Meaning Basket for a Mindful Holiday Season

We've put up our Christmas tree early this year, two full weeks before Thanksgiving. The plan is to decorate it during the November calm so we'll be able to enjoy it even while busy with rehearsals and preparations for the annual LUNCH Holiday Show next week, and tired week that follows, when we'll be putting away mountains of scenery, props, and costumes.

With all that's been in the news lately, I've been especially aware of the gulf between the attitudes of Thanksgiving, love, community, and gratitude this holiday is meant to represent--with it's intended mindfulness of others' needs--and the actual Season of Consumerism and over-consumption that follows instead. I know I sound like a bit of a Scrooge, but personally I don't need any more things, or hobbies, or toys for entertaining myself. I have much more of everything already, and I suspect that most of the people I know are in this same situation. Our planet doesn't need the impact of manufacturing all this, transporting or storing it. I'm aware of my own excess, but at a loss to know what to do to help the many, many people in this world who have far less than they need for basic survival and comfort.

With all this in mind, I've decided to make a small change in the way I approach the coming season. In effort to change my holiday habits of over-doing, over-wanting, and over-buying, I've created a different sort of symbolic container to place beneath our Christmas tree. It's a second-hand basket--a Meaning Basket--to contain my growing awareness of all the good that already exists in my life, as well as tangible reminders of the material, hopeful, and helpful longings I feel.

To this end, I've cut small pieces of scrap printer paper from the recycling bin, gathered a handful of pencils, and placed these together in convenient places all around our house.  On the slips of scrap paper, As I think of them I'll write the names of the many people, things and opportunities I already have in my life, then I"ll drop these into the Meaning Basket under our Christmas tree. (The piles of paper scraps and pencils all over the house are something I've been using for a long time to capture creative ideas and reminders for my TO-DO list.)

I'll focus, especially, on those people and things I never seem to get around to enjoying as fully as I would like. Then, I'll take steps to do the special things I always intend to do, but never seem to get around to because I'm too busy with shopping, rushing around, or looking through the mountains of holiday catalogs that come in the mail each day. As for my unused possessions, I'm either going to make a point put those things to good use in the coming year or give them to someone else who will. How many of these are things I've asked for and received for Christmas in the past?!

I'll also write down the needs I see in our community, the many things I see and feel drawn to help with. There are so many that I often feel pulled in all directions, overwhelmed, with no plan of action. In January, as I'm looking ahead to the coming year, I'll sort these out and choose something to follow through with, something tangible and manageable to make a start.

Our close family has asked to keep gift exchange simple this year with primarily homemade, handmade gifts, gift cards, and time spent spent enjoying each other's company. This feels right to me.

Mindful of this, I intend to use the basket and scraps of paper instead of spending December thinking about what else I might want and don't really need, or wandering through stores and shopping online trying to figure out what to get for people who've told me they don't really need anything else either. When I see an ad for something I might want, I'll get the scissors and cut out a picture of it, like I did when I was a kid, then drop that picture into the basket where it can sit in the context of all the good that already exists in my life. Thus, my inevitable longings for shiny, new things will find more balanced context, a context where I can better decide which acquisitive longings to indulge.

All this may be asking a lot of a second-hand basket, but such a simple container seems like an appropriate symbol for carrying the Thanksgiving mindset of gratitude and mindfulness forward into the coming Christmas season. It is my hope that the value of my new Meaning Basket and the insights it holds will stay in place long after our Christmas tree has been put away.

Will you join me by filling your own Meaning Basket this season?

©Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

20151120 Happiness = New Words + New Melody

Happiness is listening to the radio on a long drive home after a satisfying day of work, with a beautiful, pink-clouded sunset filling the sky all around me.

Happiness is finding a program on the radio playing songs Stephen Sondheim said he wished he'd written. Among the selections was one I'd never heard before, a lump-in-the-throat-joyful-AHA-moment-feeling-at-the-end sort of song, written for a voice just like mine.

Happiness is coming home to discovering that I already have the sheet music for this song among the books on the shelves in my studio.

