stories:1

She's been holding her own all her life. Left home young, never married, never had kids. When she says she's alone in this world she's not kidding. For the past several years her social security check has gotten her by, in a senior-rent-controlled-apartment -- but minimally so. Precariously so. She's getting tired of living on tea and rice. Of keeping the heat turned so uncomfortably low all winter. Of accepting -- sometimes -- the painfully well-intentioned kindnesses of friends or neighbors. Of the mind-numbing hours it takes to cross town or do errands on the bus. Of the loneliness seeping back in, ever since they closed the senior center for lack of funding. She tells me, "Lately, I find it much easier to get through the month if I don't go anywhere, or do anything." She's incredibly lucky to be well, mobile, active: not in need of health care, since that would be out of the question. She's good at living lightly. She spends much time meditating. She cares for her plants. Her housekeeping is immaculate. She writes or makes art, when she can gather enough found materials for it. She checks out books from the library, and is always engrossed in an autobiography, a spiritual seeker's account, a poetry collection. She's one of the most articulate conversationalists I know. Her striking, edgy sentences come out near-perfect, ready-for-print. I harbor a deep secret desire to write a novel based on her life. She's lived freely, adventurously, dangerously, generously. And now she's one more superfluity in a society that has no need of its elders, no use for its storytellers, and little compassion to share with those who didn't play their lifetime roles as consumers, or find a partner to play the role for them. Arriving at retirement age without IRA's, investments, or equities. In a job market that surely wouldn't give her a second thought, should she apply for the most menial work. Materially speaking, she's stuck. Her road stories alone would be worth their weight in gold, did we live in a world that knew how to weigh such things. Instead she's expected to live completely on a monthly sum that would only cover the entertainment budget for a lot of USAmericans. She wants to invite friends for dinner, or go out and join the human race once in a while, but she can't afford it. She describes for me in relishing detail the recipes taped to her refrigerator which she would prepare for her guests, could she only afford to buy the ingredients. She's fed up with the stress of stretching it all so thin -- money, energy, Life -- to the point that she's thinking of giving up her apartment and 'going nomadic'. Testing the street's mercy or the highway's charity sounds a likelier bet than counting on any grace from a society accustomed to forgetting the humanity of its members who can't pay the fees for membership...

quote: troublesome

"Our biggest problems seem to be meant to interrupt life and awaken us to our total capacity...You think the body is ill when it becomes troublesome, and you fail to realize that it is trying to dream, to communicate messages and create movements beyond your expectations."
-- Arnold Mindell, The Shaman's Body

working class

Ha. This post will begin by illustrating its own point. I want to say something about what gets discarded, lost, disregarded in the working life. And my words are going to be incomplete, insubstantial, hurried, because I have to be at work in 45 minutes. I want to contemplate an idea from a conversation years ago: that the phrase "working class" is really much more descriptive than we mean for it to be. It doesn't just refer to those who work for a living (as compared to what: those who coerce others to work? those who live off the results of others' labor?). It doesn't just identify an income or social-status level. It describes, at risk of cliche yes, an existential state. We are working class because work is, more or less, who we are. Who we become, after a certain progression of time and struggle. Because work becomes our state of being, as human beings. Because work becomes something fundamental about our personalities, and the way we see the world. Not about making money. Not just about holding down a position. Certainly not about offering a gift, an insight, or even a service. Not punching the clock day in and day out, although that comes a little closer to the point. The point, to me, is found in the collection of less-tangible phrases in which English makes use of the verb itself: working on it. working it out. worked up. working my way to something. The point at which it becomes existential, as well as undendingly hopeful, is this: we the workers are forever on our way somewhere. En route. In progress. The point at which it becomes existential, as well as deeply sad, is this: we may very well never get there.

Never get there, unless a number of things happen: unless more states, and this nation's government, sees fit, sees clear, learns somehow to see its human citizens, in order to pass more living-wage laws. Unless we, as communities, learn to share, barter, cooperate more, and so relieve our mutual burden of proof for the precious time we carry and care for in this life. Unless we, as individuals, learn to release, accept, and yes reach for a lighter and more liberated way of walking on the earth. Fewer needs, or - better yet - more clearly focused needs, which can be met within the fragile boundaries of a worker's income.

