, in our mini version of The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering, Sharon and I stood for peace in front of City Hall for the sixth week in a row. We'd had a rough morning.

The phone rang early--one of those calls that pushes buttons. "I can't talk about this now," she said. "I need to feel peaceful before our stand."

One of the things that makes our relationship work, always has, is our willingness to talk through whatever comes up.

My 7-year-old rears her rebellious head

It never fails to amaze me how quickly I can revert to a hurt seven year old mentality and want to lash out in anger and frustration. Sometimes I do.

Saturday morning, getting that phone call as we prepared for our stand, I felt the flush and rush of blood to my head. Not wanting to start something big, I chose my words carefully. Not carefully enough.

I wanted to take care of the issue right now. She wanted to wait. I get a strong physiological response when I feel I have to squelch feelings. I know very well what the term "my blood boiled" means. Sometimes I stomp around, muttering obscenities. Sometimes I remember in time, before I've said things I'll regret, to put certain coping mechanisms to use. It's a kind of litany.

Breathe.
Breathe again.
What am I feeling?
Mad? Okay. Yeah, I'm mad. Arrrrrggggghhhh.
What do I want to feel?
Calm. Peace.
Breathe.
What can I do about this?
Breathe.
Breathe.
Let answers come.
Urnnnggghhhh! Don't want to be adult and peaceful. Rrrggggg.
Breathe.
Still mad.
Okay.
Breathe.
How is she feeling? Mm-hmmm. Okay. But what about ... ?

Breathe.
I love her.
Breathe.
How can I support her in this while acknowledging my own feelings? (Yeah, I tend to get cerebral.)

Breathe.

And so it goes. We've known each other for nearly a quarter century.. We know each other's patterns. We trust, each, the other to return and talk through whatever our issue, when the time is right. Saturday morning, we didn't have enough time. We left the house, shoulders a bit high, tension in our steps. Breathing.

Then there's 'righteous' anger

Street Person on a far warmer morning than last Saturday
Image Credit: Puravida
A morgueFile Free Photo

A few minutes later, we walked from the train, past far too many homeless people curled in their sleeping bags and blankets against the bitter cold, some up already, stamping their feet, hugging their sides.

I never walk past these folks without being aware how precarious our own financial situation, how easily we might find ourselves among them, should our economy take another protracted nose dive in 2012.

That morning, having breathed and calmed myself, having reached a state of equilibrium on the train, I felt anger seething under my skin again as I walked past an overturned wheelchair, it's occupant cocooned in a sleeping bag on the hard pavement, a small backpack at his feet.

How easily my anger bubbles, not only at home when triggered at just the wrong moment, but at injustice, the pervasive injustice that is homelessness, that is lack of medical care, that is hunger in the richest country in the world.

Walking past an upright, blanket-shrouded man, his face and hands black with street dirt, his eyes red and a little crazed, I recognized the faces I put on my anger. The Koch Brothers. Dick Cheney. The Bush family. Icons of the uber wealthy and the people who serve their purposes in Washington, D.C., our state capitols, San Francisco City Hall.

As we approached that gilded dome, once glowing, now fading to bird-streaked charcoal in this economy that fills the coffers of the rich while feeding and housing ever fewer, this faded poorly kept monument to capitalism and tenacity, whose dome is the fifth largest in the world, taller than the US Capitol, I felt the anger I carry in my body, anger I face each day.

Being peace when I might choose rage

Every single day I struggle for balance between being the peace I want to see in the world and fuming at one atrocity after another, at my failure to meet the need to find some way to mitigate and change the suffering caused by human greed and carelessness. Each day, throughout the day, I stop and breathe.

Breathe.
I have been here before, many times. I acknowledge these feelings. I fold my hands and bow to them. Namaste.
Breathe.

I ask for guidance, if only for the next step.
Breathe.

It works. On Saturday it worked. Peace entered my heart, a warmth starting at the core of my heart, and spreading outward.

Image Credit: Sharon L Richardson
From Re-Imagining Peace
All rights reserved - Used with permission

Breathing, I acknowledged again the anger, the suffering.
Breathing, I accepted what is.
Breathing, I knew there was--is--a better way.
Breathing, I asked for guidance.

Making peace

All the while, as we walked, we talked quietly of our altercation earlier and how our stand informs our responses and is informed by our feelings and actions. Breathing, I gave gratitude for this mini-eruption, this opportunity to practice our intention to bring peace into the world.

We do not stand for peace merely to make a visible, public stand. We stand for peace to change our own hearts.

Standing for peace is not only a ritual, it is a way of becoming peace.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Imagine awakening in a world without greed, only love

2011-12-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

Deer in aspen meadow
Photographer: Terry Perryman, all rights reserved
Used with permission

For the next few days, perhaps longer, I ask you to take a journey with me, a journey that helps us imagine a world, our world, as it might be if only love motivated us, if there were no greed, if there were no broken hearts attempting to compensate for childhood lack and cruelty. It's a bit of a stretch, I know. Very likely, each of us suffers today from cruelties present and past. I do know what it is I ask of you. Still, I ask.

Begin

You know the old adage. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Will you take it with me?

Here's how we begin. Get comfortable in your body, take a few long, slow breaths as you read this, let your mind find calm. Open to the possibility, just the possibility, of a life, a world, so full of love there can be only harmony.

We start easy, imagining what it would be like to waken every morning in such a world. If there were no greed, there would be no need for alarm clocks. We would waken when our bodies were ready. We would have time to stretch luxuriously, like a cat, lengthening our muscles and limbs languidly, gently, feeling the goodness of our bodies, their wholeness, their beauty.

We would have time to place our hands, warm with healing energy, over spots needing a bit of extra attention and love, perhaps a stiff shoulder, a crick in the neck, and always lying a few minutes over the heart chakra. We would smile with pleasure at the extraordinary heat flowing between our heart and our hands, spreading throughout our bodies.

Like Rose in Wake, the first Village of Ordinary post, we might enjoy the company of a feline companion, waking and stretching with us, or perhaps we would reach down and find the hand of our partner and bask in the quiet joy of waking beside our lover each day.

In a world without greed, we need hurry only because we are anxious to greet the dawn, eager to run into the morning air, feel the breeze on our face, dispatch our chores and get on with the work we love, work for which we receive no pay, work that is its own reward, that gives us intense pleasure.

But first, perhaps we'd sit with a cup of tea, wrap our hands around a mug the artisan, our neighbor, made just for us, knowing our habits, our favorite colors, the little things that surprise and delight us. The mug would fit perfectly in our hands, a treasure we enjoy every single morning with gratitude and love.

We might cut ourselves a slice of yesterday's bread, baked fresh in our neighborhood bakery, butter it with sweet creamery butter we ourselves churned, butter that came from a cow whose name and temperament we know well, whose flanks we have laid our cheek against as we milked her.

This is one way we might start our day in a world so filled with love we can barely imagine it.

Share your vision

If we lived in such a world, how would you waken each morning? I encourage you to vision it with me, either here in the comments, or better still, on your own blog, wherever you create. Share your vision with the rest of the world. If you do so, please post a link here, so the rest of us can read your vision, partake of it too.

What we visualize we can make real.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Gifts from the heart

2011-12-21T12:10:00.000-08:00

Bringing in the Christmas Tree, watercolor by Grannie Annie
Used with permission

My favorite winter holiday is Solstice, but my family tradition is Christmas. Like many of European descent, I am flushed with the scurry of last minute gifts and details as we count down the last few days.

You probably noticed how tough it is, still, to find just the right gifts that also do no harm to planet or people in their manufacture and shipping. As a society, we're still on the cusp of creating enough demand for Fair Trade, green and organic gift items and shipping policies. I made a lot of compromises.


Crocheted dish cloths © L Kathryn Grace All rights reserved

One fun gift that wasn't a compromise this year was a handmade dish cloth I tucked into my family gift boxes. I so enjoyed the organic cotton Toockiesdish cloths I discovered last summer that I decided to make my own. Crocheting dish cloths turned out to be fun. Sure, I could have bought the finished Toockies at lower cost than the organic cotton yarn all by itself. I could have saved time too.

But as I hooked the yarn over and under, the soft thread pulling through my fingers, I thought about each member of my family, imagined their hands in the soapy water with the little scrubbers. Seeing their hands reminded me of times together, times when our hands have touched. Weddings, births, holidays and birthdays, just getting together for tea and a long chat, the time we waited for the surgeon after my daughter's automobile accident, Dad's illness and death, our later celebration of his life and love.

I don't think I enjoy any gift so much as one a family member made--or chose--that I can use every day. I think of my sister every time I walk into my bedroom and see the little China dish with the roses on the lip. She picked that dish out for me more than half a century ago, when she was three and I was ten. Next to it, the miniature China vase she gave me ten years later. Both are treasures that always bring a smile to my face.

On a shelf in my dining room, a tattered box another sister gave me twenty or so years ago. In it I keep little treasures from the grandchildren, notes from my mother or sweetheart I forget all about and love to discover anew. She's the same sister who every year sends us a colorful handmade ornament, an annual treasure that feels like love because I sense her hands and keen mind as I touch them.

Quan Yin Figurine with vase and bowl
copy; L Kathryn Grace
All rights reserved

Not a meal passes that I don't pick up a tool, bowl or bottle someone dear selected for us. There's the mug with my oldest grandchild's handprint. Her mama and I imprinted a slew of the mugs with the baby's tiny hand when she was only five weeks old. Two weeks later, this one showed up under our tree.

On the buffet ledge above my desk, you will see the small unframed water color in the image first above. Mom did that sketch, a self-portrait with my dad, bringing in the fir tree. This one would decorate the living room. In each of two bedrooms, another, smaller tree. Christmas is my mother's favorite holiday

So many small treasures around the house. These are the gifts I love. And so, as I tucked my slightly crooked, decidely un-cost-effective handmade dish cloths into my gift boxes this year, I took pleasure in the thought that those hands I love so dearly, the hardworking, generous hands of the people I cherish, may touch these crazy cloths many times throughout the year. Perhaps their recipients will feel a little of the love I feel for them, will remember they are cherished.

Or maybe they'll go, "Ugh! What was she thinking?" and toss them in a drawer. You never know.

May your hearts be filled with peace and love as you travel through this week of food, gifts and giving. May the spirits you share, be they liquid or heavenly, warm your body and your soul.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good News Friday: The Revolution is Love

2011-12-16T09:53:00.000-08:00

When the Revolution is Love video popped up on my screen, I almost clicked away without a look. What a treasure I would have missed! What hope, what sheer joy for the change that is happening right now. Folks, our young people are leading the way to a world the rest of us have imagined but too often despaired could exist in our lifetimes. And they're doing it with verve.

In this short film, Sacred Economicsauthor Charles Eisenstein, snags my attention from the get-go. Speaking of the Occupy movement, he says it's not about us (99 percent) versus them (1 percent).

This movement isn't about the 99 percent defeating or toppling the 1 percent. You know the next chapter of that story, which is that the 99 percent create a new 1 percent. That's not what it's about. What we want to create is the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible, a sacred world, a world that works for everybody.

That's just for starters. Such wisdom in one young body. I give deepest gratitude for this man and for the people who made this video. Watch. Take heart. Share. The revolution is love, and that's the best news possible.

More than ever, I can see a world like Ordinary approaching. Will it take work? Sure. Will there be plenty of heartache? Of course. Is it possible now? What do you think?

Disclosure: Should you click on the Amazon link in this post and make a purchase, it is possible I might make a few pennies on the sale. Wouldn't that be a thrill.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Ordinary Hero: Abigail Borah, her COP 17 plea heard round the world

2011-12-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

Screen shot of Abigail Borah speaking out at COP 17
Democracy Now! video

This week in Durban, South Africa, the United Nations concluded its seventeenth conference on climate change. Abigail Borah, a Middlebury College Student, flew to Copenhagen to attend the talks, along with many other youth concerned about their future.

Disturbed by the failure of the United States and other nations to address the immediacy of the situation, Abigail penned a short statement, stood up, and "with trembling hands," read it to the assembly.

2020 is too late to wait

The conference chair told her "No one is listening to you." Todd Stern, the United States delegate about to address the assembly waited with rather a condescending pose. (I want to believe he was secretly glad for her stand.) Abigail, an ordinary person who could not and would not be afforded an officially sanctioned microphone at these talks, persevered, determined to be heard. Here is her statement.

I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot. The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed ambition for far too long. I am scared for my future. We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious, and legally binding treaty. You must take responsibility to act now, or you will threaten the lives of youth and the world's most vulnerable. You must set aside partisan politics and let science dictate decisions. You must pledge ambitious targets to lower emissions, not expectations. 2020 is too late to wait.

Why I stood up and spoke out

Despite the ultimate failure of the talks to take action now, it gives me some small ray of hope that the audience applauded Abigail as she was led from the hall.

Immediately after Abigail's impromptu speech, Todd Stern hastened to call a press conference, where he refuted Abigail's assertions regarding the US do-nothing approach. In this Democracy Now! video titled, "I'm Scared For My Future": Student Disrupts Speech By US Climate Envoy Todd Stern in Durban" (7.3 minutes), watch and hear Abigail read her statement, followed by an excerpt from Stern's press conference.

It is important to note that one day following Stern's assertion that the United States was not standing in the way of a legally binding agreement, the State Department issued a statement saying otherwise.

You can read the whole story, in Abigail's eloquent words, here, in Why I stood up and spoke out.

Ordinary Heroes Award
© L Kathryn Grace

Abigail Borah, in speaking out as you did, you risked arrest, potentially putting your reputation and your future in jeopardy, yet you acted. Rather than become immobilized by fear, you used your fear to take a dramatic stand and to power your voice--a voice literally heard round the world.

For your courage, for your commitment to making change, for speaking for millions who feel as you do, for being one of the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands working to create a better world, a good world, you are an Ordinary Hero and my hero. I bow to you in deepest gratitude.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Imaginal cells, nutrient soup and the Summer of Peace

2011-12-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

Caterpillar image by beamish
A morgueFile Free Photo

Imaginal cells. Microbiologist and philosopher Elisabet Sahtouris tells of imaginal cells, biologists' term for the cells in a mutating pupa that feed on the caterpillar's body, now a "nutrient soup," and transform into a totally different organism, a butterfly.

Sahtouris likens our current human state to that of the caterpillar, consuming everything in sight in preparation for its long sleep and transformation.

The caterpillar is focused only on survival until, bloated, it hangs itself from a branch and falls asleep. Its skin hardens into a protective covering, and the imaginal cells that have been accumulating for some time burgeon.

You and I, Sahtouris says, are imaginal cells. As we waken, become more and more aware, we feed off the nutrients of our culture even as we transform it to something new and utterly beautiful.

Enter the Summer of Peace 2012

Butterfly image by mrmac04
A morgueFile Free Photo

One way we imaginal cells are transforming our world is through a vast, worldwide network of peace builders. The Shift Network hopes to expand and amplify this network through its Summer of Peace 2012 initiative.

In a talk last night at the Red Victorian Peace Cafe on Haight Street here in San Francisco, Shift Network Program Director Philip Hellmich spoke on plans for the Summer of Peace.

The Summer of Peace begins on the solstice, June 22, and concludes on the fall equinox, September 21. If you haven't heard of it, here's a synopsis of the vision from the web site.

The Summer of Peace 2012 is a global celebration of and call to action for inner and outer Peace ... and will feature media campaigns, online actions, conferences, music concerts, film festivals and grassroots activities around the world. All the activities will be designed to accelerate humanity’s shift to a culture of Peace.

The Summer of Peace 2012 aims to involve leaders from many sectors ranging from Nobel Peace Prize laureates to business, education, media, religious, military, and non-profit leaders.

Our overarching goal is to activate the largest global commitment to Peace in one season in the history of humankind mobilizing grassroots participation of people worldwide

Summer of Peace 2012 Vision

Did you catch that reference to including military leaders in the mix? We need to stop fear-based ideology, Hellmich says, and replace it with acknowledging and celebrating what works. Even the world's military, like every other human enterprise, is evolving, he says.

People within the military establishment are learning new, non-violent ways of making and preserving peace, and they're training others. Hellmich witnessed such peacekeeping and peace building activities when he worked in Sierra Leone during the civil war and genocide there some years ago. Without the military peacekeepers, he says, there would be no peace there today.

Of course, he doesn't give all credit to the military. They were just one part of the peacemaking process. He cited a complex and sometimes disarmingly simple set of strategies and individuals that resulted, ultimately, in the end of unspeakable violence.

I wish you could have heard his talk. There is so much more I'ld like to share. I'll leave you with just one nugget. You may have seen in the first line of the quotation above that the Summer of Peace calls for action for both inner and outer peace. Hellmich's first call to action was that we implement a daily peace practice, if we don't already have one--meditation, prayer, whatever works to strengthen our inner peace.

I can attest that something as simple as standing for peace in silence five minutes each day changes the heart, changes how I relate to others. Another useful strategy, especially in times of stress, is to take ten to meditate. You can do it any where, any time with no one the wiser to quickly reduce stress and calm frazzled nerves.

With regular inner peace practice, Hellmich contends, and I agree wholeheartedly, heck, I've said it here plenty of times, we facilitate peace building in our lives, rippling out to the world.

One tiny example: How often has a friendly smile and kind remark lifted your spirits at the end of a long day and sent you on your way smiling too? People smile back when they see a happy person walking down the street. When their spirits are lifted, they smile at others.

Smiling at our neighbors as we encounter them on the street is an act of both inner and outer peace. Could we really kill each other once we got in the habit of smiling genuinely each time we met? I wonder.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Grabbing the dragon's tail and hanging on as if our lives depended on it

2011-12-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

GA National Fair 2006 by peachyqueen
A morgueFile Free Photo

Sometimes living consciously and being informed feels like trying to ride a dragon's tail.

I don't know about you, but every single day I get dozens of appeals for money, to sign petitions, to call my representatives and senators, to write to this company or that, and always again for more money. Take a look at the first six emails in my inbox this morning.

Greenpeace - "Dear Kathryn, Kill more mother whales? That’s what the Japanese government wants to do." This opening gambit is followed by lurid pictures and graphic details that break my heart.
People for the American Way - Michael Keegan wants me to take a survey on the 2012 presidential election. It's important because "if we are not fully engaged this year, we could actually end up with a far-right Tea Party extremist President [sic] who supports" almost everything that puts fear in my heart and curdles my blood.
Alliance for a Healthier Generation - I don't know who these people are or how I got on their list. They want me to help reduce the rate of childhood obesity--a noble cause. In addition to asking for donations, they want me to buy their branded products and gift them to my friends and family this season.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) - It's their year-end rapid-response fundraiser and they need money right this minute because "people count on you and the ACLU. And lately they've really needed us. That's because there's been an all-out assault on civil liberties — in Congress, and in statehouses and courtrooms all across the country." How well I know.
Grameen Foundation - "This holiday season, Grameen Foundation is making it easy to honor the special people in your life and help us empower the world's poorest at the same time." They want money too.
Earthjustice - Their president is giving me a chance to help them help the president make history: "President Obama is stuffing America's stocking on Friday with the first-ever limits on deadly toxics [sic] from coal-fired power plants. This can be a truly historic moment for Obama—if he goes far enough." They need money to up the pressure.

