Looking ahead to energy descent

Dear friends,
From December 6 - 19, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Control will convene in Copenhagen to discuss the a followup to the Kyoto Protocol when that agreement expires in 2012. I may not be bound for Denmark, but I am nonetheless getting in to the spirit of the season with this post of climate ponderings.

I have been plunging into some of the popular literature on climate change over the past year, including Lester Brown's Plan B 3.0, Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded, and Elizabeth Kolbert's Fieldnotes From a Catastrophe. These three authors come from different backgrounds, professions, and they offer different prescriptions, but their central message is identical: climate change is here, and in order for it to be merely deeply inconvenient, as opposed to devastating, we need to act. Fast.

As if our historical moment weren't interesting enough, along comes the impending arrival of peak oil extraction. Less well known than climate change but destined perhaps to be equally influential in the coming decades, peak oil refers to the point in time when global extraction reaches its apex and subsequently begins to decline. Peak oil effectively means the end of the era of "cheap oil" and, by extension, the era of cheap food, cheap shipping, and so on and so forth. Estimates of when the world will reach peak oil range from 2030 to 2010 or sooner. Some groups suggest that the price spike that saw oil costs jump to nearly $150 per barrel in July 2008 is an indication that we have already arrived at the early phase of peak oil. What is generally agreed upon, even among oil companies, is that peak oil is real and will manifest very soon.

Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Movement in the UK, stresses that it is essential that we come to understand and address climate change and peak oil as a single, integrated challenge and opportunity. Without taking in to account the implications of climate change, peak oil is likely to drive (and is already driving) a frenzy to turn to significantly more environmentally harmful "unconventional" sources of fossil fuels, such as oil sands and oil shale. Of course, development of unconventional fossil fuels will not prevent peak oil, merely postpone it, at the cost of greatly accelerating conditions that lead to climate change and environmental degradation. Alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind power, are important and promising, but collectively they are not likely to make up for the energy shortfall that will occur with peak oil and rising energy demands. With the planet heating up, water tables falling, sea levels rising, and energy prices climbing steadily upward, our century has the potential for much unpleasantness.

I have hope that this grim picture can be largely avoided, or at least mitigated, if we can break out of business as usual thinking and behavior. Instead of waiting to be forced by ecological limits to decrease our energy consumption (and the likely conflicts over resources that will entail), we can proactively embrace what has been called "planned energy descent". This need not be seen as a sacrifice -- in fact, energy descent can help lead us to an ultimately positive restructuring of our collective priorities. Hopkins writes “the future with less oil could be preferable to the present – but only if sufficient creativity and imagination are applied early enough in the design of this transition”.

Whether through (continued) ecological collapse or through our own capacity as a species to wake up just in the nick of time, we will sooner or later come face to face with the shortcomings of business as usual thinking, namely that pursuing and glorifying unlimited growth on a planet with finite resources is simply not possible and not desirable. We will also be increasingly familiar with the fact that "environmental issues" do not exist in isolation -- they are intimately linked to all manner of social, health, justice, and security issues.

An unprecedented number of individuals, organizations, businesses, and movements are living proof that it is indeed possible to transcend business as usual thinking and embrace a life that minimizes the importance of consumption and puts a premium on consuming within limits, on relationships within community and with the natural world, be it in an urban, rural, or suburban context. Environmentalist, author, and entrepreneur Paul Hawken estimates there are at least two million organizations sharing common goals and principles currently working for social and environmental change, what he calls the largest single movement in the history of the world.

Undoubtedly policy proceedings in Copenhagen, Washington D.C., and elsewhere are extremely important for our common future. I am increasingly convinced, however, that equally if not more important is grassroots education and activity on a vast scale. This collective challenge/opportunity is far too big, far too important, and far too ripe with possibility to be left to experts of various stripes. Efforts like the Transition Movement are enlivening communities throughout the UK, the US, Japan, and beyond and awakening people to the idea that mitigating environmental and social problems can be profoundly connective, joyful, and rewarding. It is not a question of top down or bottom up, technological solutions or social solutions. It is all of these efforts at once, ideally informing and reinforcing one another. We are living in an "all hands on deck" moment in history.

Here are a few short videos and links you may be interested in

Rob Hopkins explaining transition towns (6 minutes): video
The End of Suburbia - documentary on Peak Oil (52 minutes): video
Awakening the Dreamer trailer (7 minutes): video
350.org - campaign to mitigate climate change: website

Burma photos

Dear all,
I watched the sun come up over the harbor here in Monterey this morning. An indescribably lovely sight. There may be more pleasant locales in the world, but that would be a very short list, indeed.

Here is a collection of photos from my recent trip to Burma. I am forging ahead with my first draft of writing about the experience, finding it difficult to distill such a rich experience into a reasonable number of pages.

