I’m not quite sure why this video has been entitled: The Divine Feminine on youtube, given the non-theistic nature of Buddhism…but it sounds nice. I am sure that Lama Tsultrim Allione is, with Dr. Judith Simmer-Brown, a foremost authority on the subject of popping the patriarchal hangover that, too often, has characterized the otherwise enlightened Buddhist view of society and human nature. Best of all, her understanding comes from both personal and scholarly levels—it’s less about aggression or concept than it is about clear-seeing and compassion.

Is “the Feminine Principle” different than Feminism? Yup. How? Video:

For more, click here for a talk on the “Mother Principle” by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who taught first and often on this Buddhist subject in the West.

Or, check out our friend Dr. Judith Simmer-Brown’s book, Dakini’s Warm Breath.

Technorati Tags: buddhism, Buddhist, dr. judith simmer-brown, feminine, gender, Lama Tsultrim Allione, mother, tara mandala, woman

LOHAS—Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability—is an amazing green/yoga/health/wellness business to business conference that, each year, pumps a kazillion much-needed dollars into elephant’s hometown, Boulder, Colorado.

Even more importantly from a save-the-planet and have-fun-doing-so perspective (elephant’s mission), LOHAS that attracts the best and the greenest—and the biggest, with companies like Wal Mart and Coca Cola sending representatives to talk about where they’re at in going truly sustainable, and to learn how they can be more eco-responsible, and save money and win positive press in the process.

This year it was @elephantjournal(follow us!)’s great honor to host a preparty and afterparty, both at the new @happynoodle, with @gaiam and #lohasforum.

And it was my great pleasure to once again interview, and video (with thanks to Alex King, my longtime co-conspiritor, of @mitomedia) some of my green, world-changing heroes. Last year we interviewed Tommy Rosen, founder of Eco Gift, and his wife Kia; Paolo Bonetti of Organic Vintners; Max Simon; Bianca and Michael Alexander of Conscious Living TV; Bryan Welch of Ogden Publications; Wayne Zink of Endangered Species Chocolate; Eileen O’Neill, CEO at the time of Planet Green, where we want to plant our little green talk show; Randy Paynter of Care2 (huge green cause-driven web site); Rick Peyser of Green Mountain Coffee; Summer Rayne Oakes, the one-woman force of green and social change; Graham Hill; Simran Sethi; and Andy Keller of ChicoBag (and his evil plastic archenemy).

While I missed Ray Anderson, Adam Werbach (my longtime idol, since he wrote Death of Environmentalism as a young, troublemaking green leader), Hunter Lovins…and Mr. LOHAS himself, Ted Ning…we did get to interview about half of the presenters—including Andrew Cohen, Summer Rayne Oakes, Olivia Zaleski, Anthony Zolezzi of Greenops, No Impact Man, Juriaan Kamp of ODE, Adam Lambry of Method, Meaghan O’Neill of Treehugger.com…and more (see video below).

With thanks to Mr. Ning for making all possible with his generosity, humor and savvy, and to Mohawk for sponsoring, enjoy:

Walk the Talk Show: LOHAS Boulder - Summer 2009 from Alex King & Mito Media.

Technorati Tags: adam lambry, Boulder, Coca Cola, LOHAS, method, summer rayne oakes, ted ning, Wal-mart

The Good Book just got Good-er: The Green Bible will help reduce impact of the Biggest Best-seller in History.

When Waylon first handed me The Green Bible, I thought it was an environmental book to live by.  Oh boy, how wrong was I.

The Green Bible is literally just an ecofied version of The Bible. I got a little worried: the only time I have ever read The Bible was for my British Literature class at the University of Colorado, and I still have no idea how it was relevant.  It’s not that I do not believe in God or a higher power, but I feel confident enough in myself and my everyday experiences to understand what is right and wrong, and how to (try and) live mindfully every minute of life. With that said, I’m not sure if I’m the best person to review The Green Bible—but I’ll give it a shot.

Visually, I definitely am a fan of the cover, “the all-natural 100% cotton/liner cover material is produced in a green-friendly environment (all air is purified before exhausting into the atmosphere, and all water is purified and recycled.” Nice. That must be the work of God. It is also printed in the U.S. of A—instead of Hong Kong (China) or China itself, as so many books are these days. However, it’s manufactured using only 10 percent post-consumer content? Come on! That’s kind of weak, isn’t it?  Also, wouldn’t the greenest way to read The Bible be online?

