What a Difference a Week Makes!

Tags

activism, meditation, quilting, storytelling, sustainability

So last week I talked about dreaming big, even with some of the disappointment and challenge I had the preceding week.  I was feeling quite down on some accounts but I kept my optimism.  This week was full of activity and culminated in work on a big dream.  As usual, the week included some excitement and some disappointment.  But I guess that’s life, eh?

One of the best things that happened was that my Letter to the Editor (LTE) was published!!  http://www.echopress.com/letters/3844580-our-planet-will-not-support-life-mammals It was accompanied by another LTE by my step-dad on the same issue (http://www.echopress.com/opinion/commentaries/3844570-recognition-global-climate-change-not-new).  As it turns out, one of his friends (who also knows me) was so impressed by seeing two LTEs from people he respects, that he spent a couple hours online researching climate change, a topic to which he’d previously given little consideration.  And when he was done, he concluded that this is a major issue which needs to be addressed.  One more person on the side of Mother Earth being prioritized! It feels good to make an impact.

Another accomplishment was at my monthly Storytelling group, where I rarely have a story to share.  This week I quickly created a story about a girl named Ideal who learned to reclaim her dreams (yes, the story was based largely on the introduction to my blog last week).  And it went well.  It didn’t come out as good with the group as it had in my run through earlier in the morning and it had some changes in flow and words… but that’s a part of storytelling!  This story will evolve as I continue to tell it.  And I got to hear five wonderful stories from my fellow Storytellers, who each had a story this month!  Each one was different and each was wonderful.

Additional progress, though not so easy for this driven girl… and thus will be a challenge to maintain, was that I’ve begun dropping some of the activities I have joined since “retirement”.  Some of these activities had simply run their course and some have involved conscious decisions to walk away from unsustainable activities.  I am looking to find more time for the things I keep saying are important: meditation, reading, crafting, writing.  I’m looking at creating a slower pace again.  Wish me luck!

Along those lines, I attended the local Quilt Guild monthly meeting in town and enjoyed a highly entertaining speaker, Susan Cleveland.  She brought an array of quilts that made you want to go home and start sewing immediately.  (Another push to make sure I make time for being able to do just that as winter comes our way.)  She was brilliant with her ideas, stories and wonderful laugh!  I loved her bright colors and BIG personality.  She’s a total hoot!  And she was an electrical engineer in a previous life so another guru for me to follow.  You can check her out at https://www.piecesbewithyou.com/  Susan’s presentation was followed by Show & Tell with local members displaying a wide array of projects.  I definitely will be crafting more soon!  Though I did not join the guild, just attended this one meeting.  (Success on keeping time for me!)

Dan & I had a fun evening at our local favorite cultural food stop, Mi Mexico.  Our favorite guy waited on us so I had to get a photo op with him.  He might tell you his name is Ramon, but I call him Guapo.  He hates it. 😉  Here’s our photo, and a pic of My Guapo.

But the big anxiety of the week was preparing to head up to the Harn for our Rocket Stove build.  I was quite nervous about making the cob (which was my responsibility for the project, after going to Dancing Rabbit where I’d worked with cob a couple times).  We read plans, watched videos and did all we could to try to be prepared for this build.  It’s a big undertaking and one for which we have little experience.  Dan gave us a great foundation by getting the core for the stove built in 2013 and it’s in great shape.  This is a big part of making the stove successful but it works with the barrels, ductwork, clay slip and cob to create a Rocket Mass Heater that will bring us heat and an ability to cook and purify water at our Harn.  So the rest of the system needs to be just as good as his core.

We headed up Friday afternoon and, after meeting Winona LaDuke last week, one of the first things I noticed was the amazing color of the Maple Trees all along CR 2.  Our property, having been logged in the last couple decades, doesn’t have a lot of tapping potential yet.  I believe next weekend the color will be truly spectacular.