I hope this post finds you all happy and healthy and well!

Chad

Fond farewell to a remarkable woman

It is dusk and I find myself situated at a small table outdoors at the Cafe Anniversaire, the fancy Tokyo haunt I wrote about lovingly in Homage to the Coffee Shop: Part II. The atmosphere is lively, the air thick with conversation of well-heeled shoppers. Hair mussed, eyes bagged, worn rucksack tucked between my legs, I am direct from Narita airport and anomalous here on several accounts. Yet I could not resist the gravitational force of outstanding coffee. Burma is decidedly a tea country, and I have been anticipating this reunion with vice for some days now.

The past days in Burma were rich and profound. I will be processing and writing about the experience in the weeks to come. Today, however, my thoughts are directed towards the small town of Chenoa, Illinois. My grandmother Mary Ellen Morse, my father's mother and my last surviving grandparent, passed away in Chenoa on August 29 of heart failure at the ripe age of 93. Her body had long since started to throw in the towel, but her mind stayed sharp and her heart plugged along doggedly and persistently until the end. It was as if she ceded ground to arthritis and other ailments to concentrate her energy on heart and mind, the locusts of her essential qualitities -- intelligence, strength of will, and large heartedness.

Grandma spent her childhood on the family farm outside of Danvers, Illinois. She was among the eldest of the many Schertz children, and she carried throughout her life the sense of seriousness and responsibility that comes with the charge of helping raise one's younger siblings. After meeting my grandfather Howard Morse, a farmer and high school teacher, the couple moved to nearby Odell and settled at the Morse family farm where they raised pigs and milk cows, grew corn and soybeans, and tended a large garden.

My father was born the year Nazi Germany blitzed into Poland. Papa, my grandfather, wanted to enlist in the army, but he was rejected on account of being underweight (there is a serious Jack Spratt gene in the Morse family DNA). Committed to being part of the Allied effort in one way or another, the whole family left the farm for the duration of the war, heading west to the shipyards of California.

The family returned to Odell after the war, but not before my father had been infected by the allure of California. A dozen years later, he enrolled as an enginnering major at Stanford University and called Calironia home for the rest of his life. Grandma and Papa continued to work the farm together, the pigs and cattled falling by the wayside as the USDA encouraged farmers to plant 'fencerow to fencerow'. Grandma managed the books so ably that she and Papa helped put my sisters and me through college. Both Grandma and Papa embodied Depression era thrift to the bone, although through much arm twisting my parents convinced Grandma to join them for trips to England, Canada, and New Zealand while she was in her 80s. She was in no small part lured by the English style formal gardens in each of these locales. Grandma loved flowers almost as much as she loved bridge, which is a very strong statement.

When Papa died in 1982, Dad lobbied Grandma to move to the Bay Area to be closer to our family. She was not about to leave her home in Odell, but a compromise was struck and she spent winters with us in California. Arthritis eventually made these trips impossible, and by her mid-80s Grandma had moved to an assisted living home. My visits over the past decade have consisted primarily, almost exclusively, of card marathons (and I do mean marathons). We would play our first round at 9am or so, and by 5pm I would say that I had to get going for the evening. 'You're leaving already?' she would ask in disbelief. And then, 'Well, be sure you get here early in the morning.'

Grandma was not a chatterbox (Papa was the garrulous one), save on certain topics (cooking, weather, the Cubs) or with certain people (her younger sister Alice, with whom my grandmother could chat in perpetuity). After the first hour or so of gin rummy, our conversation would slow and then cease almost entirely. We were both OK with this. We simply enjoyed one another's company. On occasion, someplace I had been would intrigue her and she would slip question after question between rounds of rummy. Plum Village Monastery in France, for example, fascinated her. What are the monks like? What do they eat? Do you have to shave your head when you go there? Do they grow their own food? In large part to give Grandma a fuller picture of my experiences at the monastery, I wrote Recollections of Plum Village.

My last visit was in July, a three-day stint that saw some truly epic games of rummy. My sister Holly was there with my brother-in-law Jason and their kids Ryan and Kayla. The latter two sat in on a few rounds of hearts with their great-grandmother, and when it came time to leave we all kissed her on the cheek and said our goodbyes. Just over a month later, Grandma had three other visiters -- her nephew Mike, her niece Valerie, and Valerie's golden retriever Sophie. Val said Sophie and Grandma 'shared a moment', looking deeply into one another's eyes. Shortly thereafter, a lovely soul passed quietly and peacefully out of this world.

Out of the frying pan... What next for Burma?