Happiness is setting a goal to learn to sing and play the song this week. I will sing it for others sometime soon, in the hope of giving them that same lump-in-the-throat-joyful-AHA-moment sort of feeling it gave to me :-)

New Words, new melody. This is happiness.

I'm not going to come right out and tell what the song is. Not yet. Though there is a big fat clue among the words you've just read.

And here is another big clue.

©Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

Gaia Luna Video Tour: January Thaw

Gem the cat and I would like you to join us on our first ever video tour of Gaia Luna Garden.

We've chosen a pleasant day during our January thaw to make for easy walking.  You'll see where we're starting the year. And in future videos you'll be able to watch how it grows.

Even in this cold time of long darknesses, we know we've turned the corner of the seasons, and we're heading back toward Spring!

(c)2013 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

Eric Maisel Does For Mood What Michael Pollan Did For Food

MY REVIEW AND RESPONSE TO 
"Rethinking Depression" by Eric Maisel

“In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” the 2008 bestseller by Michael Pollan challenged us to take back our food supply from the “Nutritional Industrial Complex.”

Another bestselling author, Eric Maisel, psychologist and international creativity expert, in “Rethinking Depression: How to Shed Mental Health Labels and Create Personal Meaning,” urges us “make meaning” in order to take back our mood supply from the Medical Industrial Complex. [my coined phrase, not Maisel’s] 

Maisel encourages us to make a meaningful life in order to combat inevitable human unhappiness, then he tells us how. 

If this book hasn't been on the bestseller list by the time you read this review, I wish it were. It looks at life with an honesty and clarity that is rare, and much needed.

I am fortunate to be among a handful of artists, authors, and others across the globe to be asked to read and respond to "Rethinking Depression" as part of Eric Maisel's blog tour for it's launch this month.

Based on its title, at this point in my life I probably wouldn't have selected "Rethinking Depression" from a bookstore's shelves as my next read, but I'm extremely grateful to have read it.  It's true that you can't judge a book by its cover.  It arrived at just the right time to repeatedly provided insight that I'm on the right path, for me, as I work to make a meaningful life. I saw reflected back to me among its pages a philosophy and approach that rings true.

Maisel writes of his 2012 release with New World Library, “I question whether ‘the mental disorder of depression’ exists or whether in contemporary times human sadness has been monetized and languaged into a ‘mental disorder.’ I follow that discussion with a plan for minimizing sadness and living life with purpose.” 

It is a book in two parts.

PART ONE: Maisel Rethinks Depression
Part One is a well-reasoned look at the medicalization and pathologization of common human experiences of emotional pain and sadness by the pharmaceutical industry and mental health establishment.  Maisel describes how our perception of these behaviors and experiences has been transformed by diagnostic lists of symptoms with an accompanying menu of approved treatments.

I find Maisel’s carefully reasoned arguments to be extremely persuasive. 

Though my reading of “Rethinking Depression”s opening chapters brought to mind many questions—I’m always one to ask, “Yeah, but what about…”—I was moved to speak aloud, “Yes!” when Maisel recommended that instead of the term “depression,” we use more specific and compassionate words such as “sadness” or “loneliness” or “disappointment” or “loss.”  These feelings are not medical conditions. They are normal human reactions to life’s harshest realities.  I won't be addressing those questions or their answers here, but in the course of writing this review I had the opportunity to interact with Eric Maisel directly. I will just say that this book represents only a small portion of a well-reasoned and compassionate conceptual edifice well worth exploring.

And there is great power in naming things as they truly are.

This is not to say that Maisel opposes prescription medication, talk therapy, or even religious practice as help for those struggling with difficult experiences and emotions. He simply wants us to recognize that these options are only that, options.

PART TWO:  We Learn to Rethink Depression
In Part Two of “Rethinking Depression”, Maisel presents another option: the reader can learn to "make meaning" by developing and acting on an "Existential Plan.”

