Soda Jerk

Do you ever feel somehow lost in your current era?

When I was a teenager, a psychiatrist that I went to made the comment, “Your values are quite old fashioned, as if you belong to an earlier world.”. It rang true, as I felt out of touch with not only my peers, but also the trends of the 80s. I was part of a generation gap, except my generation hadn’t been at the helm since 1938.

It has been a blessing throughout my life, to meet others who, lost or not, find connection in past times and collections of yore. So when Shaners and I heard of an authentic soda shop opening in Cole Valley, it became number one on our agenda. Old fashioned and delicious? Let’s go!

Sarsaparilla, now difficult to purchase due to it’s carcinogenic properties, used to be the main ingredient in real root beer. Nowadays it’s made with artificially flavored syrup.

In the 1800s, tonic drinks were all the rage. Sarsaparilla. Sassafras. Swamp Root. Mix it with sugar and spice, cool it down and bubble it up with soda water. Your root beer float…it’ll cure what ails ya. If it doesn’t kill you first.

But how about Candy Cap mushroom? Acid phosphate? Lactart? Egg cream soda with actual egg? Add a scoop of ice cream? You’ve got moxie, kid!

Moxie was the first carbonated soda sold in the US, and it is still sold in Maine. I used to drink it once every summer, just to reconfirm that it’s positively nasty.

Harking back to a different time, the new Ice Cream Bar has thrown out the snake oil, but has kept some of the tastier medicinal ingredients for their soda fountain. Add to the mix an ice cream counter, with (what has become typical SF) unique flavors, vintage uniforms, big band music, and you have me shaken and stirred. Where’s my spoon?

Upon entry, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck while something tight within me kicked back. Putting up its feet, my heart sighed, “Home”. Look through the door at the hat that fella is wearing. Swoon.

I borrowed this one from the website. Step right up.

I perused the elaborate menu, while Fern clamored for “Cone! Cone!”. She enjoyed a scoop of Honey Buttermilk ice cream while I made tough decisions…Chocolate and Raspberry? Pink Peppercorn and Pineapple? Or Rye Butterscotch with malted cream and blackstrap molasses? Life can be so cruel sometimes.

The soda jerk was a coveted position in department stores in the early twentieth century. A quick google search tells me that they were called jerks for the way they manipulated the handle of the soda dispenser, jerking it forward and back.

I finally decided on a Raspberry Chocolate Crush, while Shane got the “New Orlean’s Hangover”…a float with chicory coffee syrup, golden eagle tincture (sarsaparilla), sweet cream ice cream and soda. He fell in love and I had a bad case of soda envy.

Fern finished her ice cream and began hollering for more. The giant advertisement for sugar was not helping.

The mixologists for the soda bar have included “extinct” ingredients, like the afore mentioned sarsaparilla, as well as “acid phosphate” (gives a citrus zip) and “lactart” (a yogurt-y tang). Their specialties are based on the research in the book, “Fix the Pumps” by Darcy O’Neil. Here’s the full menu, if you would like to wet your whistle with anticipation.

Planning your trip yet? Drop me a line when you go and I’ll join you…I have 12 drinks, 75 tinctures, 24 extracts, 14 syrups and the endless variety of combinations to try. Next up? A “Touch of Grey” — Candy Cap mushroom syrup, acid phosphate, cream and soda.

Next time I need to dress the part too. Jacket, dress, belt and purse — thrifted. Leg warmers (yes, I do wear them every day) –gift. Tights — Target.

Since this post is about delight, here’s a close up of that new-to-me belt.

Just make sure you take your sweetheart with you when you go.

Have a lovely weekend!

The Garden in Winter

Our community garden next door has the quiet grace of nature in repose. While the mycelium throw parties underground, everything on the surface is conservative in its presentation, preparing for its debutante spring premiere. A break in the rain this past week found us wandering about and noticing the little things.

If you happen to be lucky enough to live in an area with manzanita, late winter/early spring is a wonderful time to get your nectar on. Especially after a rain, pluck a few flowers and suck at the base. Divine.

Early spring is also an excellent time to steal other people’s garden ornaments.

And falling in love with every container of stagnant water.

