Man Of A Thousand Stories

When I was growing up, I had an interesting family. Our lives were full of experiences. In addition to moving virtually every year, we sometimes moved at least a couple times during the year...once we lived in three separate houses in three consecutive moons! Going through the collected baubles and books, art and toys, belongings and boxes of stuff, always focused on reducing our collected objects, was our way of getting down to what felt essential. Later, I discovered that this is a great way to learn about your own self. The things that you feel are "essential" often define, or hint at who you really are, physically, mentally and emotionally. By the time I had moved a few times, I began to realize that there are spiritual components to these choices as well. "Giving up" objects often leads to a freedom of spirit and an ability to see past the physical realm that I might never had learned of, had I lived in the same house all of my life, collecting baubles and bits of things that would just end up in a memory box one day. My collection of collections today is probably a reaction to living lightly when I was a child.

When we lived in a place for a total of thirty days, or twenty eight as happened a couple times, living by the motto "Stay Packed" became essential. Having the discipline to live with only one bowl, one cup, one plate, one spoon, one knife and one fork seems strange until you find ways to reduce your belongings further. Several Solstices ago, my sister got me a titanium spork, effectively reducing my kit by one item. The stories that have been lived rather than read about have a texture and depth that make believe, for me, simply does not. Fiction is great for some, but I tend to gravitate to real events and sharing the actual events that I have lived. My own feelings and belief is that these hold more power for me than fictional accounts or flights of fantasy. I do love a good native story from time to time, but these are mostly parables about how we should live, not a true record of how we actually did or do.

Living out of a suitcase, or panniers (bicycle backpacks) as I did repeatedly, changes your notion of what it takes to live and live well. I think it would help society greatly if more people understood what a luxury getting dry or taking a shower can be! Two books I would urge people to put in their go bag are the two Peterson Field Guides. These two books have more information on, Edible Wild Plants and Medicinal Wild Plants, than dozens of other books on the subjects and if you want to keep your pack light, getting the most information per pound is essential. I have seen people who feel that a weapon of some sort is essential for a go bag, but for the weight, I have gotten much more food from the land than a weapon would have ever been able to harvest. Books are relatively heavy to add to a go bag, but the value of these two publications has been immeasurable for me in my travels. I have learned dozens of wild foods that can make living outdoors not only possible but relatively luxurious. I have been able to eat hundreds of meals from plants that grew along my path. I'm sure that there could be a thousand moving stories in my own life about finding, cooking and enjoying food! At the risk of becoming mundane, there may be a thousand stories about how I found shelter while living in the woods, perhaps a thousand more about how I have met folks along my path who both inspired me and to whom I have given inspiration. The real challenge would be to pare down the stories to just ones that have profound impact, important lessons or to choose ones that best convey the deeper messages of freedom and responsibility, compassion and cooperation, commitment and abundance.

One of my stories is about the day I was born. Earlier that same day, my mother had gone to the neighbor's house. They had go-karts and she rode them around the yard, bouncing around and she felt that the jiggling and jostling helped to bring on labor later that day. I still have an unhealthy love for go-karting. Late at night, when my mom said it was time to go to the hospital, she said that my dad was running around the house like Chicken Little, even though they had the go-bag ready with everything my mother might need in hospital, dad had completely lost his composure. The doctor with which my mom planned to give birth was leaving for vacation and had already donned his Hawaiian shirt in preparation for touching down in our newest state. I guess they paged him at the airport and he drove back into town to deliver me. As mom was brought up in the elevator, un-comfortably seated in a wheelchair, to the maternity ward, she said she felt me coming. The doctor had arrived pretty much at the same moment she had and I was crowning as she was wheeled out of the elevator. She said that they didn't even have time to prep her for delivery before I squirted out! Blam! Is how she described it. So, the first person I saw in life was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt. So many other experiences relate to that moment. Coming into the world is such a traumatic story for some, I am very glad that my birth story was not. I think that my experiences with normal and natural birth led me, later in life, to become a certified Bradley, husband-coached childbirth teacher. There are few times in life that nature becomes unavoidable and to be awake and aware of the process of birth is a joy often denied womyn. In my heart of hearts, I have great issues with the way we typically practice birth in our culture, healing that one aspect of our lives has the power to transform society form the ground up.