Grabbing the dragon's tail

This morning, before sitting down to the inevitable tales of atrocities, miscarriages of justice and desperate, shameless, sometimes heartbreaking appeals for money, I opened again the book that gave me such courage this fall: William Powers' Twelve by Twelve.

On this page, he tells of his first conversation with Jackie, the owner of the tiny cabin in which unexpectedly and very soon he will live for forty days.

Powers is just back from ten years working overseas to mitigate poverty and save the rainforest. His dad is in the hospital, recovering from a life-threatening illness. Deep in culture shock upon his return to the US, he is at odds with his work. Futility and despair lurk between the lines.

Jackie, a medical doctor, could have chosen a lucrative practice and retired anywhere. Instead, she served her community's poorest. After her children went to college, she asked for and received a reduction in salary. She lives on $11,000 a year, below the tax threshold.

Jackie explains her choice to "live like a Bangladeshi," in a tiny cabin without electricity or plumbing and grow her own food. She is "part of a more durable future," her life "tied into the growing slow food, environmental, and antiwar movements." Inexplicably, she tells Powers, "'It all centers around a question ... Where do you grab the dragon's tail?'"

The question puzzles me. Apparently Powers is as puzzled as I. They talk more, then he asks her, "'Where do you grab the dragon's tail?'"

"'Where the suffering grabs you the most.'"

So I do. Each day, I respond to those appeals I can and delete the rest. Not without a sigh, not without regret, but delete them I do.

Each day I try to become a little better informed, a little more aware of what is wrong in the world, and what is right! (That last does not fill up my inbox.)

And each day, [insert rude expletive here], I do what tiny bit I can to build that more durable world. Whether it is buying organic cotton and fair trade products, standing for peace, going 'pooless, kicking my paper towel habit, or taking a walk to strengthen my aging bones, I do what I can.

Hanging on as if our lives depended on it

That dragon's tail whips about ferociously. Day after day, I grab it and hang on for dear life, crawl up the dragon's back and whisper in its ear:

I know you have a human heart. I know you are capable of compassion and love. You, too, would benefit from a better world, a more durable world. Heck, imagine the joy if you used your might and power to build a truly good world, one more like the Village of Ordinary.

Most of you who read me have blogs that I read as well. What gives me strength to hang on is your persistence in grabbing your dragons' tails. Thank you for continuing to write your truth, whatever it may be.

Your voices matter. They give me courage. Sometimes you make me laugh. Sometimes you make me cry. Thank you for writing. Thank you for your persistence. Thank you for hanging on.

Disclosure: Should you click on the Amazon link in this post and make a purchase, it is possible I might make a few pennies on the sale. Wouldn't that be a thrill.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Love on Cole, Mae West, minstrels, and angels for sale on Haight

2011-12-12T23:33:00.000-08:00

Love on Cole at Haight
© L Kathryn Grace
All rights reserved

I'm shopping locally as much as possible this year, avoiding the Big Box stores, and it's so much fun. This afternoon, walking down San Francisco's Haight Street, what a treat! Strike that, what treats! As you might imagine, Haight Street, between Ashbury and Golden Gate Park, is always interesting.

Swaggering right at me, in all her Christmas finery, Mae West: Huge red Victorian hat festooned with sweeping white plumes; red and white organza gown wrapped seductively in form-fitting layers with just the right pleated flounce from mid-calf to the tips of her red and white button boots; around her scarlet-clad arms and running off her lace-tipped fingers, a white furry stole and muff; under that hat, super blonde sausage curls, and plenty of makeup.

Sadly, rather than flashing a glittering Mae West smile, she scowled at me as we passed. I'd have taken a pic of her retreating figure--and what a figure she cut--but by the time I fished my cell phone from my pocket she had sauntered half a block away.

Returning from Mendel's Far Out Fabrics, where I found the gorgeous reusable ribbon I needed for tying my packages and, unexpectedly, just the right gift for my budding artist granddaughter, I heard strains of absolutely spellbinding music. A crowd gathered round a doorway, uncharacteristically silent. Inching closer, I saw them: Six ragtag musicians assembled on the steps leading into an apartment building, playing either classical music I've never heard or a new composition that should one day become part of the repertoire.

There were a bass fiddle, a cello, violin, two guitars, and some kind of sweet percussion I couldn't quite see around the corner. The music followed me a ways and then it was gone, lost in the distance. My smile and the peace and joy I felt lasted all the way home.

Further down the street, I passed a store with a sign in the window that gave me pause: "We sell angels." Then, round the corner on Cole, the sidewalk etching in the photograph.

Love. Never mind the question mark. Just love. And it's not even Thursday.

Whatever holiday you celebrate this season, however simply or extravagantly, may it be joyous in the planning, and may it long afterward cheer your hearts.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Standing for peace, we are all one

2011-12-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

Before heading off this morning with another grandmother to stand for peace in front of city hall, I ran across this video, We Are All One. It says everything we need to know about why standing for peace is so important, and it says it in a way that heals my soul, encourages my heart. May it do so for you.

Wherever you may be this morning, whatever you may do, take a few minutes to stand in silence for peace, with peace. Perhaps it will change your life as it is changing mine.

Breaking silence

Update 10:55 a.m.

We broke silence during our stand today, distracted in part by activity around us, then full of thoughts we were eager to share. I enjoyed the discussion, as I always do with Sharon.

I am also aware how much I missed the silence, how precious, now, the few minutes of quiet meditation on either side of our conversation. Not that it was off topic or disrespectful of our purpose, for it was neither, but that an hour of silence in that space, filled with intent to bring peace to our city and our world, grounds me. That grounding informs my entire week, is behind every decision I make, and gently settles me when I tend to flare.

So I'm thinking about silence, how I relish it, living in the city as I do, where the streets around me are seldom without noise. I'm thinking about the few times I have been in a gathering of several hundred people, all silent, not even a speaker to guide us; and the near silence of the woods, far from any town.

What do you know of silence? Have you found it useful at times? Have you experienced silence in a profound way? I would deeply appreciate your thoughts.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good News Friday: The Economics of Happiness

2011-12-09T10:52:00.000-08:00

Having shared so much last week of a country--ours--gone obscenely wrong, I focused this week on making peace. All the while, more and more examples of injustice and horror played out daily across our land and around the world. At times, I lay down and wept. Then I saw Ordinary Hero Helena Norberg-Hodge speaking in this TED Talk video on The Economics of Happiness.

With the experience of one working on the ground for many years with the problems--hunger, violence, waste, poverty, unprecedented disease and illness, environmental degradation--created by corporate greed and globalization, Norberg-Hodge capsulizes much that is wrong with our world and offers proven solutions to fix it.

How she can do this in eighteen minutes should be no surprise in a TED Talk, but Norberg-Hodges' message, despite her uncharacteristic case of nerves, is captivating. May you take as much hope and heart from this video as I.

While we're on the subject of economics and happiness, you may enjoy this less than two minute Agenda Project video, Patriotric Millionaire's Message to Congress.

The good news is, we, meaning the world, already have systems in place that can grow a healthy, sustainable economy with plenty for all. What's more, there are among us many conscientious millionaires who are willing to pay their fair share in taxes and help us right here, in the former land of the free, do the right thing.

We don't need to live in a greed economy. We can build an economics of happiness.

Help me spread the word, will you? Tweet this, post it on your Facebook account, write your senators and representatives. I know. I know. That last can feel like tilting at windmills. If you've ever worked in politics, you know that every letter, email, every phone call is a tick mark in either one column or the other. Tick marks count more than you know.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Shift happens: An invitation to tell your story

2011-12-08T09:00:00.000-08:00

From our first Stand for Peace 11/29/2011
© Sharon L Richardson
Used with permission

It wasn't an earthquake that caused the ground to shift under my feet Tuesday night. It was a heart shift.

The event: The Summer of Peace 2012 Action Meetup.
The location: The historic Red Victorian Peace Cafe in the heart of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district.
The who: Six of us, women and men, young, old and between, joined momentarily by visitors staying at the hotel, eating at the cafe, who stopped by our table to chat a moment, share a bit of their stories.

For the first time in years, indeed decades, I felt the power of a group of people, each tied to others not present, and they to others, expanding ever outward--people whose hope and belief in the future of human kind and our ability to solve our problems is greater than either our self interest or our fear.

The group organizer, Laurie, went round the table, asking us to share a bit of our work. Not, why are you here, what are you going to do for peace. What is your work.

One young man is building and testing an interactive web site in which cognitive behavior therapists and their patients can expand their work. Think the power of Facebook dedicated to healing therapy. Already beta tested with people with schizophrenia, "the toughest-to-treat disorder," according to the young man, the software is successful beyond their wildest dreams.

Laurie smiled broadly and thanked him. "You are doing peace work," she told him. Of course, it is true. When one of us helps another to ease the turmoil in her heart, we make peace.

Another among us has all but finished writing her first book, the true story of a child who grew up in a violently abusive foster home. Not only did the young woman survive her tormentors and her torment without resorting to drugs and alcohol, she put herself through college, twice, has devoted her life to helping other abused children, and thrives today. Again, Laurie smiled. "I'm so glad you're here," she said. "You are doing important peace work."

A third is embarking soon on a year-long trip round the world. He will visit twelve countries, spend one month in each, making music with the people, and recording it for an album. "Music is so important to making peace," Laurie said, again that broad, gentle smile.

Round the table we went, each of us lighting up at the other's stories, all told simply, without any hint of puffery or embellishment. It was clear some realized for the first time how their work contributes to peace making.

How often, I wonder, do we fail to realize, most of us, that the work we do every day is the work of peace. In our pyramid culture, our culture that reserves honor, respect and privilege for those who somehow reach the pinnacle of success, we so easily forget that all of us on the bottom and in the layers between, are the foundation and strength for those very few at the top.

Monuments in the desert or molecules joining to create new life

Think of this: Pyramids are merely monuments in the desert. They stand alone, objects of curiosity, practically useless. What matters is not who is at the top of a constructed edifice. What matters is far more organic, far more reflective of the vitality of a living organism.

What really matters is all of us--the teachers, social workers, nurses, physicians, activists, healers, artists, reporters, musicians, coaches, shopkeepers, farmers, innovators, moms, dads, nurturers, and yes, even we who write. What matters is how we link together, forming bonds, becoming stronger individually and collectively, creating. We are the molecules of life.

We must begin to see our work as the most natural thing in the world and as vital as the work of any other individual. The more we understand how integrated we are, despite our feelings of separate and other, the more we realize how strong we are, how irrepressible.

It is so easy to think that I am just one person, I am too failed, too ill, too broken, too damaged, too weak, too unfocused, too selfish, too often angry, too [fill in the blank] to be of use, to be an agent of change, an agent of peace.

Step aside, make the shift

Today, I encourage you to shift just a bit. Step aside from that judgement and recall a moment, perhaps many moments, but at least one moment, when you knew your care, your work, your process, your love made a difference in another's life. Any moment. I know for a fact, if you are reading this, there are too many to count. Let them pour in. Recognize the work you do. Recognize the peace you bring, just by being you, just by entering a room, perhaps.

Today, I invite you to take courage in hand and tell the rest of us about such moments. Give us this gift. Forget "false pride" and fear of bragging. Tell us about your work. Share the work you do. Post a link to your blog, your book, your artwork, whatever you do that might bring peace and courage to our lives. Share the way your work nurtures others, the way it heals, how it brings peace to the world.

I invite you to speak up, to acknowledge that you are an agent of peace.

Shift happens. Let it.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

How standing for peace changes me

2011-12-06T16:06:00.000-08:00

Stand for Peace bumper sticker
© L Kathryn Grace
All rights reserved

Today, I'm spending some time developing the new web site, so I offer this article I wrote awhile back on Wizzley: How Standing for Peace Five Minutes a Day Changes Me. I'd be pleased if you would check it out, leave a comment, tell me what you think. Here's an excerpt.

I tend to be a fairly calm person. That is, I tend to be a fairly calm person until something riles me. I can flash like a whole mob. ... On the days I stand for peace, the moment I begin to respond in anger, or feel resentment seeping into my heart over some slight, almost always I stop a moment. There is another way to approach the situation, any situation. Standing for peace five minutes a day ... Read more

If you don't have time to flip over there and read the article, would you be so kind as to share something in the comments here about your own journey to peace, either in your life today or anywhere in the world?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

What would happen if The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering came true?

2011-12-05T21:38:00.000-08:00

Grove of pollarded trees behind us as we
stood for peace Saturday
© L Kathryn Grace
All rights reserved

On Saturday, Sharon and I stood for peace outside City Hall, our third week. Under the blue, blue San Francisco sky, we two stood in silence, each in our thoughts, glancing to smile at one another now and then. One thought flared again and again: What would happen if our numbers grew? If we became four? If four became eight, and eight sixteen? What would happen if Sharon Medhi's story, The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering: A Story for Anyone Who Thinks She Can't Save the World, came true?

What if next week, as we turned, stretching our backs to keep them from getting too stiff, we saw another woman standing, facing City Hall? Then, stretching our backs the other way, we saw a fourth woman, there, deep in the grove?

What if, the week after that, there were others, each standing alone, perhaps a few in pairs or threes, scattered about the Joseph B. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza? Some might stand near the north playground, its bright colors glistening purple and green in the sun. Some might stand on the grass, near the homeless people crawling from their sleeping bags and makeshift shelters into the sunlight.

What would they think about, all those women, and perhaps some men too? What would they contemplate as they stood, in silence, facing City Hall?

We are not alone in our quest. It is rare that I am near Golden Gate and Larkin on a Thursday afternoon, but last time I happened by, the people who stand for peace each Thursday were there. In a 2008 SFGate.com article titled Quiet Stand for Peace Each Week, several of the vigil keepers tell why they stand. The Gate quotes one, The Rev. Richard Schaper then of Grace Cathedral: "Some say, 'This is foolish; you can't change the world.' I understand that, but I do it to keep the world from changing me."

Actually, I hope I continue to be changed, as I have been changed standing for peace five minutes nearly every day; but I understand Reverand Schaper's sentiment. Standing for peace gives me a sense of equilibrium, a sense of balancing the fulcrum beneath me, that I might not succumb to the rage I feel at times, witnessing the devastation, pain and suffering that rampant greed and lust for power wreak in my community and across the world.

Standing for peace with Sharon gives me hope that we might yet build a better world for our grandchildren--and theirs. Deep within, at my very core, I know that when thousands of individuals join us in the piazza, join us in plazas all over the Earth, and stand in silence with visions of peace in their hearts, the vision of The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering will come true.

We stand for peace as part of Grandmothers for Peace San Francisco, which we initiated after an OccupySF peace meditation. You can read about our experience and why we started Grandmothers for Peace Occupy SF on Yes, we did Sit4Change.

12/7/2011: Edited typo in "Yes, we did Sit4Change," immediately above.

Disclosure: Should you click on the Amazon link in this post and make a purchase, it is possible I might make a few pennies on the sale. Wouldn't that be a thrill.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Ordinary Hero: Teen Emma Sullivan who stood up for her right to free speech

2011-12-02T16:04:00.000-08:00

Image credit: Olivia Sullivan

Google "Emma Sullivan" and you'll get pages of articles on her story. She's the eighteen year old high school senior who sent an unflattering tweet about Kansas Governor Sam Brownback a couple of weeks ago.

According to Think Progress, Brownback's staff fired off a complaint to Sullivan's principal, who then ordered Sullivan to apologize to the governor. She refused.

The other day, in an email exchange, I asked Sullivan about her stand. My first question, how long did it take her to make such a potentially far-reaching decision? Here's what she said.

It took a couple of days, I at first was going to write it [the apology] because I didn't want to get in trouble, but with the support of others and my family, I realized that I didn't have to write it and that I shouldn't write things [that] are insincere.

Don't you love it? Imagine a world in which our politicians resisted the urge to make insincere apologies, or worse, lie about their activities and intentions. Where might we be today?

I also asked Sullivan her reasons for choosing not to write the apology and what consequences she feared. Again, in her own words:

I was hoping there would be no consequences because if the school would have punished me then the media would have made it an even bigger deal. I didn't want to write it because I don't feel like I did anything wrong and I strongly believe in my rights to tweet what I want. I also thought it would be a lose lose situation if I wrote the letter, the public would have scrutinized it, people would have told me I caved into the governor's pressure. When you agree to apologize because someone has asked you to, then you have lost the power of your words.

Wisdom from the heart and mouth of one so young, I must repeat it.

When you agree to apologize because someone has asked you to,
then you have lost the power of your words.

It takes courage to stand your ground in the middle of a fray. So often we are told to "calm down," "back down," "let it go," "it's not that important." Emma Sullivan newly adult in age, still a teenager, understands the power of her words.

My last question to Emma was this: What advice would you give to others about censoring ourselves before writing what we see as the truth online? She wrote her response in a larger font and bold type.

If you want to say it then say it. Just stand by what you said, no matter what the wording is or what it is about.

Ordinary Heroes Award
© L Kathryn Grace

Emma Sullivan, for speaking your truth and sticking to it when challenged, for holding our public officials accountable, for standing up for your Constitutional right to free speech, for caring enough to make a decision that potentially packed a lot of heat and being willing to take it, and for being unafraid to let your wisdom shine, you are my Ordinary Hero. I bow in gratitude and with hope for the future. With youth of your caliber coming up to replace us, we who have all too often felt we were tilting at windmills take heart.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Who are these people paid to protect and serve?

2011-11-30T17:17:00.000-08:00

You may have wondered, yesterday, when I used the term "police state" in my headline about the not-so-isolated case of Michael Allison. He's the Illinois man facing up to 75 years in prison for recording law enforcement personnel interactions with him. Illinois law makes it a felony to protect oneself or others during a police action--and to hold police officers accountable for their actions--by videotaping or audio-taping them.

Without such videotapes, the beating of Rodney King may never have come to light, and we would have had to take police word that the shooting of young father Oscar Grant was both justified and merited.

Increasingly, as more and more such videotapes emerge, I am concerned that we are indeed living in a police state, or nearly so.

King and Grant isolated incidents, right?

It might be easy for those of us generally out of the line of violence to think that incidents like the Rodney King beating and the New Year's 2009 shooting in the back of Oscar Grant are isolated--rare exceptions by rogue cops--that just happened to be caught on camera.

Despite damning videotaped evidence that would convict any other member of society, the police officers who beat King were acquitted. Later, two were found guilty in federal court and sentenced to a whopping 30 months. The other two were again acquitted.