[Ed: perhaps, yes. But considering that kazillions of Bibles are printed each year—it's one of the best selling books in history—we need a green-manufactured version for all those church pews and hotel drawers—they won't have laptops available for guests in churches or hotels any time soon. ~ WL ed.]

Anywho, what I really like about The Green Bible is that it’s highlighted in green (soy-based) ink the ways in which God created and loved Nature and why we should protect and preserve His creation.

“In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and the dry land which his hands have formed.”

Amen. For more, here’s another review of The Green Bible.

Technorati Tags: bible, god, green, made in china, Made in USA, nature, recycled

Reframing Recession Fears to Conscious Consumerism

via LaSara Firefox

Every challenge is an opportunity. The recession is a perfect chance to create a shift in your family’s values; a chance to move from want-based, status-based, and impulse spending, to sustainable consumer choices.

Of course, the first step is to make that reframe in your own thought process. In many cases the eco-responsible choice, and the financially sound choice, are one and the same.

It’s not always an easy leap to get from habitual, reflex, pattern spending, to more conscious choices. Here are some simple steps to get you, and your family, thinking from a more resilient and ecologically sound perspective.

Reframe Lessons Taught by the Recession to Lessons that Will Last a Lifetime—Or Even Generations.

To begin with, instead of jumping to the blanket statement, “we can’t afford a new (insert-item-of-the-moment-here)!” address the question - first in yourself and then with your child - do we need a new (insert-item-of-the-moment-here)?

Need is a complex idea. It might take a while to rebuild your, and your family’s, thoughts, feelings, and ultimately values, regarding the question of what constitutes need. It’s not as simple as just need vs. want. There’s a spectrum.

Here are a few things that can help in the process of creating a new valuation of the concept of need within your family structure.

• Casual conversation with your family about what need really means. Using examples of less consumer-driven cultures can be illustrative.
• Age-appropriate documentaries of truly impoverished cultures can help a child ready for a more global picture to understand the scale between need and want.
• With younger kids, pictures books, folk tales, and songs can help in redefining.
• Philanthropic acts, couple with conversation. (See my article 5 Ways to Engage Your Kids in Grateful Giving)
• Volunteering at a local soup kitchen can bring it home that there’s trouble, right here in River City. (Again, see my article 5 Ways to Engage Your Kids in Grateful Giving)

As you educate your kids, it’s important to couple information about poverty and need with stories of positive change. Even more important, is introducing positive change you and your family can contribute to.

Little steps your child can take to help make the world a better place, even as simple as boxing up a few items and offering them to a local charity, can go a long way in allowing your kid awareness, without overwhelm.

Also important is consistency in word and deed.

During the past holiday season I asked my 12 year old to seriously consider her use of the word need. She did, and we talked about it. We then boxed up lots of unused household items, toys, and gifts, and contributed them to a local “free store”, and to a local family in need as part of a holiday project a women’s group I’m part of with had taken on.

A few days later, I casually used the word need in a conversation with my husband. My daughter overheard it, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Need, mom?” I quickly retracted. She was right. I truly only wanted what ever the now-forgotten item was.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—it’s actually a pyramid!
The slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is in that order for a reason; it makes more sense to envision it as a pyramid than the circular form it’s usually imaged as.

Reduce is the base of that pyramid; the foundation. Reevaluating and reducing our consumer habits is the best thing we can do to decrease our planetary impact.

It’s also a softer on the checkbook.

Reducing can be an easy step, or even many easy steps, that add up to a big change. Some of those steps will happen naturally, as a response to the tightening of belts that occurs in times of financial uncertainty.

When gas prices shot sky-high in the summer of ‘08, my family reduced our number of shopping trips per week. We live rurally, so we planned better, and made each 30+ mile drive to and from the nearest place of commerce really count.

Yeah, it’s tiring as hell to go to five stores in one day. But we saved a lot of money (and time), and reduced our use of gasoline by about 3/4.

Even though gas prices have dropped for the time-being, we’ve more-or-less stuck with the newly-learned habit of 1 - 2 shopping trips a week. And it feels great to know that we’re simultaneously saving money AND decreasing our use of petroleum products.