Our first goal was gathering clay, which turned out to be much easier than I had feared.  We had a pile of good clay pulled by excavator Darrin Lindgren when we dug the graywater pit and this stuff is gorgeous.  It is easily pulled from the hill and, with our homemade sieve, converted into granulated clay nodules.  We were able to get two buckets Friday night without too much trouble.  I believe we’ll need at least triple this amount for the whole project but that will be determined once we make some cob (clay-sand mix).

Saturday brought much adversity via mistakes made as this is our first time doing these things.  It took me hours to make a single batch of cob, mostly because I didn’t use enough water to get the mix to congeal.  And Dan had some cutting issues which we thought were going to stop us dead in our tracks… but Megan had an idea that allowed us to save the project!  We got some good photos thanks to Ryan and overall, the day was productive, though definitely not as productive as we’d hoped.

We are realizing that this project is much more labor intensive and requires much more tweaking than we imagined.  There’s a big difference between reading it in a book or watching it be done and actually figuring it out as you do in the real world.  While it was discouraging to see how much work this would be, we kept pushing onward and feel good about the progress made.  Every step closer brings more confidence and we have high hopes for continuing with good success in the next couple trips.  In order to prepare, we pulled 5-6 more buckets of clay from the hill and processed it into granules.  As I processed this material, I thought to myself, “If everyone had to work this hard to build their homes, we would think carefully about how big we built! We would strongly consider the importance of the things being built and would respect them greatly.”  I know that we are working hard today building the rocket mass heater but it will eliminate a lot more hard work in the future as more efficient heating means less wood to gather.  And I know we will respect the hard work put into making this stove which will create more understanding of it and more care for its ongoing functionality.

The week culminated with a lovely observation of the blood moon eclipse.  It was a bit of déjà vu as we’d seen one of these from our home in Noblesville.  We remembered it being quite fast back then but tonight’s eclipse was a long, slow process.  And we realized it was due to the closeness of the moon at that time and the distance we have to the moon now.  We sat on the deck with binoculars and a telescope watching the progress. We imagined how it must have been in ancient times when people were faced with an eclipse and had much less understanding of the cause and meaning than we do today.  We pondered how many astronomers took advantage of the situation… As crazy as it sounds, I heard there were actually recent predictions that the world would end with this blood moon eclipse.  But it continues.  For us, it was a peaceful and interesting way to spend this evening.

As much as we do know these days, it still baffles me how time can flow quickly and slowly.  It seems when I am enjoying each minute, whether the time passes slowly or faster than I expect, it passes with pleasure and that makes all the difference.  I am hoping the coming week is full of progress, excitement, enjoyment and pleasure… for all of us.

What Does the Future Hold?

In my first job out of college, at Inland Steel, I was told during my first annual review that I needed to “balance my idealism with realism”.  At the time this seemed reasonable and I spent much time and energy in convincing myself of its truth.  But I always felt uneasy and disloyal to my Self in doing so.  In the business world, if only to maintain one’s patience, perhaps this is true. It kept me stuck in most of the jobs I had through my career for much longer than I should have stayed.  I eventually came back around to my idealistic roots and realized my dreams could come true!  I wonder what could have been if only I held firm and took steps toward my dreams all along.

In hindsight, I see the best plan is to remain idealistic, to hang on to those big dreams. How else can we continue to innovate, make progress and move forward into the future in a positive way?

This past week and a half has been full of challenge and inspiration.