Grant's shooting, caught entirely on videotape, shows two police officers, including his shooter Johannes Mehserle, manhandling an unresisting, peaceful, kneeling Grant, shoving him to the floor on his stomach. Grant reportedly pleads with them not to taser or shoot him, telling the officers he has a five year old daughter. The second officer puts a knee to Grant's neck, then backs away as Mehslerle draws his gun and shoots the unarmed father in the back at point blank range. Mehserle was tried, convicted and sentenced to two years for involuntary manslaughter, then released on parole after serving only six months.

These are not, however, isolated incidents years apart. All over the country, incidents like this continue to rise and spark outrage. Only when officers are caught on unconfiscated videotapes that go viral on the web, do their actions make it into mainstream media and yours and my consciousness.

To outlaw such recordings is to give police even more opportunity to lie and cover up abuses of power.

Outlawing the recording of police actions threatens all our safety

Consider this. I remember very well the first news reports of the Oscar Grant shooting. BART spokespersons stood on camera and told us that Mr. Grant had been shot while resisting arrest. They said that the surveillance camera that could have given the most clear images of the shooting was not operative at the time, or the tape had been unaccountably erased. Only when the unconfiscated video (BART police reportedly confiscated bystander cell phones after the shooting) was posted on YouTube a day or two later, did we learn that the official version of the shooting was a flat-out lie.

Is it possible the officer who killed Grant would have gone to trial had that cell phone video not come to light? What do you think?

Under-trained or out of control, full police accountability is critical to public safety

Increasingly, as we see more and more videotapes of police using excessive force and violence against unarmed, peaceful citizens, we realize that many of our police officers are at best under-trained, and sometimes tragically out of control. Whatever the case, it is critical that we seek full accountability from those paid to protect and serve the public.

Before we go any further with this, let me explain that I have great respect for the individual men and women who kiss their families goodbye in the morning, never knowing whether they will return to them intact that night. I admire and give gratitude for the police officers who courageously put their lives on the line every day, especially those who do so with honor and integrity.

I am gladdened when I see battalions of police officers upholding order during protests and demonstrations while maintaining and showing respect for the rights of individuals and groups of people to do so.

I am, on the other hand, appalled at the number of their brethren who seem to think nothing of beating, harassing and unlawfully detaining peaceful individuals going about their business and/or exercising their right to assemble peacefully.

Recent images of brutal police behavior mimic those we see in totalitarian governments overseas

In the last few weeks, people around the world have been horrified by repeated images of police officers in U.S. city after city beating and pepper spraying peaceful Occupy protesters at close range. You may have seen this article a few weeks ago honoring 84 year old Dorli Rainey, who was pepper sprayed at Occupy Seattle. You'll see the full image of her, head and face dripping with pepper spray, in Joshua Holland's AlterNet piece, Caught on Camera: Ten shockingly violent police assaults on occupy protesters (page 3). The other nine images, some of which include videos, are equally compelling.

We must not shrink from making ourselves aware of the problem.

We could say that the police are doing their duty, and that some of the students and protesters provoked them. For the most part, the occupiers have been peaceful to a fault. Some within the camps believe that many of the provocateurs are just that, intending to incite violence, possibly as a means to discredit and disrupt the movement.

I wasn't there, I cannot say, but I can see. While it's true we see many videos of police responding in an orderly, respectful manner to their orders to clear the camps or the streets, too often in these images and videos, it is clear that a number of officers and their superiors abuse their authority and use excessive violence.

The restraint of many does not excuse or condone the violence of others. They must be held accountable.

The problem is more widespread throughout the system than we may want to believe

Such incidents of overreaching abuse of power are not isolated to demonstrations and demonstrators. On Saturday, after our stand for peace at city hall, I caught up on a few podcasts from the evocative, provactive and frequently entertaining This American Life radio show. I don't know why these two podcasts were in my queue at the same time, since one is over a year old, but there they were.

The first, This American Life: Old Boys Network (June 3, 2011, Episode #437), tells the story of a small town Texas sheriff, a prosecutor who is also the private attorney for the sheriff and for the hospital in question, and the nurses who stood up to them. When the nurses would not keep quiet about a doctor whose actions endangered the health and possibly the lives of his patients, the sheriff arrested one of the nurses, a "Yankee" who had lived in the town only twenty years. She stood trial for harassing the doctor. Her tale is chilling.

Small town. Country sheriff. Couldn't happen in your town, right? Listen to the harrowing story of New York City police officer Adrian Schoolcraft in Act II of the September 10, 2010, This American Life: Right to Remain Silent, (Episode #414). Like so many of our police officers around the country, Officer Schoolcraft is one of the good guys. He laid it all on the line, trying to do the right thing in a police department that, to hear the secret recordings he made, is filled with corruption from the near-top to the bottom. Imprisoned in a mental hospital without recourse in an apparent attempt to silence him, his family denied knowledge of his whereabouts, he endured and continues to tell his story.

But wait, there's more: Cue the military

As if municipal police corruption, abuse of power and vicious assault on peaceful citizens exercising their right to assemble were not enough, the U.S. Senate voted yesterday to mandate military arrest and confinement of U.S. citizens right here on our own soil, as well as anywhere in the world at any time, for as long as they want to keep us locked up, without a trial.

Let me put it that another way.

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted to let the US military--Army, Navy, Marines--patrol our streets.
They can pick us off one by one at any time.
Arrest us.
Lock us up.
Throw away the key.
No due process.
No trial required.
Send us to Guantanamo Bay.
Send us anywhere they please.
Don't have to tell us why.
Don't have to let us get an attorney.
Do anything they want with us.

Here's what two senators, both supporters of the bill, had to say about it last week.

In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.”

Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens
in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

The White House reportedly threatens a veto, should it pass the House, not because it threatens to detain American citizens without due process, but because the commander in chief sees it as somehow limiting presidential powers. The kicker is, it just may well pass the house, because it's one of those nasty little portions of a much larger bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. Now that's a good read, let me tell you.

Perhaps you agreed with me yesterday, but if you still think "police state" is too strong a term, tell me this: Just how much more freedom are you willing to give up in order to feel safe from terrorists? Me, I'm beginning to wonder just who are the real terrorists. How can we build a peaceful world in the face of institutionalized violence?

That's not just a rhetorical question. I'd very much appreciate your thoughts.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

In what police state did I wake up this morning?

2011-11-29T08:11:00.000-08:00

Seventy-five years for videotaping police officers? That's what Michael Allison of Robinson, Illinois, faces. And that's not all. This weekend, in less than 24 hours, I watched and heard three reports of nearly unbelievable police actions, arrests and unlawful imprisonment. I'll share more about them tomorrow. Today, it's this video of Allison's lawful arrest and prosecution that chills me to the bone and causes me to wonder how close we have come to living in a police state.

In this news report from WTWO-TV in Terra Haute, Indiana, Michael Allison tells of his arrest on the felony charge of videotaping police officers without their consent, a non-violent "crime" for which he faces up to 75 years in prison, as much or more as he would face were he charged with rape or murder.

Watch the story.

You can also view the video on the WTWO-TV web site, but I have to warn you: the site is a little confusing. It doesn't show the call letters and has an ABC ad on the page, or did at time of this posting. To confirm this really is the WTWO web site, I scrolled to the bottom of the page and looked at their FCC filing reports.

Prosecutors appeal to IL Supreme Court after lower court throws case out

After a lower court judge ruled the law under which Mr. Allison was charged unconstitutional, reports WTWO, the Illinois prosecutors filed an appeal with the Illinois Supreme Court. The appeal is pending.

As many as twelve states prohibit recording police officers

Illinois is not an isolated state in making the filming of police officers a felony. While police officers, municipalities, counties, states and the federal government can and do film us everywhere we go, we, the people, are prohibited from recording police officers in as many as twelve states, according to the WTWO reporter.

While I could not verify that claim, I did find a number of articles that discuss such laws and incidences of arrest in several states. HotAir's Ed Morrisey reported on a few of those cases in Do police have a legitimate expectation of privacy in public performance of duty? (June 3, 2011). He concludes

Police do not have an expectation of privacy in their public encounters with the citizenry. In fact, they should have instead an expectation of public accountability for the performance of that work.

I agree. If we are to return to a free society, a world more like that in the Village of Ordinary, where mutual respect and peace prevail, we must hold our public officials, and especially our increasingly militarized police, accountable for their actions. It is imperative that we support those who are working to assure our civil liberties are maintained, and where already compromised, restored.

It's been a long time since I gave to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), those valiant and stalwart attorneys and advocates who champion our right to free speech and assembly, among many other Constitutional rights, year in and year out. I hadn't planned on doing so when I began writing this piece, but I am not taking them for granted any longer. Before hitting the "publish" button, I gave them some of the money I had planned to use on holiday gifts this year. My family and friends can do with smaller tokens of remembrance. Their freedom and liberty--and mine--matter more.

Who do you feel best champions our civil liberties and the freedoms we once took for granted? What plans, if any, do you have to support them at this time of year, when so many agencies and non-profits are asking for our assistance? What other steps do you feel we might take as individuals, and collectively, to assure our police, also known as officers of the peace, are held accountable for their actions?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Standing for peace, we are as stones

2011-11-28T09:34:00.000-08:00

San Francisco City Hall from our standing
point November 26, 2011
© L Kathryn Grace

We stood for peace again this Saturday. I have to tell you, even though we are only two, I feel empowered.

When we stand before an edifice dedicated to assuring that the economic interests of a city are served, we stand at the seat of power. Here the influential, and those who do their bidding, make decisions that bring peace--or violence--to our lives.

In this world-class city, those decisions affect the lives not only of San Franciscans, but of people throughout the state and around the world. Whether we're banning plastic bags in supermarkets or shipping our collected "recyclables" overseas where the poorest of the poor sort our mountains of trash to salvage what can be melted down and remade, the impact of our city is felt near and far. Decisions made in this building ripple across the planet, like a skipping stone on water.

Let's face it. Making peace is about economics. All war, all injustice comes down to economics and greed. "You have what I want. If you won't give it to me, won't sell it to me for the price I'm willing to pay, I will take it from you."

Yet, because individuals stood up over the years in this town, walked and marched and stood in the halls of this building, many decisions made here reflect a concern for the well-being of our people. Not only the wealthy are served; but also those of us who serve the wealthy; and the thousands of immigrants who grow, harvest, prepare and serve our food, clean our homes and offices, cut our hair, and who work tirelessly to achieve a better life for themselves, their families and friends.

Green Vehicle Showcase
© L Kathryn Grace

Individuals made and continue to make calls, set up committees, and take action to lessen our collective impact on the environment as well. One example, immediately in front of me as I stand: nearly half a block of recharging stations for electric cars, several of which bear the city seal on their doors. That sign in the background of the image to the right says "Green Vehicle Showcase," and in a small way, it is.

Of course, we are also a city known to house some of the most shameless--and shameful--human trafficking and sex trafficking rings in the country, for just one example of the other side, and a homeless population larger than the town my children called home for eighteen years, for another. All is not charm and beauty here.

These thoughts flow as I stand, at first flushed with the rush to get here, the too hot tea in my thermos burning my tongue and throat, watching tourists dance toward the shining glass and brass doors below the rotunda, fifth largest in the world, with a dome higher than that of the US Capitol building. They take pictures of one another posing first on this side of the street, then again on the steps of the building, under the great frieze of naked and partially clothed mythical figures.

We do not speak, my standing partner and I. We shift our bodies, arching our complaining backs and relaxing them, rocking on our feet to keep the blood flowing and the stiffness at bay.

Soon, my body settles into the rhythm, my mind quiets, the calm of standing in peace fills me, seems to grow and surround us. A white haired woman arrives, across the street, stands against a concrete pillar for nearly the entire hour. We wonder if she is the woman who told us she would stand with us today.

The longer the hour stretches, the more comfortable I am. The longer I stand, the more I feel what it would mean, what might happen if hundreds stood with us, thousands around the world. Though I gently return my focus to my breathing whenever my mind wanders, inevitably it fills with this image again and again and again: Grandmothers all over the world, standing in front of their city halls, their churches, mosques and synagogues, whatever symbols of power in their towns and villages, standing in silence, hearts open to the possibility of peace.

Changed, as we are changed standing here, they--we--just may begin to influence those within our sphere, who in turn may influence others, rippling, rippling, rippling. We are as stones.

We stand for peace as part of Grandmothers for Peace Occupy SF, which we initiated after an OccupySF peace meditation. You can read about our experience and why we started Grandmothers for Peace Occupy SF on Yes, we did Sit4Change.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good News Friday: Grassroots women lead the way

2011-11-25T19:34:00.000-08:00

Attribution: By This montage: Bleff (talk · contribs)
Derived works: See the image description
of each file for details
(Own work; Self-made from:class="wikitable")
[CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Earlier this month, in Grandmothers light India, Pakistan with solar power, I shared a TED Talk by Barefoot College founder Bunker Roy. He told how he had discovered that, to make lasting change in the lives of India's rural poor, first he had to train the grandmothers (and learn from them). The grandmothers took it from there.

There's more good news from, for and about the women of the world. On November 10, Ms. Magazine blogger Diana Rico reported on inspiring stories of women in communities and nations leading the way to a global shift of peace and prosperity. In Around the World, Grassroots Women Leaders Rise Up, she shares what she learned at Bioneers 2011 in October, including a stimulating panel themed No Women, No Democracy.

If you need some inspiration and light on this day of massive Western consumerism, I encourage you to grab a cuppa and spend a few minutes reading Rico's post. For even more inspiration, follow the second link above and spend an hour and a half watching the No Women, No Democracy panel. I declare, it is the most worthwhile 90 minutes I've spent in a long time.

Here's some juice to prime the inspirational pump. All of the following quotes are from Rico's article. I'll provide the link again at the bottom of this post.

The idea that women can lead from the trenches, on the basis of their life experiences and without any special blessing from an established hierarchy came forth in many ways at Bioneers.
Diana Rico

[Organizations are] moving from the one person who has the big picture vision and all the answers to … a more shared, collective wisdom and a collective understanding.
Anisha Desai, director of Earth Island Institute’s New Leaders Initiative

The most revolutionary thing we can do is listen to each other.
Gloria Steinem

To Rico, the last word, and perhaps the most exciting statement of all:

In a short film Dr. Rajput screened, I saw images I’d never imagined: 543 women leaders from all over India, who had been democratically elected and trained for a year, discussing matters of law for the good of their whole nation. They drew up a budget based on the principle of Gross National Happiness, an index “based on sustainable development, social justice, conservation of nature and good governance.” In just four days they passed a slew of laws about such issues as child sex trafficking, food security, and domestic workers’ rights. After the film, Dr. Rajput’s proposal for a global women’s parliament was met with overwhelming applause. 'We are citizens of the world and we have also the right to say what kind of world we want to live in,' she declared.

Unabashedly, I echo Dr. Rajput: We are citizens of the world. We have a right to say what kind of world we want to live in. What kind of world do you want to live in?

Get Rico's full article here: Around the World, Grassroots Women Leaders Rise Up. Watch the full Bioneers panel session here: No Women, No Democracy.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Thanksgiving 2011: Heaping platters of gratitude and love

2011-11-24T16:49:00.000-08:00

Fall colors
© L Kathryn Grace
All rights reserved

Thanksgiving is always a special time for my sweetheart and me. Earlier this week, we celebrated our twenty-third anniversary. This year, for the first time in many years, we both took time off to spend most of this week together in ways we don't often do anymore: Go for long walks, be tourists in our beautiful city and, perhaps, discover some new, hidden treasure here, make and enjoy a Thanksgiving feast just for us.

Since we love the foods of Thanksgiving but not all the fuss and mess for a single meal that is over in thirty minutes, we decided to spread it out. Yesterday, we stuffed and roasted our "petite" turkey, as the store called it, along with sides of roasted yams, roasted Brussels sprouts, this delicious cranberry-apple stuffing, and fresh pears.

Today, we'll enjoy leftovers, homemade cranberry sauce, more fresh fruit, and twin helpings of mashed yams and uber rich mashed potatoes. Tomorrow, I plan a broccoli-rice casserole that would ordinarily have been another side dish at a big gathering and perhaps the pumpkin pie I have yet to make. Or we might have that on the weekend.

It's a week of smaller scale feasts. Spreading it out like this gives us an opportunity to savor the dishes we love most this time of year and helps us avoid overeating. As much as possible, I've substituted healthier versions of all the things we love so well.

We are fortunate that we have the means to purchase all-organic foods. Even the turkey is organic-pasture-raised, its supplemental diet also organic and vegetarian. I noticed when I cleaned it that it did not smell of poultry poop or blood, as the turkeys we used to get, almost always turning my stomach as I washed and prepared them.

Giving gratitude

On this day especially, I give thanks for the turkey and for the family and farm hands who took so much care in raising and processing it.

I give thanks for the farm workers, mostly here in California, but also in Mexico and lands far away who raise, harvest and process the fruits and vegetables we eat every day.

I give gratitude for the activists around the world who have worked for decades to raise awareness of the need for fair labor practices, organic agricultural practices, and certifications for both so that we, the consumer, can trust that we are getting what we pay for when we buy Fair Trade Certified and Certified Organic foods and products.

I give gratitude for this woman who has shared so much of life with me; for my family who, though they may not always understand me, love me from the bottom of their hearts anyway; for good health, which I have learned never to take for granted; for the richness of peace I enjoy; for each individual any where on this planet who works for peace, who stops and takes a breath and finds a way to make peace in a moment of conflict; and for you, my faithful readers, for encouraging me, for sometimes prodding me to open my mind a little differently, and for showing me so much of your world in your own blogs and publications.

May you all be blessed beyond measure this day.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Author Jill Richardson on 5 myths that trash local food and why they're wrong

2011-11-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

Last week on AlterNet, author Jill Richardson posted 5 Ridiculous Myths People Use to Trash Local Food -- And Why They're Wrong. Her subtitle summarizes well: "Articles 'debunking' the local food movement are stale, shallow and often incorrect."

Richardson's credentials are considerable. She founded the multi-user blog, La Vida Locavore, which covers the locavore movement internationally, and sits on the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board. She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It.

Here are the myths, along with a little Richardson juice to whet your appetite for the rest of the piece. All of the following are direct quotes from the article, linked in the first paragraph above.

Myth #1: People who eat local eat the same diet as those who don't.
A favorite anti-locavore argument is that eating local does not reduce oil usage or carbon emissions. Now, if locavores were munching ...

Myth #2: The only reason for eating local is reducing 'food miles.'
Often anti-locavore arguments, such as the one above from McWilliams, are predicated on the notion that locavores only eat local to reduce food miles ...

Myth #3: Growing food locally is inefficient.

This is the subject of the latest tirade against eating local. The piece sings the praises of "comparative advantage," noting that it makes the most sense to grow ...

Myth #4: We can't feed a growing population on local (organic) food.