Some discoveries invited us to lay upon the earth, synching up heartbeats, with the reminder to rest.

Right before she ate one and the vigorous tongue scraping from mama that followed. Everyone survived.

If you open your eyes to SEE, you never know what you might discover…

Then it was back inside for a warm bath, watching “Winnie the Pooh” naked (Fern, not me), and enjoying a slice of (successful!!) sourdough bread.

The japanese plum trees have begun to flower, just as the cold and rain arrived. Early February feels like the wee beginning of spring to me. How is it in your world? Are you covered in snow, knee deep in mud, or frolicking about in a different hemisphere?

One last note…I haven’t been able to leave comments on some blogger sites for over a week (ones with a “pop out” comment window seem to be fine, but others just won’t post). If you haven’t heard from me in a while, don’t take it personally! In the meantime, has anyone else had this problem and do you  know how to resolve it?

Love.

San Quentin

This weekend, I went to Prison.

It wasn’t the first time. I guess you could say I’m a repeat offender.

I went willingly. I even raced there, on an empty tank of gas. As I passed the ferries of the free in Larkspur, there was a break in the storm clouds. Golden light outlined grey shapes in the sky, as waterfowl congregated on the bay below. I remembered a time, years ago, when I travelled the same rainy road to nearby Tiburon, in service to the Sakyong of the Great Eastern Sun. I never saw him in person, but the point was to serve, attending to my basic goodness, to his, to everyone’s. My heart lifted as I touched in on that spot of bodhichitta. And then I started to laugh in delight at synchronicity, as the radio confirmed my mood. (Turn it up.).

I waited at the East Gate, to have my identity confirmed. I personally had the most excellent of company in a friend (I love you America!) and there were many of us. Some of us held brochures, some of us held boxes of lettuce starts, all of us held anticipation.

Past the first guard, we were chauffered to the next check point. Ridges and hills hold San Quentin on three sides, coyote bush and coastal sage in bizarre contrast to the cement, the barbed wire, the intimidating artifice of an institution that defines authority. It is not a little bit ironic to me that this vestige of preserved wildness also houses its antithesis. As we rounded the last corner, a coyote crossed right in front of our car. Leaping across the road and then sauntering up onto the ridge line, it paused, looking out at the water, acknowledging us with the barest of glances. We were all enchanted by its beauty, the thick technicolor dreamcoat, the penetrating eyes that seared right through us, through space, through metal and glass. A witness to truth and soul.

At the next check point we were identified again, and detected for metal. Entering the yard, I saw the other visitors. Gulls and Canada Geese stroll about the muddy grass. The epitome of freedom, with ability to go anywhere, the grounds of San Quentin are where they fold their wings. I passed the sign prohibiting the feeding of wildlife, and then we all crowded into a small classroom, to wait. Waiting, I realize, is the first and most prominent thing one does at prison.

Finally, we walked back across the yard to the chow hall, passing a small garden and a sweat lodge, wonderful and ridiculously wild in such a controlled place. Inside the dining room, sparrows that have figured out how to work the system swoop from ceiling fans to scavenge crumbs. We took our name tags, put up our banners, and settled down to wait some more.

I have had the honor several times before to volunteer as an ecopsychologist at the Insight Garden Program. Beth Waitkus, the program director, connected with Holos a year ago at the Bioneer conference. Since then, a few of us interns have attended her class, helping to guide the men through meditation, visualization, inquiry and reflection. Working within Beth’s frame, we help them make the connection between the cycles of the natural world, and their own internal life. The men we work with are not violent offenders. Most are in for substance abuse and robbery. All of them are wounded. All of them have stories. And all of them bring me to my knees.

This saturday, America and I were there to represent Holos at a “Green Career Fair” that Beth organized. Two dozen organizations were in attendance, offering hope upon re-entry into life after incarceration. There is one story that I have heard the men tell, over and over. It is of fear and anxiety over being released. They don’t want to go back to prison, they want a fresh start, and it is the promise of new life that both sustains them through punishment, and also keeps them up at night. Most do not have family to support them, many are ineligible for a well paying job, there is no permanent shelter or way to avoid the same ol’ crowd and crew that brought them trouble in the first place. Three strikes become inevitable.