Buying in bulk reduces post-consumer waste, and often helps you save some pennies in the process. In some areas, there are buyers cooperatives that you can join, and go in on true bulk ordering. This saves, again, both money and packaging waste.

Perhaps the most comprehensive way you and your family can foster the “reduce” piece of the puzzle is to reconsider the desire to keep up with the Joneses. Don’t get the next gadget that comes along, even though your kid might beg, kick, and scream for the newest of the new of the e-game-component du-jour.

Ideally, as you begin changing your habits, and educating your kids about the reasons why, they will be less inclined to see disposable culture as they once did. Based on your modeling, and the new information they’ll receive through family conversation, they’re likely to be less prone to emotional response to acquisitive desires.

But in the case that attachment does arise, here are some things to remember, and to remind about; not only does the new thing create future trash, but the old one instantly becomes waste in the process.

And, your wallet gets that-much lighter every time you give in to the consuming-for-consuming’s-sake urge. It’s up to you how much of that part you want to share with your child. There’s a fine line between honesty and over-sharing. You can figure out where yours is.

Finally, remember this; just the process of asking the question, “Do we need this?” will in many cases lead to a substantial decrease in purchases.

Reusing is the second-best option; once you’ve purchased an item and put it into circulation, the more times that item is used, in a sense, the less the overall impact. This is just as true for a plastic bag, a yogurt container, a t-shirt, or a computer.

Of the four items mentioned, only the shirt is biodegradable. And, at that, only truly biodegradable if made of organic material such as cotton or silk. So reuse it! (Or, Repurpose it - the fourth R. Stay tuned for my next How To Celebrate Earth Day Every Day article for more on repurposing.)

The plastic bag can be reused - as a sandwich bag for your kid’s lunch, a container for left-overs like pasta, or even a hair cap for dying your hair. But once it’s done with, it’s landfill - no ifs, ands, and buts.

The yogurt container is a sturdy alternative to Tupperware (and basically free, if you bought it for the yogurt, right?). Or, if you’re starting your own “Victory garden” this year, you can use it for starts for your veggies.

Once the container begins to fall apart, it goes into the recycling - that is, if your town has a recycling program that accepts that kind of plastic.

Of all the items mentioned, the computer has the most problems with waste - much of it toxic, from batteries in laptops, to the metals used in the construction of the insides of the machine.

There’s a new term that’s been created in recent years; e-waste, or electronic-waste. Your phones, TVs, and computers all fall into this category.

E-waste is becoming a larger and larger issue. It’s a problem that’s grown to the extent that companies which once shipped used computers to countries like Africa have stopped, due to the accumulation of e-waste.

Instead of being a benefit, the well-intentioned act of offering our older technology to countries where there was less available has become a liability, and in a sense, an inadvertent sort of “off-shore dumping” program.

This article goes so far as to say that once you buy electronics, you should consider them yours for life.

The longer we can keep any of these items in use, and better yet, in use in our own household, the better for the environment—and our pocket.

So use your electronics until they’re totally unusable—and then make sure they’re either disposed of properly, or refurbished for further use.

There’s a line-up in my house for my coveted machine when I eventually upgrade, but if your kids are too high-falutin to take your old laptop, there’s always someone who would be glad to get a few months use out of that outdated computer, or even your “beater” of a car.

Recycling is probably the most mentioned, but least effective of the three Rs. Of the four items mentioned above, only the yogurt container can be recycled. And at, that, only at some recycling centers. Generally speaking, the shirt and plastic bag are landfill. Over time, the shirt will rot away. The plastic bag will not.

Of all the items I mentioned, the computer is most problematic. There’s a new term that’s been created in recent years; e-waste, or electronic-waste. Your phones, TVs, and computers all fall into this category. Ne recycling here!

But even with items that are recyclable, the value of the recyclable item as a measure for decreasing waste is variable. It’s complex, and I don’t even begin understand the level of math that goes into figuring it out, but it takes energy to recycle. In some cases more (soda can back into soda cans), in some cases less (post-consumer waste like office paper into toilet paper).

But, more or less, recycling uses resources. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not telling you to give-up on recycling. I’m just saying that the other two options, reducing and reusing, are the ones that are going to be softer on your pocket, and gentler on the earth at the same time.

And that’s something you, and your family, can feel good about. Twice!

