It Is Time to Get Really Serious About Not Poisoning Our Kids. This Is a Tipping Point. Stop Now.

I was a health food, organic mostly, natural fiber, no vac kind of mother. But if I had a child today, I would be a million times more vigilant. Every single day there is another horror story about another product that is deadly. I am not just saying harmful, I am saying 'deadly'. And it starts long before the pregnancy.

Just to name a few things; Aspartame (thank you Monsanto) can cause birth defects, infertility and other shit. Goodbye chewing gum, diet drinks, sweeteners. Roundup on your food or garden can cause these things and worse. (thank you Monsanto). Tampax has the same crap that roundup has. So, before you get pregnant, start now cleaning up your act. Not to mention all the things we all know about: smokes, drugs, booze. We know that. I am thinking about the million things we don't think about.

Household products and cosmetics and body products are chemical poisons, almost all of them. Think about it. Almost all of them are poisons. The good news is that today there are healthy alternatives, even organic dental floss. But the thing is for some reason they are more expensive. (you can figure that out). But at the same time, if you take a moment to look to the past million years or so before the chemical shit storm happened after WW11, there are very cheap, very effective, nontoxic alternatives. Baking soda, lemon, vinegar, bees wax... think "How did grandma or great grandma do it?" My grandma used newspaper and vinegar to clean windows. Everyone used baking soda to get rid of odors. Use your imagination. Or buy all natural, non gmo products. Or both.

Then the pregnancy thing. My caveat here: I am talking about healthy low risk pregnancies. In other cases, get the best medicine you can. I wonder about all the ultrasounds. What the fuck? Before ultrasounds there were none. Billions of kids are born without them. Billions. And the birth outcomes in countries that use them (Like USA) have shamefully bad statistics. Ultrasounds are shooting high frequency sound waves into the fetus. There has been little talk about what this might do to the development of the baby. When radiation was first used, it was perfectly safe. Oops, it didn't turn out to be that safe after all. Birthing protocols can range from wonderful to insane and change all the time. The fetal heart monitor has caused millions of unnecessary c-sections. Pitocin is being investigated for possible harmful effects on child behavior. Question everything.

Question the vitamin K injection. New news out about that. Question eye drops for the baby. If you don't have a STD are these at all necessary? Question the painful cringe of the baby having a photo taken the first second they are alive. Then each and every vaccine and its timing needs to be looked at very carefully and the combos and the ingredients. Does your nursing baby need a hepetitus shot? No, maybe when she goes to Thailand some day. Tell the doc you'll come back for that one.

Then the plastic thing,,plastic bottles, plastic nipples, plastic fake milk (look at the list of what is in safe formula), plastic toys, plastic diapers, plastic teething things, plastic fabrics, plastic mattress covers (smell them and you now something is very wrong just like that new shower curtain liner. No plastic for your new baby. Don't put their stuff in plastic bags. No plastic. It all gives off toxins and if anyone says anything different, they are either lying or ignorant.

Make your own baby food. It couldn't be easier if you have a stove and a fridge. Don't feed them anything with GMO or pesticides, herbicides or other crap in it. People made baby food for millions of years before supermarkets and factory foods were created (not so long ago). How hard is it to make a bowl of oatmeal or grind up a carrot.

There are babies being born today who have cancer when they are born. We have to stop this and it is not something that I would wait for the FDA or the food industry to sort out. It has to be us. Make it the coolest thing in the world to have no chemicals in your house that will poison your children. Wash diapers if you have to. Brush your teeth with baking soda if you have to. It is all so simple that the poorest peasants in the middle of nowhere have figured it out.

This isn't my whole rant I could go on and on. Flouride, iodized salt, all this stuff has problems, big problems. I am 71 years old so I am not in the market for baby stuff, but it is really frightening me how crazy we are to poison our children a hundred ways every day. Start now. Start with shampoo and soap and laundry detergent. Then keep changing and innovating and demanding no poisons for your kids. Even frigging cough drops have aspartame, dye, artificial flavors, corn syrup and more crap. Stop it now. Have that healthy happy child you deserve. The cost of taking care of a sick child is not worth a little extra care now.

Bali Magic and "Hello Russians".

Just saying, right now I have more readers in Russia than in the USA. And my Latvians have disappeared and as of a few weeks ago this blog is not blocked in China any more. Am I going soft or have they figured out that I am not important. I could have told them that. Always change.

So, I have been in lousy health since the Dengue. Still getting headaches then feeling like I have a fever, (I don't) and then feeling like I have a sinus infection, then feeling fantastic... a sort of weird cycle. Doctor says it takes a long time to recover from big viral infections. I am proof positive.

That being said, things keep happening that make me so happy I am here. This is on top of the amazing beauty, the endless religious and social discoveries, the sweet kindness of the people who always have time for each other and for moi. I have not seen one person who looks destitute or hungry. If Bali is poverty, it is the good kind. Families live in the family compound. The woman moves into the man's compound when she gets married. Or stays home when she doesn't. Muslims and Hindus seem to live in harmony. Respect for ancestors and belief in re-incarnation assure a social equanimity. The president of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, was a farmer not a billionaire or military as were past presidents. But this is Ubud, Bali, not Java. I don't know how life is for the other hundreds of millions.

About the Bali magic. This after the headache came again with a bit of a wobbly stomach. "What the fuck! Sinus infection, Dengue, ATM ate my debit card, now Bali belly. What life is this? The Russian woman who lives in the next cottage and talks LOUD on the phone a lot had stopped by me this morning and invited me to come hear her guru tonight at some ceremony. Big ceremony. Hundreds of people. He is the dude that was in "Eat, Pray, Love". I went to her veranda to tell her that I couldn't come  because of the unstable stomach and this headache. I really wanted to go, but hole in the ground toilets had me intimidated.

She said the guru would heal me. I said ya but with 1,000 other people there , what were the odds? She is organizing this whole event and it was about one hour ahead of the beginning. In spite of that, she rolled up her sleeves and said, "I just better heal you myself, then." She pounded my head and rubbed my arms and neck, head and muttered some things in Russian and then said, "you sick". Then she punched and pounded a bit more and then got some heavenly oil and massaged my hands and then said "You better". I felt great again and almost decided to go, you know the Julie Roberts thing and then my stomach grumbled and she told me "You go next time".

I can't get over that she took the time and gave me this healing and then told me to come tomorrow morning for a tuneup. She has been studying with the guru for 5 years and before that she studied in China with someone else. I think she is a little bit famous in Russia. (This has nothing to do with my Russian readership) but I will drop her name when I learn it.

I forgot to mention that I am busting my budget and staying at an incredibly beautiful place because I want to and it is as healing environment as I could imagine and I am discovering that I am so over the backpacking $9 a night places. I miss meeting some of the kids, especially the European ones who travel at that level.
But not that much and this years crew in this town all seemed to be into competitive yoga and incredibly clean colons and no gluten. I can only take so much.

That being said, I met another amazing person who stayed in the cottage on the other side of me. He bounced right over while I was having breakfast and gave an introduction to himself that was witty and masterful. He was also handsome. Did I mention that? He said he was one of the last living fossils of the British Raj. That got my attention. I read "Jewel and the Crown" about 10 times and same for the BBC movie. He certainly had the accent and the "to the manor born" thing going.

His family had been tea planters in Ceylon for 300 years, although the ones who stayed in England hadn't been merchants, just odd squires and heads of Sandhurst and various members of this and that. So when the English plantations were expelled from Ceylon, he became a wanderer. No home, no roots, couldn't stand living with relatives in Sussex. He had had enough of that when he was sent to boarding school in England when he was 9. This makes him sound like a proper snob, which in fact, he was not. He lived in many countries starting peasant co-operatives and getting local businesses going and moving on. He is an intellectual who has read everything and more and can quote from it all (move over Noam Chomsky). We talked books, and amazingly strange spiritual practices he grew up with and flying saucers and big conspiracies. It was great fun.

So, Bali. I want to be more proactive about my life, but there is something wonderful about sitting around drinking coffee and having the world come to me.

And without the internet, you took some chances.

I am not exactly nostalgic, but some memories are really priceless. I didn't always (read ever) want to spend the money on Lonely Planet books. Before Lonely Planet was the gorgeous book, "Europe on $5 a Day". Can you imagine? And some days you really couldn't manage to spend $5. The real problem with Lonely Planet was that they were heavy, especially if you were going to a bunch of countries. This was before the Internet, remember. One tactic we used was to get the book and rip out the pages we knew we weren't going to use and then throw away the ones we used after we had been somewhere. Not a very nice solution, but carrying stuff has never been my strong suit.

And getting strait info from locals took some adjustments. In Central America, it took us a while to figure out that people wanted to make you happy and didn't want you to be disappointed. So, if you asked if the bus was coming soon, you always got a strong positive answer. "Si, muy rapido, no problema." Soon might be tomorrow morning, but they left you with a smile on your face. Until you were cursing them and all their ancestors.