On this day, while most tables offered pamphlets and job opportunities, my colleague and I offered an empathetic ear. We heard tales of loss and hope, of lives that lacked resources right out of the starting gate, of life before that remembered a grandmother’s roses, of watching whales in Hawaii, of backyard gardens and intrepid aphids. I could talk to these guys all day, and then come back the next for more. And oh, how they can talk.

Towards the end of the morning, I saw a student from Beth’s class that always remembers me from the first time I came. He knows I have a young daughter, and always begins each contact by asking after her. Part Native American, his spirituality is his lifeline behind walls. He regularly takes part in the sweat lodge ceremonies, and his sentences are peppered with natural metaphors. He caught us up with his going ons, currently working hard to write letters to family and friends, trying to weave his world back together. Like so many of the prisoners I have met, it becomes apparent to me that he is a wounded healer. Scraping his knees on his own rock bottom, his heart has opened wider and wider. There is so much he knows about redemption, encountering darkeness, digging deep and the possibility of restoring wholeness.

To each of you at San Quentin, I bow in humility. To each person who no longer knows privacy or the sanctity of being treated like a human, I learn more about grace through you than the most celebrated teacher. YOU are teachers, you, who are learning about the potential of planting seeds, of protecting what sustains us, because YOU know what it is like to have it all taken away.

The thought that occurs to me most frequently during these visits is…The real crime in the lives of these men is not being addressed. The infractions are symptoms of wounded nature.  The prison system is punitive, but it does not rehabilitate. Here is a great post by Ph.D M. Nagler on the need for a non-violent  approach to the criminal “justice” system.

Have a great week!

Dress Up and Stay Home

We are here, now. In accepting, embracing even, our place, creates home. Yet, we are also not content. We are constrained like the partially thriving plants of my container garden. We can grow here, yes. We do. We have. We also have dreams, and there is something within us that knows what is true, what is possible and it stretches toward that like a seed in the dark. We have searched and we have not found. So we are sending out our smoke signals, putting notes in bottles and tossing them to sea, tying wee scrolls on the legs of birds, whispering to the wind our desire.

We have also put an ad on craigslist. Pass it on.

Today is very Wednesday-ish and I am in the midst of 8 million things. In mid process, I can only report back on the immediate. Much of that immediacy is quite brilliant though, so I offer some of the strands currently in the loom. Let’s weave them together.

This past weekend, I was delighted to find a package stuffed to the brim with anticipation awaiting me at the door. All the way from Avalon, filled with thought and love and care from Princess Milla. She’s been a busy bee nurturing her friends from afar, no small feat since I know she is courageously on a healing journey of her own. Sweet, wise, warm friend…thank you.

I could almost hear the chuckles when I opened this jar of sourdough starter. Last year there were many unsuccessful attempts to make a starter and then even more baking failures. I had assumed it was the starter itself, so when I woke up Milla’s dough with food and water, and witnessed its enthusiastic response, I thought we were in business.

But then it took two days for the two rising cycles and despite following directions to the T, at the end of it all, it still turned into a brick.

WTF sourdough?!? What. The. F**k. Help me friends, what am I doing?

But never mind that! Look at what else!

Frocks! For mama and Fern.

Plant medicine from the majestic nettle. (Seriously girl, how freaking adorable are you? Look at that stamp.)

From one lover of secret locks to another, she wonders what these ornate keys could be for. Luckily, she also included a magical steampunk compass, that only works when it wants to….which will be when I am in the Right Place at the Right Time, with secret locks to which I hold the key.

Books that give me the sense that I Am Known. I have started Gary Snyder and am blown away that we are meeting just now. His first essay takes place in the Shasta Bioregion, my home, my known place. “Rich in acorn, deer, salmon and flicker feathers…”. Oh land that I love so well, how is it that I can’t go back to you? Will there be a second bonding in a new place? A mid-life rebirth, a hearth that will be first love for my daughter?

We look for it, and find re-memberance every day. We collect rocks, stick, stones in our longing for them under our feet.

Hat and shirt from the package of love. Ready for a walk in Buena Vista Park.

“The heart of a place is the home, and the heart of the home is the hearth. All tentative explorations go outward from there…” 

Radish spring greens are up.