I begin this post some eight hours deep into a flight from San Francisco to Osaka. The map function on the seatback display informs me that we are several hundred miles east of the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido. North lies the sea of Okhotsk and the eastern fringes of Russia, a corner of this fair planet I will likely only visit during games of Risk.

Japan is the jumping off point for a two week trip to Burma and Thailand led by my good friend Dwight Clark. I met Dwight on a bright Fall morning in 1998. I was nervously awaiting an interview for the Payson Treat Fellowship, a cross-cultural exchange program run by the small non-profit Volunteers in Asia. A kindly gentleman offered me a cup of tea while I waited and struck up conversation. He carried himself with such graceful humility that I was surprised to learn later that not only was he VIA's president, he had been so since he founded the organization in 1963. The tea and conversation soothed my nerves and, very contrary to my expectations, a few days later I was selected to the fellowship.

Five years later, I came to work for VIA as a program director. All the while, Dwight and I have made a point of getting together for tea or dinner to catch up on life, revel in the horse race of American politics, and share thoughts and information on world affairs, particularly those pertaining to Asia. Dwight and VIA have been just about everywhere in Asia over the past 46 years -- Indonesia, China, Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Phillipines, etc. Since his retirement in 2003, Dwight has not slowed down a bit. His focus these days, and the focus of many of our dinner chats, is increasingly the troubled nation of some 50 million souls now officially known as Myanmar.

Burma has been receiving some press of late over the ruling military junta's decision to continue detaining Nobel laureat Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest through next year's elections. The charges, which stemmed from a bizarre incident in which an American man swam unbidden to Suu Kyi's heavily-guarded home, are consistent with the junta's efforts to marginalize Suu Kyi and pro-democracy leadership regardless of the flimsiness of the rationale.

Burma's military regime has existed in one form or another since 1962, a remarkably tenacious ruling clique. One of my primary interests in Burma is the question of what will happen within the country once the regime, now known by the Orwellian moniker State Peace and Development Council, finally passes by the wayside. Once a fairly prosperous nation, Burma is now among the poorest in South East Asia. Embargos, sanctions, and a general unwillingness to be associated with a government as roundly condemned as Myanmar's has meant that the country has seen little of the rapid economic growth of its neighboring 'Asian Tigers'. (An exception to this standoffishness is China, which has had fewer qualms with its resource-rich neighbor's tendencies towards political repression and human rights violations). When sunnier political days come and Burma strikes a more open posture, the country will be one of the low men on the economic totem pole in the region. Multinationals will be tempted to shift their factories and sweatshops to Burma. The IMF and the World Bank will vigorously champion structural adjustment as the non-negotiable right of passage into the global marketplace. In agriculture, there will be tremendous pressure to move even further in the direction of unsustainable, cash-crop monocultures. In short, Burma will find itself hitched to the globalization express both for better and for worse.

The alluring question for me is to what extent Burma can emerge from its long political isolation without immediately becoming the latest sweatshop to the world. To what extent can the country maintain extant pracitices, structures, attitudes, sensibilities, and knowledge that promote environmental and cultural health? I don't intend to romanticize 'traditional' Burmese society as it exists under the junta or downplay the acute suffering that repression engenders. Yet to the extent that there still exist ways of life in Burma and across the globe that are less energy and resource intensive, I believe the knowledge embedded in those ways of life offer invaluable lessons for our species as we enter an era in which one of our most urgent needs is to relearn how to live more lightly on the planet.

On the Road

Dear friends,

Beatrice and I rolled into Monterey on Wednesday, nineteen days and several thousand miles distant from Chattanooga. Questionable directions resulted in a slight detour through North Carolina, Virgina, the Northeast, Illinois, Wyoming, Idaho, and the Pacific Northwest. Along the way, I had the distinct pleasure of touching base with several friends and family members (and was tantalizing close to others. Next trip!). Many friends from the UC Santa Cruz farming program are now plying their trade throughout the country, so I tried to get a sense of where and how these folks are pursuing their passion for sustainable food systems. Sincere thanks to all for their hospitality and wonderful company!

After unpacking, I immediately repacked for a 12-day workshop with the environmentalist and educator Joanna Macy which I will be joining tomorrow. Shortly thereafter, I will be joining my good friend and founder of Volunteers in Asia Dwight Clark for an educational tour of Myanmar (Burma) he is leading through his non-profit Learning Across Borders. After the dust is settled, I will surely be writing about these experiences. Until then, please enjoy a little piece on a short visit I made to Walden Pond as well as this collection of photos from Chattanooga and the road.

All the best!
Chad

Savoring to the last

Dear all,
My calendar informs me that just six days remain before Beatrice the Buick and I set a meandering course back to California. Less than one week! How did this happen? I strongly suspect time theft. I am following leads as to the whereabouts of the month of missing month of June.