This is the biggest whopper of all. The recent Freakonomics article says ...

Myth #5: Eating local (organic) food is elitist.
In the United States, where processed food is artificially cheap and where many people eat what they can afford to buy at the expense of their health, local food ...

Appetite sufficiently whetted? I hope so. Richardson's commentary gives me pause now and then, but overall, it's the article I wish I'd written myself, and she's done a bang-up job of it.

Get the whole article here: 5 Ridiculous Myths People Use to Trash Local Food -- And Why They're Wrong.

Disclosure: Should you click on the Amazon link in this post and make a purchase, it is possible I might make a few pennies on the sale. Wouldn't that be a thrill.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

How the Occupy Movement gains consensus through stack, twinkle and block

2011-11-22T08:00:00.000-08:00

Have you watched any of the videos showing how peacefully the people in the Occupy Movement communicate with one another? If you haven't, prepare to be awed, inspired, and delighted. In the video "What are consensus, stack, twinkle, and block?" we see how effectively hundreds, even thousands of people can communicate with one another without so much as a megaphone.

We see, too, how the occupiers create instant classrooms, teaching one another; how they make decisions through consensus; how they assure that every voice is heard; and how one dissenting voice, when it matters enough, can block a decision and call for more discussion.

I am fortunate to have experienced the gentle power of the People's Microphone personally at an OccupySF meditation. (See Good News Friday: Ultimate transformers Sit4Change.) At that event, unlike the speakers and amplifiers in this video, no one shouted. Still, we in the back heard perfectly, better, in fact than we might have with shouting.

What do you think of this innovative amplification tool, and of the methods the audience employs to respond to speakers? How might you and I use similar communication tools in our everyday lives, and what would be their ramifications?

For me this as an important step forward, perhaps a quantum shift, in building a world more like The Village of Ordinary. May we all continue to speak--and to listen.

My thanks to MoveOn.org for bringing this video to my attention.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Two grandmothers stand for peace outside City Hall

2011-11-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

San Francisco City Hall
November 19, 2011
© L Kathryn Grace

On Saturday, November 19, we did it. We two grandmothers stood for peace across from City Hall. Bottom line: We look forward to our next stand.

Here, as they say, is the rest of the story.

First, the bad news: Due to ambiguity around permits, we canceled the official meetup. The good news: We stood anyway. The best news: Two other women signed up and plan to stand with us in the future. Their support strengthens us.

How it felt, standing for peace in public

Ever since I came across Sharon Medhi's book, The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering: A Story for Anyone Who Thinks She Can't Save the World, I have wanted to stand exactly as those grandmothers did. On the way to City Hall, I felt excitement for a dream come true.

Beginning my breathing meditation, my mind filled with doubts. "What's the point?" "What possible good can this do?" "We are a couple of crazy old ladies." Thank goodness for meditation practice! Because of it, I let go of those thoughts. Calm filled the spaces. Soon enough, I realized it didn't matter. What mattered was that we were following our hearts, doing what feels right.

We stood together, hearts joined. At one point, far across the plaza, we noticed a solitary woman in a camel coat. She stood, unmoving, facing City Hall as we did, for about thirty minutes. Had she learned about us and come despite the cancellation? We may never know, but it encourages us deeply to imagine she came to stand for peace.

A police officer arrived, seemed to be checking us out, driving into the plaza and behind us. A homeless man found us curious and circled us frequently. Numerous injured, ill mentally or physically, passed our line of vision, some pushing carts overflowing with soiled belongings, some with little clothing and no other visible possessions. Elderly people came and went, some on canes, some in wheelchairs. Others stood between the trees, practicing Tai Chi and Qi Gong. A motorcyclist in a stars-and-stripes helmet parked his bike in front of us, set up a tripod and camera and appeared to film us among many other subjects.

White clouds flowed overhead, followed by heavier, darker clouds, then blue sky and glowing, cumulus puffs. I felt deep peace and calm as I stood, a peace that remains. I have a sense of possible: that it is possible peace will come in my lifetime, the lasting peace of which so many dream and for which so many work arduously day after day.

Something has shifted.

Instinctively, we know the power of peaceful hearts joined in purpose. All one has to do is look at the videos of the peaceful occupiers around the country to get a feel for that in action today. I'll share one of the most powerful examples with you tomorrow--hundreds, perhaps thousands of people of all ages and colors, teaching one another, working together in the open air to come to consensus about their objectives and next actions, assuring every voice is heard, every concern met.

As for the stand itself, I was grateful that my somewhat crickety body did not mind it so much. I had to stretch a bit now and then, but the hour passed pleasurably.

Sharon and I will stand again this Saturday, and I suspect the next and the next. We may have to change venues for a time. We may have to raise money to buy permits. We may have to bring those little tripod seats old people use when waiting at the bus stop! But we will be there.

Disclosure: Should you click on the Amazon link in this post and make a purchase, it is possible I might make a few pennies on the sale. Wouldn't that be a thrill.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good News Friday: Another world is possible

2011-11-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

Today, my heart and hope took a hit. I read this article about the Pentagon's new flying bomb that can reach any point on Earth in less than an hour, breaking the sound barrier all the way. BOOM BOOM BOOM. Hope sank like, well, like a bomb. Then I saw this short video. Another world is possible.

Occupy Earth

I daresay, if you are reading this, you are one of the 99 percent. Year after year, decade after decade, we funnel our energy and our dollars into the profits and pockets of the 1 percent, doing our part as good workers, good citizens. With what's left of our time and money, we give to those less fortunate. We work for justice. We work harder and harder to take care of our responsiblities for our health, comfort and well-being. We are good citizens.

Yet again and again, we see our work benefiting the most wealthy (1%) in far greater proportion than it benefits anyone else (99%). While they build ever more opulent mansions, we struggle to maintain any home at all. Exhausted at night, many of us lucky enough to have a home, return and slip into a near comatose state in front of the television--our escape, we call it--before returning to our jobs in the morning. (Disclosure: I used to do this frequently; I am now "retired" and working for myself at last.)

But something has shifted. In October, we began to stand together. We came out of our homes, out of our schools, out of our jobs, and stood and sat and slept together on the cold, hard concrete of our parks and municipal plazas. Those of us who could not sit in public, risking discomfort, violence and arrest, supported those who could in whatever ways we could. Some brought food to the occupy camps, some books. Some gave money. Some tweeted and Facebooked and blogged. (I am among the latter.)

The camps grew. After a few weeks, even the bought-and-paid-to-propagandize mainstream media began to take notice.

The media likes to characterize the demonstrators as rabble rousers, as homeless, as druggies, as, god forbid, young people, as though being young and passionate and willing to risk state-authorized beatings and arrest should be discounted.

The cameras tell that story. Yes they do. And the cameras tell another story. We see lots of white hair in those videos, not blonde, white. We see people in wheel chairs, people in military uniforms. Sometimes, we see police officers crying as they arrest peaceful protestors.

Watch this video. Watch the names of the cities around the world flash across the skyscraper's face. Each of those names represents hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of citizens--people of the 99 percent--taking time from their lives to occupy, to make this statement, in the cold, in the rain, in the face of batons and tear gas and pepper spray and rubber bullets.

People are waking up. People have begun to realize that we occupy Earth.

When we stand together in peace, we become visible. We are the 99 percent. We are teaching the 1 percent. Another world is possible.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

About that 99% spotlight signal video: The beginning of the beginning

2011-11-18T11:55:00.000-08:00

Video Screen Shot
Occupy Wall Street 99% Spotlight Signal
#N17 #OWS #OccupyEverything

They call it a bat signal, the art of projecting those words on the face of the Verizon building in New York City.

In the video, Occupy Wall Street 99% Spotlight Signal #N17 #OS, a river of people lit up bright as the streams of car lights around them, flows toward the Brooklyn Bridge the night of November 17. They move in protest of the police raid and takedown of the Occupy Wall Street encampment.

That night, the bat signal supported them with its messages that this is the beginning of the beginning.

"We are a cry from the heart of the world," the message signals. "We are unstoppable. Another world is possible. We are unstoppable. Another world is possible."

Follow the link below and get the whole, inspiring story of the project: How it started; about its creator, Mark Read and the artists and technicians who helped him; where they found a projector big enough to light up the wall of a skyscraper; and how, though they offered to pay handsomely, a single mom in the projects gave them the use of her apartment across from the Verizon building for free. "'I can't charge you money, this is for the people,' she said."

Interview with creator of Occupy Wall Street "bat-signal" projections during Brooklyn Bridge #N17 march by Xeni Jardin on Boing Boing.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Ordinary Hero: Dorli Rainey, 84, pepper-sprayed at Occupy Seattle

2011-11-17T17:08:00.000-08:00

Ordinary Heroes Award
© L Kathryn Grace
All rights reserved

You've probably seen the image: A tiny woman, face and hair dripping with pepper spray, held upright by two young men. She's lifelong activist Dorli Rainey. On Tuesday, in a police action against a peaceful assembly of Occupy Seattle protesters, 84 year old Rainey was pepper sprayed by, as she calls them, Seattle's Finest.

Rainey grew up in Germany and remembers the rise of the Third Reich. She also remembers the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Rights Movement. She remembers them because she was there, on the ground, working to gain opportunities for Black people and for women in America.

Last month she was in Washington, D.C., participating in the October 2011 actions there. On Tuesday, back in Seattle, Rainey was about to switch buses on her way to a "boring transportation meeting" when she took a detour. Thinking rightly, as it turned out, that the flock of police helicopters overhead were observing an Occupy Seattle action, she followed the choppers to lend her support.

There she found a number of her friends. They had, she says, decided to leave, something she says the police knew. They never got the chance. In this video (just under ten minutes), Keith Olbermann of Current TV gives an entire segment to Rainey, listening with little comment.

You know when a commentator shuts up and listens, the speaker has got to be good. She is. Afterward, Olbermann tells Rainey she is his personal hero. Indeed. She is mine as well.

To Ordinary Hero Dorli Rainey

For remembering Goebbels; for remembering what happens when media is coerced, bullied, and bought into silence and worse, promulgating propaganda; for heeding--and sharing--the advice of your activist friend Jackie Hudson, "Whatever you do, take one more step out of your comfort zone;" for being an example to us all and reminding us there can be no such thing as retirement while injustice reigns; I bow in deepest gratitude, and count you, Dorli Rainey, among my Ordinary Heroes.

Whatever you do, take one more step out of your comfort zone.

Activist Jackie Hudson, as quoted by
Dorli Rainey in Keith Olbermann video above

From Rainey, the last word: "And that is what I do, I take a step out of my comfort zone. ... Somebody's got to keep them awake and let them know what is really going on in this world."

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Easy Green Steps: Clean your refigerator coils

2011-11-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

According to carbonrally.com, the simple act of dusting or vacuuming our refrigerator coils every six months will save around $19 on our annual energy bills and keep approximately 300 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

It's easy! I did mine awhile back, and it took ten minutes, tops, to pull the fridge from the wall, unplug it, suck up those dust bunnies and put everything back where I found it. I even vacuumed the floor under the fridge. Call me crazy, but I always feel good when I accomplish one of those nagging little chores. Do you?

Nineteen dollars won't buy a book or take you out to dinner. Small change? Sure, but look closely at the graphic above. See what the 1,441 people who have gone on record with this carbonrally refrigerator coil challenge have achieved? That's only a few of us!

We've saved nearly 107 tons, that's 214,000 pounds, of CO2 from our atmosphere. Still think it's small change in the overall pattern of wasted energy emissions? Sure it is. And when I get discouraged about what good one little old lady, can do, I ask myself this: Do I want my bits to contribute to the problem, or to the solution? It's that simple. In fact, I've been asking that question a lot lately. It's practically a mantra.

Do I want my drops to contribute to the problem bucket or to the solution bucket?

The folks at carbonrally.com have made it easy for us to take baby steps toward cleaning up our planet. If you would like to see your bits add up, grab a picnic basket, your favorite tailgater goodies, and join the rally. Yeah, you're right. This is a different kind of rally, but who says we can't have some fun while we're at it? And hey, we're helping to cool the planet.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Grandmothers light India, Pakistan, more with solar power

2011-11-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

It may well be that true change in the world will come because we, the grandmothers, are taking charge. One example: the women of Barefoot College in India. In this TED Talk, Bunker Roy, founder of Barefoot College, tells us that when it comes to making social and technological change on the ground, at home, the grandmothers are indispensable.

In his talk, he shows us, among other things, how grandmothers in Pakistan, India, Namibia and elsewhere bring solar power to their villages. They build solar lanterns to light their homes and night-time schools. They design and build solar cookers to eliminate the health-destroying smoke from wood fires, as well as to save their rapidly diminishing forests.

Take a look.

You may notice a little sexist undertone in some of the speech, but don't let that deter you from feeling the import of the work of the women. I take hope in what we can accomplish, and hold the women of the Barefoot College as role models of grandmother wisdom and ingenuity. What do you think we can learn from such women?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Yes, we did Sit4Change and surprised ourselves

2011-11-14T03:51:00.000-08:00

Macy's giant artificial Christmas tree
behind us as we sat for change
© Sharon L Richardson
Used with permission

On Friday I told you about Sit4Change and how I would join others in support of Occupy San Francisco and the entire Occupy movement worldwide. The idea was that through faith, meditation, prayer--whatever spiritual practices we as individuals employ--we might effect personal transformation, and through that, global transformation.

The individual who scheduled the San Francisco action did not clearly define the where we would meet, nor give many details about the how. In fact, near as we can tell, he or she didn't show up on Saturday. In the end, only my partner and I participated. Here's what happened.

The night before the event, our local news reported that a person carrying guns at the Occupy SF location had been arrested and released on bail, vowing to return on Saturday with an AK47. Neither of us would-be martyrs, but wanting to honor our commitment, and with no further information forthcoming from the organizer, my partner and I decided to sit instead in Union Square. I announced it on the Meetup page, invited others to join us, and designated a subtle sign so they could find us.

On Saturday morning, the two of us made our way downtown. At 9 am, the city was already bustling, the square busier than anticipated. The giant, fake Macy's tree was up and decorations nearly complete. The big crane used to carry workers to the top stood idle. A few skaters sailed around the recently installed ice rink--an annual holiday extravagance, one of two in the city..

View from our Sit4Change spot
© Sharon L Richardson
Used with permission

We picked a spot and sat, facing Macy's. Double decker tourist buses came and went, unloading and reloading. Sleepy singles and couples ambled by, carrying disposable cups of coffee, not one reusable mug in sight. An enormous generator behind us, powering the crane perhaps, roared to life and spit noxious fumes.

Still, committed, and having decided our old knees and backs wouldn't tolerate nearly two hours, we set our timer for 54 minutes, exactly half of the 108 prescribed minutes for the sit, settled in and began our meditation.

Despite the noise and fumes, I felt instantly at peace. As I focused on my breathing, I wondered what about this exercise could possibly be transformative, personally or globally. I gave the thought to the wind and to Spirit and breathed, eyes open, fully awake, aware of all going on around me.

When my bones began to ache, and sure we were near an hour, I glanced at my partner. She glanced back and smiled, pulled out her phone and checked the time. We had about three minutes to go. Reluctant to leave the peace of our meditation, I was grateful when she said, "Can we talk?" Grateful because I knew she meant she wanted to talk about what she had experienced just then.

Without preamble she said, "I want to organize grandmothers for peace to sit like this regularly." My heart skipped a beat. I knew, in that way we do sometimes, that we would do this.

So next week, dear friends, Grandmothers for Peace will occupy San Francisco for the first time, in the spirit of the The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering: A Story for Anyone Who Thinks She Can't Save the World.

I don't claim to have been transformed, but I can tell you that I feel a tremendous sense of peace as we prepare for this first gathering of the grandmothers, even if once more it turns out to be only we two.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good news Friday: Ultimate Transformers Sit4Change tomorrow

2011-11-11T08:06:00.000-08:00

I wonder if we will remember the date, Saturday November 12, 2011, when people of Spirit around the world came together to sit in quiet meditation for 108 minutes. It's called Sit4Change and takes heed of the non-violent actions of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others.

In its call to action, MoveOn.org says,

Practices of spirit, faith and personal transformation have been THE essential, critical ingredient of our most admired social movements-generating compassion, inclusion and sustainability on the road to victory. ... We encourage all Occupy sites to share 108 minutes of expression of the sacred, of ceremony, of prayer and of compassion as individuals, as families, and as communities.

The idea is that, sitting together in Spirit--whatever that means for us as individuals--in support of the Occupy movement, in support of We, the 99 Percent, we effect personal transformation, and that in transforming ourselves, as the woman in the short video below says, we transform globally.

Why I will Sit4Change tomorrow

Not long ago, my sweetie and I joined a hundred or so others in an Occupy meditation in downtown San Francisco. It is one of the most positive political--and joint spiritual--actions I have experienced.

There we were in Union Square on a cold, blustery day--old people, young ones, a man on a cane, another in a wheel chair, some in Buddhist monk robes, some in business attire. After brief welcoming remarks, and surrounded by the honking, shouting din of rush hour traffic, we planned to sit in silence for thirty minutes.

At first I thought I might not be able to meditate in the relative discomfort of noise and public exposure. Those feelings quickly dispelled when the thirtiesh woman who organized the gathering began to speak

The city permit forbad using a public address system or even a megaphone. With the wind and poor acoustics, many could not hear. Someone shouted, "Use the People's Voice!" She smiled and said a few words. In unison, the people within ear shot repeated them. She said a few more. They repeated them. Soon the speaker and her amplifiers spoke with such rhythm that it seemed the most natural thing in the world. We heard every word perfectly, as I have never heard over a PA system in the open air. I felt astonishment at this incredibly effective, and unifying, way of communicating within a crowd.

It is easy to forget how powerful We The People can be when we come together. We have a much stronger voice than we realize. And that's not all. Sitting in utter silence with these individuals, each of whom had taken time from their busy day to make their way to this public square, I felt a deep sense of peace. At one time, something wafted over me, it felt like a giant, warm bubble of love. I can't describe it better any other way. In that moment, I felt as if we had generated that bubble and it was touching each of us, teaching us the power of our collective love and intention. Then it floated away, to where I do not know.

So yes, tomorrow I will join others, whoever comes, to sit for change at Occupy San Francisco.

Will you join us? Find an Occupy location near you.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Realigning priorities, shifting tacks

2011-11-10T07:00:00.002-08:00

Yesterday I shared with you how distant I had come from a chief heart's desire: Simply to feel the earth under my feet. Grounding in that need, making a commitment to honor it, I opened to another neglected desire as well, writing routinely right here, on Building Ordinary.

The new web sites for Ordinary and Building Ordinary are far from completion. We've experienced one setback after another. Intent on working from the new framework, I've continuously sacrificed writing the story and tracking my journey toward making the vision real. No more. I am realigning my priorities.