“You hear histories of the people who are your neighbors and tales involving rocks, streams, mountains, and trees that are all within your sight…The childhood landscape is learned on foot, and a map is inscribed in the mind–trails and pathways and groves—the mean dog, the cranky old man’s house, the pasture with a bull in it–going out wider and farther.”

“Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness.”

“A contemporary Haida elder was asked by a young woman anthropologist (who was impressed by her coherence, presence, and dignity), ‘What can I do for self respect?’. And the elder replied,

‘Dress up and stay home.’

The home, of course, is as large as you make it.”

(Randomly spotted on a bench in the park. Hello Universe, I see what you did there.)

Happy Wednesday!

Still Here

Another year with you, sweet friend. My family still feels so far from the home of our dreams, a dream that is beginning to feel more elusive as time goes by. Yet here we are in the home of our reality, with all its imperfections and un-ideal arrangements. And you are here too. We are friends, you and I, both out of place, but making the best of it. A best of it that ain’t too shabby.

While I was watching, a hummingbird got all bossy with the hawk, divebombing in the way that they do. The hawk was utterly unimpressed. Compared to the crows, the hummer must be like a mosquito.

(I responded to your comments on Kirby Cove from last week, and am short on time this morning, so I hope you had a good weekend and I will see you Wednesday.)

Bits and Bobs

Happy Friday friends!

First of all, I wanted to thank those of you who commented…with such warmth, compassion, receptivity and just plain friendliness…on my last post. I will respond to each of your individual comments as I get the chance today, but an overall expression of gratitude is in order. I said it this way to a friend this morning, “this blog is a place where I continually risk exposure, and being received with such warmth is so healing.”. If you can believe it, I hesitated saying those words about Leo because I thought if you knew that perhaps the darkness of that secret would be too much to bear, and you would turn away. As I have begun to forgive myself, the potential for being undefended has increased. This makes having a soft heart not such a liability, and instead, a strength.

And so, in light of lightness, I will leave you this week with a post about fluff. Glorious, magpie-esque, beauty unto the beholder’s eye stuff. One woman’s trash is another woman’s flea market treasure.

My first trove of prettyprettyshiny from last Sunday’s jaunt to the Alemany Flea Market, was found with a gentleman who was selling costume jewelry for a buckapiece.

Slap some acorns and leaves on it and I’m as nutty as a squirrel.

A foraging gal must always dress the part, and thistles in bloom are the perfect insignia for the quest. (The book was a find from another flea market day about a year ago. I can’t wait to crack the spine for story hour when Fern is old enough to meet Alice.)

Two sets of gaudy earrings. The first, delectable art nouveauish kitschy fans. And the second…stars of the sea, just the thing for all of the ocean explores we’ve been having.

The letters I found several years ago when I went junking. They are two of my most exquisite finds, and also a source of remorse…simply because I was being frugal and only purchased two…out of a whole box of correspondance! The price was too steep for me at the time, but that money is long gone, whereas my wish to have the rest of the letters lives on.

I don’t know that this ring is so old, but the coppery bits in the middle and its ornate frame make me happy.

This book is in heavy rotation right now, and was not procured from Alemany, but rather from Cal’s Books in Redding (all you bookworm gals, you would die and go to heaven!). In highschool, long before Amazon or the internet for that matter, Cal’s was the only source in town for finding witchy, occultish books. I still get a secret thrill when I go in, but now my eyes track for vintage kids’ books. This one has one of my favorite poems, “Oh the world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.”. True dat.

A faux sweater set, maybe from the 40s? Or perhaps 70s…hard to tell. But sweetly divine. And also this…

A little apron that puts me in the mood of a Jan Brett story.

Can we talk for a minute about these shoes? About how much they break my heart and simultaneously piss me off? They were not cheap, and I saved my pennies for FIVE YEARS so I could buy them. I’ve only had them for a year, they have been to the shop twice, and still the rubber soles have completely come off, and you can see that the stitching on the right boot is totally undone. Fluevog, what happened to you? I am still looking for an ebay score on roper boots, since apparently these “1920s work boots” hold up just about as well as if they were that old. Le sigh.