Unsolved mysteries aside, the impending departure has inspired a modus operandi for the coming week: savor the day!

I started savoring in earnest Wednesday evening. Carrots were anathema at market. Not one customer would so much look upon a carrot. This was unfortunate. Williams Island Farm is lousy with carrots, phalanx upon phalanx of carrots. A vast underground army of root vegetables. Consequently, Noah and I found ourselves at 7pm parked riverside cutting the green tops off of several million carrots to prepare them for storage. The day had been piping hot and protracted. Noah, always pregnant with ideas, birthed an exceptional one. Let's buy a beer. Ten minutes later, we are again topping carrots. But now we are topping carrots with a 22 oz bottle of Arrogant Bastard Ale. This is a beer of such complete and forceful delight that it insists upon being savored. Resisters soon cry uncle!

And then I was savoring everything. I was savoring the breeze curling up from the river, fat handfuls of blueberries from the Keeners' farm, and I was savoring Noah's fine company and conversation.

Carrots topped and ale imbibed, I still had more savoring in me. I went to Lupi's. These Lupi's folks are pizza wizards. Their pies are not so much made as they are conjured out of magical substances. What's more, this is very much a Community establishment. At closing, I cornered the manager TJ and subjected him to my effusive praise and appreciation. I fear I may have waxed sentimental about pizza and Community.

Feeling so satiated, so light of step, I walked one block east to the Hair of the Dog pub. Now I was making the rounds. This was the late night writing spot of choice where you would be scribbling intently at the bar and, without a beat skipped, suddenly discover yourself discussing the dietary restrictions of Seventh Day Adventists with the bartender whose father was a pastor and the guy next to you whose father was also a pastor and wasn't it odd that they won't eat spicy mustard?

By now it was late and the moon was a floodlight when I paddled across the river. Crossing the river is always savored, always. I have done it a hundred times and more. The day that canoeing across the Tennessee River fails to thrill me is the day I lose all sense of wonderment and gratitude.

So much to savor, so little time. On Thursday I savored Shakespeare's Twelfth Night over at the Ripple Theater. The play was performed by six MFA candidates from Regent University, each playing multiple roles. It was a wonderful, intimate performance. I chatted with the troupe afterward--pitching the idea that they consider "Shakespeare on the Island" one of these days.

On Friday I savored a resplendent harvest morning and the lovely diversity of people that are drawn out to the island to volunteer their time. Hoeing a patch of winter squash, I bantered with Clark (old time musician), Yuri (social worker), and Mary (photo and video documentary artist). These folks come and share their company and labor, sometimes taking a few vegetables home with them in return, but mainly to build a connection to their food source. It is a joy to see this connection take root. Our friend Yong has been volunteering once a week for the past month or so. A month ago, he had never seen a carrot growing. Now he has harvested many thousands of them and has become something of an authority on that activity.


Friday evening, when the heat had finally subsided, we headed back out to the field to plant sweet potatoes. Summer evenings on the island are exceedingly pleasant. The fireflies hover in the trees, the setting sun illuminates the clouds above Signal and Elder mountains, and the crickets begin their chorus.


There is much to savor in Chattanooga these days. There is energy and enthusiasm building around local food, around the arts, around greater community orientation. I have been fortunate to have landed amongst a collection of individuals who are all engaged, all pushing things forward in exciting and positive directions. This has been a charmed season of my life, a largely harmonious balance between physical work, intellectual and creative exploration, and community involvement. I return home with notepads of writings and re-writings that require still further re-writings, a camera full of photographs, and a deep sense of connection to this place and its people.

Take care, be well, and savor away!
Chad

PS - Here are some new photos from the island.

Tank Man

Dear all,
I am back in Chattanooga after a brief but very full trip to California. The trip home brought into focus the fact that I have just under a month left of this particular season of life in Tennessee before heading back to California. It will be sad to leave this wonderful place and the people here. I plan to soak up the experience in the weeks to come.

In August and September, I will be traveling to Japan and Myanmar with my old friend and Volunteers in Asia founder Dwight Clark and a group of university students he is leading. I will be writing more about that program as the trip approaches.

I mainly wanted to share this link to the "Tank Man" clip from the Tienanmen protests of 1989 that many of you will be very familiar with. I have watched it a dozen times in the past few weeks. There is also a fascinating 8 part video on YouTube called The Tank Man. A truly moving moment of history.

All the best,
Chad

Stories

We were in the Spring garden thinning carrots. It was midmorning and the day had not wasted time in getting hot. My baseball cap was cocked at a ridiculous angle to block the sun. The going was slow, so you put your water bottle ten paces ahead as an incentive and as a measure of progress.

