Investing Ouselves in Art & Craft

When I began my career, Art and Craft were alive within my home. I never questioned what made one different from the other, or which had more value, but I always knew the difference. When I went to college, I discovered that many are preoccupied with defining what sets these fields apart, so they can pigeon-hole the world in ways that make them feel comfortable. In addition to giving me pause to reflect on my own feelings on these issues, I found great humor in the illusion that our ideas have any value in this realm. Crafts are needed. Good quality work leads to quality products that are useful, beautiful and functional. Far too often, sloppy work fell under the auspices of "art". This confused me, as an aspiring artist, because technical proficiency was part of what I strive for as an artist. One of my teachers pompously claimed that "If you know ahead of time, what your piece will look like when you are finished, it must be called craft. If you are open to changing your mind in the middle, and you cannot tell what it will look like when you are done, your work becomes art." I'm sure that he felt justified in making his claim. By the time I heard this argument, I had become an accomplished sign painter. Even with diagrams and drawings, the finished product would have to be considered art by his definition. Because my hand created variation and interesting errors that added to the final product. If an inexperienced person looked upon my work, it might look perfectly rendered, but my own skilled eye could see imperfections, whether they were tolerated (included) or not was up to me.
Similarly, very often, when I did "fine" art, I would conceive a finished piece, and use my skills to bring it about. Perhaps I would be open to change, perhaps not. I guess, because it was not a teapot, or a pipe, one could say that it was art, but I felt that this was not the important part. The thought of whether it was a close enough match to my original idea was never an excuse for not finishing, but whether the concept had merit often became an issue. Many great artists are craftspeople. Most great craftspeople function as artists. Putting these people in separate camps confounds the best minds. Great thinkers realize the overlap between these fields and those among us with a foot in both camps could not care less if there is even a difference.
Some recognize that there is a portal that we refer to as "mastery", which we are able to slip through if we put our minds, our hands and our concentration to our work for long enough. A fellow on the radio today claims that the "magic number" is ten thousand hours. Imagine this as four hours per day for nearly seven years. Using this as a guideline, I asked myself..."What have I mastered?" Yoga, at least pranayama (breathing exercises), Cooking, Sign painting, Art, Gardening, Tree planting, Bicycling, Construction, Stagecraft, Sustainable Lifestyles & Parenting. I am still in the process of developing mastery in several other fields, although I have taught others many of these skills for over seven years. Growing up in the theater, I never separated my life from the actual work there. Some was painting, some construction, etc. As with most endeavors I have found that by putting one's whole self into the task of learning the new skills that are required, no matter what you do, you can develop interest, attention, and allow you to make the skill your own more quickly.
What I feel is needed most at this time is for each of us to recognize that we are constantly working toward mastery of whatever we put our minds to. Some may choose to be masters of sloth, complaint, or excuses. Fortunately, most will not choose these fields. The focus we place on each activity that we participate in has it's own reward. Curious children are the best example of this. As we get turned on to whatever discipline, we become more and more aware of the details and subtleties of it. When I carve wood, my sensitivity is to the grain, smell, resistance to tools, etc. My openness to the tools, materials and techniques enhances my ability to perform, as well as my ability to "see" quality in the work of others.
In the coming years, our attention to becoming the best that we can be will become increasingly important. Putting time in apathetically will yield far less reward than becoming engaged with our livelihood. The proliferation of self-help books over the past twenty years, and the rising tide of inspirational books only point out the need for self-actualization, as Maslow described. If we have been lucky enough to have our needs met, face appropriate challenges at proper times, faced them and overcome them with love, aid and support, of our family. or mentors, the challenge of self-actualization can be met head on and we will have a good shot at attaining that illusive goal. Far too often our belief in perfection limits our urge to explore, make mistakes and learn the valuable lessons from failure. By taking a few chances along the way we can learn much about the way to grapple with the future. Once we develop our hand, we cannot unlearn the deft movements of the expert. When we are the living embodiment of our craft, we can respond appropriately without though logic or reason. This becomes a life, artfully rendered.

Empathy vs. Pathology

Now that we have seen the beginning of the end of cheap oil, we can take pause. Last time oil blew past $100 per barrel, gas prices went up, food costs went up, businesses, dependent on energy, were shuttered, global economic catastrophe was imminent. Food riots took place in six countries. This is the tip of the iceberg. Passing peak oil means every gallon of crude oil that we bring within reach of refineries will cost more, as will the refining itself, transport of ensuing products, and ecological damage caused by the entire process will increase as well. Billions have been placed into the hands of those who had the most to lose as the shock wave went through our fragile economy. The facade got a good paint job, but flaws remain. In some cases, cracks have developed that extend through the entire basic structure of our energy hungry culture.