And with that sweethearts, I bid you adieu. And thank you, again, from the bottom of my heart. Your hands of kindness have undone my chains, and being unshackled reminds me of how it feels to skip in the sun.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Kirby Cove

Screaming for the sheer beauty of it all.

Yesterday was (today is as well) another unseasonably warm and mild day. Something within was scratching at the door like a cat, with a trajectory towards tall trees and seclusion. The live wires of my being were unplugged from the city scape, waving frenetically in the desire to connect back in, but to the Something Else, only found under the canopy of forest and in the safety of wilderness.

Fern and I headed north over the Golden Gate Bridge. I intended to drive us through the Headlands, to Rodeo Beach, which didn’t feel quite right, but seemed a good compromise for the distance that little short legs can handle. But mid-bridge, I knew just exactly where it was we should go.

I hadn’t been to Kirby Cove in years, not since Leo started to really age. Dogs aren’t allowed and the walk back up is steep. I used to risk it, hiding in the bushes with him when a ranger went by, but it eventually became too stressful…for both of us. I briefly checked in with my heart…was I ready? Could I handle the contrast of his memory and current reality? Yes. Today was the day.

I’ve been wondering about redemption a lot lately. I’ve also been reflecting on how I’ve been in crisis mode since 2007, a realization that can only come in quieter moments when emotional survival isn’t at stake and I’m at the border, hoping to cross into neutral territory. There have been a lot of thoughts around the need for healing, healing from the immediate and a sense of wanting to heal from history, from trauma that sometimes feels eternal in its scope…and can it ever be done, or is it the case as Freud said, “You can never drain the swamp”.

I walked carrying Fern, who alternated between telling me that she wanted, “To go in Sea. Want nummy nums at Sea. Want go in.” and, “I want go back home”…which was resolved over and over by the question, “But do you still want to go to the water?”. “Yes. I do.”. So we took the decline in this way, stopping every so often to listen to birds, to take in a view of the beckoning ocean. All the while, going at the same pace as we would have, if Leo had been with us. Slow. Open heart. Unclenched belly.

Can someone help me identify this? It is similar to Pearly Everlasting, with papery flowers, thin shiny green leaves. But the flowers are pointy, rather than pearly, and the scent is citrus-y as compared to the maple syrup flavor of the everlasting. It’s all over the Bay Area, but we have yet to be properly introduced.

The road ends in forest, where there are campsites. I am dreaming of camping here with the whole fam during the coming year, cozying up to the campfire, gazing out at where international waters meets the nursery of the Bay, the SFO of the sea.

A few wooden steps lead down to the friendly cove. Sheltered on both sides, I have never been here on a day where I wasn’t hot. The sand is a rich reddish brown and the view, breathtaking, over and over  and over. In 2005 or so I did a self-marriage ceremony here. I spoke my vows into the waves, promising to uphold my relationship with myself as first and foremost, to never abandon my own heart for the sake of staying in relationship ever again. As I offered my commitment to the waters, a sea lion popped up, so close to shore, just where the waves were lapping in. The two of us strolled up and down the beach together, playing, talking, witnessing. Yesterday I sent a greeting to the blue, and far off shore, a sea lion surfaced once, twice.

So much anymore, I never see just natural flotsam and jetsam. Always, the garbage of our haste. The white bits are styrafoam.

Fern and I dared the cold with our toes, sat in the sun and had nummie nums, explored mysterious tunnels, attempted swings.

When my feet hit the sand, I recognized a feeling that has become less familiar these past few years. That of deep relaxation and ok-ness. An inner freedom I associate with really luxurious Augusts, with summers spent in Maine. No imminent danger, no need for hypervigilance, permission to unwind, fully.

Again I thought of redemption, if I deserved to feel ok, if I could start to forgive myself. My heart beats faster as I think about telling you this, and something tells me its time. It was my fault that Leo died. We all say and feel such things in times of guilt or despair. But Leos’s demise was a direct result of my impatience, of my temper. His spine around his neck was injured from being yanked around on a leash. I never thought I was pulling that hard, and so often it was the only thing I could do to get him to move his stubborn, fuzzy ass up the street, as I stood there with a wailing daughter, my own back killing me. So in his last years he was dragged by the yoke. Cord and nerve damage that caused neurological problems. I often feel as if I will be sorry my whole life, that each day will begin with asking for forgiveness and a pledge to reprioritize every moment, taking care of self, taking care of other, responding in Love. This is what deep relationship does for us when it is committed and true…provides the opportunity to release all our demons into the light of transformation. It happens in partnership, it happens in motherhood and it happened for me in guardianship too.