Chapter 4, the first in Part Two, is one of the most beautifully stated explanations of a philosophical perspective—in this case existentialism—I have ever read.  With his customary pragmatic, conversational tone, Maisel lays out the ideas of Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Kafka, Sartre, and Camus in terms anyone can understand. Then he shows the reader how to move beyond the philosophical into the day-to-day application of these ideas to life.

To paraphrase: Life is both beautiful and extremely harsh.  No one can tell you what it all means. You have to take responsibility for yourself, decide for yourself what meaning you wish to make of life, then do your best each day to live ethically according to your own self-knowledge, values, and goals.  Even knowing that you will fall short of this ideal much of the time, Maisel asserts that this is the best way to deal with your own human unhappiness, simply by seeing life for what it is, being true to yourself, doing what you can and making what you can of your life as you go along.

For other more academic explanations of existentialism offering greater detail than I'm able, you might want to look at the following:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism

Here is Jean-Paul Sartre's (b. 1908, d. 1980) own explanation of existentialism given in a lecture in 1949, if you care to wade through it:  http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm

The last time I’d tried to understand existentialism was in college. I attempted to read something by Sartre, perhaps "Being and Nothingness," on the recommendation of a friend, who I later learned had selectively adopted its ideas to justify an assortment of amoral life choices.

All I remember is that it left me feeling deeply depressed—or I should say profoundly unhappy and hopeless.  My father was dieing of cancer at the time.  My dreams for myself were proving to be much more difficult that I’d expected to make real, if not impossible, under the circumstances.  And I was experiencing my first crisis of faith, as the religious beliefs I was raised with longer seemed to ring true.  Sartre’s writing echoed my own dawning awareness of life’s harsh realities, without offering any comfort, at least in its opening pages.  It was too much for me at the time.

I wish someone had placed a copy of “Rethinking Depression” in the hands of my younger self all those years ago. Though, having read this book, I now feel as if someone has.

Part Two of this book begins with the realism of existential philosophy in Chapter 4, then fleshes out an approach to life that puts the power back into our hands as we each decide for ourselves how to be true to ourselves (live an authentic life) and make that life meaningful, even—perhaps, especially—when life seems most meaningless.

MAKING MEANING AND LIVING AN AUTHENTIC LIFE
In each of the chapters that follow, Maisel offers step-by-step guidance on how to do this, all the while admitting that meaning making, though worth the effort, is anything but easy.

I’m a big fan Do-It-Yourself.  I grow a garden each summer so my family, friends, and I can enjoy healthy fruits and vegetables. I bake my own bread by hand, from scratch, and even sew my own clothes when I have the time.  I entertain myself and perhaps offer the same to a few other people by creating original artwork and music from the raw materials of my imagination. And I volunteer for the causes I value most in the belief that making the world a better place is the ultimate DIY project.

Until I read “Rethinking Depression” that I had never thought to use the particular words “making meaning” to describe my DIY life. Now I realize  that’s exactly what I’ve always felt.  For me, Maisel’s use of that powerful phrase delivered a fabulous AH-HA moment, one of many provided by this book.

Maisel’s admonition to “focus on meaning, not mood” was another lightbulb moment for me. Again, this is something I attempt to do, though, for me, having the right words for it brings the practice to a higher level of awareness and choice.  In the face of life’s unavoidable unwanted experiences—and the pain, sadness, disappointment, and anger that inevitably accompanies them—I can choose in each moment to bravely, though imperfectly, turn my attention and actions toward the things I value most, toward creating the life and being the person I most wish to be.

Serendipitously, as I was writing this review, I happened to be working my way back through my personal journals from last summer, looking for bits of insight and lessons learned. After reading “Rethinking Depression,” I read the words I’d written then in a new way. 

I was taking the unavoidable difficulties of life and transforming them through choice and action into meaning.  In this way, I was able in the course of three handwritten pages to move from sadness to strength. I wrote:

I’m still feeling down this morning. What I imagine I’ve lost in the past 10 years is the optimistic boldness of belief that everything would work out as I imagined it would.  Time and again, I’ve faced emotional and physical setbacks that stripped me of my momentum….10 years ago I had no idea that all of this lay ahead.  All I saw was possibility.  I saw my own potential.  I believed that possibility and ability would come together to create the reality I envisioned.  If it were entirely up to me, then that’s exactly what would have happened.  It’s not.  It’s not entirely up to me.  My past, my body, the people I encounter and the things they choose to do, these are outside of my control.  They are the other creative forces.