This current situation, to use a gardening metaphor, has been planned, planted, cultivated and is setting an inevitable fruit. When we begin from a place that theorizes that we are all competitive, brutish and self-serving, the tragedy of the commons is unavoidable. Cooperation has been cast as a hippie thing, for "pansies and flakes". Our "seed", purchased long ago, was the belief that people are inherently nasty, "sinful", greedy or at least selfish. Neuro-biology is finding that these inhumane traits only develop if our human organism is denied love and affection. From our recent past we have received bad ideas about ourselves which can only lead in bad directions. Think for a moment of the cover that this provided to individuals who had been hurt or neglected planet wide. In this context, if you were unlike the least among us, you were considered uppity, a know-it-all, "sensitive" (which was a code word for gay) or soft. The implication that only the strong survive aided those who were damaged, requiring massive financial rewards for dubious behavior.

The quantum shift required to understand this new reality puts group allegiances to the test. Rather than relationships based on financial benefit, social class or education, we are on the brink of creating world-wide community. Just look at the compassion that poured forth over the internet, measured in dollars, after the earthquakes in Haiti. The sugar industry has utilized the Haitian population as a ready source of labor for cane cutting. They may not be slaves in the way we might remember from colonial times, but one look at the poverty that lives there tells you that cutting cane cannot help one out of poverty, especially if they care about the welfare of their family, tribe or community. The pittance paid for risking life and limb only goes so far. Now, with the power of the internet, anyone, nearly anywhere in the world can read this passage. Our family has increased to the Nth degree.

Research that proves that we are loving, caring creatures is being squelched by the powers that be so that hostility and angst can rule the day. This easy out from responsibility only leads humans to strife and depraved narcissism. When we take a more caring tack, the welfare of our self is bound to the success of others, cohesive families and community. My own grandmothers passed away. One when I was a curious child, the other when I was trying to become a respectable young man. Both were taken by Cancer, both were a result of environmental contamination. I asked then, with my immature mind, why are my loving, loved ones being killed in such a way? I could see it clearly as sacrificially, to the God of profit. Unbridled capitalism created the the means to have money, and lives, flow away from the poor and into the hands of the rich who did not care who they hurt.

Many understand that we have a choice between love and fear. Oddly enough, this is the state of affairs that we find ourselves in today. We can fear the coming collapse of the world as we know it, pray for the end times, or make preparations for when we have to fight our neighbors for survival. These would be the obvious choices if we didn't understand the other side of the coin. That, my friends, is the part that we have exhibited so many times across the globe, and throughout time. The instinct to love one another, aid whenever possible, struggle together to beat insurmountable odds with style and grace. If you are out of practice, you may be a bit rusty, but through a series of tiny steps, we can find a way to grace. Tolerance, empathy, openness, understanding and sincere love and affection have the power to heal all wounds. we all need to become shanti-sena, peace warriors, we can no longer stay silent in the face of injustice. We must not abide abuse of any kind, or accept corruption and outdated thinking. Calvin was wrong when he said that good things, including wealth, come to good people and that the poor somehow deserve their fate.

At the dawn of the new age, we thought all of these things were new. After all, the word new was in the name. We are standing on the shoulders of giants. Every one of these thoughts are older than the hills. I'm just able to elucidate them here for you because of a fluke of electron processing, again, the result of standing on the shoulders of still more giants. Special thanks, and appreciation go out to my English teachers and the authors of the books I read as well. We have been cooperative since the dawn of time, and competitive for just a few thousand years. wildly so for only the last hundred or two, and unabashedly so for the past twenty to thirty years. We have the power to change. It truly is time for the people to lead and the leaders to follow.
Into the Light!

