Yesterday I spent some time catching up on my RSS feeds and came across a beautiful piece by sustainability consultant, writer, and musician Alan Atkisson about the Tällberg Forum, conference that looks into the question “How on Earth can we live together?” I read his six-part account and felt myself very moved by his experience. The problems we thought were very bad are actually much worse. And yet so many people are creating new solutions, new ways of seeing, and new methods of working together in response. Even with the incalculable challenges we face, the attitude toward making it right was, as one speaker said, “I certainly think we can, we must, and we will.”

In his speech, Amory Lovins made reference to a TED talk entitled “Willie Smits Restores a Rainforest,” which I’d like to share with you today. Using an integrated plan of clever plantings, high-tech monitoring, permaculture, and co-operation with local peoples, Smits and his team have been able to revitalize an almost-barren area in Borneo. Not only is the land now thriving, full of wildlife and biodiversity; it also supports the food, water, and economic needs of hundreds of families in the area. This reminded me of a speech given at the 350 Conference by Kevin Conrad, Special Envoy and Ambassador for Environment & Climate Change, in which he said that slowing climate change depends largely on increasing the economic value of a standing forest so there is no incentive to cut it down.

Smits’s story is compelling. The most amazing thing to me is the sacred responsibility he took upon his shoulders to care for the land, the animals, the people, and the planet all at once. I hope you enjoy it, and that it sparks ideas for you, as it did for me, about how much more responsibility you can take on, and how much useful, integrated beauty you can create in your own part of the world.

image courtesy of fontplaydotcom

In Derrick Jensen’s recent article in Orion Magazine, “Forget Shorter Showers: Why personal change does not equal political change,” he throws down the gauntlet for would-be activists in the 21st century in the very first paragraph:

Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

He goes on to explain how our capitalist system wrongly puts the onus for protecting the natural environment on individuals and their consumption patterns, when the vast majority of waste and emissions are produced by industry and the military. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings.

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image by erin MC hammer

The other night, my dear friend N. came over to hang out for a while. She told me that she’d been fighting a lot with her mother, a born-again Christian who watches a lot of Fox News, about politics. “What I don’t understand,” N. told me, “is the vitriol. She might disagree with Obama, or with me, but why does she have to be so hateful?”

Remembering several occasions on which N. had spewed her own venom in the opposite direction, especially during last fall’s election, I gingerly asked her how her rigid stance differed from her mother’s. “Aren’t you just as much of a fundamentalist about your beliefs as she is?”

We talked through this for the next hour or so. “They don’t believe in evolution so they want to teach theology in schools! They hang out in their little enclaves and won’t even listen to anyone who doesn’t agree with them! They won’t let up on the most asinine things!”

In each case, I saw the truth in what she was saying. And I also saw, with more clarity than ever before, that each of those statements could be applied to “our” side as well. From the religious right’s point of view, random, causeless, meaningless evolution is a form of religion—an atheistic one they don’t want their kids learning. Liberals also hang out in little enclaves, and have unwavering stances. We are all guilty of the same rigid way of thinking.

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I grew up in a very strict Catholic background, and I loved many things about my Catholic faith—the community, the music, the beauty of Christ’s teachings. But I couldn’t reconcile my growing knowledge and ideas about the world with the dogma, and so when I left home, I left my Catholic upbringing behind in favor of science-based speculation about the way the universe works. At family get-togethers, I argued with my aunts and uncles late into the night, railing against their faith’s rigidity and oppressiveness.

Of course, my rants didn’t convince anyone of anything, and in fact I experienced some great losses taking this stance. Not only did it separate me from millions of people—including much of my family!—who do gain strength and perspective from their religious faiths; I also lost my sense of a Great Story I could believe in and learn from. If, as much of science tells us, we ended up here by accident, and our being here doesn’t particularly mean anything, then why even bother getting out of bed in the morning?

This story is pretty common, I think, and I know that lots of us feel the loss of a higher perspective. The proof is in our culture (insert your favorite example about how shallow we’ve become here).

But what if, instead of setting ourselves against each other, we could instead see from a higher perspective that makes it possible to embrace and integrate both religious and scientific revelations?

That’s the task to which Reverend Michael Dowd has dedicated his life. I’m currently reading his book “Thank God for Evolution” and it is truly awesome. In this interview, he explains how he got started in Evolutionary Evangelism and why every new fact science learns is good news. The interview gets really juicy right at the end; I wish they could have continued ...

image by Orin Optiglot

Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
—Charles Darwin

And why should cultural evolution be any different? Indeed, looking at the major stages of human civilization we see that each emergence both solves problems of the previous stage and provides the “strife” needed for the next stage to emerge.

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Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
—Henry David Thoreau

image by psd

On my recent roadtrip, I discovered many things: I love to hike, everything tastes better when cooked outdoors, and living minimally is wonderful.