All I can do is continue to show up.  When I’m tired, when I’m sad, when I’m so discouraged I want to give up, I can still show up.  I don’t have to feel it in order to continue acting on my creative vision. I start with what is, in this moment, and put my hand to it, apply my mind and emotion to it.  Even in sadness.  Even in despair of ever seeing my vision realized.

I am here.
As long as I am here there is hope for what might be.
That is enough.

I've learned along the way that life's obstacles and distractions offer some of the most meaningful adventures, as long as we can learn to walk through the unhappiness of unexpected detours and actively turn them into opportunities for learning and growth. Maisel's latest provides us with the tools and instructions we need to do this for ourselves.

"Rethinking Depression" should be required reading in the great school of living. We are each far more than a set of mental health criteria. We are far more than a diagnosis or the lack of one. Making a meaningful life is simply the best way to take back our mood supply.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF RETHINKING DEPRESSION

Eric Maisel, PhD, is a licensed psychotherapist and the author of Rethinking Depression and numerous other titles including Mastering Creative Anxiety, Brainstorm, Coaching the Artist Within, and A Writer’s San Francisco. He blogs for the Huffington Post and writes for Professional Artist Magazine. Visit him online at http://www.ericmaisel.com. 

RETHINKING DEPRESSION by Eric Maisel

February 15, 2012 •  Pychology/Personal Growth •  256 pages • Trade Paperback

Price: $14.95 • ISBN 978-1-60868-020-7

FREE DOWNLOAD: Grand Design: Artist's Prayer MINI-POSTER

FREE PDFs to DOWNLOAD*

COLOR MINI-POSTER The Grand Design: An Artist's Prayer

B&W MINI-POSTER The Grand Design: An Artist's Prayer

Formatted for 8x11 inch paper. Looks particularly yummy printed on beige card stock. You will need Acrobat reader or some other program to view the PDFs. Print settings may have to be adjusted to accommodate the size of the image within the allowable margins of your printer.

WHAT IT SAYS

The Grand Design: An Artist's Prayer

a song by Kay Pere

My heart is a parchment, my hand holds a quill.

I dip this pen, quivering, afraid the ink might spill.

I long to draw you to me, Great Mystery within.

Move my hands, move my heart, guide my pen.

Though I try to sketch the future, only your hand turns the page.

You erase the stains and smudges of my past mistakes.

So I ask, please, grant the wisdom to know where to draw the line

And provide a clearer vision of your Grand Design.

I could never pen your portrait for I've yet to see your face,

But I know you from your likeness in the beauty of this place.

The pattern of your stillness rests upon my open book.

A still life of your spirit shines wherever I might look.

Though I try to sketch the future, only your hand turns the page.

You erase the stains and smudges of my past mistakes.

So I ask, please, grant the wisdom to know where to draw the line

And provide a clearer vision of your Grand Design.

Great Artist, you arranged the stars and fashioned each small flower.

My heart and hands are yours to move in the quiet of this hour.

So I ask, please, grant the wisdom to know where to draw the line

And provide a clearer vision of your Grand Design.

(c) Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

WHAT IT'S ABOUT

Sometimes, making a beginning is the hardest part, until you remember that you don't create alone.

I've always felt a bit intimidated by a blank piece of paper, an unplanted garden bed, an unshaped lump of clay, a song waiting to be recorded. No matter how many times I've done something before, successfully or not, beginning anew is always accompanied by a particular kind of internal resistance.

The outcomes of my efforts, past and future, draw themselves vividly before me in that moment when I sit down to begin. Sometimes this feels so daunting that find it hard not to turn away.

I wonder to myself: Will it work out as well as it did last time? Will the result be what I imagine? Or will I repeat my past mistakes? Will my weaknesses of skill, knowledge, character or body keep me from completing what I've set out to do? Will my work be blocked by something I can't foresee?