Crazy Old Lady Makes Excellent Point About Obama's First Year

Today, while driving, I had the good luck to hear an older woman on the radio, talking about our current President. Using my imagination, I matched the voice with a person I had known many years earlier. It sounded like a cat lady. You know, the type. A woman who all the youngsters in the neighborhood know, because she gardens inside a fence and hangs out her underthings under the roof of her back porch. Long ago she tired of losing her tomatoes to grubby-faced hooligans who most likely used them to throw at one another. She can't afford to keep up her house, but feeds the birds and keeps the curtains pulled to preserve the colors on her couch cover. Most of the children fear her, but they challenge each other to ring the bell at her house on Halloween. Those who are brave enough to do it tell no one, because she gives full size candy bars if you aren't too scared to sing a song, tell her your mother's name and take an apple as well. I have learned to listen to these wise crones, but many forget that women twice you age or older know more than you can possibly imagine.
Her point was that we are living in a drive-through culture. If we could have gotten things yesterday, that's not soon enough. She said that those who deified Obama, electing him by a large margin. We all knew that he was inheriting many of the worst crises in history, and yet we have expected him to turn the ship of state on a dime. They expected this one man to carry the day by whipping five-hundred entrenched politicians into shape (not including the hundreds of thousands of local politicians) and taming the media Medusa.
Children fill in the gaps with what they know. Real or not, their imaginations make their world. Adults respond to facts, ask the right questions and hopefully listen long enough, and hard enough to get closer to the truth. Our culture needs to turn the corner on our childish ways. We all need to eradicate feelings of entitlement that plague our children as well as many of their parents. We need to take a good long look at the current situation, fight for what we want, change.
How many of us have written letters to the intransigent representatives in the House and Senate? How many of us have stopped providing the fuel that fires furnaces of hatred? How many of us have used the rhetoric of hate, the fruits of slave labor? The disconnected contrition that fuels much of our apathy reeks of cynicism, used against us by those who have the most to lose.
I was strengthened in my resolve to fight for what is right with our country by hearing this lady's words. Those who would bow their heads and admit defeat are not worthy of the freedoms we profess to stand for. This is the part where the route to freedom gets messy. There is plenty of B.S. to shovel. It has been heaped up on us for years. If we all take up shovels, we can eliminate the threat to our freedoms in time, but if we keep our heads down, there is sure to be more coming.
Ask yourself, "Am I all that I can be?" I'm sure you know that my answer when I asked was "No.", but rather than letting that stop you from changing, rather than giving up, or getting more depressed, reach out to one another, become an agent of change. Our President needs us. Don't abandon him in his time of need. We all know what happens when that is done to us! We have the right to demand change, no matter what the money says!

Confiscatory Taxes to Fund Health System

Now, if you have read many of my posts before, you will know that corporate welfare is one of my chief concerns. Having been part of the welfare system as a child, I know how demeaning and fruitless it is to allow recipients to remain weak, dependent on the dole for their way of life. On the other hand, forcing people to pay for the lifestyles of the rich and famous is even more abhorrent to me. When virtually all of the world's economic powerhouses rely on "socialized medicine" to care for their people, why is it that we saddle the American people with the ballooning cost of "health care"? Business and industry have been allowed to either provide, or not provide care for their workers as suits them. Without the strong unions of years past, there would be no health care included in the salaries of most workers. One of the first things to go when companies hit a hard patch is their insurance programs, especially when the cost of policies start increasing at double digit rates, like they are doing today.
Now there is a new system being considered that would require the least among us to pay the lion's share of the cost of providing "care" to everyone. This only points out the disconnect between the "haves" and the "have not's" in our culture. Those who are doing well see no need to change. They also seem to have very deep pockets for supporting a phalanx of lobbyists who have spent over three billion dollars telling our politicians in Washington what they want and need out of the legislation being considered. Meanwhile, we the people are told by the major media markets that "we place Health-care Legislation way down our list of priorities". I might have missed something, but since when has the "first black" President ever had Congress at his disposal? I assure you that our representatives know where their money comes from. Asking them to bite the hand that feeds them is simply naive.
The only sensible proposal was made before the election, by a then-Senator from Illinois, who said that a preventative approach would save money no matter how much it cost by enhancing health rather than only responding to disease. (Which BTW is much more expensive.) This message has been lost in the bitter cross talk guided by the media and large commercial interests. No one wants a resolution that makes sense or is equitable, unless they realize that business as usual is killing Americans daily. The people who peddle drugs don't want change, unless it means less government oversight and higher profits. Insurance companies don't want change unless it makes them more money and increases the number of people they can exploit for their part in it. Doctors, sadly are in favor of change, but are too busy trying to decipher the new litany of new drugs being put on the market and the myriad of forms insurance companies have come up with to "distinguish themselves in the marketplace".
We voted for the President, many for the first time, because we felt that our voices would be heard. Now, powerful elites want to make us pay for the privilege of basic "health-care". For a country who is 37th in the world as far as health, we desperately need change. We voted for change, we expected change. It would be a shame to have to move to Sierra Leone or Nigeria to receive the better health care that we voted for just over a year ago, but that the wealthiest among us are loathe to accept as worthy of their support.
When all people are given the care that doctors want to be able to provide, think of the massive shift that will take place! Unsatisfied workers could quit unfulfilling jobs that only retain staff because of killer benefits. Start up companies would not have to lose sleep over not being able to care for their employees. People who are only having procedures done because their benefits are running out could wait until procedures are actually needed. The elderly could stop paying insane fees for the "security" of knowing that they will be cared for in their dying moments. Most emergency room visits could be avoided because people could afford to go to their doctors again. In the giant administrative offices of the largest insurance companies, there would be massive lay offs but it can be argued that merely finding ways to weasel out of promised coverage should not be counted as part of our Gross Domestic Product anyway. Imagine a world where human effort was put to actual care and creation of things that had inherent value rather than simply creating larger bottom lines for people who create nothing and only sell a false sense of security.