“LaSara FireFox is a genius! You couldn’t ask for a better guide to take you on this emboldening adventure.”
-Ariel Gore, author of The Hip Mama Survival Guide, The Mother Trip, and more

LaSara Firefox is an author, coach, educator, and speaker. Her latest project Gratitude Games, is a fun and easy way to introduce gratitude into your life and the life of your family. LaSara knows the value of regular gratitude practice first-hand, and has assigned gratitude practice as an “action step”—coach-speak for homework - to hundreds of clients, and seen amazing results.

As a coach, seminar designer, and facilitator, LaSara helps her clients to find balance in their lives, and alignment with their personal and family-held values.

LaSara is a happily married momma of two daughters. She’s also a published author (Sexy Witch - self-help/nonfiction, Llewellyn, 2005). Sexy Witch was published in English and internationally distributed in 2005, an has been reviewed in twelve languages (at last count). Sexy Witch has been translated into three additional languages.

Technorati Tags: conscious consumerism, income, lasara firefox, money, recession

Last year I set a goal to ride my bike out to Boulder (I live in Thornton), and for various reasons, it didn’t happen. BUT… this year, it did happen, and it was GREAT. I woke up early as usual, and after taking my pooch for his morning walk, he and I grabbed a bit of breakfast, and I got myself ready to go.

Technorati Tags: bhakti chai, Boulder, cycling, Mojo Coffeehouse, poutine, Silver Canyon Coffee, Spud Brothers, The Cup

From the Common Sense Chronicles of Business getting eco-reponsible and saving dough, in so doing. Excerpt re that greatest of Imperialistic Capitalistic Multi-national It’s-a-Small-World Brands, Coca Cola:

Coca Cola Goes Eco-friendly It is by now, a truth universally acknowledged, that by looking to reduce their carbon footprints, companies can also discover ‘tangible cost savings’. Coca Cola has pioneered a new drinks can design that will save 15,000 tonnes of aluminium ever year. The new design, which uses 5% less aluminium than traditional drinks cans, will help cut back on how much of aluminium is used in Europe. In addition, using less aluminium means less carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. The metal in the cans is less than 0.1mm thick, about the width of a human hair. The strength of the cans is not compromised. In total, the new cans will cut the carbon footprint of the drinks industry by 78,000 tonnes per year, the same as taking almost 20,000 cars off the road. Six and half billion of the cans have already been produced and distributed, with major drinks brands and brewers across Europe readily taking up the new design. Coca Cola has also reduced the amount of glass in its iconic 330ml bottle, down 20% from 263g to 210g. The new bottles are 0.1mm wider and 13mm shorter than the original...for the rest, click here.

Technorati Tags: business, carbon footprint, Coca Cola, Coke, eco, engineering, green, green equals green

Dr. Oliver Sacks

…is one of the most incredible humans I’ve ever had the pleasure to know (from afar). I’ve read his incredible The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (need a summer book? Get it, you can’t go wrong) while at school, where Sacks lives. And I cried when I saw the movie Awakenings, back in 1994, when I hadn’t cried, like, ever—I was a tough young man, then, or so I thought.

Here he is with my newer idol, Jon Stewart, talking about Music and The Brain. Video:

Bonus videos:

Technorati Tags: bach, book, Boston, gandhi, hitler, Jon Stewart, oliver sacks

by Marc Barasch

(Acting Plenipotentiary of Gaia)

Marc Barasch is one of the best, and most renowned, writers we’ve had the pleasure to publish, both back when we were a magazine and now that we’re online. He’s always staying busy, keeping out of trouble (mostly), and starting worldwide projects for the betterment of humanity. Our kind of gentleman. ~ ed.

For decades, the organization known as SETI, or Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has cocked a listening ear (in this case, a 1,000-foot dish antenna in Arrecibo, Puerto Rico) for a missives from alien worlds.

But after tuning into 166 candidate stars, 5 extra-solar planetary systems, and 15 nearby galaxies—and outsourcing the enormous data stream to the computers of 4 million volunteers in 200 countries—the heavens haven’t yielded up a peep.

Now, from its outpost in Mountain View, California, the fertile crescent of dot-com civilization, the institute has announced a contest called  “Earth Speaks.”

Any Earthling is invited to craft a response—some snippet of E.T.-friendly repartee—for the day Somebody Out There decides to talk to us.