• On September 10th, Jay Coggins, University of Minnesota Professor of Economics, opened this year’s Alexandria Technical and Community College Senior College with his talk “Economics and Climate Change”.  His premise was that while fossil fuels are miraculous, our use of them is rendering our planet more and more unlivable. His contention is that, based on current rates, by the year 2100, our planet will be uninhabitable by mammals. That means that in about 85 years, ONE LIFESPAN, we will no longer have a home.
• In my inbox, Yes Magazine directed me to George Price (https://georgepriceblog.wordpress.com/) who writes that, at our current pace, we are on track to reach 2°C warming in 15 years.  So, forget our grandchildren; our kids may be screwed.  Well, maybe only if your kids live in Miami, which, with the melting of polar ice caps, will be underwater.  Can you imagine?  Miami undersea within a couple decades?  I wrote a Letter to the Editor on the above two items but unfortunately, this is what was published in the Echo Press this week: http://www.echopress.com/letters/3841138-there-cause-alarm-regarding-climate-change   This ongoing theme in the Echo’s LTEs that CO2 is good for plants so we should all be happy for the excess CO2 in the atmosphere, gives me little hope for the full and intelligent comprehension of facts in the community in which I currently reside.  I mean, water is crucial for the body’s survival but, if you drink too much in a short period of time, it’s fatal.  It’s fruitless to argue with the laws of physics.
• My Non-Fiction Book Club began September 13th with a dozen community members discussing “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate” by Naomi Klein. While not everyone had finished the book and a couple had only started, we had a lively conversation about the book’s ideas that our extractive economy is not sustainable and the magical thinking that there will be a technical cure for repairing the climate in the nick of time is just that, magical.  We commiserated that, because we’re not among the extremely wealthy crowd buying our current politicians, there may be little we can do to change this with government action.  But we shared enthusiasm that the efforts of Blockadia, groups of everyday citizens ~ often teens with their grandparents, are succeeding in protecting our Mother Earth from new and potentially devastating extractive activities, at least in the short-term. And the work of Indigenous People, in sustaining their long-forgotten treaties, may give some legal basis for allowing continued preservation of the land so the Earth can have some chance at regeneration.  The Book Club was so excited that we ran over time and barely touched on what we thought our next read might be.  This week, excellent news was received that the planned Enbridge pipeline up north is back to square one as there will be a required Environmental Impact Study.  The environmental effort in MN is now among some of the most successful in the world with preventing fossil fuel companies from running roughshod over the citizens of our state.

This small group of readers took me from challenge to inspiration.  And an even larger group has made an even bigger impact in bringing my idealism back to the forefront.

On September 18^th, along with Mom and Deb Trumm, I attended the Minneapolis Foundation’s Futurist Conference where some of the most forward thinking people of our time, some would call them idealists, were speaking on a variety of topics. From Education to Fundraising, from Health Care to the Environment, we gathered an overwhelming amount of information.

The day began with breakfast and keynote speaker Dan Pallotta who transformed our ways of thinking about charities.  His main points were that in worrying about overhead as a percentage of the group’s expenses, we lose sight of their overall impact; in criticizing for high salaries at non-profits as immoral, we limit the kind of talent these groups can attract (not to mention the exponentially higher for-profit CEO pay getting a pass with respect to immorality); and in chastising non-profits for failures, we prohibit future innovative practices.  Rather than asking what percentage of income goes to overhead, better questions are:

• What are your goals and how do you measure progress in meeting them?
• Who are your collaborators?
• How are you growing your funding to support the cause?
• What impacts are you making?

The cost of a bake sale involves almost no overhead but the results are minuscule, maybe making $71.  But with 40% “overhead”, a bigger pie of $710K can be raised to support your cause. Without proper marketing and talent, our favorite cause doesn’t get very far on making a difference.

Check out these ideas at www.CharityDefenseCouncil.org.

We then moved to the auditorium for a lively talk from Dr. Michio Kaku, Theoretical Physicist, Author and Professor who gave us a glimpse into the future after reviewing in brief our previous tech waves:

• The Steam Engine gave us the start of the Industrial Revolution… and led to the Crash of 1850 which instigated Marxism.
• The Electric and Atomic Age continued our advance… but led to the Crash of 1929 and resulting Depression and WWII.
• Technology and Computers gave us amazing breakthroughs… but also contributed to the Crash of 2008 which has left many in economic crisis.