While I'm still excited about building a new framework for the blogs, I will no longer pursue it at the expense of this work. From now on, the new sites take a lower priority so I can post here more regularly, and finish several posts in Rose's journal.

I may end up with a much less vigorous site than planned. It will take longer to achieve, but in the meantime, I will nourish my soul by honoring the work that means the most to me.

I know that some of you who read me regularly have faced setbacks and disappointments in meeting your goals as well this year. How, I wonder, might we be more supportive of one another in a way that would not create yet another distraction from our work?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Giving time to our heart's desires

2011-11-09T10:55:00.000-08:00

People in the world of Ordinary are at ease more often than not. They work together to dispatch the mundane chores that keep village life flowing smoothly, leaving them plenty of time to pursue their heart's desires.

This morning, traversing the gently winding pathways of a nearby park, feeling real earth under my feet instead of concrete, I was surprised at sudden tears in my eyes, a certain clenching of the heart. Eschewing the time it takes to walk to the park, for months I've stayed to the sidewalks of my neighborhood, never touching feet to earth.

How often do I give myself time to walk a little closer to Nature? Less and less. I've been so busy the past eight months with chores and More Important Priorities, that I've neglected my need to touch the Earth, one of my heart's deepest desires.

That changed, beginning today.

What heart's desire would you like to pursue today, and if you took some time for it, what might happen?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good News Friday: U.S. gasoline consumption drops 5 percent

2011-10-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

Rusty petro pump
a morgueFile free photo

To be truthful, I never thought I'd see the day, while there was any oil left, but the U.S. is guzzling less gas than it did four years ago. Five percent less, according to Lester R. Brown of the Earth Policy Institute.

Even better, in yesterday's news release, U.S. Gasoline Use Declining: Keystone XL Pipeline Not Needed, Dr. Brown cites four reasons we can expect to see U.S. gasoline use continue to slip. They are:

We're buying fewer cars.
We're driving fewer miles.
We're demanding Congress mandate more fuel-efficient vehicles.
We're demanding and buying more electric cars.

This doesn't mean we're out of the carbon emissions woods by a long shot. Between us, you and I and the rest of the nation are still pumping more gas than the next sixteen gas-slurping countries combined. That's right. We use more gasoline than China, Japan, Russia, Germany, Brazil and eleven more high-use countries, combined.

We Americans have a long way to go before we are doing our fair share to curb emissions, conserve energy, slow other petro-chemical pollution, and just possibly save the planet for future generations.
Still, I'm heartened by this news. And there's a bonus. Dr. Brown believes we can expect further declines as more and more of the populace move to cities, where public transportation is readily available.

Teenagers, for example, no longer need shiny, new pickups--or old farm trucks for that matter--to socialize. Dr. Brown says,

On top of urbanization, we also have a change in the manner in which young people socialize. For teenagers in rural communities a half century ago, getting a driver’s license and something to drive—a car, a pickup, or even a farm truck—was a rite of passage. That’s what everyone did.

This too is changing. Today’s teenagers, most of whom grew up in an urban setting, socialize through smartphones and the Internet. For many of them, a car is of little interest. The number of licensed teenage drivers in this country—the car owners of the future—has dropped from a peak of 12 million in 1978 to 10 million today.

I call that cause for celebration. Homemade ice cream anyone?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Trees for the future

2011-07-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

"It's amazing what one seed can grow." - Dave Deppner

Got nine minutes? It will be worth it.

I know I've been away a long time. I've had some help building a new web site for the Village and this blog. It's taken a lot more time and work than I anticipated. We were about half way through when two-thirds of the site disappeared. All that work: Gone. Phfftt. I'm taking care of my granddaughter three days a week, and it doesn't look like I'll have time to start over till fall, so I'll try to post here again now and then, until the new site is up. I hope any of you still trusting in me will bear with me.

Did you watch the video? Do you feel the hope?

With love,
Kathryn

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good News Friday: Bootstrap jobs create wealth in Cleveland

2011-03-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

OCSEA workers march for worker rights in Ohio

Ohio. The governor and legislature plan to outlaw collective bargaining, and they're doing it on steroids. Not only would their regressive bill, expected to pass any day now, stamp out collective bargaining to all public employees, but workers who strike would face prison time. That's just plain un-American.

Evergreen Cooperative sparks hope

The bad news gets worse, but there's hope. In Cleveland, the Evergreen Cooperative shares good news today: Through worker-owned businesses there, low and no-income workers are getting a chance to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and, in time, create wealth for themselves and their families

Who knows, they just might earn their way from poverty to tax brackets so high they might not have to pay taxes any more.

Imagine the possibilities when workers know their bottom line is directly affected by their participation. But hey, we don't have to imagine it. Take a look.

Tested model can be replicated

Did you notice in the vid that the Cooperative brought this model from Spain where it's already been tested? If they can show it can work in the Heartland, what's to stop other communities across the country from rolling it out at home?

Hope in Ohio. That's cause for celebration, and I'm singin' my happy song. What about you? Got something to sing about today?

Image courtesy Ohio Civil Service Employees Association (OCSEA)

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Zero waste: Homemade laundry soap--Part 2

2011-03-15T01:44:00.000-07:00

How homemade laundry soap compares to commercial

My Seventh Generation plastic bottle
sitting atop my bucket of homemade
laundry soap
© L Kathryn Grace

Last week I told you about my grand laundry soap experiment, successful beyond my dreams. I calculated that, in addition to saving on single-use plastic bottles, which may or may not get recycled despite our dropping them into the blue bin, we stand to save 34¢ a load.

How did I get that figure? What does it translate to in $$$ per year? What happens if you factor in fuel and water costs? And what about my time?

We'll take those questions one at a time.

How much does it cost?

I was shocked at the difference in cost per load: 2¢ with my homemade soap, versus 36¢ with my Seventh Generation brand. Here's the breakdown.

Bulk ingredients cost

Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda, 55-oz box at $4.29 / 14 batches* (1/2 cup or 4 oz. per batch) = 31¢/batch
20 Mule Team Borax, 76-oz box at $5.99 / 19 batches* (1/2 cup or 4 oz. per batch) = 32¢/batch
Fels Naptha Bar, 5.5-oz at $1.99 / 3 batches = 66¢/batch
Total materials cost per batch: $1.29

*Batches are rounded to nearest whole.

Cost per load

Cost per load

Seventh Gen: 36 cents
Homemade: 2 cents

Each batch yields two gallons laundry soap. At 1/2 cup per load, we get 64 loads per batch. Cost per load: $1.29 / 64 = 2¢. Two cents per load!

How does it stack up?

The Seventh Generation Natural 2X Concentrated Laundry Detergent bottle claims 66 loads. At $15.99/bottle, cost per load is 24¢. Read the fine print, and it turns out that you get 66 small loads. For the large, full-capacity loads I do, Seventh Gen recommends about half again as much detergent, which means I only get about 44 loads per bottle. That raises my per load cost to 36¢.

By making my own soap, I save 34¢ per load. On average, we wash about 10 loads per week. That's 520 loads per year and a savings of $176.80 a year on laundry detergent. Add that to the $150 I calculated in May 2010, that I would save on paper towels, and in a few years, I may have squirreled away enough to get the super thin, lightweight MacPro I covet. Okay, that's a stretch, but if I keep finding ways to save, it could happen.

What about fuel, water consumption and labor factors?

If I'm to live a more sustainable lifestyle, I need to think of the hidden costs of fuel, water and labor, right? Here's the skinny.

Fuel and water--A wash? Probably much less

The fuel cost is negligible. While I have not calculated the cost of the gas to heat the water, I can tell you my gas bill did not change noticeably the month I made the soap, and I did a lot of holiday cooking and baking that month.

Fuel cost to transport the bulk ingredients? Again, negligible compared to the fuel cost to transport a single-use bottle of the commercial detergent. How do I know this? Because the bottle washes fewer loads than just one batch of my homemade soap, whereas the boxes of washing soda and Borax, along with the bar of Fels Naptha, will give me multiple buckets of homemade, and the three products weigh little more than the single commercial jug.

Then there's the water. Because my rent includes water, I don't have anything to compare my water usage costs. The two gallons of water I use, plus any water I used in cleaning the pot and utensils, which I washed with other dishes, are worth pennies in today's economy. That may not always be true, of course.

I couldn't find easy stats on the laundry detergent polycarbonate bottles, but I did learn that it takes about forty percent more energy to make the polycarbonate detergent jug than a litre of bottled water, and it takes a lot of fuel to manufacture and deliver that one liter of bottled water in a typical PET plastic bottle.

On the surface it appears that I use far less water and energy to make my homemade soap.

Labor costs

As for my time, it took about half an hour to make the soap. It was as pretty to make as lemon curd, smelled lovely, and was a delight to see in its bucket when it was mixed. Forgive me, but I see that as a pleasant gain--time well spent.

Still, let's see how the numbers play. Say my time is worth $40/hour. How would the cost of making homemade laundry soap change?

$40/hour * .5 hours = $20
Ingredients = $1.29 (see above, "Bulk ingredients cost")
Total cost per batch: $21.29

Annual cost, based on 8 batches/year = $170.32
Annual cost of Seventh Generation detergent, based on 36¢/load (see above) = $187.20
Annual cost of Seventh Generation, $187.20, less annual cost homemade, $170.32 = $16.88 saved

So even if we factor in my labor, I've saved $16.88/year. Put another way, divide that $16.88 by the four hours labor I will spend in a year, and I just earned $4.22/hour. That raises my "pay" to $44.22/hour! I like that.

AND! And, I don't have to buy a plastic laundry detergent bottle ever again.

But it's messy!

Of course, there's the fact that the homemade soap is slightly more difficult to use. We have to stir the batch each time we use it, and it's a bit messier to measure the goo. Those plastic bottles, with their dripless pour spouts and their easy-to-use cups beat measuring and pouring out a half cup.

Love that feel-good moment

Each time I open the bucket, I take pleasure. The color, the scent, and the fact I made it myself all contribute to that good feeling, canceling the slight hassle that costs me maybe thirty seconds, including the time to rinse the spoon and measuring cup.

I love that I don't sneeze or get headaches on laundry day, and I love the sense of satisfaction I feel at having found a way to refuse bringing one more plastic container into my home.

Reducing the risk of harm to children and workers overseas

I was unsuccessful discovering where San Francisco's recycled plastics go. I am glad to know that my love of convenience and clean clothing is not putting laborers, including small children, at risk as Britain's plastics did for some time in this Chinese factory. That one got enough bad press that they closed it down. No one seems to be talking about where our plastic bottles and jugs are recycled now, but it is difficult to imagine, with so little transparency, that worker conditions are any safer today.

Knowing I've stopped one small contribution to such suffering is worth the tiny bits of trouble it takes to make and measure the soap, long before I factor in the cost savings, don't you think?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Zero Waste Challenge: Make your own laundry soap in 30 minutes

2011-03-07T14:24:00.000-08:00

All you need is a 1/2 cup each Borax and
washing soda, plus 1/3 bar Fels Naptha,
grated finely, and water
© L. Kathryn Grace

Why in heavens name would anyone want to make their own laundry soap? First reason, our commitment to becoming a zero waste household. Second, we're cutting back on plastic.

Blogger Crystal Miller furnished the recipe, which is nearly identical to several others I found around the web. I link to hers because she offers additional information about the ingredients and answers a lot of questions.

It's so easy! In this post, I'll show you how I did it, share the amazing cost savings, and tell you how it it worked.

First, collect the ingredients and utensils

All you need are three low-cost ingredients, a bucket and a lid. We used our old kitty-food bucket, which is a little big, but works fine. No new plastic! Here's the complete list.

1/3 bar Fels Naptha*
1/2 Cup washing soda*
1/2 Cup Borax*
Grater (To grate the Fels; a food processor is said to work well, but I don't see the need)
Large sauce pan
Extra large measuring cup or jug for measuring the hot and cold water
Wooden spoon
Two-gallon bucket with lid

*As with any household cleaners, read the warning labels on the packages and store ingredients and finished product safely, especially if there are children in the home.

Make the soap

"Egg-noodle-soup" mixture
Isn't it pretty? Smells good too!
© L. Kathryn Grace

It's very easy to make. Took about half an hour, start to finish. Here's what you do.

Measure the ingredients and assemble your utensils.
In a large saucepan, melt 1/3 bar finely grated Fels Naptha in six cups water, stirring frequently.
When the soap is completely melted, add and dissolve the 1/2 cup Borax and 1/2 cup washing soda. Set aside.
Carefully measure 4 cups (one quart) hot tap water into the bucket and add the hot soap mixture.
Mix thoroughly, then stir in an additional gallon of tap water (cold is fine), plus 6 more cups.
Mix again, cover and set aside for 24 hours.
On laundry day, give a quick stir, scoop out half a cup, and toss in with your clothing as you usually do, according to your machine's instructions.

Most of the recipes mention the pretty "egg-noodle-soup" appearance of the finished goo. Sadly, this image doesn't do it justice.

Tip learned the hard way: To reduce melting time, finely chop any large, ungrated bits. Total grating and chopping time: ~5 minutes.

How well does it work?

The good news: Many stains on our kitchen linens, some of which we use in place of paper towels these days and which get a real workout, were gone. They came out sparkling white without bleaching, a first. Darks and colors? We see no difference from commercial product laundering after several loads.

On the other hand, our most difficult load--stained, sooty, old cleaning rags--came no cleaner with the homemade soap than with any of the commercial brands I've used over the years. No worse. No better. You might say it's a wash.

How much does it cost?

Cost per load

Seventh Gen: 36 cents
Homemade: 2 cents

I was shocked at the difference in cost per load: 2¢ for my homemade soap, versus 36¢ for Seventh Generation, the commercial brand I use.

Miller's costs, at just 1¢ per load, were half mine. You will find a cost breakdown on her recipe page.

Coming up

Next Monday I'll show you how I arrived at those figures, how much we expect to save over a year, and how the cost stacks up when we factor in my labor. You might be surprised. Best news of all, we'll keep an estimated eight 100-ounce plastic bottles from the waste stream over the next year. And we don't have to buy any plastic to do it!

Disclosure: Should you click through on the kitty-food bucket link in this post and purchase something during your visit to Amazon, there is the possibility I might earn a few pennies. Wouldn't that be a thrill.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Thirteen year old Felix Finkbeiner addresses the United Nations on climate change

2011-02-05T15:28:00.000-08:00

Listen to this kid.

What do you think? What, if anything, will change in your daily life going forward, after hearing this young man?

It's only fair, if I ask that question, that I tell you what I expect to change in mine. First thing, when I'm feeling that I'm just one person and my efforts can't mean that much to anyone, I'm going to remember Felix and keep on working for change--every day. Second thing, I'm going to try and get me a posse to stand with me, like he has standing with him. Was he the spokesperson they chose? I don't know, but I want to make sure every member of my posse has a strong voice. Want to be on my posse? Contact me. We'll figure out it out together.

Posted with gratitude to the Sierra Club for their article, We children will do it ourselves.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Imagine the world without anger, without greed

2011-01-14T00:43:00.000-08:00

Shops in Ireland
(Note bicycle under lamp post)
Image courtesy karpati

Can you vision a world free of hatred, anger, and greed? What would your day be like if you were to walk down the street this morning and there were no such thing as greed or anger? Can you take a moment to indulge the fantasy? Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine the difference in your neighborhood. What would change right there, on your block?

On my block, there would be no homeless men and women packing up their cardboard and blankets and shuffling away before the shopkeepers found them sleeping in their doorways. That's the first thing I would notice, in the early hours of the morning.

Later, shops and stores would bustle with friendly voices and faces. Clerks would be well compensated for their work. They would have no worries about a toothache sending zinging shots of pain through their head if they sipped their hot coffee on the wrong side of the mouth.

Bicycle racks would line the parking spots outside shops and apartments, and the bicycles would not be locked. There, see that man parking his bike? He gets off, removes his helmet, hooks the strap over the handlebar, helps his two-year-old daughter from the child safety seat, lays her helmet in her seat, and walks into the grocery store, cloth bag in one hand, daughter's in the other. He doesn't even look back to check the bike. No need! Not one soul on the face of the earth would think of taking it.

Inside the store, the man and his daughter visit with the green grocer and learn what the farmers are bringing in this week. He adds just enough kale, turnips and cauliflower to his bag to make the soup he plans for today's supper. He picks up a handful of sweet Valencia oranges, brought in only this morning from a neighbor's tree. He stops and chats with the butcher while she slices a thick slab of ham from the side the local pig farm delivered yesterday. He'll use the small round bone and some of the ham to flavor the soup. His wife will use the rest of the ham in a quiche she wants to take to their neighbors, who have been under the weather with a flu bug.

On the way out, the man tells the manager that he'll bring a clean, repaired awning tomorrow to replace the soiled one over the front of the store.

This dad, you see, is a sail and awning maker. When the neighborhood awnings begin to show signs of tears and wear, he replaces them with cleaned, repaired awnings. When they become too worn to be repaired, he provides new ones. Fisherman and recreational sailors in the area come to him for refurbished and, when necessary, new sails as well. The awning maker especially enjoys creating new designs to decorate his canvases. He has a knack for understanding just what will please his customers and bring surprise and joy to their faces.

Money never changes hands. There is no such thing as a bank account. Each person's work is valued. Each person does the work he or she loves. Because everyone does fulfilling work they enjoy, people are happy. Because their basic needs are always met, because they have time and energy to nourish their creative, spiritual and relationship needs, they are healthy emotionally and physically. Because children are brought into a loving world full of happy people, conflict is rare. Like the Ladakhi, when conflict does arise, people shrug it off easily, Chi choen--What's the point? Life is too precious to waste in conflict.

That's one vision for today. One idea of what the world might look like if there were no greed and no anger.

So, back to my original question. If there were no greed and no anger, what would be different in your life, your neighborhood?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Making peace--About that national telephone conference call on the Tucson shooting

2011-01-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, we did it, my sweetie and I. Last night we attended the national conference call, hosted by The Peace Alliance. We sat down with an untold number of other Americans, to share our feelings about the seemingly out-of-control violence in our country and to discuss ways we can make peace in our lives and in our nation.

A teacher tells of nine year olds wreaking havoc in the school room

I was surprised by what one caller said. He's a middle school teacher of forty years, who told of ever escalating classroom violence. Several times a week, he is called on by the principal and other teachers to help restrain a child who is acting out with violence. They throw desks and chairs across their class room. They refuse to be calmed. To prevent them harming themselves and others, they must be physically restrained. After years of working with parents of unruly and violent children, he is convinced that, if we want peace in the world, we need to train parents how to be the parents, how to regain control in their households and how to teach their children social skills. Others echoed his viewpoint.

Listening, I couldn't help wondering if the violence our children see every day on television, masquerading as entertainment, contributes to their social dysfunction.