I lose hope.

Until I remember how many times that errors--both on the page and in my life--have lead to outcomes much better than I ever could have envisioned.

In life, my most painful and costly mistakes have always ushered in periods of the greatest personal growth. Mishaps and mistakes in judgment have taught compassion, forgiveness, resilience, strength, self-acceptance, and so much more.

In my creative work, I can't count the number of times a failure of materials, equipment, skill, or advice has brought me to a place where the things I'd originally set out to do were no longer possible. I'm learning to be more open to accepting change and seeing what IS possible. When I can to do this, the results I didn't expect are always more interesting and original than those I could have planned.

I know I haven't provided specific examples. In the coming days I hope it to write in more detail on my other blogs, sharing anecdotes from my pottery work, songwriting, and teaching. As soon as these interrelated essays are ready, I'll share links to them here.

I hope you'll print out a mini-poster or two, and place it where it can inspire you.

The words are meant as a reminder that there is another Artist who creates along side you.

Take chances, trusting that--one way or another--the outcome of your efforts will be something beautiful.

As we create, so we are created.

HOW THIS WAS MADE

The hand-drawn frame of this MINI-POSTER was doodled on the back of an old 8x10 glossy publicity photo I had taken and duplicated by the hundreds for a press kit about 8 years ago. I have a huge stack of these photos remaining, an error in planning I've been hiding in the top of my studio closet, but that's a story for another time. Now they're becoming the raw material for something much more satisfying, serving as sturdy drawing paper for playing with sharpie Markers.

I doodled the frame 2 days ago with no particular purpose in mind. Decided yesterday morning it needed text in the center. Scanned it. Modified it. Selected my song "The Grand Design: An Artist's Prayer" for the text. Discovered that this song--which I've been working on for the past 3 years--was still missing 2 lines. At that moment the inspiration fairy finally chose to visit. And here it is.

When there's a recording and/or video of "The Grand Design: An Artist's Prayer", you'll find links to these here, as well as on my website.

(c) Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

*These are copyrighted images. PERMISSION IS HEREBY GRANTED to duplicate for personal use, to give as a gift, or to raise funds for non-profits supporting social justice and the environment. Also authorized for academic use. NOT to be sold for personal or commercial monetary gain. Kay Pere and Effusive Muse Publishing retain all rights to "The Great Design: An Artist's Prayer" song lyrics, music, and related sound recordings. Contact Kay Pere for additional information.

POETRY: Autumn Sunrise

AUTUMN SUNRISE

As I in morning stillness stood

Face pressed against the window sash

To watch an endless feathered flock

Dark silhouettes with dart and dash

Flood across the opalescent sky

Dimly on the glass I saw

Inspired Mystery made plain

My breath inscribed a spectral heart

Upon the frigid windowpane

(c)2010 Kay Pere~Effusive Muse Publishing

[Photo taken at sunrise at Gove Hill Retreat Center, Thetford, VT.

Poem written this morning 10/30/2010 from life lived joyfully. I only wish I had taken a picture of the foggy heart that appeared on my window as I gazed out at birds and sunrise, breathing deeply of beauty.]

REFLECTION: a sigh of relief...

March has been one of the busiest months I've experienced in many years. All of it good busy. Just too much constant activity on top of activity for my quiet temperament.

Too much of a good thing is still too much.

The past two months have been an uninterrupted stream of concerts to perform, retreats to lead, conference mentoring to offer, workshops to present, and pottery shows to manage. All satisfying and valuable, but requiring a steady take-charge alertness and responsiveness to others that is draining when sustained over a long haul.

Today marks a conscious shift toward silence and solitude.

Today I return my gaze toward the projects closest to my heart, projects that can only progress if granted the uninterrupted time, energy, and focus they require.

• recording the next CD, one song at a time
• writing the Creative Compass book, one essay at a time
• pottery making, for artistic discovery and for sale, one lump of clay at a time.