So what’s the next wave? The Nanotech and Biotech Age.  A world of Artificial Intelligence. A place where you-think-it-you-bought-it and where wallpaper can be changed like a desktop background and will include a mirror where you can access Robo-Docs that will revolutionize medical care and reduce costs.  We will move from Mass Production to Mass Customization where you can input  your measurements and receive clothes that fit perfectly.

My disappointment grew as I noticed no factoring in of the fact that all this technology requires a planet from which we can operate and there was no talk of finding an alternate planet to populate. During the Q&A with Kerri Miller from MPR, Dr. Kaku was asked about Climate Change and he says this is for his next book… he has no deploy-able answers at present.  But he did reference fusion technology, which will reportedly be available from France by 2020.  He also discussed at length the inability of Americans to educate our people for post-graduate work.  The majority of our grad students today are foreigners, coming in via the Genius Visa (H1B); not one American born post-grad exists in his organization at the City College of New York.

I guess as a theoretical physicist, there may be no surprises for him in the recent developments of the world (because these guys think of all forms of outrageous possibility), but the practical application of physics may be outside the daily sphere.  He didn’t mention the next “Crash” but perhaps it will be our planet coming to its limit on how much carbon it can realistically absorb before it stops functioning to viably support human life.

A last minute change brought a new keynote speaker for lunch, Dan Beutnerr, who thrilled us with the optimism of Blue Zones: https://www.bluezones.com/about-blue-zones/.  His organization’s approach:

The Blue Zones Project is a systems approach in which citizens, schools, employers, restaurants, grocery stores and community leaders collaborate on policies and programs that move the community towards better health and well-being.

While they are working now throughout the US, they started with Albert Lea, MN.  By offering a menu of options, each community can focus on areas with high buy-in and work toward goals specific to their geography, infrastructure and people.  Basic principles for the original Blue Zones Dan discovered included:

• Plant-based diets with minimized meat (maybe 5X per month, often with ritual/ceremonial aspects).
• Eating to 80% capacity.  In other words, not over-eating.
• Staying active, incorporating lots of natural movement each day.
• Prioritizing family and friends.
• Having a community of faith and one that respects and celebrates elders.
• Drinking some red wine every day.  And some water too!

The specifics vary but the results make sense.  In the US, his group works with communities to increase incorporation of bike/pedestrian paths, healthy food availability/access and  while at the same time reducing smoking and the billboards for fast food.  The results are increased life expectancy along with reductions in obesity, smoking, absenteeism and health care claims.

The Breakouts came after lunch and I attended The Future of the Environment with Shalini Gupta, Patrick Hamilton, Winona LaDuke & Michael Noble.  The focus was on how the impacts of our energy systems often inequitably affect people based on race and class.

Shalini opened with a review that explained with her fossil fuel usage graph from 1776 to 2011: the pre-Emancipation Proclamation era was largely flat due to the widespread use of the labor of black slaves; the implementation of power plants at the turn of the century occurred primarily in neighborhoods of color and poverty; the practices of mining for uranium in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana quietly grew when, in 1972, President Nixon signed a secret executive order declaring this four state region a “National Sacrifice Area”; and the petro-chemical industry devastated the town of Mossville, Louisiana, founded 225 years ago by ex-slaves and now referred to by some  as the poster child of environmental racism and injustice.

The panel then introduced themselves and fielded questions from the audience.

• Bill Gates refused to support fossil fuel elimination stating that renewables were not ready.  What are your thoughts? Costs are down 80%, and infrastructure goes up 8-10% every year, deployment is way up with wind being the most economical.  With increased efficiency we reduce need and renewables will be adequate.
• We have the possibility to mine for copper/nickel and more in Minnesota.  How can we develop this sustainably?  The materials remaining require huge removals of materials and destruction to the earth, let’s STOP DIGGING.  It’s too expensive.  How about we mine the landfills for copper?  It’s easier to find and ready for use.
• Is 100% Renewable possible?  As we increase efficiency, we will get to a level of fossil fuel usage that is respectful.  Our food systems are full of fossil fuels so there is much to reduce in this arena.  The transition may still involve some fossil fuels but a focus on renewables is the only way to prevent catastrophe.