This morning, with these thoughts and voices echoing in my mind, I ran across the five minute video, below, from the Pachamama Alliance. According to the narrator, "The typical American child in his or her lifetime will witness 8,000 murders and a hundred thousand acts of violence on television, and by age eighteen will have spent more time in front of the television than in school."

Where are we? Theme: Spiritual Fulfillment from Pachamama Alliance on Vimeo.

A social justice worker calls on neighborhood churches to reach out block-by-block

The teacher and the story in the video above discuss the deep need for belonging. A social justice worker, citing the extreme violence in Oakland--the fourth most dangerous city in the United States-- suggested that our youth, lacking structure and family, find that sense of belonging in gangs. She called on churches everywhere to begin developing block-by-block programs to draw people from the streets and into activities and resources that support them. Most of all, she called on adults to listen to our children and respond to their needs.

Those are just two examples of the voices and passion we heard.

Vibrant technology brings us together

So often we decry the isolation and loss of community that our electronic devices foster. Hours spent flitting from one brief encounter of the e-kind to another substitute for the long, meaty conversations we shared face-to-face in the past, lingering over a sumptuous home-cooked meal, or delighting in brandies and exquisite desserts after sharing a live-and-in-person concert.

But this call, and others like it, give us an opportunity to reach each other in ways scarcely possible in the past. Live and in person, we speak, listen, are heard. When fortunate to have a skilled facilitator, as we did last night in John B. Kinyon, a trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication, the listening is amplified with care and attention to the heart of the words of each speaker. So even when a speaker is difficult to hear--because of technical issues, not speaking into the microphone, or because our attention wanders, we hear John's tender reflection and understand the parts we may have missed.

Yesterday I wrote of seeking hope in this call. In the Pachamama Alliance video above, Thich Nhat Hanh says it is impossible to be ourselves, alone, that we must "inter-be" with everyone else. While I chose not to speak last night, what I heard encouraged me deeply. Today I feel the pulse of the living organism we are, collectively, that "inter-being." This call delivered.

Image above, courtesy The Peace Alliance (pdf file)

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Making peace in the face of unspeakable violence

2011-01-11T13:26:00.000-08:00

Please bear with me. This, my first post of the year, begins with tragedy and ends with faint rays of hope, rays of hope I pray will brighten and grow into a steady, unending glow that permeates every heart and soul on Earth.

What is

Yesterday I learned that a woman I admire and who has been wonderfully supportive of this blog, had lost two family members to violence within a few very short weeks of each other.

These separate, enormous tragedies are horrendous in themselves. While they preceded the Tucson shootings last Saturday, I learned of them after the fact, while still weeping for the families of the dead and injured there, where a young man carried a gun to a supermarket and killed six people, injured fourteen others. One eye witness reported that the man, before being hauled away in cuffs, smiled with apparent satisfaction as he viewed the carnage around him. Sadly, this scene is far too familiar. Here in the United States, pick any impoverished neighborhood, and likely there has been a shooting or stabbing death in the last week. In some cities, such deaths occur almost daily; and for some of our young people, killing another human being is a rite of passage; the tell-tale tattoos they sport, badges of honor.

A father weeps

So prevalent is the violence in this country that one father, Van Jones--whom you may remember as the short-lived Green Jobs Czar of the Obama administration, and before that, one of my Ordinary Heroes--breaks down in this audio recording of a 2005 talk with The Peace Alliance. He is speaking of his then seven-month-old son and his son's chances to reach old age intact, well-educated, and free of incarceration. You've seen the statistics on young, Black male survival rates to adulthood, right? How many of them die through violence, how many of them end up in prison?

Addicted to violence

Should we be surprised? Under the guise of patriotism, we as a nation extol the virtues of combat. We celebrate the most horrific acts as entertainment. Heck, when Van Jones was growing up, our president glowingly glorified the fictional Rambo as his personal hero.

That's not all. Our country is constantly in a state of war somewhere in the world, has been almost continuously throughout my lifetime. Many in our country consider unpatriotic those who oppose these wars.

Given the hero worship we give to perpetrators of violence, fictional and real, why shouldn't young men of color, disenfranchised at every turn, not emulate the terrible scenes they grow up watching on television and in the movies? Those who want out of their gang-infested neighborhoods have few avenues of egress. One of the most open to them: War, sponsored by our government.

Exploiting, degrading, defiling and destroying human life

Then there are the underground, unofficial wars. Under siege from the drug cartels, Mexico reels from day to day, counting the bodies and burying the dead. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, The Taliban and Al-Qaeda bomb children in schools because they believe girls should not be taught to read and write and spell their own name, let alone learn about the world. Here in San Francisco, our police department periodically raids one "home" or another where children and women have been held in sexual slavery--in residential neighborhoods. Do you know your neighbor? They pull out not just one or two, but dozens of victims, usually brought into this country illegally, and often as not, quickly deported upon being "freed" to bear their shame and find a way to seek their living in a country that no longer wants them. San Francisco is just one small piece of that ugly puzzle.The list of human-on-human degradation and violence is unending. Or is it?

Dare we hope?

Image courtesy
The Peace Alliance (pdf file)

In the face of deep and unrelenting sorrow, dare we hope?

It may not be much. It may be the start of something big, possibly world changing. Tonight, I'm giving myself a big dose of hope, because tonight, in the wake of the Tucson shootings, and fully conscious of all the individual tragedies people face around the country, The Peace Alliance is hosting a national conference call. The call will be facilitated by John B. Kinyon, a trainer with the Center for Nonviolent Communication. They call it a national soul searching moment. Here's what Aaron Voldman, director of the Student Peace Alliance, has to say about it in an email I received this morning:

This attack [the Tucson shootings] is a wake-up call for America, challenging us to step into our potential for compassion, for right relationships, and for a far more healthy political discourse. ... Now, more than ever, we must ask the questions that will stir each others' souls, and listen attentively to what emerges. Our role, as peacemakers, is a crucial one.

Dialing in is better than sitting on my puhtoodie

I'll be on this call. I need to join with others round the country to discuss ways to bring peace to our hearts, to our country and to our world. If you would like to lend your voice and your thoughts, join us at 9 pm Eastern, 6 pm Pacific. The presenters strongly recommend that you pre-register for the call, which is free, apart from any telephone charges you may incur. After you register to join the national conference call, you will be sent a phone number and unique access pin. If you can’t register, join the call at 916.235.1003, Code: 590543, again at 9 pm Eastern, 6 pm Pacific.

It's still up to us

Peace bed
© L Kathryn Grace

Neither you nor I can control what another human being chooses to do, but we do have the power to make peace an active force in our lives and in our nation. If you join the call tonight, I'd like to know what you think of it. This is one way we can stand for peace today.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Joy in giving: Ordinary Hero Narayanan Krishnan

2010-12-14T12:47:00.000-08:00

Give. I know, I know. Tis the season. What else does one do this time of year? Look. Listen.

The food will give them physical nutrition. The love and affection that you show will give them mental nutrition. ... What is the ultimate purpose of life? It is to give. Start giving! See the joy of giving.

Narayanan Krishnan
from the video

What is your purpose?

Have you found your purpose in life? How do you feel in this moment? What does Krishnan's story evoke in you? What, if anything, will you change from this moment going forward?

It's only fair, if I ask those questions, that I answer them myself. My purpose is to do all I can to create the world of Ordinary now, and to build on the vision, that future generations might have a chance to live in a more fair, more just, more sustainable, more beautiful, more loving, more compassionate world than we create now.

In this moment, having just watched the video again, I feel joy at the thought of this man, like so many others round the world, seeing a need in his community and filling it. Doing what he can. This evokes in me a deep desire to continue with my efforts to give of my best skills and talents to change the world, in the ways that I know, in ways I have yet to discover.

I know I am not the person to feed, clothe, and bathe the hungry and the homeless, not yet anyway. Going forward, I will keep Narayanan Krisnan in my heart and this video in the side bar of my blog until I no longer need to be reminded every morning to stay on track, to do what I can, to increase the "what I can" as much as possible, and never to doubt that one person's actions, one person's gifts from her heart, from his heart, are enough.

Dear Mr. Narayanan Krishnan

Thank you for the love in your heart. Thank you for your willingness to touch and heal and feed and groom and hug and love. You are my personal hero today and every day. I pray that you have everything you need to continue your work, and that your body, heart and mind continue to be nourished in full measure.


Ordinary Heroes Award © L Kathryn Grace All rights reserved

With deepest gratitude to my good blogger friend Wanda for introducing me to to Narayanan Krishnan and his work on her always inspirational, frequently funny and ever life-affirming blog, What would Wanda do?.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Senator Bernie Sanders: One Ordinary hero

2010-12-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

On this day, when the nation observes the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, one man, born in that same year, is using the last years of his life to protect Americans from another kind of war, a war that threatens us every bit as deeply as the so-called Last Great War. That man is Senator Bernard (Bernie) Sanders. A few days ago, Senator Sanders went on record in the U.S. Senate on behalf of you and me. He told the truth. It's important. If you can, I encourage you to spare thirteen minutes to listen to this elder statesman giving breath in passionate urgency on our behalf.

If you'd like more background on Senator Sander's speech, he discusses it in his Week in Review.

You probably know that yesterday President Obama was strong-armed into agreeing to continue these outrageous tax breaks, averaging $100,000 a year, to wealthy Americans while you and I struggle to put food on the table and keep a roof over our heads. That was the cost the Republicans exacted to continue much more marginal tax breaks for the rest of us. Oh yes, and to extend unemployment benefits a while longer for those shut out in the cold during the downturn. Who caused the downturn? The richest in our country, the men and women benefiting from this enormous tax break in their pursuit of ever greater wealth and power. May they hang their heads in shame and give it all back.

I feel enormous gratitude to Senator Sanders for standing up for us. I'm writing to thank him for going on record in his attempt to protect us. If you would like to do the same, you can write to him using his Contact form.

Ordinary Heroes Award

To the Honorable Senator Sanders: You're my hero today, Senator. Thank you for working so hard to protect ordinary Americans from the rampant greed of the wealthy few. Thank you for using the power of your voice and your office to advocate for us. Thank you for your energy and love and deep concern for our welfare. Thank you for speaking out about "a war being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country against the working families of the United States of America, against the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country." May you be blessed beyond your wildest imagining.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Zero waste challenge: Rappin' plastic

2010-12-06T13:00:00.000-08:00

It's extra tough to avoid plastic this time of year. We were in a toy store (Inhale the polyethylene!) shopping for a birthday gift for our granddaughter the other day. What's not made of plastic, wrapped in plastic, or has plastic bits attached? Not one item. Yes, we succumbed. We bought a gift we knew she would enjoy, plastic up the yin yang. It doesn't help much that it was the least offensive of all the items we considered.

In the crush at the checkout counter, I forgot to tell the clerk I had my own bag. He dropped our purchase into a plastic one and grimaced when I gently returned it to him, apologizing for the trouble. Perhaps he would have enjoyed this video with rapper AshEL Eldridge and singer Jenni Perez. I hope you do.

Did you notice they mentioned that even Mother's milk is contaminated? All my grandchildren, as my own children, were breastfed. Of course, what's in the ultra-high-heat-pasteurized milk they drink now is even worse, but that's another story. One small action at a time. Two steps forward, one and a half back. Will we get there in time?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Wake, eat, love work, sleep

2010-12-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

Sheg Aranmolate
Image courtesy Inspivia Books

If you knew this were your last day on Earth, what words of wisdom would you choose as your legacy? Gail Lynne Goodwin of InspireMeToday.com asks that question every day. Sheg Aranmolate, author of iACTUATE: 100 Days of Inspiration, told a story of a young man in prison, awakened and ordered to write his last words. The young man wrote of his approach to life.

Wake: I will wake up every morning and smile at the world. I will be glad for the chance to see yet another day, and most especially I will be grateful for the "gift of life."

Eat: I will cherish every meal I receive. I will eat healthy delicious meals and I will take my time to savor the complex flavors of each meal. My body is divine and it surely deserves the finest of foods.

Love: I will develop my innate ability to Love myself and to Love others selflessly, as Love is the universal language that all humans understand.

Work: I will establish my identity at work and I will let my purpose of "positively improving humanity" fuel my creativity and talents. I will view success not through the eyes of an epicure, but through the eyes of a famished individual who has been fed and empowered with the wisdom of life.

Sleep: At the end of each day, I will lie in my bed and I will sleep like a baby because if life is worth living then it must be worth dreaming as well. Furthermore, I cannot dream without sleep!

Sheg Aranmolate
Inspire Me Today

Wake up glad to be alive, eat well, love selflessly, work to improve humanity and to fuel your own creativity and talents, sleep well and dream. What could give any of us more comfort and pleasure? Add good, physical exercise--work that uses the muscles and bones as they were intended--and you have the basic principles behind every Village of Ordinary post.

So far as I can tell, every one who reads my blog is also a writer and creating a legacy with each word, post, article, or book. I invite you to share a link in the comments below to something you would like others to read and know as part of your legacy.

Disclosure: I have not yet read Mr. Aranmolate's book. I post a link to it on the Amazon web site so you can take a peek inside for yourself, if you're interested. Should you happen to purchase something during your visit to Amazon, it is possible I will earn a few pennies. What a thrill that would be.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good news Friday: New Village post, a fabulous photographer and one very talented boy

2010-12-03T16:11:00.000-08:00

Village of Ordinary screen shot

After seven long months, I've finally published a new entry to Rose's journal, Autumn. It's not that the entry is such a big deal, but that I finally managed to finish one. I promise to do better going forward, with three more in the works at this moment. You may also notice a new skin on the blog. Not sure if I like it. What do you think?

Red Hill Farm
Down in the Creek
Image courtesy Photohiker

In hunting down just the right image of California mule deer to illustrate the Autumn post, I ran across a fabulous photographer, Steve, who goes by the cyber handle, Photohiker. When I asked permission to use the photograph of the California mule deer, Steve kindly gave me permission to use his images at any time in either of my Ordinary blogs. He said, "Seems your two blogs are of the same spirit that inspires me to photograph nature." Expect to enjoy more of his work here from time to time. Better yet, I encourage you to visit his site and peruse his galleries.

Another point of inspiration for the Autumn blog post is this video of a twelve year old boy playing John Parry's Sonata in D Major on the grand harp. The joy and ease in this young man's body as he plays is thrilling to behold. I hope his music delights your soul as it does mine.

Wishing you all a peaceful weekend.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

I give thanks

2010-11-25T17:40:00.000-08:00

[Post updated 6:45 p.m. 11/25/10]

Today didn't turn out as planned. After shopping, baking and cooking with joyful anticipation all week, one of us got sick. Too sick to drive. We were unable to make the sixty mile trek to our daughter's home for Thanksgiving. There is a lot more to it, but this was just one of a series of events that soured the day for three of the five families expecting to feast, laugh and play together. Like the card says, I really wanted to play with them today.

Stuff happens. We'll get over it. Here at home, we ate chicken soup from the homemade stock I made earlier in the week for today's gravy, and we'll eat ice cream for dessert later. But I'm sad tonight, because I let my daughter and her family down, and because my other daughter and her family spent much of the day in the emergency room after her father-in-law pulled cartilage from his ribs in a fall. They missed the fun too.

Still, there is much for which I am grateful. So I'm adding to this post, written days ago and published earlier. The truth is, crap happens, and sometimes it happens on the holidays. We didn't have anything like an Ordinary day, but building a world like the Village happens more in these moments, perhaps, than in the easy ones. Gratitude remains. I continue to give thanks

For unknown blessings already on the way
For the relative good health of my family and loved ones
For each and every one of you my readers
For every reader comment that encourages me to keep working, keep speaking out, keep finding ways to live more consciously
For every reader comment that challenges my views and shows me one more way to perceive any given thing
For the bounty of love in my life
For blue skies, sunshine and gardens full of flowers, trees, fruits and vegetables
For rain, wind and cold and the good they bring in new growth, soil transfer, fresh air, and unlocked seeds
For laughter and the ability to laugh in the face of peril
For the bounty of food my family enjoyed today, wherever we sat down to table
For the extended family with whom I have the joy of sharing the bounty, if not today, on many other occasions
and for people like Representative Inglis, who went on record with this.

Representative Inglis (R) attacks GOP on climate change

I'd call it more gentle persuasion than an attack, but I'm grateful nonetheless. I take hope, knowing that one person on the other side of the aisle knows the truth and is willing to talk about it. Sure, he can talk about it now because he's a lame duck and hasn't anything to lose any more. Maybe in speaking what so many others on his side of the aisle surely know, despite their posturing, he will somehow get through their numb skulls and others won't wait until they're on the way out to go on the record.

I give thanks for Representative Inglis, for you, for my family and loved one, for the richness of my life, for whatever slim bits of grace I manage in adversity, and for forgiveness when I don't manage to find enough.

What are you grateful for today?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

The red cave

2010-11-18T18:04:00.000-08:00

I have dreamed this cave before, its dry, orange walls rising high, wide and deep around me. I have dreamed this old woman before, one of the grandmothers, her face round and brown, soft and shining in the light. Always I want to touch her skin, finer than silk. I have dreamed that man, too, sitting in the distance, his long, white hair held from his face with a thin, cloth band.

In this dream, I do not see the implement with which he works. He is half turned from me. But the woman, in her soft, flowing skirt, is near. I watch the rise and fall of her chest, hear the suh-shu of her skirt on the stone floor as she bends and turns. I raise my hand in greeting and realize that this time she does not see me. They seem unaware of my presence, these people who have given me succor so many times in my life, in this dream.

The grandmother sits at her low fire, patting a white corn tortilla, making it small and flat and round. She lays it on a rock nestled among the coals, just large enough to hold it. When it stops sizzling, she flips it with her hands. I do not see her fingers touch the disk, so quick she is, but I hear the sizzle and pop as it slaps the rock. When the tortilla is crispy brown around the edges, she picks it from the rock, slipping it from hand to hand till it cools a bit, then uses it to scoop a bit of mushy meal from a small bowl warming near the coals.

With the other hand, she drops some herbs into a cup full of liquid near the fire, picks it up and carries both to the man lying on a stone bench. I recognize this bench. I have lain just so myself many times. The first time I dreamed this cave, I was lying on that bench. This old woman and another fed me mush, dripped warm, fragrant teas into my parched mouth, and held me in their arms until I was well and no longer sobbing.

Today, the old woman ministers to her charge alone. They are flesh and blood. I, merely a ghost, watching. The light flares and I see clearly the man lying on the bench. He is wearing a dark blue, nearly black, suit and a red tie. The man is George W. Bush. He is pale. His breath is shallow. The old woman drips the tea gently onto his cracked, dry lips. Like a little bird, he opens his mouth. She squeezes more of the liquid onto his tongue. His Adams apple bobs rapidly as she gently drops a bit more and a bit more of the soothing fluid.