Having fewer choices, less stuff, and few obligations made for very easy decision-making. What do I wear? Whatever’s clean. What’s for breakfast? Oatmeal and tea, just like yesterday. What to do? Well, the weather’s nice, so let’s go for a hike. This was all deliciously simple.

One side effect of this minimalism was that I had plenty of room in my head for noticing beautiful things and thinking deep thoughts, which are among my favorite pasttimes. I liked the empty space, and I started wondering, how can I get more of it? What if I could have it all the time?

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Well, I’m back home in Brooklyn after a truly amazing month on the road. I’m still processing everything I saw—in nature and in myself—and thinking about options that hadn’t occurred to me before. Changes are afoot in so many different areas—work, home, and even in the way I think about the world. My urge right now is to clear the decks for what’s coming next and to absorb as many new ways of thinking and relating as I can. As always, I will do my best to share this with you on The Sunny Way in hopes that my experience and ideas might be useful to you.

To that end, today I’d like to share with you a presentation by designer Matt Webb, in which he explores what it can mean to be a human being right now. He believes that our special superpower at this point in time is to participate in cultural creation in a way we’ve never been able to before. I can’t say too much more about it, because he covers so much ground so beautifully. Do yourself a favor and watch this today! It will change your weekend and, possibly, the way you see yourself in general.

image by mrhayata

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the hypercritical part of me went on overdrive the first week or so of my trip. Everywhere I went, I saw stuff to judge and snark upon, and I realized that this was both limiting my experience and making me mean, so I decided to stop.

I did pretty well with this overall—not perfect, but pretty good—and I noticed something interesting as I chose to put my attention on lovelier things. Not only did I have a much better time with my fellow tourists; I also saw much more of what was around me and had many more ideas. When I focused on how annoying everyone was, I saw many more things to be annoyed by. But when I opened up to all the beauty around me, creative possibilities seemed to flow through me.

Could it be that a positive attitude makes us more creative? That’s not how I usually think of creativity—the paradigm is “tortured artist” for a reason. Isn’t it the awful gap between what they see in the world and what they see in their minds that fuels their creative power?

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There are marathons and bike-a-thons and walk-a-thons, but on Sunday, June 22, Riverbrook Residence in Stockbridge, MA hosted what may be the world’s first Piano Improv-a-thon!

Riverbrook, the oldest facility for women for developmental disabilities in New England, is where I teach music. In collaboration with Riverbrook director Joan Burkhard and the many wonderful people on the staff, this event helped fulfill my aspiration to show that, no matter who we are, beauty is inherent to us all by virtue of being human.

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Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is a huge, controversial book which tells the story of a group of creative people who go on strike to protest their treatment by the rest of society. Widely regarded as a right-wing screed, it’s spawned millions of college libertarians and inspired countless debates about the proper relationship between individuals, business, and government.

Those on the political left generally disdain it for the harsh attitude it takes toward the poor—that they are mostly lazy, easily manipulated, and not all that bright—and toward the intellectual elite, who Rand characterizes as bitterly hell-bent on bringing down any great achievements. And it’s true that Rand’s philosophy goes a bit far in many ways, especially in her descriptions of “the masses” and her idolization of industry. But there’s a great deal of truth and beauty in this book as well, and that’s what I’d like to explore.

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This is a guest post by Esther Kassovicz, updating us on the progress of her project to build bridges between Israeli and Palestinian women, which she first told us about a few months ago in an 11 Questions survey. Fill out the survey and let us know what you are up to! We look forward to featuring your good work soon!

We’ve had a few meetings since my last update, both separately in our respective places and together. I’d like to share with you about a couple of them that I believe can illustrate the complexity of the larger scale situation and also why I’m convinced more than ever that holding space for communication is our best ‘strategy’ forward.

A couple of weeks ago we had our West Bank meeting scheduled. We were all very excited and nervous. For us Israelis crossing the check point into the West Bank is against the law, through there is a way to do it if we get stopped that’s pretty much safe and straight forward. We were however bracing for the unpleasant experience of witnessing ourselves the often humiliating and frustrating experience Palestinians endure daily in using the check points. We wanted to experience it ourselves to possibly understand what it’s like for the Palestinian women.  Also the Palestinian women who are Israeli citizens from the North of Israel were all excited as they don’t get to be in direct contact with Palestinians across the ‘green line.’

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Over the last month, I’ve been reading Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants by Wolfgang Schivelbusch.  It sat in my bookcase for a while, unread, and then last fall I listened to a webcast about enlightened communication where the organizer began the program connecting enlightened communication to the conversations that arose in coffeehouses in 17th century England and France. I decided to see what this book had to say.

In Tastes of Paradise, Schivelbusch writes about the links between new foods brought to Europe through trade with the Middle East, the Far East and the Americas.  He covers the effects that pepper, coffee, tea, chocolate, tobacco, beer, hard liquor and opium had on European culture from the 17th through 19th centuries.

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