One time, after being assured by everyone that we could get to Key Caulker on New Years day, (looking back, what the fuck were we thinking?) we got to Belize City from Tikal by the good graces of a drunk taxi driver who assured us that his mother made a brew that sobered him up and he was fine. The special joy of his mother's brew was that he could get drunk 4 or 5 times on a given holiday and start over again after drinking her magic concoction. But, of course, there were no boats going on the the Island on New Years day or most likely for many days after and that was the bad old days in Belize City where no where was safe and I had the kids along. So we got drunk taxi driver to take us to the sorry excuse for a private plane airport. I walked into the hangar yelling "Is anyone here?" and found some bush pilot passed out on a couch. I woke him up and he said he could fly us over after he had a few cups of coffee. I offered him 100 bucks and he said fine, but I would have to run it through the charge machine because he couldn't remember how.

After we loaded ourselves and him into the plane and got up in the air over the beautiful western Caribbean waters. He said "shit." I said, "What shit?" he said he didn't think we had enough gas to make it. I said "shit" and "Shut up, I don't want the kids to worry." He said "Fucking fine, lady." I said seeing as how I paid him, I thought it should be his problem not mine and I didn't want to hear another word about it.  We made it and landed on the sandy beach.

Now, really, with the internet, this just wouldn't have happened. Everything would have been known in advance and booked and paid for and all that. Not all our adventures were so easy and we might not have had nights like the night when we were in a town cut off by the army and there was no food and we stayed up all night talking about roast beef sandwiches. Big arguments about mayo vs mustard. Hunger does strange things.

My conclusion about old time travel is that not knowing was a big part of the game and it was always an adventure, but sometimes a bit of a stress, too. Letters, when they worked, were a lot of fun. Phones were mostly useless. If you knew what city you were going to you had letters sent to Poste Restante and when you got to the post office they handed you a box with letters as old as 30 years and you looked and prayed that there was something for you. I bet if I checked in Antigua, Guatemala I would find a letter after all these years.

More than anything I am grateful for the Kindle with the built in light. I was forever running out of books and finding a half way decent reading lamp was often a sick joke.

Skin Whitening is Big Business in Bali. No Shit.

I am a fan of the sun. In fact, I suspect that I worshiped Ra and Apollo and other sun gods in my past lives. I have leathery old Yankee skin as a testament to my devotion. It has been years, eons, since I have actually sun bathed, but I walk a lot and swim whenever I get the chance and I like gardening, so I have had substantial exposure.

I have very mixed feelings about sun block as would any sentient being who has lived through the chemical miracles that turn into chemical nightmares of the past 50 years, Really, how can baking chemicals into your skin turn out all that well over time? Time will tell.

I admire the pale Irish beauties who have flawless skin and nary a wrinkle, but over all, I think a lot of white people look a bit bloodless. I equate health with rosy cheeks and high color.

I have gotten all fluffed up with righteous indignation seeing the cultural snobbery about upper class equating with being more white. You get that old shit in a lot of countries..Latin America, USA, Spain. We just perpetuate the class distinctions without even thinking about it.

All this being said, I bought some of the evil sun block in Thailand. As usual, I spent more time looking at the price than at the label. When I got to the beach and put it on my nose, I noticed that my nose had no color compared to my ruddy Irish skin. I checked out the sun block and it said "whitening" on it. Having a white nose on a tanned face was not my ideal so I went back to the market. Every skin product for face and hands had "whitening" ingredients. Everyone. Now, I think the Thai people have the most gorgeous skin and skin color. But, I think...fashion is very fickle. This must be this year's deal.

Then, one morning in Ubud, Bali, I mentioned this to a Balinese friend. She told me that skin whitening is a major industry in Bali. Major. She is in her early twenties. She said many of her friends spend a lot of money and countless hours and sometimes extreme pain whitening their skin. They not only buy many products, but get painful injections to accomplish this. I asked whether it was a class thing, maybe they didn't want to look like peasant laborers or rice farmers. She thought abut it and said, no, that wasn't it. That wasn't a thing here, a lot of the very wealthy were very dark, they just liked the look better.

It confounds me and challenges a lot of my ideas about race and class. Maybe it is really just the current idea of beauty. She and her friends couldn't believe that women in the USA go to tanning booths and lie around browning their skin. That idea made her laugh because in her world view they were paying money and time to get ugly.

We eventually concluded that women everywhere want what they don't have. She herself is very tiny, thin and graceful. She has been taking supplements and getting shots to gain weight. She thinks she looks funny so thin. Same I guess when people with straight hair work hard for curls and visa versa. We are all pretty weird.

Travel before the internet. Some different.

Then there was the money thing.No ATMs. Imagine that.So you could carry a credit card and dream of finding a place to get a cash advance. A big illusion which almost never happened. Before that was the Cooks or AmEx funny money. The infamous travelers check. So, you had to go to a bank and buy with real cash these travelers checks. They wrote down the number and denomination of each check and gave you a record book to keep a record of each one you spent so that if they got stolen, AmEx would replace the stolen ones. And they wanted you to take a bunch of small ones because most store and restaurants wouldn't cash large ones. I kid you not. We did this.

I always lost track of the book keeping or rather my record keeping. If my checks ever had gotten stolen I wouldn't have any numbers to claim. The next fun part was that in some countries, the black market was the deal. I remember sending my kids into alleys to cash checks illegally while I watched on the street for cops. These were the countries where you got a better deal on the street. Other places you had to find a bank, find an open bank, stand in line for hours and maybe get some cash. We very often paid the whole bill at restaurants with travelers checks and then everyone would pay us in local money. Pain in the ass. And in Europe, you had to change currency for every country. In fact you had to do that everywhere. The good old days.

So, now when I took the kids, I had this frigging huge bundle of our plane tickets, our passports, our travelers checks. Half a pocketbook full right there.

You had to take a real camera and real film. Imagine that. And mostly you had to wait until you got home to get it developed. Imagine that.

And phones, forgeddaboudit. I have told some Guatemala phone stories before. All day, very social, extreme frustration and so not worth the exercise or the money. And the time I sent Randie a telegram from Antigua to Todos Santos. I went to the telegram office and spent a good long time writing out this invite to Randie to meet in Honduras for some beach time. Had to be in Spanish and it was pretty sketchy. The telegram lady told me I would have to pay by the word. But the price was next to nothing. I wrote my message and handed it to her. She handed it back after about 20 minutes and said, "too long."  Now in this whole interchange, about an hour, there were no other customers. I asked how it could possibly be too long if I was paying by the word. "Too long." After another bunch of rejections of my efforts, I ended up paying 4 cents and sending the telegram that said "Roatan?". On Randie's end, no one near he house  in Todos Santos had a phone so someone from the telegraph office went to her house and told her she had a telegram. She went to read it and had to go back for ID even though she had lived there for more than a year and there were only a few hundred people. When they were convinced that she was she, they charged her 20 cents to read the telegram. For another 20 cents she responded to me "Ya no." "Not now." I had to bring my passport and pay 20 cents to see her answer.

How did these things ever work out? Somehow we arranged a trip to Honduras that included several friends who were living in Costa Rica as well. I don't know how we did this stuff before the Internet, but we did.

More tomorrow.

"How Did People Travel Before the Internet?" Oh boy. That's an Interesting Question.

So, a few of us were flopping around a low budget guest house patio the other evening in Ubud, Indonesia. I was seriously flopping because it has been frigging HOT both here and in Thailand last month. It is my promise to myself and my friends and family that I am breaking when I mention the heat thing. I have complained about the cold for so long that I swore off mentioning heat. But, that being said, in both countries the rains are very late and the build up of both dust and smoke and humidity is pretty epic. It is hot. Fabulously, it cools down in the evening when I am both drained and dehydrated. Hence, the 'flopping'.

This young Scottish guy, very nice, kind of wired for speed, and certainly in charge of his life was talking about his solar business which he is bringing from Africa to Indonesia. He sells (very cheaply) solar cells to villages without electricity so people can have a light bulb or charge a phone. And he was going on and we were asking questions that hopefully didn't leave us looking too very stupid.

Then he kind of looked at us with sort of a strange look and asked, "My God, How did you ever travel before the internet?"  He turned 15 the same year he got connected and has never experienced travel without the internet.

I got all sorts of defensive and wondered if he meant back before cars and planes or just in the more recent prehistoric times. My first big trip in 1963, I took a boat to Europe and it took us 13 days. (But we flew home) so we were pretty modern! But, he was asking the nuts and bolts kind of questions and it was a staggering challenge to him to picture it.

I am reminded of the time when my grand daughter was 3 1/2 and she called me from her iphone and I had an old flip phone and she handed her phone to her Mom and said, "The phone is broken, I can't see Grandma." She will never remember a time when you couldn't see the person you were talking to on the phone, let alone all the stages in between.