Perhaps one day, I will recount the letting go of the thousand or so things that meant a lot to me over the years. My complete set of Hardy Boys hardcovers, for instance had brought me many stories that allowed me to escape the boundaries of our humble home, escorting me on waves of prose to realms beyond my own imagination. Letting go of my home made movies, some of which were made in Denver in '76 & '77. Those documents were evidence of a great many hours studying filmmaking and honing my craft. My longest movie used Pink Floyd's Ummagumma as the soundtrack. I remember giving away art and selling some pieces for far less than their value over the years as well. We once had a larger than life size print made from a temple rubbing, The painting entitled "respond" done by my mother, things as mundane as a concrete Buddha, our kick ass stereo and eventually all my vinyl. One piece of art that I got back was an ink and Prismacolor pencil drawing, partly a self portrait, partly borrowed from King Crimson's court of the Crimson King album cover art. The hands stick out a couple inches from the face and it is tremendously psychological and topical even today!

Giving away art, especially that art was traumatic, getting it back made me ecstatic! I remember selling a bust of Kennedy that my grandpa Harold and I made together, the guy who bought it at our yard sale had said, "Someday I'll give this back." Thirty years later, he was good to his word and returned it to me, no worse for the wear. Again, humbling and profoundly beautiful. Those stories are unique in that once given they were returned. I do have a bicycle that has been stolen twice and each time returned to me by the thief. Both times it was not altogether willingly, but they did give it back. Both of these are stories unto themselves. Bicycling, as a single activity alone offers many hundreds of stories. The dozen  or so hundred plus mile a day stories from when I lived in Eastern Indiana/Western Ohio; each would yield several stories all by themselves! The time our group of three broke down in a storm was just one such story. The two brothers I was riding with took shelter in a woods and I rode on to the shelter under an antique storefront, sheltering under the roof of the porch/entryway as terrible weather engulfed us. After the thundershower and hail had passed, I rode back to find my friends, about three-quarters of a mile and there was evidence that a tornado had swept through right between the store and the woods. We rode a hundred miles one day just to go to the only big hill we had heard about nearby. We rode all the way to Muncie to ride down the hill they use for Soapbox Derby cars. Rob and Scott could not fathom riding down hills that steep for miles like I did when  I rode bicycle in and around Denver. As many stories as I have, it may do a disservice to call me, Man Of A Thousand Stories...

Man's Thousand Stories

Throughout history, we have heard plenty of stories about names and dates and important battles that supposedly made the world what we have today, bu the vast majority of stories that really made the differences back then, not a particular commander or theologian. No, it was the rank and file people, the teachers and mothers, the tinkers and farmers. In the realm of actual-factual history, many millions would often die at the hands of a vicious ruler and history remembers the ruler, not the genocide. Humankind has roughly a thousand stories we tell ourselves. Who won the Franco-Prussian War? (for instance) That has a definite answer. Current history excludes the majority of messages about how individuals whose names are forgotten to history played an important part in molding, shaping and refining it. Native people, for all their accomplishments are often overlooked because it would infringe on the all white male, all the time scenaria that were perpetrated on humankind for generations. Blacks, Mexicans, Womyn, etc. have been cut out of our collective consciousness.

We humans were matriarchal, but the war machine consumed whatever had been left of culture. I see daily examples of men being given too much power, enough to destroy. We so desperately need the womyn, and their stories, that I cannot express it strongly enough. If we realized that there were hundreds, thousands, sometimes millions of lives squandered for the proclivities of those who ultimately took power and control away from whole societies, perhaps the thousand stories will be about the humble, those who were sacrificed and those whose toil led to the possibility of revolution and war. Instead of the betterment of generations that they were told their hardships was for, they were just sacrificed to fear and hate to allow power to be wrested from the public and given to autocrats and fascists. As undemocratic as warfare, terrorism and manipulation are, they seem to flourish in a world that tells itself that democracy is good.

 Humanity and/or mankind will always be constrained by their terms. It ignores half the population, so in essence, each sex should probably have five hundred stories each. Womyn I have known can often be smarter, more committed and stronger of spirit than many men, but let us continue to use outdated terms to run cover for those men who just so happen to be inept. Truly, it is a certain kind of skill to show up when the work is done, to stand around talking while your contemporaries are hard at work and/or to make huge drama out of unimportant things. Gossip, if you had to pick one thing to lead the pack of evils let out of Pandora's box, does more damage than good 100% of the time. This too undermines the validity of the stories we tell one another and how we think we got where we are today. Remember, it is all hearsay and the individuals suffering on the ground for every major war and/or rebellion that we speak of in history are summarily forgotten in favor of dates and who won.

Lakes Michigan and Huron are four feet higher than they were just one year ago. This entire field of rocks has been removed by the waves. The stories we tell can just as easily be subsumed by new knowledge. I never tire of telling the truth and for this post, I remind readers that the second most expensive thing on earth is ignorance. The most expensive thing is education!