Climate Change 101 Heat: Islands in the Sky

Back in the 1980's, as a youthful, overachieving college student, I took on a research project that took me on an odyssey that changed the way I understood ecological concepts and how I understand the way that the Earth, and it's atmosphere work. For my part, I presumed that I could observe nature over the course of a semester, accurately describe what I saw and make sense of my observations. Indeed, that is what I did, although what happened next was unexpected and terrible. Keep in mind that for an overachieving college student the most important thing is one's GPA (grade point average).
At that time, I attended the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Part of the campus runs along the Niagra Escarpment. This same feature extends from South of Green Bay, rears it's head along the spine of Door County in Wisconsin and wraps and folds along the shores of several Great Lakes, eventually creating the table-like feature where Niagra Falls pours off the edge. This ledge here, creates a high overlook that is topped with a lookout tower. I took observations several times each day from this tower. I estimated my height above the Bay of Green Bay at over 150 feet, and this gave me a sense of vertical movement in the atmosphere over the city, the bay and surrounding environs. In addition to my readings, when interesting phenomena would be noted, I called several locations in and around the city to get specific information about local weather conditions in and around town. During several months, I made hundreds of observations that were limited to daylight hours. By the end, not only did I see and understand a phenomenon that I named, but took the next step of researching how much energy was needed to create such an effect.
The most troubling thing was that the resulting paper earned me a semester's worth of "F", ruining my GPA and robbing me of credit for an otherwise incredible investigation and resulting paper. The problem was that, at the time there were no available collateral studies to cite regarding the phenomena that I witnessed. As far back as the sixties, I found studies and plenty of information on a phenomenon that was not named, documenting warmer and wetter weather in city centers than at the airports where weather data is normally collected. The problem was that no one I could turn up was looking at what I thought should be called "atmospheric physics". There was some data on airsheds, but they were considered to be relatively large, nebulous phenomena and for these qualities, poorly recorded and little understood.
Turning to micro-climate research, again I found extremely localized data that was just different enough that it neither supported or denied the relationships that I saw playing out that Spring. I was so interested in the relationships that I had "discovered", that I continued my observations throughout the summer. Even now I see the effects that I first saw that spring, but now there are scientists who can confirm and who have documented what I first recorded back in the eighties.
I called them Heat Islands, which curiously, is the term that is used today. Rising columns of air like the ones I saw occur in nature in only a few places on Earth, Occasionally, they are dwarfed by volcanoes, but most of these behemoths are not active on any given day. The effects that I saw happen every single day, day and night over every city in the world. Especially the fuel hungry, "modern" cities that most Americans are familiar with. Anyone who has studied meteorology knows that warm air rises. As this happens, low pressure is created under the massive "hot air balloon" that moves off in the direction of the prevailing winds. Depending on the amount of energy in the air, the heat differential between the air and the air surrounding it, and the volume of this bolus of heat, the movement and speed of it can vary substantially.
This artificial, high pressure ridge changes the ebb and flow of local weather. On many occasions, this rising column of air acts as an invisible mountain range over urban areas, making weather on the windward side wetter, and on the leeward side drier. I yhave seen these forces literally wring the air dry as it becomes squeezed between what I can only liken to giant rollers in the sky. These columns of air can be completely straight in cases where the wind are light, but they lay down across great areas when the air is in motion.
If you ever wonder whether student's work gets co-opted by their professors, I am here to tell you that it most certainly does. I believe that my data and efforts were stolen from me. Consider the irony when just a few years later there were a large number of papers published in scientific papers regarding the field of "atmospheric physics" and the coincidence of calling what happens over cities heat islands. It was all too much for me. Disillusioned and betrayed by the mentor I had hoped he would be, my professor became the arbiter of injustice, judge and executioner rolled into one. My academic career never recovered. I know that it was my own weakness that let him get away with turning me off to further humiliation, but this could have been a great start to a worthy investigation. Doctoral theses often are made on much less important hypotheses. For a more detailed discussion of the heat island effect, please contact me through commenting on this blog, or reaching me through ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. 1445 Porlier street, 54301-3334

Feeling Our Way

In many ways we are like the five blind brothers described in the Chinese folk tale. The first time they encountered an elephant, each took hold of a different part. The first brother felt the ear and declared, the Elephant is like a great fan! Another grasped the leg of the great beast and said This creature is like a great tree of the forest. The third brother grabbed hold of the tail and said, the elephant is like a sinewy rope. Next, the fourth brother felt the trunk and said this beast is like a large, soft snake. The last brother experienced the great belly and decided that the creature was like a great wall.