My grandmother Braucher in Kutztown, PA had a party line and the live operator made your connection. Then we had the hall phone and when it rang, everyone would rush downstairs and stand around. Then came the big excitement of the long extension cord so you could take the phone into the hall closet and be private, except for Dad standing outside reminding everyone that "This is expensive and the phone is for important business, not for chatting." He must have said that a million times over the years.

So we had a little fun telling about the old days and Nick got a chance to stretch his imagination.

Firstly, we had travel agents. Here he broke in and said but they don't do anything you can't do. This may be the case now, but in the late 50s and early 60s, your travel agent was very important. He/she was usually someone who had traveled. She was paid by the airlines. She made all the calls(!) to the airlines about schedules and prices. The airlines and ships and even trains cultivated the agents and gave them good prices so everyone benefited. A good agent could work wonders. I miss this today when I spend hours being frustrated by all the stupid time on the computer trying to figure out a good deal. I have had to become my own travel agent and it is a royal pain in the ass and I swear they got better deals because of their special relationships.

When I am going someplace I almost always have the moment of ruing the day when we had to become our own agent. Not to mention the insane frustration of the early days when the Internet was connected to the phone and a frigging call would come in just as you were booking and you lost everything.

Then the travel agent would get your tickets and deliver them to your house. Nice. Bad part was you had to carry the damn tickets around for the whole trip and if you lost them you were up the creek. Also a troublesome intermediary stage when some countries wouldn't accept e-tickets. That caused a few disturbances.

So, you figured out where you wanted to go and then you made your tickets. Things were different, of course depending on your budget and your destination. Going to Europe from USA was easy. Going to South and Central America or Asia or Africa, a lot more complicated. Some countries were closed to us. Tibet was a problem, China and Russia were complicated. You mostly had to go with a group and a watcher. Some memory that you couldn't go from Israel to an Arab country or visa versa. First you called the Embassy and sent in your passport to get a visa. Still do, of course, some places. But you had to call or mail for information or your travel agent looked into it for you.

When I called the Guatemala Embassy to get visas for my kids and me, the guy asked about our trip and then got all emotional and said this trip was a disaster and we shouldn't go and he wasn't going to be responsible for our deaths. I thought he was concerned about the genocide that was happening to the Mayans there. I said that I knew people who traveled there with their kids and loved it. He was nearly hysterical and I asked why. He said that I was an independent American woman and I was going to rent a car and be driving in the countryside and run out of gas at night because all the stations were closed at night and then we were going to be robbed especially of the car and maybe die alongside of the road and how could I do that as a mother.

I took a deep breath and said I was never planning to drive. I liked hiring a driver or going by bus. Never.

He took a deep breath and said, "Then you will have the most wonderful time of your life in my beautiful country. I will send the visas."

More tomorrow. God willing.

Night Noises, Ubud, Indonesia

Right now. 8:00. December 30, 2015.

Muslim prayer calls.
Tibetan bowls.
Baby kittens crying.
Gamelan music playing.
Frogs.
Geckos.
Airplane overhead.
Kids playing.
Quiet talking in Japanese.
Crickets.
Fan whirling.
Moto in the distance.

And the over all effect is kind of a low key peaceful night.

There can be nothing weird in religious traditions. It is all pretty strange. 190,000,000 Indonesian Muslims live in respect.

tttttttttttt
Sisters of Charity, India.





 
Coptic Christians, Syria.



So, I asked the taxi driver (moto) whether he was Hindu. He said he is Muslim. Then he asked where I am from and I said USA and he said. "We are not ISIS." I said that I knew that and in fact I had never seen such a religiously tolerant place. He mused that God loves us all and if God isn't worried about what religion someone is, then why should he be. I was happy to agree.

I wanted to follow yesterday's blog with pictures of extremely weird traditional outfits from many faith traditions. Alas, my computer skills and my ability to tolerate frustration were not up to the task. I got two rather moderate and modest examples and then lost my other pictures.

I would love it if my readers would post some pictures from all over the planet of religious people duded up for the big service, or ceremony, or mass. People get freaked out in USA and France about the headscarf but look at Pope Francis on a big holiday mass. Look at a native American doing the Sun Ceremony. Look at the Amish. Look at a Mayan Shaman. It is all so marvelously strange and mysterious and exotic. Help me out here. Let's see what different looks like even in our own back yard.

These symbols of Christian perfection were cutting edge in creating the new Puritan role. If you gave Jim and Tammy your money then Jesus would love you and bring you prosperity. Worked pretty well for this couple. Not so much trickle down. They brought the church into your living room through TV and made their altar look like a living room. Not much fun there.




Mayan prayer.



Dalai Ceremony.

Would love to see your images of what is normal for your experience of God or Nature. It seems like every religious practice I have seen has some ancient roots in animism. Don't be offended if that is not true for your faith, I am just thinking about these things that seem to be very strongly influencing our politics...now and maybe since the beginning of time. I think the world would be a sad place if nobody believed in anything and likewise if we eliminate lovely traditions because they are different.

"I am not interested in religion or politics."

To this person, I say, you might as well sit in a tree. Oops, some political deal could get that tree cut down. You are fundamentally nowhere as far as travel goes.

Just think about the politics of how people dress to worship. (and I don't know the half of it)

In the Catholic world, women used to have to cover their heads and no naked shoulders. Men had to take their hats off. Respect. Still necessary in many Catholic countries.

In the Buddhist temples, Everyone takes off shoes and you can not have the bottom of your feet facing a statue of Buddha. Women have to cover their knees and shoulders. Hats are not permitted. Shorts on men are frowned upon. (not a bad idea)

In Hindu temples and sacred places, men cover their head and wear a sarong over their pants. Women have to have a sarong and tie a sash around their waist, knotting it twice. No hats for women. Most wear a long sleeve shirt.

In Jewish Temples, men wear their little yarmulke. I don't know of dress regulations for women. Clothing regulations get quite severe for Orthodox Jews. You have seen them in black, side locks, hats on men.

In Mosques, shoes off, men and women separate. More fundamental requirements are that no hair shows on the women and they are completely covered from head to toe. Less strict practices are common in many countries.

How about those Mormons? The strict women wear this temple undergarment that buttons everything up. They don't even take it off during childbirth if an outsider is present. They wear Little House on the Prairie outfits. Never thought about it but maybe Laura and her family were Mormons.

It gets weirder and weirder. Some Mayans put wood blocks on their babies heads to make them more square. They wear a lot of ribbons and certain colors (White shirt, red pants) for ceremonies and feathers.

Native Americans put hooks through their skin for the sun dance.

Africans have a million varieties of worship appropriate clothing. Tats and body piercings and dead animals on their heads. It gets exciting!

The point is that even taking one tiny tiny corner of religion such as appropriate clothing, it would be very hard to go just about anywhere and not find it interesting. The art, the music, the dance, the poetry, the wisdom traditions that have come from the stunning variety of religious experiences is, for moi, one of the first most interesting aspects of travel.

A Challenge to You Thirty-Somethings, and a Few of You Young Forties.

Part of your particular brilliance is making systems that work and making systems that disrupt systems that don't work. That being said and agreed upon by myself, I wonder whether you haven't been thinking much too small and maybe been a little stuck in your own safety zone. This is meant as a challenge.

I understand that you have changed the world. I see smart phones and Internet connections everywhere. ATMs are everywhere. Instant translations and maps are at every one's fingertips. But, in the USA, cities and communities are failing everyone. Bad transportation, inadequate housing, widespread hunger, shocking ignorance...that kind of shit is everywhere.

I understand that it is hard to take care of people when we spend most of our budget on war. I know that there is a lot of Ayn Rand thinking behind many of our selfish attitudes, but I think it is time to make something to be proud of. And, I was thinking , "Where better than Seattle?"

Seattle has money. Think Microsoft. Think Amazon. Think Boeing. And think of so many millionaires. Seattle has big problems; lousy roads, horribly inadequate public transport, inadequate housing for those with and without money, old, stupid infrastructure, overburdened schools, run away growth, hunger, homelessness, too many geese, all the usual stuff.

What would happen if you decided to be the city of the future? Now? Fast? Could you combine your collective genius and creativity and money and make the best, fastest, coolest transportation on the planet? If you can make bombers and drones, you can do this. What if you decided that every citizen deserves healthy whole fresh food daily? You could do that. What if you offered an education that would prepare every single kid to work in the highest level of her field? You could do that. If your fear is that by doing this you would lose your edge financially, I think that is crazy thinking. As each other city gets more behind and dirtier and more crowded, wouldn't people pay to play in your town? The answer is 'yes'.