There are literally billions of stories that are current with our lives today for generation upon generation, the population of the planet increased. The online resource "WWII Deaths video"
will get you to an amazing resource. The producer is looking for people to help him to create more content regarding the peace dividends that we were promised and how educating the public about war and peace can transform the decisions we make regarding war and invasion of sovereign nations. Remember the Peace Dividend that we were supposed to realize after the end of the Cold War? I do. There were supposed to be billions of dollars of savings from ending the military insanity that took place during the time the Iron Curtain was closed. The current infatuation with destabilizing states in the Arabian Peninsula, primarily secular states that have modernized and that exhibit relatively high standards of living only proves the inability of the war machine to relinquish a single dollar for social programs. Ninety-nine out of a hundred stories seem to be about wealth and power and how these two qualities are inseparable. I have said frequently the very same thing that the founding Revolutionaries of our nation have said. We must all hang together, or we will surely all hang separately. There is absolutely nothing new about this story. Of the thousand or so stories that we may hear, this is perhaps one of the most telling ones.

I have never felt that there was truth behind many of the stories we tell ourselves. The "dog eat dog" world has always offered me opportunities for abundance. Often, when I pared down my belongings to near ridiculous levels, The abundance became acutely clear. The "survival of the fittest" mantra ignores reality. Our current President is the best proof of that fallacy. Anyone who looks around themselves dispassionately will see the opposite is often true, or perhaps the rule is more along the lines of survival of the luckiest. Had I been born into a three billion dollar inheritance, which I squandered in less than a lifetime, perhaps I too would aspire to be President. This has nothing to do with fitness, just dumb luck. The chances of any President of the United States rising to the level of importance that is required to be included in the thousand stories we tell ourselves is remote. Our nation of less than 1/3 of a billion has no bearing on what the other 6 3/4 billion are experiencing. If our contributions to humankind's thousand stories are commensurate with our numbers, we (the U.S. of A.) would be entitled to around 147 of them. If I were to be allowed only 147 stories, I can't think of one that I would recount about a President. not one would be about war, not one would involve cheating another human being or relegating them to a position lower than myself. Even our current President is fulfilling the need for a coyote story.

Coyote is the character that comes to the wedding party and leaves a stinky fart. Mayhem, chaos and playful disregard for decorum are this spirit's way. In the end, humanity is enriched, but during the story, terrible distress and disgust abound. Sound familiar? Interesting that the term is used for those who smuggle people across borders and is it any wonder most people would trust a wolf long before trusting a coyote. The club of rich and powerful men who are willing to destroy civilization for wealth is as old as permanent settlement. The characters playing these roles today are just sequels to much older stories. Derivative and insipid as they are, there are still those who are infatuated with their current drama. The true test will be generations hence when none of their names will be remembered.
 

A Thousand Stories Of A Man

People say all kinds of things. When I was young, people told lots of stories about me. To this day, they continue. Perhaps the ones that made me feel the worst are when young boys would say, "You're gay." I assured them that I not only knew what that was, but also I was not. People seem to be predisposed to speak about others in their absence. This, in turn, can escalate after their death when no one is there to clear up misunderstandings or check their stories against facts. When I began going to school in Pennsylvania, stories circulated that I was some rock star's kid because I would come to school  in a giant Cadillac with a chrome grille. Those stories were slightly more welcome, but equally unfounded. Some of the stories I have heard about myself made me laugh, shocked and amazed me. some stories even defied logic, but they were about me nonetheless.

Being from Springfield, Illinois you can probably guess that everyone's favorite folk hero was Abraham Lincoln. The stories that have circulated about him have taken on mythic proportions. I'm sure many of the exaggerations were by well meaning fans, but especially after his death, stories didn't really have to be true. In fact, making him what we needed was probably the most salient fact in all the stories. How would we reconcile the fact that this man authorized the largest mass murder of non-combatant Native Americans in  history? How could we square the fact that the Great Emancipator got slaves as a wedding present? I do not doubt that in many ways Honest Abe exuded integrity, the story of him walking five miles to return a penny that he inadvertently overcharged, well perhaps the story is only an approximation of fact. I'm not saying his motives were flawed, but perhaps he combined trips because back then, walking five miles was not that unusual, especially for a man with inordinately long legs.