Noah and Daniel were talking about how to deal with flea beetles. Matt and I were swapping jokes. He knew some good ones. There was one about a talking dog and another about thermometers. I vowed to myself that I would remember them, even though I knew I would not. I could only remember one joke. I told it, drawing it out as long as possible, trying to make up in duration what I lacked in quantity.

And then he says, “Where’s that old woman with the toothache?!” I had stopped
thinning carrots to deliver the punch line with added flair. This paid dividends. Matt was down the row convulsing.

You know what I’d love to study? I said. Story-telling. What a beautiful, lost art.

You should hear Jim Pfizer tell a story. I think he does it professionally. Got one those Marshal grants recently to maintain local tradition. Fifteen-thousand dollars.

Really? Never heard of Marshal grants. So he spins a good yarn?

“Jack tales”. That’s what they call them around here, I think. Jack tales.

Jack tales. I like that. We were closing in on finishing the second row of carrots.

My grandpa could tell a story, Matt said. That’s one of my favorite memories as a kid. Just sitting in the living room listening to grandpa talk about growing up in the depression in South Dakota and getting into all sorts of mischief. He could tell a story.

When I try to picture someone in their childhood, I just superimpose their grown up head onto a child’s body. The results are cartoonish and frequently comical. Imaginary Little Matt was particularly comical. Grown Up Matt wears a wide straw hat and a long, bushy, reddish-brown beard. In appearance and temperament, one might suspect that he escaped from either Lancaster County or perhaps the 19th Century. He teaches writing and literature at UT Chattanooga and speaks slowly and sonorously with the precision of someone who makes his livelihood with words.

My dad’s uncle Elmer… now he could tell a story, I said. Nick Harris Detectives. That was my favorite—Nick Harris Detectives. He drove out to Los Angeles from this small town in Illinois, kind of a last hurrah before going to study dentistry. And somehow he landed this job with this Hollywood detective agency for about two weeks of misadventure. I must have heard him tell it six or eight times, and it never took less than forty-five minutes. I recorded it before he died. That and his stories about the Philippines during the war.

We kept on in silence for a while and I thought about television and story-telling and that Wendell Berry quote Noah liked. Something about how we should always ask whether a technology increases or decreases the skill level of the person using it. I wondered what sort of stories I might tell my grandkids and against what kinds of games and gadgets I would be competing for their attention.

A cool breeze was coming in from the south. I finished my section and moved on to hoeing a row of Swiss chard. The ground was hard and caked after the prior week’s rains and the recent heat. The hoe did not slice easily through the soil.

Ashley called us in for lunch just after noon. She had made sandwiches with Matt’s sauerkraut, her own mustard, and a massive block of raw-milk cheese she had ordered from Wisconsin. With some of the limes we had inherited from Ann, she made the best tasting limeade I have ever had.

The food disappeared quickly and we sat around the table, satiated. Chocolate almond butter cookies materialized and life certainly could not have gotten any better.

I sold Anabelle this morning, Ashley said. It was funny; I met the lady in the parking lot at Baylor and the security guard kept giving us weird looks.

Well... you were in the process of selling a goat out of the back of a truck… Noah pointed out astutely. Everyone laughed.

You should have just looked incredulous and said, “What? You’ve never seen a goat deal go down before?” This was Matt’s contribution. I nearly lost my meal.

We all washed up and thanked Daniel and Matt for coming out. When would we be seeing them again? Soon, they said. They set off to canoe back to the Baylor dock. Clouds were coming over Elder Mountain from the west. I filled my water and shambled back to the field. As I picked up where I’d left off with the chard, my mind was filled with snippets of the voice and laughter of Uncle Elmer recounting his exploits with the famous Nick Harris Private Detective Agency of Hollywood, California.

The Story of Stuff

Dear all,
Here is a 20-minute video on global consumption not to be missed. It's something I would like to have made, only much better researched, articulated, presented, etc. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks to Maribel Andonian for passing it my way!

Take care,
Chad

Ocra in the cove

Dear all,

Yesterday morning I defected from the island and made the 40 minute drive northwest to Sequatchie Cove Farm. Along the way, you dip briefly into Dade County Georgia and you cross into the Central Time Zone. This makes the drive seem more substantial. I was drinking strong coffee and listening to a podcast lecture about the Etruscans and their unfortunate encounters with the Romans en route. It was very close to the perfect morning.

Padgett Arnold and her crew of CSA workshares were planting ocra and tomatoes. It's typically too cold to plant ocra on the central coast of California, so I jumped at the opportunity. We planted 400 bed feet at twelve-inch spacing. That's a lot of ocra.