The scientists have spent years trying to hone their own message. They’ve decided we should not just assert we’re big-brains (the cosmic equivalent of cocktail party bores), but convey that idea humankind is, well…kind.

“Maybe we’d first talk about relationships between creatures in the language of biology,” says Douglas Vakoch , SETI’s “Interstellar Message Group Leader,” a calm, alert man with a trim beard and modified pageboy. “We’d try to convey reciprocal altruism, as in, “I’ll be nice to you if you’re nice to me’.”

But, I point out to him, this is little more than a primitive quid pro quo. Wouldn’t E.T. be more impressed if we showed we could be magnanimous to people who are not so nice to us; or that we can forgive when we’ve been wronged? Vakoch takes another sip of Darjeeling and tells me that yes, they are devising some computer algorithms and visual images to get across that very point.

Then he says something that brings me up short. “If we hear from another civilization tomorrow or next week, there’s nothing to stop anybody on Earth from transmitting back. And that first response could set the tone of the dialogue for millennia.”

Oh,  great. So the Earth’s first celestial shout-out could be the Grand Cuckoo of the Aryan Brotherhood, the Exalted Poohbah of Islamic Jihad, the East Rutherford Rotarians?

This won’t do. I’ve decided to send my own bulletin, just to, you know…set the right tone. (Besides, I have to admit: “Acting Plenipotentiary of Gaia” has a nice ring.)

I can’t tell you how I transmitted the following message (it might be new Google stealth technology, it might not—there’s an NDA). By the time you read this, it will be caroming off the constellations:

Dear Alpha Centauri,

May I call you Alpha?

So, Alpha, we know we’re the new kid on the block. The Hubble might as well be called the Humble for what it’s shown us about where we fit in the big picture: a miniscule pin stuck in a map of infinity. It’s been a  corrective lens for human astigmatism.

Our scientists tell us that we’re just one of hundreds of millions of habitable planets. And that 75 percent of the stars in our galaxy’s temperate zone are much older than our sun, meaning you could be our big brother 10 million years ahead in birth order. (I’ll bet we remind you of yourselves back when you were young and full of mischief.)

If we can nearly see you now, then you’ve already spotted us, maybe even homed in our planet’s most visible artificial landmark, the Great Wall of China, leaving no doubt there’s belligerent…I mean, intelligent!…life down here. Maybe you’ve seen our biggest man-made features:

the clouds of smoke from burning rainforests, the bone-white of dying coral reefs, the tan sand of encroaching deserts.

If you’ve snagged our old Pioneer space-probe, that one with the golden tablet with the etching of two naked people making the we-come-in-peace sign, you even know what we look like.

But we forgot to put our best foot forward. We sent you Solomon Island panpipe music and solar calibration charts, but we left out some vital stuff: something called the Sermon on the Mount (“Do good to those that hate you”—how’s that?); and the Buddhist Dhammapada, the Jewish Mishnah, the Islamic Mathnawi of Rumi, the Hindu Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching, The Little Prince, some soulful wisdom that never mentions any god at all.

That is, the stuff that says, We get it. We get that each of us is a thread, woven by universal affinity into the tapestry of some Great Whole we’ll never comprehend. Oh, I’m sure we’d ace the written portion of the galactic entrance exam; it’s the practicum I’m worried we’d flunk. It’s dawning on us that there comes a point when an intelligent species gets so smart it’s too clever by half, and it’s time to walk the talk.

These days, we’re all abuzz that the Web is creating some kind of planetary nervous system, a collective intelligence, a global brain. But you’re probably waiting for an even bigger development—a global heart. Maybe you’re already using your intergalactic stethoscopes to listen for a pulse, however weak,  of universal sympathy. Or maybe you’re just picking up the arrythmias of hatred, grievance, and  mistrust from a planetary cardiac case.

The point is, dear Alpha, dear cipher in the inky void, we’re in a kind of awkward phase right now—but we’ll get there.  We’re a last-minute, dog-ate-my-homework kind of creature—impulsive, short-sighted, just down from the trees. But we’ll make it, and not a moment too soon.

See, for so long, we’ve been like the frog at the bottom of the well, believing our little round patch of sky was the cosmos. Now we’ve seen the nurseries where suns are spawned in searing light. We’ve trembled at the roiling black hole at our galactic core that gobbles up stars like Tic Tacs. Now we know: Entropy has all the help it needs. A lot of us are finally heeding the advice of an Earthling named Einstein (heard of him?). He told us to see through the “optical delusion of consciousness” that makes us believe we’re separate from each other; to “widen our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature.”