Overall, the message seems to be that we CAN get to better practices but it will take all of us making changes like eating more locally, using less electricity/gas and moving toward sustainable energy practices.

The final speaker was Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal and the reason I attended the conference.  He spoke with heart about the experiences of his mother and his friend’s father.  Both received some of the most unnecessary and irrelevant testing after having an experience with fainting.  His mother, in relative good health, luckily found out she didn’t need a scraping of her carotid artery or stints around her heart.  In fact, her whole issue was a new diuretic which caused dehydration so the solution, after travel across the state and all these expensive tests, was to advise her to drink more fluids.  His friend’s dad, in not as good health, ended up getting medical treatment that was not advisable… and his last 6 months of life were greatly debilitated.

Atul spoke about how teams of doctors are better than individual doctors, especially when paid for outcomes, not treatments.  His previous book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, was implemented in 8 hospitals around the world and found a reduction in complications by 35% and a reduction in deaths by 47%.  Simple checklists improved medical care better than any pill or procedure.  We need to re-think our ideas around medical care.

His more recent book, Being Mortal, tells that we need to start having discussions about what people wish for their lives as they age and when they face terminal illness.  Perhaps chemo to the very end isn’t the best treatment if one would rather have time with family while feeling good, not debilitated by the treatment.  Perhaps surgery isn’t the best plan, if the risks outweigh the rewards in accordance with the patient’s goals. Sometimes treatment IS the best plan.  But in our current system, it seems to be the default plan.  Understanding what is important to our elders goes a long way in making the right decisions for their care.  And sometimes longevity isn’t the most important goal.

Would we rather live 2 months with pain management or 6 months with symptoms that prevent us from enjoying any time at all with family and friends?  How much change/treatment/pain are we willing to endure? And for what kinds of outcomes?  If we can enjoy football and eat ice cream, is that enough?  Or do we want to maintain an ability to travel?  These are the kinds of things we need to discuss to make the best decisions with our loved ones.  Rather than “medicalizing mortality” we need to use communication to share what kind of life we want to live, and for how long.

The conference, while challenging, was also full of hope.  The diversity in the room of 1700 people was astounding.  All ages, races, genders, sexual identities.  There are many groups taking action to improve health care, education, equality, justice, arts, civic engagement and other aspects of life that are critical to success and happiness.  And there are lots of people focused on ideas that are making a difference.  Now I need to focus on what I do to join them and make my own impact moving forward.

Blessings that Make a Difference

Tags

communication, Finding Fulfillment, giving kudos

Lately I have been thinking about how magical life can be.  My life has seen a smattering of blessing that seem to come from nowhere. So many everyday things are happening that make it seem that the Universe truly IS conspiring for my good: the event that happens just when I need to experience it; the person who shows up in my life at the perfect moment; the Facebook message that hits my heart when I’m feeling so defeated.  In the immortal words of Pete Seeger:

The world will be solved by millions of small things.

Photo credit: http://www.northernsun.com/Pete-Seeger-Poster-(4913).html

Of course I see the negative as well: the person who barks at me in fear, the driver who is rushing and pulls out in front of me, the rainstorm that de-petals all the flowers in the garden taking them from a beautiful mass of bloom to a white carpet on the lawn.  But these things are not about me.  These things are about someone being in pain, or not staying in the moment or life just going about its business.  Nothing to take personally.  But sometimes we do.

There are many times in our lives where we feel hurt.  Maybe someone said you talk funny or called you fat or simply didn’t encourage you when you felt you did something worthwhile.  Maybe a teacher chastised you in the class and you’ve carried that with you since childhood.  But it doesn’t serve to hang onto these things.  They are not truly significant (if we don’t let them be) and usually, aren’t even truly true!  Besides, there are so many more people who give you blessings.  The friend who calls to see if you’re okay after the loss of a pet, the person who shares something very personal letting you know that they trust you, the little baby who coos as you smile at them and just make you want to explode with love and joy because they are so adorable.