Sequatchie Cove is owned and operated by the Keener family, of whom my fellow islander Kelsey is the prodigal son (having returned from his stint at UC Santa Cruz). Their land at the cove is immodestly gorgeous. One of these days I will give the property a proper exploration and try to write a thing or two about the place. Until then, suffice it to say that it is immodestly gorgeous and that if you are ever within a three state radius of Tennessee it is worth a look-see.

On the 24th of May, the island will play host to an afternoon of workshops, talks, tours, and a potluck. Rain has pushed back the event date almost a month, but we have a good feeling about the 24th.

On June 7th, I am conspiring with my friends Tim and Amy Andonian to host an afternoon potluck and discussion on vocation (my next writing topic) at their house in Sunnyvale. Details to come. We'll hope to see some of you there.

And finally, here are some new photos from the farm and surrounds. Some are in the beloved sepia and others are in color. And to top it all off, here are three lovely poems by my friend Deena Miller. Deena read these at the March 14 event at the Alan Chadwick garden in Santa Cruz, and I've been meaning to post them ever since. Enjoy!

Chad

Hemingway in Knoxville

Dear all,

Today I skipped town and drove two hours north to Knoxville to explore more of the state and with the hope that a change in venue would help prime the writing pump. As per custom (my own), I parked on the outskirts of town and biked into the city. I chanced upon the lovely market square and continued on to the Old City. A used bookstore caught my eye. I entered and thumbed through a coffee table book on Ernest Hemingway. I have always been and continue to be a sucker for Hemingway. So, here is a journal entry from 2007 that I wrote after rereading my perennial favorite The Sun Also Rises.

“December 10, 2007

Today I finished reading The Sun Also Rises for the fourth or fifth time. What an extraordinary and engaging piece of writing. What struck me this time around was the discrepancy between the tremendous awareness of and sensitivity to weather, language, emotion, etc. that Hemingway had to have had to create such a work (at 26!) and the utterly misguided and bankrupt approach to life his characters take. It is so clear and so tragic how completely caught each character is in his or her desires and delusions. The book could almost serve as a textbook on how to cultivate misery and ensure unhappiness. And yet they’re also so charming and intelligent and sophisticated—and so missing the point. The book also reminded me how disastrous it is when people with money and power and influence fall under such madness. Because of the relative weight of their influence, their misguided decisions have huge ripple effects—just as the tragic actions of our current president have touched nearly every person alive.

And to think that Americans, with all our wealth and power, are acting just as madly as Brett Ashley and company, and that our madness is spreading. How disconcerting it all is. The word that always comes to mind is “thrashing”, as in we are thrashing about for happiness in an evermore doomed and destructive manner. It is a crazed behavior, an addictive behavior. It has made us blind to the subtle yet surpassing beauty of nature, of contemplation, of community.

This madness has always existed, yet never have our actions carried so much consequence, never have there been so many of us, and never have the snares that pull us into ignorance been so virulent, pervasive, and effective.

Rebekah Hart and I had a wonderful and affirming conversation last night about how to go about “the work”, both personally and in community. We face many of the same questions—whether to engage “within the belly of the beast” or to position ourselves somewhat outside the fray so as to nourish ourselves in the aim of nourishing others. She spoke of her experience with Joanna Macy and her “work that reconnects” pedagogy. What I found most interesting was that the workshops begin with a time to explore and acknowledge the grief we feel at our disconnectedness with nature and the destruction we have brought to the environment. This seems to me a very wise and necessary step to truly begin to address the bigger issues of our time.”

From the archives: Ubud, Bali

Dear all,
Here is a journal entry I wrote four years ago while visiting the island of Bali in Indonesia. I was in Indonesia for one week while working with Volunteers in Asia. I plan on doing some writing on that experience in the near future. Until then, here are some thoughts I scribbled while saddled up to the bar.


"April 3, 2005
Ubud, Bali

Here at an ex-pat bar, smile wide, chummy with Balinese bartender simply for not being as rude and brusque as some other patrons. I certainly wasn’t planning to land myself in this scene, but for some reason this is just right. Tonight I am a fly on the wall—or at the bar—of another manifestation of the inherently out-of-alignment clashing of 1st and 3rd (or 2nd?) worlds. A cultural train wreck, to borrow a favorite term from my good friend Brian Penrose.

I wish I could read the minds of the bartenders and all the Balinese selling their art along the pleasant streets of Ubud. I wonder what they think of these clunky, ponchy white folks who they supposedly depend upon. I imagine we seem arrogant and ridiculous, yet somehow powerful and alluring. We see ourselves this way, too, I think. Every time we pass another white face along the road, we put on our unfriendly look—somehow thinking we can transfer our guilt and discomfort into coldness towards those who most resemble us.