As we grapple with the unknowable, we each are privy to but a slice of the whole and we must be forgiven for our lack of understanding of the whole. One of my favorite representations of this idea is from a lost sacred city in Indonesia. All of their Buddha statues are contained within perforated clay vessels. they show us in no uncertain terms that we each are bound by our own perspective, unable to fathom the true nature of the Great Spirit. We are all entitled to our own view, but occasionally we must be forgiven for them as well.

To be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way. Part of the sweetness of life is knowing that others hold both insight and awareness of things we cannot fathom. Careful listening to the perspectives of others have the potential of helping you to "see around corners" with regard to these hugely unfathomable concepts. That is why the most enlightened people are often the most patient. They realize that after everyone has exhauseted themselves by expressing their beliefs, they will eventually become open to the deeper truths that have the deepest meaning.

Single Bullet Theory

In our culture, and in this age, we often look for answers that are tidy. We want answers that won't raise too many more questions. The reference to the Kennedy assassination begs the question, is there ever a tidy answer? Some think, or hope, or say not. I think that there is a single, magic bullet, as simple and elegant as the egg, as well designed as the red blood cell and as reliable as the sun's rise and fall along the horizon from season to season. In spite of the naysayers, the conspiracy theorists and those who couch their arguments in the plush folds of greed, opulence and self-interest that they claim to be ruled by "human nature", I must stand for something more. Love.
It seems that when we look around, we see that many evils seem to persist. If we rely on the media to tell us about the world, they will spare no effort in bringing us human tragedy on a grand scale morning noon and night. No matter how far away the cameras have to roam, or how disorienting their perspective, the bad news always outweighs the good. This doesn't jive with my experience, probably not yours either. What I want to speak of here is the propensity I have found, maybe it is truly human nature, to be compassionate, caring and helpful. Just this week, I had left my wallet in my other jacket. I went to work and on the way home realized that I had no money and not enough fuel to make it home. A kind person at the fuel station paid for enough fuel to get me home. Bless her humanity, you know, she could have said no.
Many years ago, when I was a child, my mother got stranded at the same fuel stop with two children and a broken down car. Back then they had let us use their phone, given us some warm food, and then, they helped us find a way to get towed all the way home by a goodhearted fellow who had a tow truck.
The dozens of times that I have needed help along my own path I have been blessed by the people who have helped in whatever capacity they could. If we could find a single golden thread amongst the human fabric, it would be this compassion. The stories of love usually take longer to tell. There is certainly less flash, bang, boom and bash. After all, the compassionate caring that follows most emergencies is a harder story to tell than most media outlets are willing to attempt. In addition to the greater commitment required to tell this deeper story, the limited amount of "space" requires superficiality and remember, there will always be new human tragedy to focus on tomorrow. Keeping the camera's unblinking eye on the same images dilutes the message, and the propensity of people to switch channels rises exponentially over time.
The magic bullet that is alive within us is this innate propensity to love. When we begin to care, it may disturb the sour pusses among us. Some actually react with violence and derision. This can be understandable for those who have had to exist without love, or who have only experienced corrupted forms of it. In my experience, it seems to be easier for many to deal with their own shortcomings if the bar is set low. If everyone has evil intent, or is corrupted by greed and self-interest, our own overtures to compassion and caring seem greater. It then is less of a stretch to imagine that we are good people. My own perspective is that as we allow others to be more and better beings, we are invited to do more for one another, strive for more fruitful and better outcomes for our fellow humans and to lead lives of compassion and caring that support others as well as the planet that we inhabit.
A new breed of individuals is just saying no to the bitterness and deceit of the past. Indeed, there have always been those among us who gave selflessly for the betterment of their families, communities and humanity. They have proven that the need for Love is great, but that the rewards for loving are even greater. I, along with countless others see signs of change everywhere. It is high time that the forces of exploitation and oppression give way to the basic human instinct that we call love. When we work cooperatively, we are enriched by and through the successes of others and there is less damage to the earth as well. This in turn leads to a higher standard of living for everyone. Just the act of giving can be it's own reward.
Aim high and remember, even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there. Another great line spoken by a wise person long ago is that all that is necessary for evil to exist in the world is for good people to do nothing. We are the single bullet, when we cultivate and spread the seeds of love!