What seems like a very difficult problem, or circumstance pales when examined with the light of the original experience. Honesty and integrity are always in high demand, whatever our political situation seems to say. I understand that these traits need a heroic figure to make them seem worthy, but trumping up stories to give them more impact is still a lie. I'm sure that a thousand stories or more have been told, just about my bicycle ride around the Great Lakes. none of them conveyed the true meaning of the ride, or could possibly capture the whole story, but in my travels I tried to be clear and concise as possible when describing what the ride meant to me. I told everyone that my goal was to help them by teaching ways to live more lightly on the Earth. Living better for less is what I called it.

The obvious questions people had when I got back were, How far is that and how long did it take?
4,280 miles by the road signs, but they lie and eighty days were my responses. Who, Tony C. Saladino. What, Rode his bicycle around the Great Lakes. Where, Around the Great Lakes! When, Between April first and June nineteenth, 1987. Why, To teach people how to live more lightly on the Earth, or live better for less. These were the salient points of the overall story,but within that there are stories told about how i inspired someone to go back home and take responsibility for their young family and bringing them up right. Stories of how I offered to taker people on the road with me, stories about how they helped a traveler and were able to hear stories of my ride, how a fellow dropped by their campsite one night and burned his winter jacket rather than have to ride on with it.
One day alone i spoke by radio to over six million Canadians, even if only one in six hundred mentioned what I said that morning, there were a thousand stories that day alone! It is my goal and desire to fit twelve and a half stories a day into the book about my bike ride around the Great Lakes. I'm sure that there were easily that many things happening in any particular day. Things worth telling stories about, things that have left a lasting legacy on my life.

I'm sure that the ride sounds mythic to some. In fact it was epic, but in two and a half moons I was on fire, doing what I do best...teaching and learning every step of the way. Some of the things I learned, I wish I hadn't like when I went through a town that said they liked their local paper mill because they found a way to clean up their river...then the next day I rode on to find that the mill had just piped their effluent into the next river over, bypassing the first town whose water they poisoned. I wish that I had not seen the smog hanging over my city the day I left, nor the orange brown skies over the south end of Lake after lake after lake. By the time I made it to Ontario (the furthest from my home) I was appalled to see the grim smog hugging the North shore of the lake as well. As many stories as I have about heart wrenching truths, there are also many more stories of liberation, of realization and of understanding along the way.   The book i have written about this journey will include a thousand stories of a man, but it is in my own voice, not to be sentimental, but to be reflective of what my experiences along the way were like and because it has taken so long to write, how the things I learned on those brief eighty days have shaped the rest of my life. Some are loathe to admit that events have changed their lives, but I revel in it. Each choice we make shapes us. whether the outcome is eighty seconds, eighty hours, or eighty days away.

Seventy-five Years To Live, Seventy-five Years To Die.

Today, a news story came through that a young human couple, missing since World War Two was discovered in a glacier. My wife says that I can't say it was belched out, but that is the term that first came to mind. Even spewn from didn't meet Nancy's exacting standards. Immediately I thought of a sequel to Sound of Music complete with a score and sets to match the hostile and foreboding summits the young couple needed to traverse to neutral ground. Their inexorable last hours, deprived of food and shelter; becoming weak. Their eventual slowing to a stop, huddling together through hypothermia and ultimately freezing, solid, under layer after layer of snow. You know, now, you can make Broadway shows out of anything.

Seventy-five years is part of our collective consciousness, a lifetime as it were. For these two rare souls, their death, or at least our proof of it traveled through time, almost exactly a lifetime and today there are people studying them in a form of modern archaeology. What messages would be carried into the future if you were to enter a similar time capsule? What stories would be borne in your gullet or tissues? What of the bits and bobs in your pockets? I am completely empathetic to the two souls who chose to die together enfolded in loving arms rather than separate and face the same fate alone.

This message coming to me from across the pond had power over my imagination like few news reports do. Although I have seen people pretty much wait around for a lifetime to die, some perhaps dying a little bit each day, there is no story of slow grieving of a life that can compare to these young lovers. Their families worried and struck with the sense of their loss forever. Perhaps they were not on the run across the Alps to escape Hitler, maybe they were just out to summit a glacier, I have not heard more about the story since that first flush of information. Which helps fuel the fires of my imagination even more!

I have also tried a mental experiment, skewing the time-signature of life around. The sorts of time scales that these poor folks come to call up. What can be a lifetime, but a collection of moments? What if a generation had to pass before any of our stories could be told?  Each moment is important, this the corpses prove by their embrace. If you had but one moment left to share, would it be one you are proud to speak to the world of after a lifetime had passed? The message of love and holding one another affectionately has no equal amongst the human race. Just because their bodies had frozen and life had left them long ago, their personages remained in, perhaps, one of the longest hugs on human record. Imagine a sustain pedal for each of us on our deathbed, freezing that moment in time for a generation. What will the next generation think of our choices in our collective dying.