By the time this reaches you, a few hundred years may have passed. But if we’re still around to get your reply, we’ll be home free. Heck, if we’ve found some dilithium crystal, we may land on your doorstep to accept it in person—all spruced up, hair slicked back, nice smile (not too many teeth), with a little gift for the Missus or Mister and the Little Spores.

In the meantime, I’ve attached an MP3 that was left out of that first golden emissary’s goody-bag. It’s the penultimate finding of our cognitive scientists and of our ancient seers, translated into a language of universal harmony by Earth’s greatest goodwill ambassadors. I hope you have something to play it on, but the title pretty much says it: “All You Need Is Love.”

P.S. Please send asap a formula for neutralizing spent plutonium, the schematics for superluminal drive, and the design for a cellophane-free CD case. Thx!

Marc is the author of the newly released paperback, The Compassionate Life. Find it on Amazon or at your favorite local bookstore. He is also the founder of the Green World Campaign.  Follow Marc at http://twitter.com/MarcBarasch

Technorati Tags: compassionate life, marc barasch

Crestone, Colorado in Peril

Crammed in between the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the San Louis Valley, The small town of Crestone, Colorado rings with the essence of peace and natural wonder. You can find the little town just east of the Baca National Wildlife Refuge, an 80,000 acre natural aquifer system that collects snowmelt and rain from the surrounding mountains North, West and East. It sits just north of the Great Sand Dunes National Park in the largest sub-alpine valley in the world. Crestone is a place where the wild and great energy of the cosmos has a tendency to become one with you. The silence and openness of the land here has the ability to transform and overshadow the mind itself.

I know from personal experience. Wedged somewhere between an American dream life and the loony bin, I’d come here a couple of years back to renew myself and find reality again. Through time spent at a Buddhist retreat center here. I had a miraculous moment of clarity. I woke up to find I’d been eating the proverbial shit sandwich, day in day out, hoping that at any moment it would magically turn into steak. In my pursuit of collecting the solid commodities of the material world I’d been failing to experience a few key elements of my existence: my life, the moment and my heart; basically, reality.

Through some contemplative time spent in the silence here I found I’d been doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I was insane, and frankly, pissed off about it I’d come to Crestone, to one of the many spiritual retreat centers here, in hopes of finding the essence of Ommmm that I’d somehow lost in a mix of a life way to busy to be sustainable . I’d been told by many that Crestone sits on top of an energy vortex and I’d found that to be true. Like a piece of stale white bread dipped down into a bowl of kerosene, I was able to suck up the cool essence of an energy lost. It was a turning point for me. Here against the mountains, that shoot to the sky in a Swiss-Alpian explosion of reverie, I found a place where water turns to wine. In the shadow of the cedars and pinyon pine, I found a voice that spoke to me from the emptiness deep within. The energy spurred my soul and shot up my spine like a dog track rabbit. It transformed me somehow and I’ve never been the same since. Stepping out into the valley here, the first thing that hits you is the silence. It’s almost like stepping into the belly of the mother herself: warm and empty. The atmosphere has a pressure to it that seems to press against your body until your barriers actually give way and you become fertilized with its essence. In the summer, when the light is right, the mountains swing up off the valley floor as if regurgitated through a blood stained hue. (‘Sangre de Cristo’ means “ blood of Christ”) It’s absolutely stunning. The town is home to some twenty-odd spiritual retreat centers that are filled with lamas, monks, yogis and spiritual practitioners. They come here from all over the world to renew, pray, meditate and soak up the juju in this special place. And now it seems it’s all being threatened by another entity that wants to come and soak up the energy of the valley as well.