Realizing this, intellectually at least, I sit with this Buddha grin amongst my fellow bundles of guilt and abandon. I am the fly on the wall. I am outside the fray and therefore have the luxury of observation without participation. I am the book critic. I am the historian. If life were always this relaxed and enjoyable, it would all be a lark. But we all have to participate, sometimes in very nasty circumstances. Some of us have to participate in nasty circumstances from the get go, and we never have time to stop and breathe and ponder life and its marvels. Some of us are born into despair and are given precious few resources to extricate ourselves.

Some of us are lucky, and we have the leisure to sit at bars in Bali and muse about these things. Some of us are lucky, but we lucky ones tend to squander our good fortune on television and alcohol, trinkets and the pursuit of wealth. We’re not always so lucky after all.

I read Vonnegut feverishly today. He invokes great sadness, cynicism, humor, and compassion in me. He sees all too acutely what is happening, what is going on in this crazy world. His response is to tease us, to chide us, to nudge our slumbering conscience. He leaves me feeling just like him—cynical and pessimistic, yet tender towards our flawed and eager selves.

And here is an ugly scene. Insistent German woman with whole self focused on obtaining a cocktail. Uncomprehending Balinese bartender performing for the crowd. Dark skin on one side of the bar, light skin on the other. It is sad and done and poisonous. I think that word—poisonous—applies to so many of our relationships, so many of our interactions. Sometimes we bring the poison, sometimes our ancestors’ ancestors have supplied it without our knowing. We just inherent the bitter aftertaste and the vague idea that something is amiss."

New photos / first letter

Dear friends,

Sunday has brought rain again to Chattanooga, but Friday and Saturday were warm and presented a narrow planting window. We worked until dark planting tomatoes, beans, basil, herbs, onions, leeks, shallots, and lettuce. I woke up with aches, but the type of aches made palatable by satisfying work. Here are some recent pictures from Williams Island Farm and from out and about Chattanooga. I hope you enjoy.

I am also sending along via email the first of the Cracks in the Pavement letters in two parts. The letter is titled Underpinnings of Health and asks the question - Are there underlying characteristics common to healthy people, communities, institutions, and ecosystems? I hope you will find something in the letter that sparks a thought or a new line of inquiry. I still consider this an early draft and plan on revising all the letters before self-publishing them later this year. So if you catch any grammatical errors or typos, feel free to let me know. I can benefit from a multiplicity of eyes! On the topic of editing, my sincere thanks go to Maribel and Amy Andonian for their input and assistance thus far.

Take care,
Chad

Recollections of Plum Village

Dear friends,
It is late afternoon on Monday. The sun has made a cameo appearance on an otherwise gray and moody day. I find myself at Rembrandt’s Coffee House in the Bluff’s View art district in Chattanooga, sipping at a cup of Japanese tea, and enjoying some repose after finishing the first draft of the Cracks in the Pavement letter on technology.

Before jumping in to the next letter (on community), I wanted to share a few recollections of my five-week stay at Plum Village monastery in France earlier this year (sent via email). I also put together a short slide show you can view on YouTube. If the accompanying music sounds amateurish...it is! The first short song is called “Gliding”, and I wrote it the day before I left for Tennessee. The second song is called “A Walk By the Lake” and was inspired by my friend Helena McManemon’s poetry.

Many friends have expressed interest and curiosity about Plum Village. What’s it like? Can you talk while you’re there? What’s a typical day like? My hope is that these short pieces, along with the photos, will help give those who are interested a better idea of the place, the community, and why I love spending time there.

All the best,
Chad

Simply beautiful

This is a fractal zoom of the Mandelbrot set (some very complicated math). Click here, set to full screen, turn up volume, and enjoy!

Words from Wendell

Dear friends,

The rain subsided in Chattanooga last Friday long enough for a gathered crowd of 80 or so people to celebrate the dedication of Hartnell Farm. The beautiful, winding fields of Hartnell's 60-odd acres were gifted to the St. Andrews Foundation, a Methodist organization which plans to utilize the site as a functioning organic farm and education site.

Among those gathered was Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer, poet, and author who has penned powerful and prophetic works on culture and agriculture for four decades. If you have never read his wonderful book The Unsettling of America, I suggest you traipse on down to the library and check it out. Berry's words at the dedication ceremony prompted me to reread two of my favorite quotes of his. They go something like this:

"The triumph of the industrial economy is the fall of community. But the fall of community reveals how precious and necessary it is. For when community falls, so must fall all of the things that only community life can engender and protect: the care of the old, the care and education of children, family life, neighborly work, the handing down of memory, the care of the earth, and respect for nature and the lives of wild creatures."

"A part of our obligation to our own being and to our descendants is to study life and our conditions, searching always for the authentic underpinnings of hope."