Lately I’ve been aware that the shock is wearing off, and I find myself grieving in a softer and more immediate way. The bit of dog treat found in a purse long unused, the memory of the vet tech who kissed him goodbye, the found bit of fur…all produce honest tears that don’t damage, but are healing waters, washing clean.

The other night I watched a wonderful Doctor Who episode (for fans, the one with Vincent Van Gogh) that subtextually was all about transforming pain, and how being with one’s darkness gives one penetrating sight into both directions of the wonder of the human experience. There was a quote that stuck with me, “He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world…no one had ever done it before.”

For the past few months I’ve found it near impossible to write about the whole story with Leo, because I didn’t want to just talk about the pain. This early visit from spring has let in enough light to rekindle my hope that returns eternal. Unseasonable or no, new living is beginning and in my minds eye I keep seeing pink blossoms, soft petals, gold light and a soundtrack of birdsong, weaving a vision for egg and nest.

Chickweed, miners lettuce, dock and dandelion are available for nourishment in the Bay Area right now, to chase away the winter blahs.

I carried Fern all the back up to the top of the Golden Gate. There is no agenda. The only timing is now. My back is killing me. What does that really feel like? She’s driving me nuts with chatter and screeching. What is she really needing right now? Stop. Feel my heart. Here it is for you. Here we are together. I love you. Ah, there it is. And keep going.

One foot in front of another.

La Nina

As a pretty lady recently said, it’s been a warm…bizarrely warm…winter so far, with nothing in the forecast but more of the same. Predictions of a new Dust Bowl aside, it makes for a mighty fine weekend.

Saturday morning was chilly, but glorious and found us at China Beach.

Fern was so sad that we couldn’t go in the water. I tried explaining how arctic the temperature would be and she would just nod and say, “Ok. I do! Let’s do it.”. These brave souls didn’t help much.

Sunday we schelpped it out early to the Alemany Flea Market. It was a good treasure day for me and I’ll have to post about my finds later this week.

Flea Markets aren’t as difficult with the hot cookie as they used to be, but there was still a lot of this:

This has got to be one of my favorite ways to spend a morning. I fall in love with far more than I can afford to buy, but just being immersed in the history of the detritus that so much life has touched is enough bliss.

Fern and I were appropriately dressed for the occasion.

After lunch at home, our friend Paul came over to spend the afternoon. Fern still can’t say her brother’s name and instead calls him, “Gumball Guy” and in general skips all proper nouns except for Paul. I think he might be her first love.

We went on a wagon walk through the neighborhood. First stop was Duboce Park, where I discovered that Fern has been absorbing more than I had dared to dream.

And there were Daddy hijinks.

I had spotted something earlier in the week, so we went to check it out.

There are at least four unless swings in the hood. The facebook page says to look out for more to come. Yay swings!

Although more than a little bit of me feels alarm at the extreme weather, and I feel like a peach tree trying not to get tricked into being unseasonal, I must say that my heart falls for feeling like it’s spring, hook line sinker. It’s easier to let the love light in, and something inside anticipates unfurling, sprouting, blooming. All of nature seems to be confused in this way right now, and the crab apple trees are in three seasons at once, half dying leaves, half flowers, a smattering of fruit. I pray for rain, and yet after so much personal darkness in the last half of 2011, I am grateful for a reprieve.

Hope this week finds you swingin’ on a star.

Space is Finite and Time Infinite

Do y’all remember Y2K? That conceptual ticking time bomb that vaguely had something to do with ones and zeros and total nuclear meltdown and infrastructure collapse and no ones coffee machine working on January 1st, 2000? On New Year’s Eve of Y2K, I had skipped town with my best friend, leaving the spastic excitement of partying like it was 1999 for a cabin on the Feather River. As we stood at our bonfire at ten minutes to midnight, we were joined by a gold panner who also worked for the National UFO Reporting Center . The clock ticked over into 2000 with nary a pause from the crickets, sparks from the fire floating into the quiet stars. We spent the next two hours regaled with stories of flying saucers over Belden Town, and I swore to never, NEVER buy into apocalypse predictions ever again.