And I mean fast. There is no time for a twenty year plan or a ten year one. Get going. Cut through the crap. Don't listen to stupid shit designed to maintain the status quo. You could do all this in a year or at most two if you want. Many solutions are already out there in other countries. Go to it. No more excuses. You know how to connect, you know how to raise $, you know how to design systems, you know how to change things.

Great Article About How the World is Leaving USA in the Dust.

https://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/21/1353411/-Infrastructure-advances-in-the-rest-of-the-world-will-blow-your-mind?detail=emailclassic

If this is obvious to me, and it is. It is certainly obvious to the rest of the world.

Massive Changes in the Travel Scene. Ya, Massive.

Much of the world is very different these days for a lot of reasons. On the travel front, here is the big news: The Chinese, the Indians, the Russians, and the South Koreans have a shit ton of money and they have hit the road. Remember that there are 3 billion Chinese and lots of Indians. Yes, many do not share in the extreme wealth, but it takes only a small percentage of 3 billion to drastically change the picture. And changed it is. And it is only the tip of the iceberg.

Let that sink in. It is a massive, huge movement of people who until very recently stayed buckled up at home struggling to make ends meet. People from the USA have never been big travelers. People from Europe and Australia certainly have a deep travel tradition. But their numbers are so small comparatively, you hardly notice them. This is my news of the day.

So, if I take a tour in Northern Thailand, everyone I meet is Chinese or Korean. This is not a bad thing, it is just new. And like a lot of newly rich people, they are spendy. Don't offer to split the bill with these groups. By the same token, there is a lot of generosity especially because of the respect my grey hair brings to me.

Another thing I have noticed is that there is little or no curiosity about the USA and our provincial little agonies. We just are an old fashioned curiosity. These countries are developing at warp speed and we are debating things that were solved ages ago. Mostly, we are not interesting except for our few famously famous points. We like guns. We hate blacks, Mexicans, Arabs. We make movies. Steve Jobs and the iphone is known, as is our disrespect for different religious beliefs. And we keep trying to occupy countries and are not good at it. They all reference "The American War.' We seem to call it "The Vietnam War." These are the things most people from other countries who travel know about the USA.

How to Get Respect. There is Nothing as Simple.

I won't keep you in suspense. You get respect by giving respect.

I don't think respect has ever been an issue in my life, but I have some observations that have matured through my travel experiences. I have watched a lot of different people and I see what works as a passport to an easier more gracious life.

It helps to act like a queen or king. I don't mean the stupid, spoiled, demanding, cartoon queen. I mean the comfortable, aware queen who tries to put others at their ease. I owe a lot to Alice Chamberlin who is my model. Don't let this go to your head, Alice, but the Dalai Lama is another model I look up to. You see, people like Alice and the Dalai Lama give you their attention when you are in their sights. Class, money, achievements, appearances don't seem to come into play. You feel important because you are. This sounds a little fatuous, but I am serious. Think how many people we brush past or half see or don't listen to in a busy day. The Buddhist insist the everyone you encounter in this life has karmic significance. Everyone. How do we miss this so often?

I am being treated like a queen here at TubTim Resort in Koh Samet, Thailand. When I walk into the restaurant, the waiters greet me, and run to get me pillows for the very uncomfortable seats, and remember what I like and ask me about my sleep or my swim. This sounds ordinary, but it is not. I am the only person here that I have seen this happen to regarding the pillows. Granted, I have grey hair which is a great asset here, but I also have time. I have taken the time to smile and greet (Sawadee Ka , bow) each of them. I enjoy them and am happy to see them and laugh when they burst into song and am quiet when they are watching the sea. I have watched people be demanding, angry, condescending and get what they want but they do not get respect because they don't give it. Nobody has fun. I see this all the time, everywhere. I know that my life has not one more iota of value than the next guy's. We are all in the same soup, all trying to figure out how to live and why we are here.

There are a lot of examples of people and groups trying to get respect by the use of force or power or violence. Think of the recent motorcycle gang clusterfuck in Texas, or the US and Israel in the Middle East. How is that working out? Using violence has never proved to win hearts and minds let alone respect.

In my personal life and in big geopolitical actions I do not advocate being a pushover. I advocate real strength, inside confidence. If we can walk tall and have compassion for others, they feel it and shine it back.

An Ordinary Woman's Perspective on Unsustainable Lifestyles. Oops, I Am Not Ordinary.

Let's get that out of the way. I don't really think anyone is ordinary. That word has such a flat connotation. Each and everyone of us has a remarkable, unique, amazing story. One of my great joys in life is hearing people's stories. Another is telling mine. 

So, I use the term "sustainable" in my normal discourse. Today, I got to wondering what comes to mind when I think about this concept.

My mind started jumping pretty excitedly. 

The first thing that comes to mind is one of the big guns: oil. I have mentioned this before, but I have this image of people many years from now, scratching their heads and looking at each other in complete bewilderment or actual hilarity and saying, "OK, man, so this is how they did it.  They found this stuff way under the ground in often God forsaken places and built these ugly contraptions using expensive ores from far away and pumped this ugly thick slime out of the ground and then ran pipes for God knows how far and then put the stuff on huge ugly ships which need more  of the stuff to run and then took it half way or all the way around the world and pumped it off the ships and then put it through a huge ugly chemical process and then pumped it into tanks and then pumped it into train cars and drove it for thousands of miles and then pumped it into trucks and then drove it to gas stations and then pumped it into underground tanks and then pumped it up into cars which used it to carry one or a few people to work so they could buy more of this shit to earn money to buy more of this shit. Not to mention what it takes to make the car or the WARS it has taken to keep it coming. So then we discover that we can do even more environmental damage getting energy from tar sands and fracking and the story goes on."

The guys in the future are now pissing their pants and agreeing that they never could have come up with such a stupid plan if their lives depended on it. 

When I was young and had an absolutely minimal understanding of physics, I asked a teacher whether pumping all this liquid from deep in the ground wouldn't leave a space that could cause trouble. "Don't be silly, Julie, nothing bad will come of it." I was frequently told that I have either a great or an overactive imagination, depending on whether the teacher liked my ideas or not.

Yup, that is one picture that arose.

Another thought that always comes is of landscapes with all the trees cut down. Fly over Honduras (American companies) some day, or Oregon, or Indonesia, or Brazil. It just isn't right.  Total deforestation changes the weather. Watch and look.

But these are the big themes that we all know and we all struggle with. How about little annoyances with big implications like when you can't get anyone to fix your plumbing or take care of granny because no one can afford to live near your Nantucket Island or your gated planet? It is happening. How about when the destitute over run your village? How about when you have police keeping hungry people away from supermarket dumpsters? This world is not sustainable.

And how sustainable is perpetual warfare? Millions(!) of refugees? Poisonous food? No food? Poisonous water? No water?  Deadly drugs? No drugs? How many people will afford medical school?

I have to go now, but my feeling is that where there is a will, there is a way and we need to pull together to change the course of this silly voyage that we have joined. We have to pull together and this is a brilliant opportunity if we can grab it.

A Boomer Packs for a Long Trip to SE Asia. What to Bring.

I am a woman of a certain age. (71). I am lucky enough to be able to 'get out of Dodge" for winters. Well, put it another way, when Dad died, I was left with enough money to travel, but not enough to survive in the USA with any dignity. I am so grateful. This being said, I have always been a gypsy, finding my bliss on the road.

Not that I didn't always hit the road whenever I could. I go to warm places, places with nice people, good beaches, inexpensive quality living. This year I am heading to Thailand, and Bali mostly with any and all side trips when the spirit moves me.

So, packing is  very easy because I am not going on survival trips or wilderness hikes.  But there are some simple guidelines that I follow, thereby streamlining the process and making decisions from past experiences and observations.

OK, Numero uno:
Never bring anything that will make you suffer if it gets lost or stolen. Years ago in the Highlands of Guatemala we would watch travelers arrive with their million dollar back packs all geared up as if they were climbing Everest. In the next weeks, (months) we would listen sympathetically over a beer as they told the story about everything getting stolen. I often had the ugly shit pack of all times and no thief, either Guatemalan or fellow traveler, would be tempted to take it home. Same goes for sunglasses, jewelry, computers, phones, but mostly the luggage. It is what you display to the world.

A young couple who had traveled everywhere and worked remotely were taking off from our hotel in Nicaragua last year. They had terrific equipment and gorgeous, expensive luggage, designed to protect all their great stuff including new binoculars, lots of great stuff. The difference monetarily between taking local buses and private taxis was enormous, like .25$ vs $40. I had a bad feeling and talked them into the taxi. On the next phase of their journey, they chose local and when they arrived at their destination, all had disappeared. I am all for going local, but I suspect that you limit your options when your stuff looks so valuable.

I could elaborate about what not to take, but your imagination can guide you. Another good reason not to take super special stuff is you might find yourself jettisoning stuff for all sorts of reasons, such as finding some very cool things and not having room for it all, luggage gets too heavy, you haven't used something in months and why the hell are you dragging it half way across the world, some villager needs it a lot more than you do. Let it go. It feels great.