The bigger picture's been out of reach for me, most of this life. A very practical fact I believe I share with many workers who are too tired/too preoccupied/too unable to get off work to participate more in the democratic process. The personal level's one I've sincerely engaged with for a number of years now. More sincerely at some times than at others: I've always lived below what this country calls 'the poverty level' of income (full disclosure: I think one year of my life, with 2 jobs and no breaks in employment, I reported just over $15,000). Many years I've lived in the 4-digit realm. And many years, though not all, this was with the specific intent of keeping my freedom for things more important. But right now I'm working 6 days a week, simply because the opportunity presents itself. And it's nice to have opportunities after you don't have them for a while. It's nice to imagine, at least, that you're working your way up out of survival mode. But this is going to have to change soon, because winter doesn't support the gypsy circuit that well. And I hope that when it changes, I find it possible to move closer to the second type of progress I mentioned a minute ago: sharing. There are already a few of us sidling toward the barter system. There are many of us, really, cooperating in ways that we could augment with just a little further time and intention. And there are such lovely models already at work out there in the world, with which I would like to connect my energies: local currencies, hour banks, work parties, volunteer trades. All of them very tangible, very possible realities in which we could make work work for us all, not just for a few at the expense of the rest of us. Maybe one of these days real soon I'll work out my part.

quote: path

"The one who treads the path must be willing to risk the difficulties of the path; to be sincere, faithful, truthful, undoubting, not pessimistic or skeptical, otherwise with all his efforts he will not reach his aim. He must come whole-heartedly, or else he should not come at all....the qualities of the heart are needed, with the divinity of love as a first principle. Then one needs action, such action as will not hinder on the path of truth, such action as creates greater and greater harmony. And finally one needs repose, which makes it possible to learn by one day of silence what would otherwise take a year of study; if only one knows the real way of silence."
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Inner Life

on the earth

Get off the highway for a minute. Get off the illusion-world's agenda for a space. Get off the clock for a few degrees of sun's arc through lapis sky.

Listen to the conversation between wind and ponderosa, until it comes through clearer than all the other conversations in your head. And the conversation mostly consists of this: SSSHHHHHH...

Let the lessons arrive for a minute, instead of constantly seeking them out. Read every science in the life around you. In the chaos, in the fractals, in the perfectly disordered complexity. Hear every hymn in the hum of bees, wildflowers, silence. Every question can be resolved with the variable of YOU entered into the equation of this place. Every. Only, you usually have to show your work. Sometimes lately, that work has been of the hardest kind. Offering. Releasing. Subtracting. Waiting. Accepting. Sometimes it's much more simple: put your feet on the ground and watch resolution arrive.

Sit on the earth, still, supported, till you feel it turning under you once again. Like a passenger riding smooth seas on a sturdy, unsinkable ship. Like graceful flight on a giant bird's back, secure between its wings. Stand your ground with the pines until they remind you how they do it: their feet aren't on the earth, they're in it. Sifting it while it subsists them. Breaking it down, while it holds them up. Branches lifted in constant gratitude to light.

The (most recent) (human) name of this mountain range is Sangre de Cristo. There was a time when I had to concern myself with how different minds processed this name, and all its historical associations. Now, I just try to watch where my own feet are going. And remember that I too am only recent, and human. Locally/colloquially, the mountains are also called "the Sangres". This is easy to grasp. These mountains are my blood. They run through my veins, even when they slip my memory, because of the transfusion of life they gave me 13 years ago. Their generosity helped save my life, when it was hanging by its last most precarious thread of hope. Their unconditional presence gave me back my ground, when I had almost faded out of the physical dimension. Their effortlessly sustained green and their constant calling of the thunder recalled life to my flickering soul. For this I have to come back to them, not often as might be but often enough. To give thanks, yes. To participate in their constant give and take of life, more so.

good work

An acquaintance I met on a farm here in Abq now keeps a blog on her life in Madagascar. She's there to do permaculture and community development with the Peace Corps. Actually, it sounds like she does very simple, personal, and spontaneous work, based on the needs and the limited resources of her village. One line from her most recent post stayed in my attention: she writes that while she likes her community and has much to be grateful for, "it has been hard to identify good work".

It's fascinating to think that a third world country and this one might have a struggle in common: the challenging search for "the good work". Or what, in circles of my acquaintance, finds the name "right livelihood". With all we don't share with the world, with all we here have purportedly secured as a nation, why is it still so very difficult -- even in this country -- for well-intentioned human beings to make satisfying contributions to their society and their own lives? I think about the words of Peter Maurin, one of the founders of the catholic worker movement: his dream was to create a world in which it was "easier for people to be good." A vision we don't seem, individually or collectively, to be nurturing -- or to be able to nurture -- with enough heart. Not enough to go around, anyway.

In the last month I've applied for two jobs here in Abq. Having my fill of less-than-sufficient work over the last decade, I only apply now for positions that are sure to meet the needs of budget and of conscience. Thereby ruling out about 90% of the ads in Albuquerque, which are either soul-numbingly corporate or criminally low-paying, if not both. But there were two last month that could've met those needs. One, a 'farm assistant' for a local nonprofit that links at-risk youth with traditional and progressive agricultural projects. The other, a delivery driver for a local CSA. My cover letter to the first attested to a lifetime around farming and gardening, a 100-hour basic permaculture certificate, a deep admiration for what I know of the organization itself, and my current effort, maintaining a community garden and engaging kids with knowledge of healthy diets and food sources. To the second, I offered an intimate knowledge of the entire metro area with 10 years' professional driving experience, as well as enthusiastic support of their agenda. Neither job ever called.