Because it hadn’t been the first time. In 1984 I was in 6th grade, but even at 11 years old, I felt the grip of apprehension. I had only the vaguest idea of what it was all about, but the whispered hype had created a dystopian demon that loomed over my little pre teen heart. In the 90s, I was living in Humboldt County. Gordon Michael Scallion had predicted beach front property for the state of Nevada and in the fall of 1993 I walked around in a pot smoke induced paranoia fog of tsunami terror for months.

Here we are in 2012, and the Nuage communities in the Bay Area are all in a tither, getting ready for the Enlightenment to Come, and preparing their disaster kits just in case it’s aliens and earthquakes instead of a messianic alignment with the Milky Way. Every time the digital clock says 11:11, half the people in the room get a little glaze over their eyes and I know more than one person who is planning a trip to Machu Picchu for the winter solstice.

Then the camera pans over to me, retching into a bucket and rolling my eyes.

I’m not going to write another article debunking the 2012 Myth, because a quick google search will give you plenty. I also doubt that any of my regular readers buy into the cataclysmic predictions, but I am willing to bet that the idea there will be a great awakening, or enlightenment or shift in consciousness holds a little bit more weight. That last bit would be nice. But I think it’s also extremely unlikely, since it’s a theory that evaporates pretty fast if you leave the bar at the corner of Progressive and Liberal, take a right and walk over the Spiritual Bypass bridge, crossing the Mainstream into the Neighborhood of the Disenfranchised. “Shifts in Consciousness”…at least the ones that have sticking power…take a long time to integrate. There’s a lot of dysfunction and suffering out there in the world, and most people on this planet are just trying to figure out how to survive. Ideas of Magical Transformation and everyone becoming enlightened according to the standard of Yoga Journal and Shaman’s Drum are the privilege of the entitled.

It doesn’t take being a member of The Rainbow Tribe to know that shit ain’t right. Here we are in early January, and the plum tree down the street has fruit on it. You know what I think is worth worrying about and investing inventive energy into? How to create change…real change…so that my daughter will not inherit Hell on Earth. I’m far more concerned about the fact that the pond in Maine my father used to ice skate on as a kid has yet to freeze over and winter is half over, than I am about the Age of Aquarius. If we care one lick about this world, we have our work cut out for us. Waiting for Magical Mayans is a distraction and a waste of time. Here is an excerpt from an article by Larry Robinson, an ecopsychologist in Sonoma County:

“Many people are convinced that we are headed inexorably toward collapse and extinction. Others are equally certain that a new world of peace and justice is being born. Ideology offers the false comfort of certainty but it forestalls the creative role of imagination. Our greatest challenge…may be to learn to be at home in uncertainty and yet still engage with passion and commitment. The stakes are too high for us to indulge in either naive hope or pessimism.

We won’t be saved by technology or the market, or Obama or Jesus or Mayan prophecies. All we have is ourselves and each other. That is all we have ever had. But it might be enough. If we can bring a sense of curiosity, imagination and humility to the enormous project of saving the world, we just might tip the scales toward the survival and renewed flourishing of life on Earth.” (excerpt first published in “Ripples” magazine)

Here is a hilarious and snarky “debunking” of 2012 prophecies:

And here’s some more water to put out your own 2012 bonfire…

~It doesn’t really come as a total shock that Christopher Colombus…an explorer and religious fanatic who groveled insanely to the Spanish crown that the Americas he had discovered were actually the East Indies and who was also responsible for colonization that lead to massive genocide…was also the first propagator of the “Maian” Prophecies. Thanks Chris!

~Ask an astrobiologist about the likelihood of the world ending in 2012.

~NASA really wishes people would shut the fuck up already.

~And the Mayans would like us to wake up and smell the coffee.

Mucho Feliz

A consequence of taking off an entire week of blogging right before New Years, is that I now feel backlogged on all these tidy ways of wrapping up the year…the xmas special, the retrospective, the proclamation of resolutions. That’s all sooooo two days ago.