Essentially, I'm in awe of these young lovers and their death. They were doing the thing they wanted most to do, together, each with the person they most wanted to spend their lives with and for that they will always be remembered. I want to have a similar ability to speak to future generations and tell them to love one another, it is the only thing that counts. I'm not particularly interested in sharing the route of getting the ear of the next generation, but I do hope to repeat many of their messages. My moments spent with loved ones is truly priceless. Having feelings of love toward everyone is also priceless. Honoring that each one of us are incarnations of the godhead takes the burden of judging others off the table. We are, together, or we are nothing. Hopefully it won't take another lifetime for humanity to learn this important fact.

Hospitality

I spoke briefly about this in an earlier post, but in terms of generosity, there are few acts of kindness as powerful as hospitality. All life depends on hospitality. Since all life must do all the following things, grow, move, eat, excrete, exchange gasses and reproduce; providing necessary food and space (shelter), as well as room to feel comfortable and grow can be enough. Sharing your blanket with someone who is cold, sharing an umbrella when it rains, giving away half a sandwich to someone who has no food...all of these are obviously hospitable. It may be easier to see when there are physical needs that can be met through sharing, or outright gifts to our fellow inhabitants of Earth. Being intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually hospitable may seem different, but in fact it springs from the same source, our common humanity.

In my current experience as an "American", which ironically could better be said as a United States of American, if one did not want to belittle every other culture within the Americas. I am constantly bombarded with messages the Arabs are bad, Muslims are dangerous and that those who hail from the "Cradle of Civilization" are to be feared, or at least not trusted. In fact, our nation has shirked virtually all responsibility for being hospitable to refugees from areas that we, The United States of America have systematically destabilized. The hospitality of nations is not the hospitality I wish to speak of though, I am only trying to utilize our collective behavior to point out the inherent flaws of being inhospitable. Not giving, not sharing, not considering the needs of our friends neighbors and acquaintances demonstrates a paucity of compassion that can undermine every other virtue.

I tried searching for images for hospitality and was disappointed by the fact that since hospitality has become an industry, the corporate influence on the images associated with it would be corrupted as well. I didn't see a single picture of a host welcoming guests, or offering them food or drink. There was no allusion to the fact that travelers could find secure refuge along their way. Instead it was all about business and their industry. Images of staff and welcome cards next to bells, etc. I think of hospitality as something more akin to what we do for our guests. at our Air B&B, we only offer lodging and there have been times we offered to drive them to an event and drop them off to avoid needless traffic headaches, or put food in the fridge for them, but we always let them know whatever they need or want, they can call. We are right across the street. If they want restaurants, a grocery or music and/or dancing we can steer them in the right direction. I think of like being a tour guide of sorts, helping them plan more efficiently for their brief time here. I have had a lifetime to become familiar with this area. If you want to go to the artesian well with the best tasting water, a waterfall or trail hike, I can give you highway, or back road directions. I often wonder if a phone will ever understand any of the places I send folks to? The sublime beauty and energy of say a Dave's Falls, near Amberg, WI or if they go to see Strong Falls, near Athelstane, WI, they can rest assured that these are some of the finest falls around. If they ask to go apple picking, we will send them to our favorite orchard, and it will be different if they want apples or cherries. Hospitality in many ways is putting the best foot of your entire community forward.

Honoring the abundant planet, her creatures and one another requires that we are hospitable to one another. Giving what you would want if you were in uncharted territory, this is part of what I have written about repeatedly in the past, the give-away. Perfecting the art of giving selflessly is one that the best hosts have taken to heart. Being hospitable can become a way of life for those who have both compassion and empathy for others and giving enough of yourself to them to help them feel secure and at ease. There are very good reasons that in many cultures being a host is such an honor. People far and wide often speak of folks who host events and who take in guests who may be passing through. The WOOFing experience is a good example. Travelers work their way around the countryside working on organic farms for room and board, both the hosts and their guests get enriching experiences along with Working on organic farms (thus the acronym) travelers get to know local people and customs and farmers get help in their fields. Once one learns the art of the give away, hospitality resides in their person, no effort is required, no accounting takes place for the time spent or resources offered. Knowing that the dividends that good will pay back over time dwarf whatever the cost is today.