One of my favorite quotes is from the dancer/choreographer Martha Graham, here she is speaking to Agnes De Milne:

[pictured above in a photograph by Barbara Morgan, "Letter to the World (kick), Martha Graham" 1940]

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is on a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

When I'm suspended too much from myself--from my need for stillness and solitude--a sadness, a deep feeling of neglect creeps in. There is only one cure.

I wrote in my journal this morning:

"My tasks first. Others later or they will set the tone for the day.

My tasks first.

Not email.

Not phone calls.

My solitude.

My body. [meaning exercise and healthy eating]

My vision.

First."

"Relationships don't need constant tending. They will be stronger if I am more whole."

"If I am angry and sad and feeling neglected within, no matter how much recreation and togetherness is poured on top it will never be healed. The healing is in my own inward attentiveness, my own setting of protective boundaries around the needs of this center self, my own making of space for its expression and discovery."

"There is always discovery in solitary being and doing. That is what I long for. I will carve out space for that discovery through Soulful doing. Starting today. Starting now."

Less mindless surfing of the internet to read news, or watch videos, or catch up on Facebook. Less shuffling through newspapers and magazines to kill time.

Much more direct engagement in the projects that matter to me.

Starting today. Starting now.

I'll be writing here and on my other, related blogs more regularly, though briefly, to map daily progress.

But I'm shutting down my browser now.

And getting to work.

Starting today. Starting now.

(c)Kay Pere~Effusive Muse Publishing

ECO ACTION: Sprouts

When I saw this morning that Colin Beavan had mentioned sprouting on his No Impact Man blog as an easy way to start growing your own food, I just had to join the fun.

This quart jar of sprouts was started last Wednesday with 1 Tbs each organic radish, red clover, and alfalfa seeds, rinsed and drained twice a day morning and evening each day since.

In this picture are the sprouts remaining, and continuing to grow, after I've already enjoyed several servings atop salads and on sandwiches.

Growing my own sprouts is a two-fold environmental act.

First, I'm avoiding the environmental costs associated with grocery store packaging, storage and transportation.

At the same time, I'm returning the means of production to the hands of the people (well, this one person) while becoming more engaged with and aware of where my food comes from--actual living, growing things. This, for me, has value for both body and spirit.

If I were to buy sprouts at the grocery store they would be packaged in a one-time-use plastic carton which required energy to make and would require additional energy to recycle. My glass jar may have been more energy intensive to produce, but it is essentially infinitely reusable. Grocery store sprouts are started off site, transported to the store, refrigerated and misted until purchase, transported home, then must be refrigerated until they're used up. Because they're sold at peak growth, they have a shorter useful life for the consumer. When I've bought grocery store sprouts I rarely use them up before they start to get slimy.

Today, this tiny forest in a jar is sitting on an old wooden trunk by a south-facing window in our kitchen, while heavy snow falls outside.

It is a reminder that spring is just around the corner, a reminder of the force to grow contained within all living things, including myself.

(c)2010 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

BREAD: Project Sourdough~Basic Recipe

Some people have plants in their offices. In my studio, today, I have a living ball of sourdough on a slow rise to keep me company.

BASIC SOURDOUGH BREAD

INGREDIENTS:

2 c active sourdough starter* (wild yeasts, all purpose flour, water)

1 Tbs olive oil

1 tsp salt

2 c bread flour.

That's it! Following usual bread making methods: stir, knead, rise, punch down, rest, form, rise, bake, EAT.

This little ball-o-dough will be 6-8 oval sourdough sandwich rolls before the day is done.

No matter how much I have to do during the day, the slow rising of dough is a calming ostinato played in mellow tones on a double bass. The smell of the yeast and flour says "home" and "sustenance" to my soul. The whole process is a sort of working meditation.

The picture above was not staged, except to pull back the damp towel from the top of the bowl. This is what the work surface just inside my studio door often looks like. That is, when it's not covered with piles of papers.