I know the comfort of that tea, the gradual return to consciousness. I smell the mint and fennel and something bitter I do not recognize, and I find myself opening my mouth as if to receive even as I watch the grandmother set the bowl aside and pick up the waiting tortilla.

Gently, she squeezes a little of the mush to his lips. He tastes it carefully, then greedily as she pushes a little more into his mouth. When she has ministered the last of the tea and mush, she eats the tortilla herself, chewing slowly, her eyes closed, moving no other muscle. Then she raises her hands to the former president's chest and touches him.

This touch, too, I know, for I have felt it many times. I know the heat that comes from her hands, how it joins with the heat of my own body and spreads, upward through my throat, into the bones of my face, behind my eyes, into my brain, warming my skull; how it spreads into my lungs and down through the organs of my body, sets the marrow of my bones nearly on fire all the way to my toes. I know the gentle persuasion of this heat, how it heals my body and my soul from the inside out.

I know the release of breath escaping the president. I look for the smile on his face, that small half smile, the Mona Lisa smile, and yes, there it is. Not the smirk of 9-11, that smile he could not stop from spreading on his face as he addressed us that horrible day. This is the smile of peace, the smile of one who feels so loved in this moment it would be impossible to feel any thing else.

I release my own breath--a huge cleansing breath. What is this man doing in my dream?

Without acknowledging my presence, without so much as a nod or a gesture, the old woman, the grandmother, shows me the rest of the the cave. Everywhere are stone benches carved from this self same rock. On each bench reclines a world leader. Some, like the former president, are living today. Others, like his nemesis, Sadaam Hussein, are long dead. But here, all are living, and all are receiving the same tender succor and care.

Pay attention, I hear, not with my ears, but in my head. Pay attention. We love you all equally. Those who do evil, those who do good. We love you each as tenderly. We care for you each as gently as our own babes.

I see their faces, briefly. Many of them. People I fear, people I know to have done the most heinous of evils. A couple of people from my own life, who have harmed me along the way, lie here, reaching their little beaks to the moist herbs. Members of Congress who seem to care nothing for human tragedy, human suffering are here. Lobbyists who stuff millions of dollars into the lawmakers' pockets as we might stuff a five dollar bill into ours, lie here.

Newscasters who distort the truth and those who tell egregious lies are here. People who fund projects designed to coerce us to believe there is no threat to our way of life, that climate change is not happening, that it will not destroy us, and that if it is, there is nothing we can do about it, lie here. People who coerce and cajole us into wanting and buying things we don't need, to forget that it is our actions, our consumption that puts the world at peril, are here. The preacher who wanted to burn the Koran, and the Ayotollahs who plan to stone a woman to death who may or may not have committed adultery--they are here, each tended carefully by a grandmother, gently ministering healing herbs and the healing touch.

Pay attention. This is what saves human kind. This is the work that restores the Earth. Find a way to love.

Awake, my body glows with the warmth of coals spreading from my heart to my brain and down to my toes.

I will not question the wisdom of the grandmothers who speak to me in a dream. I will find a way to forgive and to love.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Take a stand to change the course of history

2010-11-16T20:33:00.000-08:00

Humanity is on an unsustainable path, headed in a direction that no one wants—and there is limited time to turn things around. At the same time, the solutions and technologies to address this crisis already exist. What is missing is the commitment and will to act. FOUR YEARS. GO. is about generating that will.

Four years.Go.

No matter how many times I watch this video, it never fails to shock, awe and inspire. Take a couple of minutes to watch it, and if you've seen it before, perhaps you'll have the same experience I have had. Better than anything I can say, this video explains why I pin my hopes to the work of all of us at Four Years.Go. Yes, I'm involved now, doing what I can.

Learn more about Four Years.Go. and consider making a commitment to help galvanize "the collective will that makes this new dream the guiding principle of our time by the end of 2014." What will you be committing to? Here's the language from the Four Years.Go. web site.

I stand for a new dream ~
A Thriving, Just and Sustainable
Way of Life for All.
I am committed to galvanizing the collective will that makes this new dream the guiding principle of our time by the end of 2014.
This is my vow to myself and all beings.
As an expression of my participation, I will:
✥ Communicate with others and invite them to join in this commitment
✥ Adopt lifestyle practices and take actions consistent with my stand
✥ Educate myself about the issues and solutions
✥ Create my own form of participation

That's it. You decide how you will participate. I participate primarily by continuing the work of these blogs and by changing my daily habits, one conscious choice at a time. I also work with the people of Four Years.Go. and support the work of other organizations that are working to achieve similar goals.

How you participate is entirely up to you. The important thing is that we begin to work together in such numbers that positive change--reaching a tipping point toward sustainability, fairness and justice for all human beings--is inevitable.

We've got four years, maybe less, maybe a little more. After that, we may have moved too far beyond the tipping point the other way to save our civilization from the effects of irreversible climate change. That's not all of course. There's a lot of evil done in the pursuit of satisfying greed and the lust for power, and it seems to be getting worse. That's got to tip the other way too.

Will you join me?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Thanksgiving turkeys: Big Food is targeting us

2010-11-11T06:15:00.000-08:00

Image credit: Ladyheart

As we get closer and closer to the biggest food fest of the year, when our tables nearly buckle under the weight of the most delicious foods we can conjure in our kitchens and purchase from our local delis and bakeries, Big Food is preparing to wow us with processed foods to snag our dollars all year long.

Take a look at what they're cooking up for us in Top 10 Food Trends for 2011. Hint: Processed is out, "proven" is in, and they're planning to "sell the technology."

Sometimes I feel a bit like a turkey m'self.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Is competition the only successful business model?

2010-11-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

See how Judy Wicks, owner of White Dog Cafe in Pennsylvania, succeeded when she changed her business model from competition to cooperation, lent a helping hand to other small business owners, and changed a bit of her world in the process.

Dowser Video: Judy Wicks, White Dog Cafe and BALLE from Dowser on Vimeo.

Judy Wicks is an Ordinary Hero in my book. All of you are. Whether you're a business owner greening your business, a consumer making conscious choices about the businesses you patronize, or a farmer building healthier soil, you are my heroes. At a time when my hope bank is dangerously low, your work builds it up one conscious choice at at time. Your words and stories give me hope that there is still time to create a world more like the Village of Ordinary.

For each step you take, each choice that preserves our land and fresh water supply, cares for our sister creatures, empowers the oppressed, educates the illiterate, feeds the hungry, makes peace in your neighborhood or the world, I give gratitude. Everything you do matters. Every little thing, one way or another. On this day, a day each week when those who practice the Christian faith pause to give gratitude for the bounty of their lives, I honor the tradition and stop to give gratitude for you and the ways you are making the world better each day.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

They suffered that we might have the right: Go! Vote!

2010-11-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

Miss [Lucy] Burns in
Occoquan Workhouse, Washington, Nov. 1917Women of Protest:
Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party

They endured disdain, derision, jail, force-feedings and beatings in their struggle to get the right to enter a voting booth on election day, our foremothers.It's easy to take that right for granted, especially when we don't like the choices on the ballot. Even moreso when we're disenchanted with corruption, lies, dirty tricks and abuses of power.

But that's not new. There was corruption, there were lies, and there were outrageous attempts to manipulate the populace throughout the 144 years US women sacrificed to win the opportunity to vote. Honor the women who suffered for us--their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Vote! It's one way we live consciously.

For a quick synopsis of the long struggle to achieve woman suffrage, go to How Women Won the Right to Vote.

Zero waste challenge: Easy plastic-free crunch, yum and crackle when the game is on

2010-11-01T17:19:00.000-07:00

The game is on. It's Saturday, the day before Halloween. The two year old is coming over, Game 3 of the World Series starts in a couple of hours, and we expect to munch between yelling ourselves hoarse. That means bags of chips and tubs of dips, right? Not exactly.

See that sweet dumpling squash? It's easy game buffet fare--or a supper side dish--that is scrumptious, wholesome, locally grown if you're lucky, in season right now and does not come packaged in plastic. I've included the super simple recipe below.

For crunch, I roasted the squash seeds, baked up some sesame seed crackers, pretty much the same recipe as reported here. This time I rolled them super thin, barely 1/16 inch, brushed the dough lightly with water before scoring, sprinkled liberally with raw sesame seeds, and pressed them in gently.

It took an hour to make the crackers, start to finish, not much longer than a run to the store. Soon as they came out, I upped the oven temp and popped in the squash, saving having to heat the oven twice.

The homemade crackers were downright delicious dipped in fresh guacamole. The middle grandchild was visiting, and she and I had fun mashing the avocados and squeezing the lime. When the game started, we all sat down together and noshed crispy sesame crackers and guac while the Giants got whupped, as we used to say.

Was it worth it? Probably a wash, cost-wise, but times past, we would have bought two kinds of chips and two or three tubs of dip, had none of the fun with the grandbabe getting ready, and those chips and processed dips would have set in our tummies like leaded goo. Instead, we were energized, full and happy.We had fun, despite the loss, snacked finely, and didn't add a single plastic container to our "reusables" collection or a box or a bag to our recycle and trash bins.

Three easy recipes for game-day fun

I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of the guac and crackers. We couldn't wait, but here's our simple, child-easy recipe.

Guacamole

Ingredients:
2 ripe, soft-to-touch, medium avocados
1 ripe lime
Dash salt
Twist fresh ground pepper

Directions:
Adult: Split avocados in half lengthwise. Child: Turn each half upside down over a bowl and squeeze the skin till the pulp and pit fall into the container. (Kids love this part.) Fish out the pit with a spoon and compost or sprout for growing fun (video).

Adult: Cut a lime in half. Child: Squeeze the juice all over the avocados. An old-fashioned squeezer with a pointed, ribbed cone on top, set over the bowl, is easier for little hands than other types.

Child (adult can help, of course): Add a sprinkle of salt and a grind of pepper, mash till its gorgeous, smooth and creamy, lick the forks before you toss them into the sink, and giggle together. Serve with "guackers." (See link above.)

For a yummy, almost as easy hot treat to go with your crunchy snack, roast two sweet dumpling squashes. They're in season now and a make a colorful plate on a chilly autumn day.

Roasted Sweet Dumpling Squash
Ingredients:

Two sweet dumpling squashes
1-1/3 t butter
1 T each raisins and dried cranberries (optional)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Wash, then carefully cut the squashes in half lengthwise with a sharp knife. This was tricky for me, as I don't have a lot of strength left in my hands and those buggers were tough, so be careful!

Scrape out the seeds and stringy mass with a spoon. Set aside.

Place the squashes cut side up in a pie plate or other shallow pan. Dot the inside of each quarter with 1/3 teaspoon butter. Add a few raisins or dried cranberries if you like a little sweetness with your squash. We didn't this time, but we may next.

Bake uncovered thirty minutes. When the timer goes off, pierce with fork. If tender, remove from oven and serve. If not quite tender, return and bake a bit longer. Serve with crunchy roasted squash seeds on the side and a plate of fresh fruits, if you can wait and do it properly.

Roasted squash seeds

Roasted sweet dumpling squash seeds
© L Kathryn Grace

While the squashes are baking, clean the seeds from the stringy stuff. I find this easiest in a small bowl of water. Under water, rub the seeds away from the strings. Compost the stringy stuff and pour the nutrient-rich water, which is now a gorgeous pumpkin orange color, into your frozen vegetable cooking water, if you save yours for making soup. (We pour leftover bits of vegetables and vegetable cooking water, when cool, into a container in the freezer. When it's full, we thaw it and use it for soup stock.)

Rinse the seeds, drain them a bit, pat them dry with a clean tea towel, place them on a small cookie sheet or pie plate and pop into the oven during the last 8-12 minutes with the squash. When the squash timer goes off, the seeds should be well toasted. Remove from oven and sprinkle lightly with salt to taste.

The squash was as delicious as it looks. It didn't make it to the living room with the crackers and guacamole. We ate it standing up in the kitchen right away, blowing on each bite to cool it. Our granddaughter loved it as much as we did, oohing and ahhing and "Yum!"-ing over every bite. We had two cups left, which we'll chop coarsely and add to a stir fry with bean sprouts, and other veggies for dinner tomorrow night. More end-of-summer goodness for our taste buds and bellies, and all easy on the pocketbook.

That's one way we had a lot of family fun and together time while making conscious choices this week. I know Wanda made cold frames last week, and Deb struggled between the pull of nature to go outside and play and the pull inside to create something new. What were you up to?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good news Friday: Slow me down, pick me up, dance for joy

2010-10-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit of a challenging week for me. I'm ready for some peace and quiet, and then some unabashed fun. This week's good news starts with a slow-me-down and breathe deeply post from one of my favorite bloggers and ends with celebrating life and the goodness that is you and me. In between, a composition for the birds that's a sweet interlude for us too.

Late blooming summer flowers
Courtesy Paul of Wondering!

From "Arrrghhh!" to "Ahhhhhhhhh" at 65 mph

We've all had them: Those mornings when almost everything goes wrong, one frustration after another. Paul could have let the sour start infect his entire day. Learn what he did instead. Simple. Elegant. Peaceful.

Making music

Then there's this delightful composition from Jarbas Agnelli sure to tickle your fancy and give you another satisfied "Ahhhhhhhh." (approximately 1-1/2 minutes).

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Dancing with Joy

And this one? Well, you're going to want to play it again, and I'm almost certain you'll have to get up and dance. You may be dancing the rest of the day. (Two minutes)

A Perfect Protest from Joy Tanksley on Vimeo.
A celebration of my imperfections inspired by "The Gifts of Imperfection" by Brene Brown.

Get more inspiration from Joy on her blog Being Joy.

That's it for this Friday, everyone. Whatever your week has been, here's hoping your weekend starts with a smile.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Zero waste challenge: Yogurt made easy

2010-10-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

We're pitching the plastic yogurt tubs at last

Finally! No more plastic yogurt tubs coming into the house. I know, this may seem a little odd after extolling the (relative) virtues of the Stonyfield multipacks made from corn the other day, but it was in researching that post that I found the first easy recipe for delicious (and hopefully no-fail) yogurt.

For months I've experimented with various homemade yogurt schemes, with more and less success. Mostly less. Today, near perfect yogurt, super easy, no mess, no fuss, and no special equipment.

Sure, here in the Bay Area we can buy the very mild St. Benoit yogurt in returnable glass jars--when we can get it. Cost is about the same as a quart of raw milk, but it's not always available. About half the time we have to choose between not having yogurt on hand or buying it in plastic tubs. What's more, St. Benoit is made from pasteurized, albeit local, organic milk. We wanted to take advantage of the raw milk available to us from locally-pastured cows, and I like my yogurt on the tangy side, something St. Benoit doesn't do.

I needed a dependable homemade yogurt alternative, one I could share with others trying to reduce their plastic use as well. So when Beth Terry at Fake Plastic Fish included her homemade yogurt recipe in her post about Stonyfield Farms new PLA cups the other day, I decided to give it a try.

Greek or plain yogurt, it's all good

Beth got her recipe from Melanie Rinner of Bean Sprouts, whose method is for Greek yogurt, but the culturing process is the same either way. Because the yogurt I had on hand was almost a week old, I used a commercial culture I bought a while back as a backup. The brand is Yogourmet. They expect you to use it in their yogurt maker, which I did not want to buy. It's made of plastic.

For a year or two now, I've hunted for an incubator like the one I had when my babies were little--a stainless steel tub that held six pints, or three quart jars, and kept an even temperature perfect for culturing yogurt. Nowhere to be found. All yogurt makers I found on the market are made of plastic, even the versions clad in stainless steel to match your trendy kitchen decor.

Sans easy-to-use maker, I experimented with the cooler-covered-in-blankets method. Every time, the yogurt turned out runny. Fine if you like Kefir-style, drinkable yogurt, but we prefer a creamy, custardy texture. Plus, this is a time-consuming process. I didn't like the bulky mess in my bedroom, which was the only place in the house with room for the container to sit undisturbed.

Yesterday, thanks to Beth and Melanie, I finally found the right combination of culture and method. What's more, it's easy-peasy. Incubate in a thermos, transfer to glass jars when the yogurt is the consistency you like, refrigerate to chill, and enjoy.

Worked like magic. I heated the milk to barely boiling, cooled it to just under 122 degrees F, stirred in the yogurt culture according to instructions, and poured it all into my faithful stainless steel, wide mouth Stanley thermos. Eight hours later, I popped the lid to check, and we had beautiful, creamy yogurt at exactly the texture we like.

I scooped the yogurt into two glass jars, one to save the mother culture for the next batch, the other to eat, and popped them into the refrigerator to chill. The transfer from thermos to jar for chilling did change the consistency. Disturbing the yogurt before it is chilled causes it to curdle a bit.

Next morning, we couldn't wait to strain for Greek yogurt. We gobbled nearly the whole pint for breakfast. The taste is marvelous--tangy, with a hint of citrus.This is the first yogurt I have ever enjoyed straight from the jar with no honey, no fruit, no sweetener of any kind. Delicious! Today I'll pick up more raw milk and make another batch. I'll let you know how it goes.

That's my conscious living tip for the day, part of our personal household zero waste challenge. What are you up to this week? Do you make your own yogurt? Have you found an easy recipe you like? I invite you to share it here or post a link to your recipe page.

Disclosure: If you follow the Amazon link above and purchase something, it is possible I will earn a few pennies. What a thrill that would be.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Can you imagine living in a world that is just, sustainable, and fulfilling?

2010-10-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

The year is 2014. A major shift has occurred, transforming life as we know it. Today, the world is on track like never before toward supporting a just, sustainable and fulfilling life for all. Those three things. What is your every day like in this new world?

I've been wrestling with this question since becoming involved with Four Years.Go., the campaign to create a shift, in four short years, that will set the world on a track toward a just, sustainable and fulfilling world for all. The question many of us are asking each other, as we work toward this goal is: What will the world be like in four years if we have achieved this shift?

So I'm asking you. There are lots of ways to answer the question. We can start by answering other questions. What would a typical day in your life be like if you were living sustainably, if world leaders, national leaders in every country, and individuals everywhere were working toward justice for all, and if your own life were completely fulfilling?

What would you have to do between now and December 31, 2014, to achieve these goals in your life and to help achieve them in the world? Would it be worth it to you to begin today? What first steps would you take? What next steps would you plan for, and when would you be ready to take them?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Stonyfield Farm now packing their yogurt in corn plastic--Like it?

2010-10-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

You all know how important it is to me to carry reusable containers and avoid plastic, so it may come as a surprise that I welcome the new Stonyfield Farm Multipack yogurt containers made from corn. Yes, it bothers me a lot that they're made from corn. I don't intend to buy cases of them in the future, but it's a conscious choice in a not so conscious world.

Sometimes, we're out with the grandbabies on a hot day and the snacks we brought with us are already gone. If we have to make a quick stop to buy a goodie for the children, Stonyfield organic yogurt in a multipack is an emergency option. It is organic, does not contain high fructose corn syrup, is not packaged in petroleum-based plastic, so not leaching as many bad chemicals into the children's food, and is supporting, if not one-hundred percent derived from, responsibly grown corn--no GMOs, no artificial fertilizers or pesticides, good soil stewardship.