So I offer to you, the January Third EXTRAVAGANZA. Relive it all like the pinto beans we had on Christmas eve are still living on in me. While the end of the year is still working itself out and no definitive line has been crossed from THIS time to THAT, perhaps dumping out the box of the last week will help push things along. Welcome to my imperfect encapsulation.

We spent the holiday in Encinitas, where my folks relocated several years ago. As I look through the photos, I realize we completely neglected to get any of the grandparents with Fern. We have plenty of “The Sea! The sea!” where Fern clamored to go every day. It was shorts weather, delightful and completely out of sync with all desires for wintry coziness.

Here is a random smattering of our time away. In between, let’s talk resolutionish type things.

Increasingly over the last 10 years or so, I have had a hard time feelin’ the love for New Years Eve. The calendar feels arbitrary to me, systemic and fabricated. Rather, I experience the peaks and valleys of beginnings and endings with the seasons. For this reason, I don’t usually do resolutions. The illusion of a “fresh start” doesn’t last long, and resolutions whither away once we find we are still working with our same ol’ stubborn selves. But I do have ongoing resolutions that I am taking into deep winter.

(Pelicans for you, Kim)

To be kind. To be slow. To be soft…open in heart, unclenched in belly.

I bring this one forward for Leo. Sometimes it feels like I am reprioritizing every day. Being in the moment is not just a nice idea anymore. It’s crucial. Everyday I am yanking myself away from whatever castle in sky has managed to grab my attention. Here is my anger, and I am with it. I allow for it. Here is my sorrow and I take the time to feel it. Here is my stomach ache, I offer it my breath. Here is my daughter wanting to be picked up, I let go of ideas of “on time” and “timing” and “getting it done”. I commit myself, everyday, to nurturing deep, messy, painful, joyful, inconvenient love for my family.

To laugh. Hard. Everyday.

One of my dedications from last year was to immerse myself as much as possible in my field of Ecopsychology, from a theory point of view. It was fascinating, rich and depressing as all hell. We Those Ecopsychologists man…they’re a dour bunch. Derrik Jensen, I love you dude, but reading your work left me with a severe case of Magic Deficit Disorder and looking for a cyanide pill. I did some good work this last year, of really confronting, feeling, accepting the profound level of grief I have for what is happening to our Earth. I made it through a gauntlet, and increased my capacity to withstand the atrocities that seem to be happening on a daily basis without it destroying me. Being able to open to all of it is essential to my work. But life must also be lived, and it needs to be worth it. At the Christmannukkah Hubba Hubba Revue, I watched two girls dressed up as dreidels dance to “You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record, Baby)” and realized I need more of that. Irreverence is a necessary ingredient to the good life. So is walking the highwire of the edge between the hysterical and the taboo. I need more FUN. So I am making space for it, setting a place for it at the table and giving myself permission to lighten up.

I want more deep friendships. I want us to move to a home for our future. I want to read more fiction.

By May, I want to be back to my pre-pregnancy weight. 2011 was the Year of Trying to Accept but becoming complacent instead. 2012 will be the year of Chipmunk Cheeks, Be Gone!

Accept every offer of “Pay Mommy! I want to pay!”.

Her favorite form of “pay” right now is her new play mat (made by mommy herself) with the Mushroom Abode from Grandma Timmins, the mushrooms and gnomes made by mommy and daddy, rocks from Aunt Kelly etc. All the objects were given separately, without forethought of how they could all go together. Now she has a fairy world that she calls “The Sea” since both sides have “water” on them.

My folks have someone come to help out with my dad (who is paralyzed from a stroke) a couple of days a week. Lilian is from El Salvador, and while she doesn’t speak much english, what her heart speaks makes up for it. As she was playing blocks with Fern, who was screeching with delight, she said, “Mucho feliz!”

My dad was playing with the translation feature on the new ipad we got him. He said, “I want a million dollars” which was then translated into Spanish. Lilian read the translation and said something back. It translated as, “I want to be with you”.

I want to be with you, all of you in real life, and online…really really BE with you. What else should I do with my wild and precious life?

(Speaking of which, I am ever-so-slowly catching up with your blogs and hope to be leaving you comments as much as I can)