Native cultures often honor the gift with some guidelines. If a guest comments on something you have three times, you are supposed to give it to them...things like this. When you take your first harvest, give half to a single mother or invalid in the tribe. Ancient as these truths are, they have currency in today's world more than ever! Even the precious Bible that some speak so highly of admonish X-tians to plant  extra rows along the roadsides for travelers. Without giving, the abundance of of nature is cut off. Scarcity is not a part of native world views, because the reality is that there will always be more. Sharing makes us all wealthier, of mind, body and spirit.

Perseverance

We have all had times that it seemed that the deck was stacked against us, nothing we could do was right or that things crumbled around us or blew up into a crisis whether we did our best or not; through no fault of our own, things happen. Big things, little things, even things like chicken pox get in our way. Instead of moving along down the path that we feel we deserve to be on, we get sick, or someone around us gets sick, or the car needs repair or endless other distractions from where we would rather be. Getting through those times requires perseverance. Knowing in deepest parts of our being, our hearts, souls, minds, what needs to be done feeling progress toward our dreams and making headway toward achieving our goals requires this essential virtue, sometimes above all others.

Getting really down and into the making it through part, requires an essential component of courage. When one feels that death would be an acceptable alternative to stop the pain of living, but instead opt to stay alive, this may be the ultimate perseverance, far beyond that required for someone to cross a desert without water, or someone scaling a mountain without any extra gear or supplies, for these challenges only deal with external obstacles, the inner ones are a result of deprivation and require us to face the ultimate questions like why are we here or who we are really, beyond the former limits we had set for ourselves. these internal struggles often come about because of physical challenges, but they are not exclusively the product of  such struggles. The person battling their own wish for their personal demise begins their struggle from within the internal workings of their own mind. The deprivations are often of social contact, or meaningful relationships, feeling accepted, or experiencing intimacy with another soul. Getting through these mental and emotional challenges are just as dramatic and compelling as the well publicized extreme sports stories. We are living through a time when we are coming to terms with our many stigmas and rightly so, because human beings are being put under more and more stress and feeling less and less support. Putting into practice the nine virtues can resolve many of the issues we face, but we have to be willing to look at each in turn, deeply, meaningfully and try to figure our why we were given the traumatic or stressful events we have had to bear. It exercises a part of us that needs to be strong and resilient, not crack under the inevitable pressures and stressors that accompany living in a modern world. Many of the greatest examples of my own successes bear the sign of these virtues, making them part of each and every aspect of our lives enriches us, offers us the choice of grace in each of our undertakings and provides rich food for thought that leads to a richness of experience that is difficult to put into words.

Every generation has to endure; continue in spite of everything the world throws at them. Ideally, with grace, but to persevere is even more than just putting up with the pain, the feelings of neglect or abuse we have had to face during our lives. Waiting through, or wading through the bullshit is often how we do it, annealing our soul for greater challenges that await. Sometimes our coping mechanisms are the stories we tell, the truths we comprehend, the culture that surrounds and nurtures us, it can often be the self love that we bring to the table. No matter what melts down or blows up into a fiasco around us, we will make it through, nearly every challenge gets met, that is why Homo sapiens have been successful. The circle remains unbroken, back through the ages and if we play our part, the cycle will continue for generations to come. Meeting our challenges often requires just one thing, being sure that we are on the right track and keeping moving forward in spite of any obstacles.

Our efforts, even when they are seemingly made to no avail are sometimes just charging a sort of energetic battery which will bring abundance your way in seemingly magic ways. I don't attribute it to magic, I thing something energetic is going on that resonates, when we set our sights on a challenge and meet it. I believe that there are physical relationships between energy and the world we are able to create that science has yet to define of measure. This is the opposite of magic, just misunderstood reality. Working actually takes on a different quality when we give selflessly and transcend our own reality for a greater dream or creation to arise. Womyn have a leg up on this one, because they have taken the ultimate course of challenge, requiring a lifetime of perseverance. John Lennon perhaps said it best, "Woman is the Nigger of the World". As we see time and time again, men can just be sperm donors and walk away. They can be abusive and get away with it. Men, who shirk responsibility, who put as little effort into their families as possible are crippling our next generation, whose own ability to persevere will not be informed by those men whose sperm led to their mothers giving them birth. Leaving it up to mothers to tell the stories of making it, against all odds and with virtually no support.