CHALLENGE: In the picture, see if you can find [clockwise from L]: a computer speaker, a Kleenex box (my students don't use handkerchiefs like I do), a paintbrush, a pottery bowl, a sumi-e board, a box of 96 crayons, a pink pearl eraser, an unfolded paper clip, a few remaining Hard Rock Cafe promo stickers, a 4x normal size larynx model, hand sanitizer, a pile of 3x5 cards, a 3-hole punch, a file cabinet, 3 packets of tiny star & smilie stickers, a zip-lock bag full of misc stuff & pile of papers to be sorted.

In the hour since I took the picture, the dough has nearly risen to the top of the bowl. Soon, I'll form the rolls and leave them to rise while I lessons. Baked in time for dinner.

*My sourdough starter has been in our family for 60-70 years, when it was passed along to my father's brother by an very old man, one of the original homesteaders in Idaho. Follow the link to directions for making your own.

Story Written on a Linen Dinner Napkin

Wishing everyone Happy Holidays, however you celebrate them! Today I'm ironing a half-dozen linen dinner napkins in preparation for our traditional Christmas morning breakfast. I found them for just a few dollars at a tag sale this past summer. Belonged to the mother of a local artist who never used them. And they have a fancy letter "P" embroidered on them. A serendipitous find! We've been using them for all our special occasions since. No disposables. I don't mind ironing these. Have been doing a lot more things by hand this past year in order to reduce my environmental impact: hand washing dishes, hanging laundry up to dry, and continuing to cook more and more from scratch. These activities provide valuable time for reflection. They slow the fast spinning wheel of life. And I love second hand things. They come with stories. These napkins were likely a wedding present given with love by a caring relative, used at many festive family gatherings. These are the happy stories I imagine, and hope will join others we write for ourselves in the coming years. May all your stories be happy ones in 2010 and beyond! Peace! Kay Pere (c)2009 Kay Pere ~ Effusive Muse Publishing

ECO ACTION: An American Eco-Radical?

Last month, my friend, Catherine, from New Zealand responded to my blog post about my decision to start air drying more of my clothes by saying:

• "No criticism of you intended, but I'm always amazed at the things we think are normal in New Zealand that seem eco-radical to Americans!"

Eco-radical?

I don't think I've ever framed my choices as "eco-radical", but perhaps they're coming across that way. It's taken me a month since my last post to find a reasoned way to explain.

Let me clarify.

I realize that most of the world, by choice or circumstance, lives in a way that has far less environmental impact than the "American" lifestyle. We are the world's largest consumers of resources. We have greatest per-capita responsibility for greenhouse gases, pollution, and waste on the planet. And while I'm proud of my country and it's people for many different reasons, THIS is not one of them.

The ECO ACTION blog posts I write here are simply accounts of my efforts to reverse old habits in my own life--habits shared by most Americans--that unnecessarily consume precious resources and adversely impact our environment without, in my opinion, improving anyone's quality of life in a way that justifies the environmental costs.

That's it.

Personal change. Not eco-radicalism, unless you want to call it that.

I visualize an Eco-Radical as someone who lives entirely off the grid AND actively draws attention to themselves in the manner of Green Peace. These are the mavens of the environmental movement. Mavens provide a nexus for change. At one extreme end of the continuum, they showing us what is possible with extreme commitment and effort. Important, but rare.

I'm radical only in the sense that I'm swimming upstream within my own culture, a culture largely shaped by corporate advertising over the past 60-70 years.

Fortunately, the numbers of those swimming in the same contrary direction is steadily increasing.

My parents came of age in Southern California of the 1940's and 50's when science and capitalism (also incorrectly equated with democracy) promised to solve the problems of generations past--disease, poverty, hunger, long work hours, little opportunity, housing insecurity, over population, tyranny, etc.--along with their own.

Advertising in magazines, on TV, billboards, etc. showed smiling families with shiny new washers and dryers, bigger cars, convenience foods, ... and an ever increasing standard of living for them or their children. More free time, large private homes with big green lawns and shady trees, safe streets where children could play, greater health and longer lives...more possessions and more time to enjoy them, that was the promise. Science would solve any unforeseen negative consequences of all this progress, just as it had everything else.