That being said, I needed a new day pack this year. My real back pack days are over. I found myself swearing at my pack one time too many and pretty much gave it up. It was a super sad loss to me because I had a bit of identity wrapped up in it, and memories, lots of memories.

"Big Red" was my huge red nylon pack I got from Marlboro coupons. One trip it was full of my stuff and tons of books and school supplies for a literacy project in El Salvador. We had planned on going pretty directly to Salvador, but ended up meeting some people in the mountains of Guatemala so I had that pack. I finally had to hire kids to carry it for me between bus stops and one comical time in Lake Atitlan, two 9 year old boys and their wagon dragged that thing where every I needed to go. Our little parade embarrassed the hell out of my friend Tom.

I found just the day pack that works for me, lots of compartments, not heavy, good straps. I will also take a small suitcase on wheels and a travel purse with very strong shoulder straps. When I am in country, I often buy some kind of a string bag or plastic thing to carry stuff to the beach. I still take a money belt, probably a useless old habit, but some guest houses don't have a safe. In the old days you had to have one to carry travelers checks and return plane tickets as well as passports. My money belt was about 3 inches thick when I was in South America with my kids and had their passports and tickets and all.

American Express finished off travelers checks for the world. They may have invented them too. I can't remember. I remember 50 years ago meeting all sorts of college friends at the American Express office in Paris collecting money orders that our parents sent to bail us out. The way they screwed up travelers checks was by not paying their vendors for months. So I might buy a skirt in Ecuador for $10 and pay with a travelers check and they shop wouldn't get paid for 3 or 4 months. No one wanted to cash them anymore. Duh. But the ATM was going to change everything. The first time we saw an ATM in Costa Rica after months in southern Mexico, Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, we thought we had died and gone to heaven. Instant money! No more standing in line in frightening banks surrounded by armed guards making you take off your sun glasses and hats (still the case in Nicaragua), no more being assaulted by the armed guard and told while he was shoving you with his gun, that you were an idiot to withdraw money without a gun of your own because you would get robbed when you left. I take 2 different debit cards when I travel and change money for local money when I need to either through the ATM or on the street. These days you have to let your bank know where you are going ahead of the trip or they mess you up. Stupid new way to put the burden on the customer.

So, passport, two ATM cards, an cheap very light weight laptop. I was using the nifty ACER, very light and super good, but this year I am taking a google Chrome Book. Very very lightweight, very cheap. Again, if it gets lost, broken or stolen, no big deal.

The phone thing is changing fast. Up to now I have put my phone on vacation for 10 a month and picked up $10 burners if I am staying anywhere for any length of time. I have used Magic Jack to make free internet calls. By next year, I understand that there will finally be good, cheap phones and world wide plans coming from Google and other sources. This is crazy, but I admit, a lot less difficult than in the days when an international phone call cost huge bucks and took half a day with the operator at the phone company and sounded like you were on Mars. Of course, that was a bit of an adventure and much more social than bitching with AT&T about some stupid plan.

So I get my luggage lined up, call the banks and patiently (!) spell the names of far away places and then double and triple check. The last person at some horrid bank wrote Nigeria instead of Nicaragua. Check out visa requirements. Hard to believe, I know, but some countries in the world really don't welcome United Statesians with open arms for long periods of time. How can this be? Our foreign policy has done nothing but benefit the whole planet.  I buy some tickets. Cheapoair has found me some amazing deals especially when I have many stops. Many countries require that you have an exit ticket out before you can enter. If I don't know when I am leaving, I buy a very cheap ticket to anywhere just to have the ticket out so I can enter. Asia Air has tickets for $35 to some places. A good place to start.

I take a Kindle. In the old days of books, I absolutely loved arriving at huts, hotels, guest houses and picking out moldy books from the trade shelves and randomly reading whatever was there. (I can't get to sleep without a bit of a read). I still do that, but I take the Kindle also. The weight thing is one reason. It is so much lighter than books. Again, Duh. And I have some serious back up books on it. The complete works of Dickens and Tolstoy and Agatha Christie. Emergency rations. This, of course stifles creativity. Once, my glasses had been stolen (I later found them and gave the person a pair of glasses to trade for my prescription) and I only had a candle at night so I took a marker and a legal pad and wrote myself big stories that I could read without glasses by candlelight. Adventure story about some kids traveling alone.

I have big feet. So, in countries where women are little, it is not easy for me to buy shoes. I take Teva Women's Mush II Flip-Flop. This is what works for me. They last pretty well. Nothing really lasts well walking on volcanic rock, but there it is. I can slip them on and off going into temples and places where you have to take your shoes off. They don't look bad if I am dressing up and they are cheap.

I pack my day pack with electronics, lots of food, one day's clothes, a bathing suit, tooth brush paper and pen, printed tickets, copy of my passport, nicotine gum, and last minute stuff, a tiny Leatherman, micro flashlight.

I have a lightweight down parka that my friend Gretchen insisted on giving me. It has been a life saver on cold planes, wicked lay overs in New York in February and strangely cold nights in places where "it never gets this cold". Thanks Gretchen. That for the plane and a pair of socks, and food. I have a pathological fear of being hungry, developed in El Salvador during the war when I experienced starvation up close and personal. Last time I went to Thailand, I was still eating my plane food two weeks after arriving.

Then in the suitcase goes almost nothing. About 3 outfits, a few personal care items, a thing of Dr. Bronners peppermint soap, a few random things. This is because after I get to my destination, especially in Central America, the used clothing stores are heaven. I have found and bought clothes from Neiman Marcus with the tags still on in Mega Boutique in Granada. I have found so much fun stuff for under 3 dollars. I hate shopping but this is fun. I tend to donate this stuff to the maid or anyone who wants it when I leave and come home with just about nothing. In Southeast Asia, I buy new clothes on the street in the $2 for anything sales. I can see what blends in locally and again, it is so easy to shop when you are planning to pass it on in a month or two in any case. No pressure.

I include a small bottle of iodine, a round of CIPRO, some anti-fungal lotion and some EmergenC packets, in my medical kit. Also a few bandages, an anti-itch stick. All these things and more can be bought for pennies most anywhere. I take my glasses prescription. In Marin, CA last year, the local eye doctor wanted $350 to put my new prescription in my sun glasses frame. My eye doctor in Nicaragua did the same for $23 and apologized for it costing so much. Same proportion goes for haircuts, teeth cleaning, all that stuff.

I think this just about covers my travel planning. From a few not so pleasant experiences I have started to make a reservation for a room for the first week or at least the first few days in a new country. After that, I have the lay of the land and can choose more intelligently. It is about half and half in my experience, half times I move and half times I stay.

My goal is to be relatively sane about going places, yet to mix it up with new experiences, adventure and new people. Virtually everyone I meet is helpful and gets into the art of helping me find comfort and fun. The grey hair goes a very long way as a passport to gracious living. Also my stellar personality, I suspect.

"No One Leaves Home", Warshan Shire

NO ONE LEAVES HOME

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.
no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough
the go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off
or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hungry
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying—
leave,
run away from me now
i don’t know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

— Warshan Shire

Shared without permission of the poet because I am grateful for such a powerful poem. Mea Culpa.

The Guns of the Oregon Shooter were Purchased Legally

According to the ATF (bureau of alcohol, tobacco, and fire arms), the weapons used by the Oregon shooter were all legally obtained. On what planet is it legal to buy and stockpile automatic weapons, handguns, assault weapons? Yup, here is the USA. I think this is insane. I am bored and astonished that with our deference to the NRA (national rifle association) we think that having a law that checks the background of people making personal arsenals with even touch the problem of gun violence in this country. It can't possibly.

And the hand wringing about mental health issues! Of course I think we should do a much better job of helping our citizens with mental health issues, and addiction issues, and abuse issues. No one could believe it more than I. At best we criminalize ill people, at worst we leave them to die of hunger and cold and starvation. But at the same time we glorify violence. We treat the assassins who murdered Bin Lauden and his family as national heroes. It looks pretty cowardly to me to shoot unarmed people in cold blood. We pay huge salaries to mercenary soldiers who torture others because we think they might be our enemies. We have people (who must have mental health issues) using drones to drop bombs in lands they can't even name or find on maps. We love violence. We call our dead army guys heroes even if they died killing unarmed children in a country where they don't even speak the language. Some of our most profitable companies are arms manufacturers and often they own our media outlets. GE.. too many examples to list. We don't call them mentally ill although they buy and sell weapons and weapons of mass destruction.

"Is the NRA the ultimate protection mafia for the military mercenaries and the arms manufacturers? Has our foreign policy come home to us in a sick way? Are our school shootings really any different from us dropping bombs from drones anywhere in the world we wish? Much of our prosperity comes from making weapons. I am sick from this. We didn't even sign the land mine treaty when so many other countries did. Why? We make them. I have to accept the fact that this is who we are. We are the largest arms manufacturer on the planet and we sell to anyone. And we don't want to stop it at home or around the world. This is clear".