I am currently finishing up the second of the Cracks in the Pavement letters, this one on technology and culture. In two or three weeks, we will be hosting an event on community and food at Williams Island Farm. Details to come. It's a good time to come visit Chattanooga!

Take care,
Chad

Views from the island

Dear friends,
We were at full tilt on my first full day on Williams Island Farm. Noah, Kelsey, Ryan, Felicja, Ashley, and I sowed eggplant and lettuce, planted cabbage, fertigated garlic and strawberries, modified the greenhouse, fixed the compost spreader, milked the goats, fed the sheep, harvested shitake mushrooms, collected chicken eggs... and so on.

For those of you wondering where the working title "Cracks in the Pavement" comes from, here are some notes on the title's origin I hurriedly jotted down on a legal pad over a year ago when I was just starting to brainstorm for the writing project.

A short post today. Just wanted to share some photos and some of the excitement of being in this lovely place and being blessed with good work and good friends.

Cheers,
Chad

In the garden. On the road.

Dear friends,
Greetings from Tennessee! I arrived here in Chattanooga yesterday evening, the culmination of a long and lovely drive through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and twenty miles worth of Georgia. Upon arrival, I immediately unloaded my bike out of Beatrice, my trusty and much beloved ’94 Buick LeSabre, to explore the city that is to be my home for the next four months. I confess to being quite enchanted by the wooded hills, the broad and meandering river, and the very livable scale and pace of Chattanooga.

Nine days and a few thousand miles ago, twenty-five of us met in the Alan Chadwick Garden to discuss the Cracks in the Pavement project and to share ideas on “underpinnings of health”, the topic of the first of several open letters I’ll be composing over the coming months (photos here). We engaged with the following questions:
-What trends in modern society might we deem healthy?
-What trends display a distinct absence of health?
-Are there patterns and characteristics common to healthy phenomena, “underpinnings of health”, that we can begin to discern, study, and employ as a means of helping us cultivate health in our own lives and in our communities?
In small groups, we came up with some wonderful thoughts and observations, some of which I include in my outline of the day’s events. We concluded the afternoon with some lovely poetry compliments of my dear friend Deena Miller and with a reading of my letter on underpinnings of health. I will post the letter in a few weeks, after it has benefited from the efforts of a small cadre of editors (thanks be unto editors!).

The next topic of discussion and writing will be technology as it relates to societal and environmental health. Within a few weeks, I plan to hold another community event in Chattanooga to discuss how various technologies have influenced and are influencing the way in which we live, relate with one another, and relate with the world at large. Since ninety-seven percent of you aren’t likely to be in Chattanooga, I would like to invite you all to share thoughts, questions, opinions and what have you on the blog or, if you would like to keep it more personal, directly with me via email.

Take care, be well, and stay tuned!
-Chad

March 14 event at Alan Chadwick Garden

Dear all,
The first community event tied in with this writing project will be held on March 14 at the Alan Chadwick Garden on the UC Santa Cruz Campus. Things kick off at 3pm and should run until about 5:30pm. As per usual, I invite all comers to join me for a delicious happy hour pint at the Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery after the event.

The afternoon will consist of a few short readings from the early stages of the writing project, as well as a bit of poetry from some friends. Then I will give an outline of the writing/teaching project, its themes and purpose. There will be some interactive discussions as well, all set in the rustic loveliness of the Chadwick garden. If rain is in the forecast, I will contact you all with an alternate venue.

For directions, type in "McLaughlin Dr & Hagar Dr Santa Cruz, CA 95064" on google maps. From Hagar Rd., take a right on McLaughlin. Then take your first left up the hill to Merrill College. Immediately on your right, there will be a narrow driveway that says University vehicles only -- the garden is down that driveway to the right. For parking, however, continue up the hill to the Merrill College parking lot.

I look forward to seeing some of you on the 14th. If you haven't already, please RSVP so I can get a sense of how many people to prepare for. If you would like to bring simple snacks or a bottle of wine, that is most welcome.

All the best,
Chad

"Cracks in the Pavement" writing project

Dear friends,
As many of you know, I am working on a writing project which I've tentatively titled "Cracks in the Pavement". The project is to be a series of "letters on living", some of my thoughts and reflections on life in the early 21st century. I am fortunate to have been given the chance to live and work with friends Ryan, Kesley, and Noah on their small farm on Williams Island in Chattanooga, TN while I do the bulk of my writing.

As part and parcel of the writing project, I will also be organizing a series of community events in which I will give a short talk on an upcoming writing topic followed by discussion and other activities. Tentative dates and topics of these events are listed to the right.

This project is a personal exploration for me, a chance to follow lines of inquiry on how to live in this world with greater joy, connection, integrity, and purpose. I invite you all along for the ride because I've found that this question always reminds me of how much I value the relationships that shape and sustain me.