So this is what I'm wondering: who's my competition for this good work? Who are they calling, if I don't even rate a preliminary contact? I could understand, when I applied last year at a popular nationwide food market opening a new branch in town, that with a rumored 2,000 applicants I didn't stand a chance. But, farm assistant? Really? Are this many good-hearted, simple-living progressive types out of work right now? Is "the economy" really in such bad shape that the general labor category on craigslist has been inundated by a surplus of admin/professionals desperate enough to get their hands dirty? (Or is my resume in even worse shape than I think?) And if there is such a contingent of unemployed "cultural creatives" on the loose, what are they doing all day? What else are they up to during "business hours"? Why don't I hear of their calls for meetings, forums, salons, charettes, free workshops? Or even for more political demonstrations? What are they doing with their time? Are they really finding ways to do the needed work of the world without worrying about how to pay the rent? And what, if they are somehow transcending the practical and the material to engage right livelihood and satisfying activity, is their secret?

Here's my secret, with regard to work: in truth, I don't really care anymore. Last year was the hardest ever, for me, financially and perhaps personally as well. By both measures, I got close enough to zero (below it, at times) to arrive at last at this imminently relieving perspective: ULTIMATELY, IT DOESN'T MATTER. Which is not, for a moment, to speak cynically. It's to speak of release, and the liberation that comes after all else goes. It's to speak about how deep losses refine priorities. And how simplicity finds many paths in to the center (or, by how many paths from the center simplicity finds us). While I would love to give my time and energy to a socially-developing, personally satisfying job, until one decides to give me half a chance I'm pretty happy with pizza. As well as with the work that's my real priority. Which, at every moment, is learning to see, to listen, to reflect the Light. And which, in this moment, is learning to love someone. Not only that, but to accept being loved. To journey into such mysteries as these, such incredibly good and difficult works, I'll gladly give up what little I've still got. Including the need to know how anybody else works it out.

quote: what can I do?

"Probably the most commonly asked question of people just arriving at a deep concern for the ecological crisis is, “What can I, as an individual, do to make things better?” The simple answer, which I learned from living among Zapatista villagers, is nothing. Because we have to stop acting as individuals if we are to survive; the Earth won't be affected by our individual actions, only our collective impact.

The Zapatistas’ slogan, "Para todos todo, para nosotros nada" ("Everything for Everyone, Nothing for Us") rang true in the mid-1990s and still rings true today. But this slogan has a certain mystery. The demand “nothing for us” runs so counter to anything any of us — the resource-hungry individuals of the so-called First World — would ever think of demanding. As the saying goes, no one ever rioted for austerity. Yet, without feeling cheated, we need to build our capacity to live by another old saying: Enough is better than a feast..."

--From "What the Zapatistas Can Teach Us About the Climate Crisis", by Jeff Conant. Entire (excellent) article at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/04-0.

Wow. Surely there are many others who, like me, keep asking "what can I do?", and find their intimidation at the world's state quickly disintegrating into despair. But these words offer something of a new approach to the question. More than that: I think they offer an invitation to a new way of asking the question. I, for one, am in desperate need of an alternative to the futile practice of envisioning how I, personally, can in any way mitigate the actions of BP, the U.S. military, the banking system. I, along with many of willing hearts (but lacking the time and resources to invest in full-time activist work) am in desperate need of something I can do. And in fact, I don't need to protest. I think one thing this world has a surplus of is the stating of the obvious. The NO's seem more than obvious enough already. And the relations between various choirs and preachers already confirmed. What's needed is more room to listen. What's needed is the breathing room in which to begin, at all, to listen to new possibilities.

In this quote I read, not easy answers, but ways to introduce oneself to possibilities. As well as alternate ways to do something in the world. Having enough, and knowing it, is surely something to do in a country whose consumption is so criminally disproportionate to the world's. Accepting nothing, when appropriate -- when, in fact, it liberates -- is doing something profound. (Rioting for austerity, in my personal opinion, could be a beautiful thing, and I like imagining what form that might take). Contributing to a "collective impact" is excellent, and needed where it can be done. But this offers a act preliminary to even that: prior to connecting with the larger network is the upgrading of a personal operating system based on individuality at the expense of all else. Or, to be slightly less critical: individuality, and individual survival, imagined before anything else is imagined.

"Everything for Everyone" doesn't exclude us. It includes us, in a way we've rarely allowed ourselves to imagine. And surely, in a way that our socioeconomic structure, feeding on our sacred life energies as it does, has not permitted us to imagine. What this quote offers to me is an invitation, not to think about invalidating my own wants or needs, but to open up more to the idea of being included. Whatever form, practical or mysterious, that might take in the everyday. I'm not going to specify what that form might be, to myself or to others. Only to pay attention and see what turns up.