We believed it. And, largely, that promise was delivered for white middle class America. Not without negative consequences. And not fulfilled equally across racial groups, geographical regions, or economic groups.

I'm all for greater food and housing security, living without fear of violence or disease, and having enough free time to fulfill ones intellectual and spiritual potential--but our American consumer culture doesn't focus on these essentials. It's all about a search for happiness in the stuff.

I heard recently that if everyone on the planet lived the American lifestyle, the one we're trying to sell to them, we would need 6 planet earths to support the current population.

We are a country with a frontier mentality. It's an indelible part of our national identity.

During the first 300 years of our history we learned to expand our borders, expand our manufacturing and agricultural production capacity, expand our population and personal wealth. We came to believe that limitless expansion was a divine right, one granted to us by "our" God as a reward for our form of government and our "Christian" society that pleased the Creator.

How often in advertising do we hear phrases reinforcing the "right" to "buy the best" because we "deserve it." The premise is that we "work hard" and we are "good people," so we deserve all the things we can buy.

There are those who continue to believe that science will save us in the end from all the negative consequences of our limitless consumption, that we can continue on this same path without worry.

Or that environmental conditions really aren't so bad; the concept of global warming and irreversible depletion of resources is a conspiracy concocted by a atheistic scientists to frighten us.

Or that this earth is only our temporary home before we're taken up to heaven, so we shouldn't concern ourselves with its problems.

While I don't consider myself an "eco-radical", my experiences of this culture are somewhat that of an outsider.

When I was growing up my parents subscribed to "Organic Gardening" magazine. I read it from cover to cover. They grew and preserved most of the fruits and vegetables we ate in a garden and orchard irrigated in part with "gray water" from the washing machine where my mother used biodegradable soaps, and fertilized with our own composted food scraps and yard waste. They did this not so much for environmental reasons, but because they were both children during the Great Depression. For the same reason they bought nothing on credit including their house and car, they saved a large portion of my father's income for retirement, and most of our clothes were homemade.

But this was far from the norm in suburban Southern California.

My own environmental awareness began when, in 1970's Southern California, there were many days I couldn't go outside to play. The smog generated by suburban sprawl, power plants and manufacturing was so bad that my lungs ached when I did more than sit quietly on the floor. And I was a healthy child, not one with asthma or allergies. I learned from our monthly National Geographic magazines that this sort of thing was happening all around the world, and had been for decades.

I remember when they outlawed leaded gas and worked to make stricter auto emissions standards. And the air began to clear. I remember hearing about "Love Canal", and "Silent Spring", and the clean-up of Boston Harbor. At that time, when the movement to start recycling our bottles and cans was in it's infancy, manufacturers complained that it would cost too much and they'd have to pass the increased costs along to consumers. The usual threat. Voters had the courage to pass the recycling bill in California anyway.

And I remember the first Earth Day. And the hope I felt for the future.

So, yes, our family has a washer and dryer, a dishwasher and other modern "conveniences"; two cars (though both about 10 years old); a house with a big green lawn and shady trees; safe streets where our children played; more free time, better health care and longer lives than my great-grandparents could expect...more possessions and more time to enjoy them.

But what shall I do with all this? Shall I continue to buy and waste and consume because that's what my culture says is OK, because they say it is my "right" to do so? Should I feel guilty about all this.

Or should I begin to change what I can. Use less. Consume less. Buy less. Enjoy the simple things and relationships with people more.

The things things we have are blessings, not rights. When the founders of this country were talking about our rights the pursuit of unlimited consumer goods is not what they meant by "the pursuit of happiness". But that's another discussion.

If this sort of thinking makes me an eco-radical, then go ahead and label me as such. But only within the context of my own culture. A culture that is desperately in need of change, for the good of all.

And to my New Zealand friend, though you "certainly don't worry about whether [your] undergarments are 'suitable' for drying outside", I will continue to hide mine away from view. Would you hang out your undergarments where your boss or customers could see them? This is not only my home, but also my place of business. I'm not eager to subject my students, their parents, or my recording clients to such a sight. And I'm certain they would agree.