I have been thinking about all the wonderful blessings that have come into my life.  Here are a few:

• The nurses that cared for me in the hospital during childhood surgeries making me feel so special.  I still remember their names, Coco and Cricket.  It made a traumatic time much more pleasant. They probably just felt like they were doing their jobs, but the little things they did made a big impact on me.
• The driver who almost took out a mailbox one day while we were tooling through the neighborhood.  He doesn’t know it, but that near-accident was a wake-up call that brought me to a realization that probably saved my life.
• The person who called to return my cell phone after it dropped while I was riding my Harley.  Could have kept it but didn’t, he and his daughter instead did the helpful thing making my life so much easier than it could have been.
• The teacher who became my son’s favorite teacher.  Mrs. Ott was an amazing 4^th grade teacher, teaching not only about math, science and reading but about trust and finances.  She created a system of credits in her class that taught about responsibility and basic economics.  It even incorporated the possibility of theft and how to deal with it effectively.  She allowed students to be who they were and at year end, each student received a candy that rewarded them for who they were showing them each that their individuality was special and meaningful.  Losing her to cancer while Tom was still in school was a huge loss, but the difference she made in so many lives helped ease the grief.
• The principal at that same school who remembered every child’s name, and recognized their parents.  I don’t know how Mr. Land did it but he was extraordinary.  He was able to give each child a feeling of being known.  And each parent too!
• The many authors who’ve written books that have brought me new understanding.
• The songwriters and singers who’ve done the same.
• The soldier who shared with me about why it bothers him when people say, “Thanks for your service”.  I don’t know if my perspective helped him see that sometimes these people are genuinely sincere but it sure helped me to realize how that statement sounds on the receiving end.  It has changed the way I interact when I share my gratitude with soldiers and these events have gone from simple greetings and handshakes to longer discussions and hugs. Now these interactions are much richer, thanks to a deeper understanding given to me by someone who took a risk to share something so very personal.
• The hitchhikers I have picked up since moving to Alexandria.  I don’t know if it’s the cold but I just couldn’t stand to see people walking along the road in winter so I made a pact to try to give rides when I can.  The last one was a wonderful guy named Tim who lives in Evansville but comes to Alex several times a week (about 18 miles one way).  I’d seen him around town.  He carries a big walking stick and he turned out to be a pleasant fellow.  If you see him, you might consider giving him a ride.  It makes me feel really good to know I’ve done a little bit to help someone so I am grateful to these folks who let me give them a brief ride.  I have been turned down a few times so it’s not everyone who will give me this blessing!
• The woman last week who sent me a card at Cherry Street Books after her family had visited the week before.  This card was a lovely Trader Joe’s card (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=744227022387376&set=pcb.744228165720595&type=1&theater) with a beautiful statement of gratitude for my friendliness during their visit.  She didn’t have to take the time, but it sure made my day that she did.  It was a difference she made in my life that helps me to see that I am making a difference!  May the circle be unbroken.

Many of us remain ignorant of the ways we have been a blessing.  But sometimes we get a glimpse.  Like the card above, someone shares with us how we affected life for him. It’s a beautiful gift to have someone share with you how you have helped.  Sometimes it can even be years later when we find out about these things.  And sometimes we hear it through the grapevine.  I once had the chance to hear from a woman, who had heard from a man, about how I’d made an impression on him.  Unbeknownst to me, he was affected by a small action he’d witnessed and shared with her about the situation.  And she let me know about it.  I would have had no idea of the impact I’d made if she hadn’t.  What a blessing.

I encourage you to think about the many blessings in your life and maybe let someone know that they have been a blessing to you.  And perhaps you can take some time to ponder the ways you have been a blessing too.  Can’t think of anything?  Haven’t written an award winning song?  Don’t know how on earth you could have made a difference?  Well, I bet when you were a baby, at some point, you cooed.  And someone, somewhere, was struck with joy.