Better for the planet, better for human bodies

What's more, if I were still working twelve or more hours a day, and my dinner break consisted of a quick run to the corner mart for a tub of yogurt, I would opt for Stonyfield for the same reasons. Stonyfield is competing with the Dannons and Yoplaits of the world. For folks who buy those products regularly, Stonyfield is a more ecological choice: Better for the planet; Better for the human body. That's my opinion, of course, but based on the fact that Stonyfield works with organic dairy farmers to provide a market for their milk. Plus, now that Stonyfield is using corn-based containers for their multi-packs, they're helping sustainable corn growers compete in the marketplace with GMO corn growers, protecting our soil bank, protecting non-gmo seeds, protecting other critters, our air and water supply, and protecting us by avoiding harmful artificial fertilizers and pesticides.

Beth did the research

Beth Terry of Fake Plastic Fish asks today, "What do you think about Stonyfield Farm's new PLA yogurt cups?" I was surprised that she gave them a thumbs up, knowing how she feels about all things plastic, and the fact they are not yet recyclable, but she made some good points, well-researched as always. I encourage you to grab a cuppa and pop on over and read her post. It's well worth the time. I'm on my way out the door now to buy another quart of raw milk. I'm going to give her thermos yogurt recipe a try.

What DO you think of the new Stonyfield packaging? I'm curious to know.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Wanda did it

2010-10-19T16:49:00.000-07:00

She tagged me. The rules, near as I can tell, are to divulge seven things you might not already know about me, then turn the favor on seven more bloggers. Any excuse I have to introduce a few of my favorite bloggers, I'll take.

Until this year, 2010, the word "potluck" sent such performance anxiety through my body that you might have seen me blanch before I turned away. Suddenly, with more time to enjoy it, I find I love cooking. I'm becoming a foodie! Potluck? Bring it on!
After all these years, the rumble of a Harley still quickens my blood. I stop on the street with my granddaughter, reverently pointing out the details of a vintage cherry red bike, replete with black leather saddle bags. Unfortunately, now she's fascinated with motorcycles and wants to ride every one she sees!
The year the full moon occurred on the Summer Solstice, I stayed outside all night on a grass-covered hillside, under that bright light, talking with a new-made friend who, earlier, had danced before the bonfire, her fringed shawl etching raven wings gently opening and closing in the shadows and light. I no longer remember her name or what we talked so earnestly about all those hours, but I remember the scents of the meadow, nearby animals, our breath on the cold air, and the light coming over the hill at dawn.
Love me Tender is one of the Elvis songs that still makes me as quivery inside as a school girl.
Once upon a time, I dreamed I had written a book: An Acclimation of Glory. I held the heavy tome in my hand, its shiny white cover brilliant with red lettering. I have no idea where that came from, or why, from time to time, I dream it again.
I saw my partner in a vision, and knew she was a musician with short black hair, years before I met her, yet at first I did not recognize her. Next month, we celebrate 22 years together. I hope we can be married, legally, before we die.
I am convinced that the whole world would be happier and more peaceful if we drummed and danced more, shopped less.

There are so many bloggers I love to read. In this list, some old faves and some recently discovered. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Deb Shucka of Catbird Scout
Curbstone Valley Farm
Lynn Hasselberger of I Count for My Earth
Margaret and Helen
Paul of Wondering
Arina of Lots of Life in One Place
Guyana-Gyal

Tag! You're it!

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Good news Friday: Water heroes making a difference on Blog Action Day 2010

2010-10-15T18:50:00.001-07:00

Technorati Tags: Blog Action Day 2010 Water,water.org,water,Matt Damon,Gary White,water crisis

Matt Damon and Gary White visit water projects in India
Image courtesy Water.org

Matt Damon and Gary White, cofounders of Water.org, think we can help communities worldwide get safe, clean water in our lifetime. Today is Blog Action Day 2010: Water. That means bloggers, tweeters and Facebook fans all over the world are talking about water, bringing the world water crisis into focus, and making it a big part of the conversation.

Sure, I could tell you more horror stories about the 2.5 billion people (nearly half) in the world who don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. Today, though, I’m focusing on people like Matt and Gary, who are part of the solution. Because this is a problem we can solve soon, and that’s good news.

Succeeding where others have failed

Around the world, Water.org is succeeding where other groups have failed. Instead of a bunch of foreigners coming in, digging a well and leaving, Water.org involves the communities requesting assistance in every step of the process. First they train people within the community, who in turn train others, preparing them months in advance of digging the well, so they understand what they need to do to prevent disease and to keep the well running.

Water.org not only helps provide clean water, they assure the people of the village are well-trained and ready to train others. What’s more, they can provide a life-long well to a community for just $25. What’s not to celebrate about that? This eight minute video with Water.org co-founders Matt Damon (yes, that Matt Damon) and Gary White shows how it's working in India. The really interesting part, where we see villagers turning on their household taps for the first time, is about five minutes into the vid, but the whole thing is well worth your time.

When you make [people] aware of a problem this serious, but then also make them aware of a solution this practical, I think it’s in peoples’ nature to want to step up and do their part. – Matt Damon, Water.org co-founder

Did you join the conversation in some way today? It’s not too late. At the very least, you can sign the petition to support the UN’s efforts to bring clean, safe water to millions.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

More people have cell phones than have toilets

2010-10-13T18:26:00.001-07:00

Technorati Tags: water.org,Blog Action Day 2010 Water,water,sanitation,toilets

Image courtesy Water.org

Astonishing. More people have access to a cell phone than have access to a toilet? Yes. In a world of 6 billion, 2.5 billion have to squat behind a bush, if they’re lucky enough to be near a bush. Nearly half!

How is it possible that a person can own a cell phone, or have access to one, but have little or no access to clean water and toilets? Cell phones are cheap, for one, easy to pick up, especially disposable units. Housing, let alone housing with a privy—inside or outside—that’s much more difficult to come by. And if you don’t have a home, if you live on the street, fuhgeddaboudit! Would you open your home to every homeless person who needs a toilet? Neither would I. I know that for a fact. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to assume you wouldn’t. You tell me.

Where do they go, all these people who have no toilet? Where do they wash up afterwards? Does it matter to you and me? Is this a problem about which we have the means and power to do anything, anything at all? Yes, again.

Friday, October 15, is Blog Action Day 2010: Water. The folks at Water.org think we can make a difference just talking about it. They want us to have a global conversation about water. Because when we talk about it, a few people who didn’t know about the problem might listen, and just maybe they’ll start talking about it too. The good news is, the water and sanitation problems are all fixable. It’s just a matter of will. We have to get the right information into the hands of the right people. So on Friday, I plan to blog and tweet and post on my (new) Facebook wall about water, because there is something wrong about a world where almost anyone can have a cell phone in their pocket, and almost half of them half to worry about it dropping into the ditch while they squat in the street to do their business. If that’s too graphic, I apologize. In the face of such enormous inequity, I seem to be losing my will to remain genteel and speak obliquely.

This short video is just a mite over one minute in length and shows us why we should care. Spare a moment to watch it, if you can. It’s just entertaining enough to make it easy. Well, yes, that’s the truth of it. It is just enough entertaining.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

So what do you think? What would you do if you had no access to a toilet? Are you interested in blogging/tweeting/posting to your wall about Blog Action Day 2010: Water? It’s difficult to imagine how just talking about it can do any good, but when enough of us are jamming the data lines in a world-circling conversation, and thinking about what has become a very real crisis in many parts of the world, a crisis that has the potential to stretch all the way to our comfort zone, according to some water watchers, there’s a chance some of the power brokers—television, radio, politicians, decision makers--might sit up and notice. Awareness is the first step to solving a problem.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Plastic comes from chickens

2010-09-23T19:01:00.001-07:00

Chicken made from recycled plastic bags
Photo by nuanc CC /by-nc-nd/2.0/

Yeah, that’s the ticket. They lay all these plastic pellets, see. Then they scoop them up with their beaks and …

Where does plastic come from, really?

Look around. Right now, where you’re sitting, how many objects can you touch that are made of plastic or have plastic parts? The computer I’m typing on has plenty, eighty-six pieces in the keyboard alone. Within my vision are two plastic bags, a plastic bottle, a fashionable black space heater made of plastic and metal, another computer, its matching monitor and paraphernalia, and plenty more. This in a home filled with books, wooden toys and furniture of “natural” materials, organic linens and throws. Not for us the sleek black and chrome interior.

But plastic. Even the desk chair on which I sit has more plastic than not. The upholstery itself is a poly fiber blend. It’s difficult to imagine life without the versatile stuff. So I’ve been wondering, inquiring soul that I am, how much of the crude petroleum we drill and import each year is used to manufacture all our plastic gizmos and whatsits?

The US Energy Administration has the answer

Turns out it’s an easy question to answer on one hand, not so easy on the other. The U.S. Energy Administration (EIA) has some data for us, but it’s a little difficult to get a bead on the truth. Take a look.

In 2008, the United States consumed a total of 7.14 billion barrels of oil (refined petroleum products and biofuels), which was about 23% of total world oil consumption. Note the word “refined.” How many barrels of crude oil did we consume? And let’s not even touch that other statistic: Twenty-three percent of world oil consumption is, guzzle, guzzle, glub, glub, mine. And yours. Ours.
In 2006, about 331 million barrels of liquid petroleum gases (LPG) and natural gas liquids (NGL) were used to make plastic products in the plastic materials and resins industry in the United States, equal to about 4.6% of total U.S. petroleum consumption. Of the total, 329 million barrels were used as feedstock and 2 million barrels were consumed as fuel. Note the year for total barrels consumed (2008) and the year for number of barrels used to make plastic (2006) differ, but that 4.6 percent is an exact factor of the two. Wha??? They’re deriving a percentage from stats in two different years?Coincidence? Maybe. Who can tell?
EIA does not have similar data for other countries, and does not have data on the quantity of plastics materials and resins produced in the United States and in other countries or data on the origin of all the plastic products used in the United States. This last is the most troubling. We don’t know where all the plastic products in the United States come from, let alone how much oil was used to produce them.

Do you know where your plastic came from?


And where is it going when you’re through with it? Beach Garbage Image by jschneid CC by-nc/2.0

“Made in China.” That’s what I see on the bottom of almost every item I pick up these days. It is difficult to find US-made products, even when we’re looking for them, which begs the question: How much petroleum world-wide is used to make all the plastic gadgets, clothing, containers, bottle caps, can liners, disposable diapers, hair clips, toys, holiday trinkets and doodads (Big orange Halloween pumpkin, anyone?), pens, desk accessories, CD/DVD cases, Crocs, balloons, condoms, telephones, and almost anything else we Americans buy day after day all year long?

Worldwide, we consume approximately 100 million tons of plastic a year. According to WasteOnline, “Plastic production uses 8% of the world's oil production, 4% as feedstock and 4% during manufacture.” That’s 95 million more tons per year than we consumed sixty years ago, by the way.

What do you think? How many of the plastic bits within your vision were made in the United States, part of that 4.6 percent of our total petroleum consumption? Have you purchased anything lately labeled “Made in the USA”? (Celebrate! You helped an American keep her job!) How many bits were produced overseas using the petroleum resources of those countries? The big question remains: Where is all that plastic we gobble up and spit out coming from and how much oil does it take to make it?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Plastic, plastic, plastic!

2010-09-20T17:01:00.001-07:00

Aaaaarrrrrggggh! I've spent most of the afternoon trying to solve three problems without bringing more plastic into the house. I'm about to utter a very bad word out loud.

Here's the thing. In my quest to reduce and eventually become a zero waste household, I try to make every purchase count. Rule of thumb before buying (it wasn't always so) is this: Do we really need this item? Can we solve this problem without buying something new? Will our lives be better with this thing? Truly? Can we get it on FreeCycle? Craigslist?

Once I've made up my mind that bringing something new into the house is worth the trouble, the big question is: How can I meet this perceived need ...

Without buying more plastic;
Without contributing to unfair labor practices; and
With the least possible harm to the planet and its ecosystems?

Here's what I'm up against today. Wait. I'll share the search for just one of the items--similar issues for all three, boiled into one scenario. A little background first.

Racking up change

For the last nine or ten months, I've worked and cooked at home. Where food counts, we've changed our lifestyle drastically. In the past, with both of us working outside the home, it was not uncommon to eat all three meals out. When we did eat in, quite often we ordered delivery. Luckily, we live in a town where local and organic may be difficult, but not impossible to find on a daily basis, so our eating out habit was nourished with good food that met some of our needs to be socially responsible.

Now that I'm cooking most of our meals from scratch, and preserving some foods, I'm spending more and more of my day in the kitchen. I'm constantly looking for efficiencies--big and small. One I would like to achieve is in cleanup. We don't have an automatic dishwasher--not that we wouldn't like one. An efficient dishwasher saves water and energy, but we don't own one, and there's not much room for it if we did. I wash most of the dishes these days. Typically, I let them air dry.

Back in the day, all we needed was a small dish drainer for the occasional cereal bowl, soup pot, utensils. Now that I'm washing dishes one or even several times a day, depending on the cooking projects, the tiny Rubbermaid drainer we've had for years isn't holding enough. Hence, the photograph illustrating this post.

Know this. I. am. not. taking. time. to. dry. every. dish. (I don't iron my sheets either, thank you, Ann Landers.) Nope. Tried it. It's just not happening. I need a bigger dish drainer.

We’re changing, the world’s changing—Catch up manufacturers!

Every few months, a cup falls off the stack, breaks, and I go on line, hoping to find a new rack that will meet my needs at last. The non-plastic options are wood, bamboo, and stainless steel, all small. If there is a large dish drainer on the market without plastic parts, I have not found it.

There are some near misses, but none entirely suits. This Simple Human dish drainer is the one I like best. It's big enough. Has that handy knife rack and a good-sized utensil holder. Downside: It has significant plastic features. Plus, I have no idea where it is made. Their web site doesn't mention that. If they're using Fair Trade practices, they're not bragging about it. What about materials? Where are they sourced? How are they extracted? And did you notice that price tag? Maybe that's what stainless steel and plastic are worth these days. How can I know?

Then there's this Zojila Rohan dish drainer. It's sleek, upscale, designer-looking, all stainless steel except for little plastic feet. I like it too, but it's not going to hold nearly enough. Who knows where and how it was made, and by whom? Plus, there's that astronomical price tag--again. But hey, it's pretty and functional--if you don't have many dishes.

I noodled around a bunch of green sites, hoping to come up with anything else. Nada. Maybe I missed something.

Ideally, I could walk into my local Ace Hardware, or take the train and bus to a big-box store, and find a rack that meets my need. With luck, they would have something on the shelf, not in a box, not wrapped in Styrofoam and shrink-wraped and tied down with five or six plastic ties.

It would have been shipped on a pallet with fifty or so others, which would itself, of course, have been triple shrink-wrapped to prevent damage enroute, but at least it would have been shipped on one big truck headed for one destination, or two if the store has a regional distribution center. Oh, geesh, there's just no getting around it. Buying anything requires buying products of indeterminate origin, rarely manufactured under fair trade policies, and shipped hither and yon on one shrink-wrapped pallet after another. Fissel.

A less than ideal solution or no solution at all

What's a world-saving granny to do? Without. That's what. Three or four months down the road, I'll break another dish, drop another pot on the floor for the umpteenth time because I didn't want to take an extra twenty minutes to dry the dishes, and I'll start the search again. Will there be anything new? Something to ease my buyer's angst? Doubtful. Who knows? I'm open to suggestions.

For today, there will be no online orders, no trips to the giant kitchen supply stores, and no shrink-wrap to wad up and throw in the trash.

__

Disclosure: If you follow one of the Amazon links above and purchase something, it is possible I will earn a few pennies. What a thrill that would be.

We make peace in a million small ways every day.

Three wins on the way to becoming a zero waste household

2010-09-13T14:35:00.001-07:00

Over the last few months, I've promised to get back to you about my search for a) witch hazel in a glass bottle; b) an alternative to the leave-on shower spray I'd been using; and c) toothpaste that did not come in a plastic tube. Well, bless my half empty trash bin, I found answers.

Back in June, the big, plastic bottle of witch hazel I’d been using to make my own gentle skin toner had finally run dry after two plus years. I searched the world wide web and found not a single source for the stuff in a glass bottle. I was just about ready to order the herb and distill my own when I found a better solution all round, one I'd known and practiced for years as a teenager and young adult: Splash cold tap water on my face.

So simple! Nothing refreshes and closes the pores like cold water, and if you're lucky enough to live where the water comes really cold from your tap, why bother paying for expensive designer toners? I don't know why I stopped using this method in the first place. Someone talked me into believing I needed bottled goods to be beautiful, I suppose. (No wise cracks from the peanut gallery. You know who you are.)

Later, in War on Garbage skirmishes: Some wins, some losses, I mentioned I hunted an alternative to the leave-on tub, tile and shower spray I loved. Enter vinegar and water, half and half. (Thanks for the tip to dilute, Mrs Green!) Yes! That's it! Vinegar and water.

I've trialed it for nearly three months and see no discoloration to my tile or bathroom fixtures. I’d still go with caution, if I were you. Vinegar is mildly acidic. I’ll let you know in another three months or so if I’ve noticed any change. One thing is certain: It works better than the expensive vinegar-based stuff I’d been buying every three or four weeks! Spray it on, climb out of the shower, dress and walk away. The vinegar scent dissipates quickly.

One HUGE caution: NEVER NEVER NEVER mix vinegar with any product containing chlorine bleach (pdf file). If you use a tub cleanser such as Bar Keepers Friend or a mildew reducer containing chlorine bleach, be careful not to use vinegar until all traces of the bleach have had time to dissipate. The two chemicals interact and create a lethal gas that is odorless and colorless. Deadly.

In No More War!, I told you I was determined not to buy another plastic toothpaste tube. I tried my grandmother's poor-woman's baking soda and salt method. Ouch! That left my gums stinging. Plus, I discovered that dental hygienists advise against baking soda or salt as they are too abrasive. I hunted for other homemade recipes, all of which required some ingredients that are shipped in plastic.

Then, doh!, I remembered Beth Terry at Fake Plastic Fish is way ahead of me. What does she do? She buys toothpaste in an aluminum tube! So I nosed around, and sure enough, a drugstore up the street carries Tom's of Maine Clean & Gentle Care line, all in aluminum tubes. (I know. I know. They’re owned by Colgate-Palmolive now, but what’s a girl to do?) Not a perfect solution, but a good interim one until I find a workable recipe for homemade that meets all my needs.

Got tips to share?

What about you? What new tips have you discovered lately for reducing, reusing and/or recycling?

We make peace in a million small ways every day.