We can't manage to agree on background checks! How will we ever come together  to do what country after country does and rid the citizens of deadly weapons. We are a sick joke on the world stage for our belief that overwhelming force at home and abroad is the path to peace. Peace is the path to peace. 

"No Poo" Movement catching on. Must read.

I got this note from a young friend of mine. He got me going. His note and my reply:

"Hi Jules,

I read a few days ago that daily shampooing was invented in the 60's by hair companies, and that prior to that women washed hair once a month.

Apparently there is a movement called 'no poo', which is sort of pushing the idea its the hair care products that make our hair unattractive. rinse daily with water, Sodium bicarbonate for washing every few weeks, and apple cider vinegar for conditioner after washing with the sodium bicarbonate.

Apparently there is like a month of 'adjustment' where you are gross greasy mess, then the hair stabilizes.

What do you remember from your youth on this topic?"

You can probably anticipate what I will say. There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you think about it, there are so many things that need to be examined. Everything we put in or on our bodies has a consequence. I don't think that plastics were developed until WW 11. Now we expose everything to plastics. We put our food in plastic bags, our clothes (fleece) are pure plastic, we eat and drink from plastic, almost all store food comes in plastic, sheets and pillows are made from plastic, all your sports gear is plastic. The chemical soups we drench ourselves in all have negative consequences. All. Most pharmaceuticals have awful side effects. Two of the five major medicines Mom took in the last years of her life have been removed because they caused heart attacks. She died of a heart attack. Somehow, the Mad Men of the sixties were so much more successful than we can ever imagine and in reality there is no one protecting us. The FDA and so forth have allowed endless damaging and destructive drugs and cosmetics and food stuffs to pollute our selves. There is nothing that doesn't have an down side. 

Both my mother and father were shocked when their kids started taking showers everyday. They grew up washing and shining shoes on Saturday night. Old farm traditions. My Dad used a bar soap for shampoo his whole life. He had beautiful hair. Mom used to have her hair washed and set once a week at the hairdresser.

We old hippies used Dr. Bronners (

Peppermint Liquid Soap - 32 oz

 ) for almost everything. toothpaste, shampoo, body wash, laundry. Then started coming the naturals and we used them. In Nica the poor people use a drop of bar soap and a lot of brushing. In many places people use coconut oil and a lot of brushing. In India, people use oil and have gorgeous hair. The Amerindians and Eskimos used bear fat or other available oils. You see, it is a bad idea to dry out your hair and then have to put products to counter the dryness. That is a fact. And each product has a soup of chemicals and additives and fake color and dangerous scents. Bad. Every scent in your laundry is some nasty chemical. People used to hang out laundry to dry and it smelled so fresh. Now chemical places like DuPont and Monsanto use nasty shit to emulate that nice smell. I get a headache when I am in the detergent section of a market. If I told that to a doctor, I would get a chemical prescription to counteract the headache.

Many of the things we do without examining them are not only stupid, but destructive. Fluoride in the drinking water, no proof that it helps with teeth. Very expensive and lots of side effects. An aspirin a day for your heart-same thing. Who started that ad campaign? Non dairy sour cream has something like 70 chemicals in it. Hair care is a good place to start. Get a good brush to stimulate your natural oils (maybe a non plastic brush) and go from there.

A good idea is to look to the past before TV ads and before Monsanto and before supermarket chains. People did a lot of body care with baking soda. Great for stomach stuff, odors,cleaning. Vinegar was used for everything..cleaning, fighting infections, washing windows and on and on. Epsom salts were used for a million things. Salt was used for teeth brushing and gum health and gargle. You get my drift.This doesn't even take into consideration herbs, and spices and natural healing and ancient traditions..acupuncture, massage, and so forth. I have seen a comfrey compress take down swelling in front of my eyes.

I am slightly amused that a person who only has a half inch of hair is looking at this issue, but I am happy to have you thinking along these lines. All the people I know in your generation are very concerned about researching the best products to buy for their needs. The next step would be to study the best non-products. I am not against the use of anything commercial, you know that, but if use of one thing is creating the need for the next thing and the next thing, the spiral gets more and more away from the simple things that have worked forever. 

p.s., The frequent chemical shampooing may also have created the need for the massive hair coloring industry in the US which almost always uses cancer producing ingredients. My grandmother B. died with no grey in her hair.

This is more than you wanted, I am sure, but a good way to think about things is "what did people used to do, what do poor people do and how much shit do I want to use on a regular basis?" The natural cosmetic and food industry has offered a lot of substitutes for the worst shit, but the mentality is the same..what do I let them sell me?

I Want to be Jung Again.

So, Ariel is at it again. Dreaming. When Ariel was a child, we lived way in the country of New Hampshire. My kids went to Pine Hill Waldorf School. It was a bit of a commute in our VW bus, not because it was far away, but because the dirt roads and the hilly territory were often a challenge. I mean that. Another challenge was getting the kids ready and out in the morning. And part of that particular challenge was that Ariel meticulously recounted her dreams from the night before.

I mean meticulously. I mean every detail and corrections and going back if she missed a bit. We were truly interested. I didn't dream that much and certainly didn't recall that much. Somehow we knew it was special, yet we had to get on with the day. So, while making lunches and finding mittens and racing around, we tried to pay attention.

But my attention was not worth much because I didn't have any framework for knowing what her dreams meant. I still don't have much. She, however has learned a lot about her dreams. She is still leading an extremely rich life during her sleep. At one point when she was in college, her dreams were disturbing. Seriously disturbing. We found her a Jungian dream annalist to see. It didn't help that his offices were in an old Gothic former mental hospital. Let us add ghosts to the dreams. Ariel had always been sensitive to ghosts and spirits around. This building was right out of a horror movie. Even I could practically hear the screams of the suffering inmates.

I think he was a big help to her, that guy. And now, many years later, I find myself listening to her dreams and we are both hoping to gain some insight.

In my sketchy and positively minimal understanding about dreams and from my own personal experience, I have gleaned a few tidbits. I discount dreams as 'livery' or 'kitchen nightmares' if I have eaten a lot of cheese or chocolate right before bedtime. (same goes for booze, I assume) They don't usually offer any deep insights into my unconscious.

It is an interesting Jungian perspective to look at every person in your dream as yourself; the baby, the brat, the goddess, the farmer. It is also interesting for me to separate dreams into types I recognize. I do have the 'liver" dreams, but I also have recurrent dreams and prophetic dreams.

It is not hard to recognize the recurrent dreams, duh, they reoccur. I had two that kept coming back during the 21 years I was married and stopped dead when we split up. One was a kind of Andrew Wyeth scene on a small farm on the Maine coast. I was in the field next to the house. A strong breeze was blowing. I was hanging things on the clothesline. The 'things' were clam shells. They were blowing and rattling in the breeze. That's it. Year after year, I saw this scene in my dream. I need you Dr. Jung. And when it was over, it never returned.

The other dream I had during those years, I think of as a past life dream. I was a beautiful, dark skinned young woman in India. I assume that I was Muslim. I was with a bunch of people on the street, mostly very young people, men and women. We were yelling and screaming and throwing rocks at a handsome upper caste young man riding through the countryside on an elephant. He was so high above us (super elephant?) that our noise and protests could hardly reach him. We were the angry peasant rabble and he was not.
Gets confusing if I think I was all the characters. Never did figure that one out and then it was gone.

There was this dream which I think of a prophetic one. It was a one off, but it was in super vivid color and clear sound. The kids and I were living in the magical cabin in Temple, New Hampshire. It was the one with the mile long dirt driveway built on a little quarry pond. The one built around two pine trees that grew through the roof. I had gotten divorced and it was untenable to stay there. I used to say that the house had all of the luxuries and little or none of the necessities. We had a six foot fabulous bath tub, but the pump often didn't work. We had a giant stone fireplace, but no heat. I had to sell and move to somewhere where I could work and take care of my kids.

The house sale proved to be one of those nightmares. We had 33 acres, but no legal road access. It was an oasis and on and on. Buyers came and sales fell through. I was getting pretty desperate. A fabulous buyer came along and then had a heart attack right before the sale. Blah, blah.

In the dream there was a pirate ship, very old, very decayed, very rustic, very romantic (just like the house). There was a swash buckling buccaneer up on the mast yelling cheers and threats to the wind as the decayed ship was being chased by many other ships. A storm was raging. The ships timbers were groaning. The crew was trembling and wanted to cave in and stop the chase. The chasing ships had herded the pirate into a situation in which he was headed at full sail towards the shore. Doom was certain not matter what. Everyone was screaming. Then the ship hit shore and the storm stopped, the sun came out. The other ships disappeared. Everyone was safe.