We are slowly coming through a time when even the path forward was obscured by institutionalized sexism. It is still holding on, but has been exposed for what it truly is. The same is taking place with regard to racism. Bit by bit, we have come to learn that the way things are is based on lies, deceitful ones that stripped humanity from over half the population. The oppressed almost always persevere. Those who are power and control freaks just bully their way through life taking what they feel they deserve to the detriment of all others. Time and nature moves all things toward appropriate distribution, abundance and secure, stable ecosystems. "Humanity", as we call it in the Western World, has not yet reached the climax condition of cultures much, much older. That is why so many around the planet are calling for us to accept the humble participation in nature that first nations people have utilized for centuries to keep the peace with nature. Restoring civilization to a place of abundance can be achieved in short order if we just accept scientific facts and act appropriately. We will win the debate about whether we want to become more fully human or to abandon ourselves to Servoglobe, just having our basic needs met without thought, but that transformation will not be complete, not with hopes or dreams, goals or aspirations. All of these things, to be realized need us to persevere, to work through, wait, educate others and push, wade through the crap that is being dispensed as reality by the uberwealthy through the media. Whatever the odds are for those things that bring the greatest happiness to the most people, we will have no chance to make them happen without the internal ingredient that inspires our actions. Perseverance.

Self-reliance

There has been a recent popularity of the saying, taken from airplane safety talks, that sums up this particular noble virtue. "Put your own oxygen mask on before you assist others." This, perhaps, is one of the best ways to think about this concept and quality. All organisms on the planet exhibit this trait. There is a powerful change that takes place when one becomes independent, self-reliant and autonomous. Again, I go back to my youth and days spent in the woods. Even before I knew about leave no trace ethics or had any camping gear at all, I knew my way around fire, knives and wild edibles. There were still hobos living in the woods along railroad tracks back then and I saw proof of their passing, from fire pits to cast off coffee cans, blankets left behind after they got wet in a storm, etc. Utilizing these cast off items and a bit of creativity, I could "play" in the stream collecting crayfish, or if I could collect fishing line and a lure or hook from the bank of the stream, actually fish for a shore lunch. Of course, an old can could double as a pot to boil water in, or a dry, flat rock could be used as a griddle to fry my catch. I could make "forts" out of soaking wet bedrolls and in my mind, drying them out at the same time might even make them useful again.

Finding a way to live that utilizes cast off elements from other creatures is a time tested way to cultivate self-reliance. As is getting intimate with the world around you. I have sheltered in rock overhangs during drenching rains, I have slept in leaf piles when there was light mist. One very memorable night, I found a rock formation on top of a mountain (at least we call them mountains around here) that fit my body like a waterbed. I found this place by myself and no one was coming to rescue me, I was living by my wits and the benevolence and hospitality of the world around me. One of the first and foremost benefits of cultivating this trait is that when one is neither a burden or bother, it keeps others from being distracted from their path and priorities. Living in ways that hinge on self-reliance also frees up many resources that dovetail into one of the other noble virtues, hospitality.

At first these seem disjoint, but when you live free of the desire to pull others into your vortex, free of the corrupting forces of needing or wanting attention, resources or energy that by definition are coming from others, you will abundance, a cascade of blessings and such a powerful shift in your own countenance that grace will pervade your being in profound ways. You do not have to be good at everything to get to a place of self-reliance, you just have to be willing to do what it takes and meet each new set of circumstances with the focus of a master crafts person, the creativity of an artist and the grace you are capable of emulating. Whatever skills you are capable of exhibiting can lead to self-reliance if you can master the want driven aspects of your personality and focus on what is needed. Again, a beautiful and angelic spirit that I know, who inhabits the body of a friend once said, "as long as you can make bread, play with/teach the children and you are willing to do dishes, you will never have to pay rent." This set of skills do not impinge on others, they do not require that others go out of their way to "support" you, in fact, these skills offered by a graceful being who emulates self-reliance and power that comes from knowing you are providing valuable services also qualifies as self-reliance. Things that would seem like liabilities in this case, a sink full of dirty dishes, or unattended children, even empty mouths whose bread is commercially produced with suspicious ingredients are turned into resources to be taken gladly by the person who sees them as resources to help pave the way to self-reliance.

Being self-reliant is actually not even a choice, we must all master it before we can attain balance.

We cannot forget others in our quest for self-reliance, just as I gave thanks for the hobos for leaving me obtanium (cast off items that are still useful) however, I also honored my own creativity and intellect by making use of them for new purposes and leaving things a little better after my passing. when I would come across a hobo encampment, often there would be trash, or at least the fire pit would need to be cleaned out and these efforts policing the area never felt like work. Participating in the give-back never feels like a burden when you understand the joy of making things just a little bit better. Several decades after my childhood experiences, I learned from a wise soul that trash breeds trash. On some level I must have known that when I took care to leave campsites and trails cleaner than I found them.  I had relied on my own sensibilities, my own conscience, to pick up cast off trash, to leave each glen and fen better than I had found it. my own self, independent of knowledgeable others determined my actions, that is often enough. Doing these things is also, not enough, the reasons behind your actions often have more to do with self-reliance than the actions themselves. I never felt a shred of disgust for how casually trash got left behind, I never acted out of spite or harbored the slightest malice toward those who would pollute without a thought. I certainly never desired accolades for my efforts. (and I still don't) Instead, I focused on my own joy at being integrated into a larger system. In many ways, the only way we can leave the world better than we found it is to give without limit and support our selves first. Helping to take care of others can only be possible if we first attend to our own needs and become capable of being attentive to our selves.

Physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual awareness can lead us to understand what is necessary for our own organism to survive and thrive. In my eyes, self-reliance comes from not only understanding these different parts of our selves, but learning how to take care of these different parts of our being in ways that do not tax others, infringe on their ability to meet their needs or block their development either. A deep and profound liberation takes place when you know that you can make it in this world, not by continuously taking from others or stealing their energies for your benefit. These virtues are actually all aspects of one, much deeper quality. Sadly, the word for it has religious connotations, but it is separate and distinct from any and all religions; that is grace. when we become self-reliant, it helps us to "suffer the slings and arrows" of others because we know that within ourselves we hold the resources needed to take care of this organism we each call home, at least for this lifetime.

Discipline

This is a hard one for me to write about. First off, I'm a man, so speaking ill of my gender is difficult. As truthful and straightforward as I might like to be on the matter, the fact remains that I was raised by womyn and for male influences, a long string of sub-par men seemed to come and go from my life. I tried to spare my own children the difficulties of single parent homes, but cycles seem to repeat. As a youngster, my ideas about discipline were heavily skewed by institutionalized sexism, which continues today; no one ever pointed out the fact that every mother on the planet knows more about discipline than virtually any man ever could. Making sure that your babies get nutrients and food enough to allow them to grow up to the best of their abilities takes a level of commitment and follow through that most bachelors could never handle.

My daughter raised (is raising) two exemplary children, but they knew more about discipline at three than I understood before I was twenty. Daily rituals technically fall into that category and for some, just making it through shit, shower, shave, toothbrush, take time to groom, etc. is as much as they can handle, but the discipline I am speaking of is not what I learned about first.

Football. My stepdad (on paper) was a football star in his own mind, he had won a full ride scholarship to play, but enlisted instead. He shot himself through the fleshy part of his arm to get out of 'Nam but woke up addicted to narcotics in Colorado Springs missing everything the arm above the elbow. My mom married him after knowing him just 72 hours. He tried to teach me discipline, through his frustrated coach wannabe style. Confronted with a round boy of seven, he would say "Discipline is what you need!" I would do drills that he learned in high school, running in place drills where I would change direction in response to him moving the ball, jumping for passes, rolling, then immediately getting up and running in place, then rolling the other way and jumping up to continue running in place, he would have me run into him like a tackling dummy. During calisthenics he had me jumping, doing the large and small circles with my arms and I did thousands of squat thrusts and in his way he was teaching me the discipline he had learned of in the only way he knew.

The discipline that I know today goes beyond having to do the job of a single mother, it is that plus working to build community, heal the natural ecosystems that surround us, live, love and leave as much of a positive trace as possible. When I learned Leave No Trace ethics, that is perhaps when I began to think about discipline as "adulting". Bear in mind that the word would not exist for over two decades, but the reason the word exists today is to describe something specific, that people now need to talk about. Taking complete responsibility for passing across the Earth without leaving a trace is perhaps the most sublime way to travel. It is based on discipline. It is a bit like the cardinal rule of theater technicians, especially props, return everything exactly as you found it. That takes extreme discipline, maybe that is why I liked it so much as a camper.

Through the not-for-profit corporation my wife and I started, we have planted 60K trees, over three million tree seeds and countless forbs. The last six years we have been creating and using biochar which directly sequesters carbon in the soil. It will last for more than thousands of years and will continue to enrich and stabilize the soil the whole time. It truly sequesters carbon in the scale we call, geologic time. It takes discipline to make your body do things, the more important the things you do are, the more discipline is required to stay the course, continue and advance your trajectory, working it, living it, breathing it. Like the discipline of Pranayama yoga or keeping fish, ritualized action leads to meditative states of consciousness that reinvigorate our stores of energy to pour back into our discipline. It is as if the joyousness feeds upon itself and great realizations can come in each moment that would be unattainable attending to the mundane. I humbly submit to my role as charmaster, the discipline that consumes me.