Thank you, Jesus. I awoke having no fear about the house sale. The sale took a good while and more drama ensued and then, just as in the dream, it all was done, everyone was fine, and life moved on.

In that dream I know I was every character. I have a lot of swash buckle, but I have a lot of fear and trembling also. I look forward to hearing more of Ariel's dreams and her wisdom about what they are telling her.

Bohemian Nomad" Sounds better than "Homeless Grandma".

At least to me, it does. The thing is that I have a kind of mortal dread of owning things and I tend to get high as a kite when I am setting off on a new adventure. That being said, I have become part of a far flung community of similar folks. We 'Bohemian Nomads' are all ages, from all over the planet, and my gang tends to have very specific types of destinations. We want warm. We want want inexpensive. We want beauty. We want strong local culture and flavor. We wand a simple life style. We want an absolute minimum of hassles for a good life.

We do not get freaked out when the internet doesn't work for a day. We do not get upset if the electricity goes off. We have time to hang out a lot. Everyone has his/her  own set of interests. We often see each other when it happens, more by accident than by plan.

I know that there are countless subcultures that function this way. This is the one I have fallen into. Surprisingly, more and more young people are becoming long term nomads. One Australian couple I met had worked tech jobs in London 70 hours a week for a few years. When they realized they hadn't seen the sun in 2 years and were drinking gallons of coffee by day and too much booze at night, they ht the road. I met them after they had been traveling for 2 years and they were fit and healthy and happy and planned to go home someday and maybe buy a house. They had learned several languages, learned lots of skills, worked for orphans, rescued animals and so on. They owned nothing.

Some folks do remote work while they travel. Some get a pension, the usual spread. Well, as I firm up my plans for this winter (I mean I purchase a few tickets, and make myself aware of what visa limits I have in which country), I have heard from some of my fellow nomads.  I am meeting friends from the US in Bangkok on their way home from China. I am meeting a Brit friend in Bangkok also. She is on her way to Vietnam for a spell, and figuring out where to rent in Nicaragua for the rest of the year. I will see some inspiring nomads in Bali. She is from Argentina, he from Scotland. It is kind of coming together this week. Each of us made our plans separately and now find we are on the same path.

I tend to go somewhere, establish a routine, (coffee shop, church or temple, news source, favorite restaurant, SWIMMIMG POOL) and then wander from there. People have been doing this forever and everywhere, and I am pretty new at the game.

Most of the older nomads have a foothold at home, that is to say they have a home and a car and a change of clothes. Many are tired of being maintenance people for their homes and are selling. Others are getting over wandering and looking for something at home that gives them comfort and freedom. I am still not ready to land anywhere partly, to be honest, because I am so sanguine about what I like and partly because if I had a permanent home in the US, I don't see how I could afford to wander.

Happy today and, God willing, happy tomorrow.

Who are these refugees?

They are God's children, like you and I. That sounds too facile. They are Everyman. Also too facile. One thing I do know is that every refugee inside their country or leaving their country is driven by some unbearable situation. Whether it is war or famine or oppression or disaster, leaving is a terrible and wrenching decision. Our birthplaces smell right, the water tastes right, the land and seasons are familiar. And moreover, leaving family and friends is terrible. No one takes the decision easily. It is a gut wrenching decision.

And things have to be so bad, that staying just is not an option. Period.

And when we see them coming, they are at their worst. They have been traumatized, often starved, have watched their home situation get worse and worse. Then they travel, often with no food or water, often being brutalized in transit, often bringing nothing, often experiencing more losses as they flee. So many refugees look like shit when they find their destination. And they smell bad sometimes. And they are disoriented and often arrive where a different language is spoken.

You all know this. But what we should remember, I think, is three fold. They may have a fabulous education and be wonderful human beings. They might be simple souls. But they will be forever grateful for a bit of love and help. And above all, they want to go home when things get better in their country of origin.

A lot of things confuse this. There may be no home to go back to. They might fall in love and start a family where they land. There might be a death sentence if they go back. Lots of things. But my experience with the young refugees who lived in my home over the years was that they really appreciated being given an education. They really appreciated being welcomed. They really wanted to be free from the strife they were fleeing. They wanted to reach their highest potential. They were like my ancestors when they came here, hungry, tired, and ready to work for the chance at life.

I find them, as a group, inspiring. Recovering from trauma is daunting. Starting over, especially with no language skills is really daunting. Walking into the great unknown is daunting. I look to refugees past and present for inspiration, for strength, for hope.

They are not going to take a big chunk of your piece of the pie. They are going to add more to it. If we and other countries treat refugees honorably, we will be working toward creating peace on earth.

Veni Vidi Vici/ The Pope's Miraculous Visit to the United Nations

I am so spaced out or maybe the correct words are 'spaced in'. I just watched Pope Francis' speech at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. So many words and moments are rushing through my mind. So much peace in my heart. Mr. Gandhi was often heard to say that for every weapon made, there would be a more powerful one made to top it, but the most powerful weapon that could ever be used is love. I think I saw that in action today.

Speaking truth to power, the Pope quietly, lovingly, crushed any and every argument that could possibly be used for the unspeakable acts and words of violence that are happening today. Truth, compassion and love are not soft, compromising, weak acts. They are the most powerful forces that are available  to the human spirit. White Eagle said, "Everything is spirit. That is all we need to know and spirit is triumphant over matter."

Amen.

Inspired people give something of their grace and power to everyone they encounter. Anyone who has ever been in the presence of such individuals has experienced this. They transmit heart to heart. I felt that through the computer recording of Pope Francis today. I have felt that in person (in the company of thousands of others) when I was gifted to be near the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandala, Pir ilayat Inayat Khan, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Chief John Pretty on Top.

The thing that always strikes me the most is that the most powerful people I have encountered are the least self striving and the least egoistical. That or Zen or was it Christian or was it Islam thing of losing yourself to find yourself. And it is risky business. Christ, King, Gandhi, the list can go on and on, lost their lives to speak their truth. But they live on because they fused their hearts with many.

And I like it a lot that Francis could be living the life of luxury that his office affords, but is taking the opportunity his office affords to be a voice for the voiceless. Maybe this will remind all of us that Jesus spoke truths 2,000 years ago that are needed more than ever today.

Live Local: Building Community One Paw Paw Tree at a Time.

I had a vague memory of tasting Paw Paw fruit when we lived in Indiana for a bit. I thought it was too uniformly sweet for my taste, and truth be told, I didn't like the texture much. (a lot like banana)

About 10 years ago, my daughter Ariel planted two Paw Paw trees in her backyard in Portland, Oregon, USA. (I need to say USA because a great many people who read my blog are from many other countries)
The trees offer great shade because of the soft wide leaves allow mottled sunlight to come through.  Each year, the trees have borne more fruit. This year was a bumper crop. No shit, the fruit is clomping to the ground as I sit in the yard.

So, it is kind of a novelty fruit for us, not being southerners and I can't say my feelings have changed much, but something else has happened. The last few years Ariel gave away some to neighbors who were interested. It turns out that they made a kind of brandy from the fruit. They brought her a bottle. Nice. This year they also brought someone from a local brewery to collect huge baskets of the fruit. They are experimenting with making hard cider from the Paw Paws. Amazing and they promise to show up with some bottles when they are ready. And yesterday an other neighbor who took some, brought us Paw Paw pie.

I just like this whole progression. Although she lives in a city, Ariel has made a neighborhood that reminds me of real rural life. Yes, she has good crops of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and pears this year. But she has a family that is happy to eat all those fruits. The Paw Paws have brought a different gift.

Are Oregon, USA and Switzerland First Cousins?

Trying to think of places where I have heard the least spontaneous laughter. I think these two locations win the prize. I am not being critical, mind you, just making a very personal observation. And, obviously, there are many, many, places that I have never visited.

I think it is a spiritual issue. In most towns in Massachusetts, for instance, the banter and gab in line at Dunkin Doughnuts is irresistible. Everyone gets swept up in it. Nothing is sacred, nothing is off limits. The immigrant nationalities all have each other's number. In Oregon, man, coffee is serious stuff, as is everything one ingests or purchases and subjects like what brand of socks to buy your toddler can keep people intense all night. Don't even mention sports. Or politics or religion or health or relationships or did I mention socks?

I am not saying that these subjects aren't passionately important to East Coasters, and maybe they are seriously sacred (The Red Sox, for instance.) but there is a lot of self-deprecating humor even about sacred things. And deprecating about non-self also.

I was at a comedy film in Ashland, Oregon once and was "shushed" when I laughed. That's really bad. It was some British comedy and it was really funny and I was painfully out of place when I laughed. Comedy apparently is not supposed to be funny. Not in Oregon.

I have worried that I just don't get the funny here. But I would have caught on by now by taking cues from others. Life is serious business and My Life is very serious, indeed.

Thinking about Switzerland, I did hear noises there that resemble laughter. One farmer saying to another "Your cows look good." "Ya, ya. ha, ha." I don't think the "Ha,ha" counts as laughter. It was more like a continuation of the "Ya, ya". Same when someone complemented a neighbor or her clean stoop. "Ha, ha." doesn't count for me.

So this business of sacred and non-sacred. My personal impulse is that sacred stuff is a bit bigger than our little egos. Therefore, it is fair game. But when the little me is the sacred thing, then almost anything can affront it, so we all must tread carefully. i fear I am clutching at straws here. I am, actually. But then I think of some bridges in Switzerland decorated with many depictions of 'Death". Maybe it was to ward off the Plague, but it is sobering in any case, It makes me wonder.

So, my conclusion is that some new guru must start doing laughter workshops. Laughter is good for us. It is the out breath at its best. Life is serious, but it is fully of humor, especially irony. Mine anyway. Actually, almost anything is funny. Toes, for example. Pretty weird. Politics. Religion. Animals. Human resemblance to certain animals. Don't get me going.

Brilliant Idea for Today. Presidential Candidates Must Pass a Few Tests

I am not really a fan of testing. I like Waldorf education where the notion scarcely comes up until the higher grades. But today while taking my walk, I started to remember presidents who had no college degree. Then I started to remember highly ignorant presidents who had college degrees. How about Mitt Rommeny who has very fancy degrees and states that the world is only 6,000 years old. Wow. And Presidents who never had a passport because "we have everything here in the USA. Who needs another country?" George 11.

Then I thought about candidates such as Sarah Palin who did not know that South Africa is a sovereign country, not just southern Africa. Then I started thinking that a person needs a college degree to teach first grade. You need a college degree for almost any job, and if a college degree doesn't mean you have an education, there should be a way.

I think it is time to give rigorous tests to anyone who wishes to be a candidate. I think a world geography test is in order. I think a US History test is in order as well as ...say, the history of the Middle East. I think a fundamental human anatomy and how the body works is important. (For those "you can't get pregnant in a rape" kind of men. I think a test on the fundamental principles of world religions might be in order. I would like to see an understanding of the constitution test. You get my drift.

Then, if the candidates can pass the test, I would like to see a buzzer that shuts off their participation in the debates the minute they give out false information. Like, every time they say "We are the richest nation in the world." Just not true. I know this could get fuzzy when they say stupid stuff like "We would have won the Vietnam War if we had stayed the course." That is just a pandering opinion. But full out lies presented as facts, time to put an end to that.

Maybe one or two foreign languages should be in the test. We are probably the only country on the planet that has presidents who only speak their native tongue.

I would be happy to provide my input to any tests. I do think it might possibly clear the field of candidates who are too ignorant to be president or who are using ignorance to gain approval. Another brilliant idea from Julie!

Take a Shit Job Once in a While. Develop Compassion for the 99%.

The dunce

His former Harvard Business School professor recalls George W. Bush not just as a terrible student but as spoiled, loutish and a pathological liar.

MARY JACOBY

"For 25 years, Yoshi Tsurumi, one of George W. Bush’s professors at Harvard Business School, was content with his green-card status as a permanent legal resident of the United States. But Bush’s ascension to the presidency in 2001 prompted the Japanese native to secure his American citizenship. The reason: to be able to speak out with the full authority of citizenship about why he believes Bush lacks the character and intellect to lead the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy.

“I don’t remember all the students in detail unless I’m prompted by something,” Tsurumi said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “But I always remember two types of students. One is the very excellent student, the type as a professor you feel honored to be working with. Someone with strong social values, compassion and intellect — the very rare person you never forget. And then you remember students like George Bush, those who are totally the opposite.”

The future president was one of 85 first-year MBA students in Tsurumi’s macroeconomic policies and international business class in the fall of 1973 and spring of 1974. Tsurumi was a visiting associate professor at Harvard Business School from January 1972 to August 1976; today, he is a professor of international business at Baruch College in New York.

Trading as usual on his father’s connections, Bush entered Harvard in 1973 for a two-year program. He’d just come off what George H.W. Bush had once called his eldest son’s “nomadic years” — partying, drifting from job to job, working on political campaigns in Florida and Alabama and, most famously, apparently not showing up for duty in the Alabama National Guard.

Harvard Business School’s rigorous teaching methods, in which the professor interacts aggressively with students, and students are encouraged to challenge each other sharply, offered important insights into Bush, Tsurumi said. In observing students’ in-class performances, “you develop pretty good ideas about what are their weaknesses and strengths in terms of thinking, analysis, their prejudices, their backgrounds and other things that students reveal,” he said.

Bush, by contrast, “was totally the opposite of Chris Cox,” Tsurumi said. “He showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago. He was famous for that. Students jumped on him; I challenged him.” When asked to explain a particular comment, said Tsurumi, Bush would respond, “Oh, I never said that.” A White House spokeswoman did not return a phone call seeking comment.

In 1973, as the oil and energy crisis raged, Tsurumi led a discussion on whether government should assist retirees and other people on fixed incomes with heating costs. Bush, he recalled, “made this ridiculous statement and when I asked him to explain, he said, ‘The government doesn’t have to help poor people — because they are lazy.’ I said, ‘Well, could you explain that assumption?’ Not only could he not explain it, he started backtracking on it, saying, ‘No, I didn’t say that.'”

Bush once sneered at Tsurumi for showing the film “The Grapes of Wrath,” based on John Steinbeck’s novel of the Depression. “We were in a discussion of the New Deal, and he called Franklin Roosevelt’s policies ‘socialism.’ He denounced labor unions, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Medicare, Social Security, you name it. He denounced the civil rights movement as socialism. To him, socialism and communism were the same thing. And when challenged to explain his prejudice, he could not defend his argument, either ideologically, polemically or academically.”

Students who challenged and embarrassed Bush in class would then become the subject of a whispering campaign by him, Tsurumi said. “In class, he couldn’t challenge them. But after class, he sometimes came up to me in the hallway and started bad-mouthing those students who had challenged him. He would complain that someone was drinking too much. It was innuendo and lies. So that’s how I knew, behind his smile and his smirk, that he was a very insecure, cunning and vengeful guy.”

Many of Tsurumi’s students came from well-connected or wealthy families, but good manners prevented them from boasting about it, the professor said. But Bush seemed unabashed about the connections that had brought him to Harvard. “The other children of the rich and famous were at least well bred to the point of realizing universal values and standards of behavior,” Tsurumi said. But Bush sometimes came late to class and often sat in the back row of the theater-like classroom, wearing a bomber jacket from the Texas Air National Guard and spitting chewing tobacco into a cup."

It is very nice that students today in the USA are often required to do some volunteer work in the community. I think, however, that getting a job, a working class job would bring much more understanding of what the world is like for most people and lead to a much stronger social conscience than giving charity or "do-good" deeds. This story about Bush is hopefully extreme, but sadly quite prevalent.

In the course of my life, I have had several eye opening jobs. In the late 60's, I was hungry and took a sweatshop job in nowhere Pennsylvania. I worked in a Hathaway shirt sweatshop sewing the left dart on a size ten white blouse for 8 hours a day. (now, of course the sweatshops are in lovely far away places like Ghana and Indonesia) We had two 10 minute potty breaks and a half hour lunch at our machine. One certain days there were speed-ups when an order had to go out. They were brutal. I never once saw the whole blouse.

I was privileged because this wasn't going to be my life; it was a stop over band aid. By a half hour into the routine, I was stiff, then my back hurt, then my eyes hurt, then I was bored to death, deciding to get drunk or scream or shoot myself. By afternoon I was a robot with no thoughts or feelings.

The woman next to me had sat at the same machine for 14 years. She was kind. Lucky for me because she helped me a lot. The thing is that I still, fifty years later get dizzy when I go into a Dollar Store or see Disney products and think that every single piece of crap that we buy has a human in much worse circumstances giving their life and their health to make these products.

I tried to help with the coffee harvest in the Guatemalan Highlands during the 'troubles' and I gave up after 1 1/2 hours. The high producing workers were getting 70 cents a day. 

I have bar tended at a bar where I was issued a gun (which I declined) because it was so rough. I have been a waitress and a chambermaid. This is all nothing to me. I had an education, health, guts, gumption, freedom. But the reason I am telling you this is that even with a good home and food to go home to, these experiences were some of the most educational of my life.

In El Salvador, I experienced hunger, real hunger, for the first time in my life. I left when I was done, but the villagers I knew couldn't leave. I hate hunger.  I guess what is one my mind today is that it doesn't matter what school we go to, but I hope all of us can get enough real life education to never be George Bush sneering at "Grapes of Wrath" and never feel superior to anyone. I don't think I could ever find the courage or strength to carry on in many of the circumstances I have witnessed.