************************************************************

It was sometime last September, whilst scrolling through endless e-mails, that I ran across a white flag in the heap of my usual Yahoo non-sense. The letter was from Christian Dillo, head bottle-washer and monk at the Crestone Mountain Zen Center. What caught my eye was the email’s subject line……. -YOUR HELP IS NEEDED- URGENTLY!!! The email stated that Lexam Explorations, a wildcat Canadian oil company with mineral rights to Colorado’s newly approved Baca National Wildlife Refuge (the largest in the state) was threatening to drill through the pristine and protected aquifer system, just outside of Crestone. They wanted to get at a natural gas supply that might lay beneath the refuge. The odds seemed slim that they would find anything, but they were willing to risk polluting the delicate water system that sustains the whole valley in order to get what they wanted. They were also threatening to disrupt the peace and economic livelihood of the small community that thrives and sustains itself on attracting spiritual seekers to the serenity of its wilderness retreat centers. They were threatening to pollute the greatest energy sources in the largest sub-alpine valley in the world— the Water and the Silence. And the folks that lived there were quite understandably –freaked out! I thought- what could I do? How can I help?

I opened a new e-mail and started to type my urgent reply, and upon spilling a fresh cup of Darjeeling into my computer keyboard, picked up the phone and dialed. Christian Dillo himself picked up the phone and said hello in a soft spoken German accent. I took a hit of a fresh cup of Darjeeling. “What are you going to do?” I asked. “Do you have a plan?” (I’d heard monks didn’t really make plans.) “No,” He said. The town was organizing on various fronts to battle the insurgents. He said if I came down for a visit he’d give me the lowdown. I agreed, and then, playing the devil’s advocate, asked him the question that had been banging around my skull. “If everyone else can come here to soak up the energy of the valley why can’t Lexam?” “The drilling is likely to have severe environmental, cultural and economic impacts on the community and valley,” he said, without pause. People come here from all over the world for the peace, quiet and to meditate. The town relies on that financially. Who’s going to want to come here if it turns into an industrial zone and you can hear drilling rigs day and night?

It would be basically the end of Crestone as a spiritual retreat center. Environmentally, it could be a catastrophe. We all know what sustains us here and that’s the clean water from the aquifers. (an aquifer is a water bearing stratum of permeable rock; the water that collects there in that valley basin sustains the whole area for hundreds of square miles ) No one knows what will happen when Lexam starts breaking through the ancient rock barriers of potable and non-potable water that lie deep below the surface of the wildlife refuge. We could have a geothermal lake in the middle of the valley. They could pollute the water with the chemicals they use to fracture the rock. (Chemicals like benzene and diesel fuel are commonly used in this process) A group called the Manitou Foundation donated all this land to these spiritual centers here in Crestone to establish a unique opportunity to live in harmony with nature, develop sustainable living practices and teach environmental stewardship. The oil industry hasn’t really developed and maintained a record consistent with that philosophy. I took another hit of my tea and said,”Well, OK …that makes sense.”

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I’m grateful to finally find myself heading for Crestone again driving alongside the Arkansas River. “Iron and wine” is blasting through the car speakers. The song is- “Pagan angel in a borrowed car,” The car is mine but I can relate. Lately, I feel I’ve been cut off from the source again. I’m hoping a bit of time in Crestone will give me a much needed boost. Everywhere we go in Colorado, it seems, we follow some kind of ancient water trail. It’s the energy that links us to the heavens here. Its flowing essence makes us vibrant and healthy as a state. Like the spittle of the Gods, it somehow moistens the spirit within, so we can swallow even the most dry and indigestible parts of our daily lives and climate. All we have to do is find it, follow it up, and it always inevitably leads us to a place of beauty, peace and spiritual hydration. It’s raining, and as I plow my way up the driveway into the Crestone Mountain Zen Center, my Honda CRV bucks and shimmies through the mud. I’m greeted by Christian and another Zen monk named Dan in the kitchen who’s slaving over the midday meal of miso soup, rice and salad. Dan shakes my hand and says, “Did ya make it up the drive Ok?” “Barely,” I said. “It’s slicker than hen shit on a pump handle,” he says with a grin, and then goes back to stirring his soup Christian leads me on a tour through the grounds, the Zendo ( meditation room) , the guest cabins and a somewhat large dining room that is decorated with large colorful Tibetan and Japanese wall hangings. Statues of the Buddha grace the space, and a wood stove crackles in the corner next to a small library full of books on Buddhism, Yoga and Spirituality. A Cathedral ceiling stretches out above a sprawling tile floor draped in rugs and a large dining table. I said ”This is pretty nice. “Not the abode you would expect of humble monks.” Christian laughs and agrees. “I have a friend who says to me when he comes, “This is not the middle way - it’s more like the “upper” middle way.” We laugh just as Dan starts putting out lunch. Everyone gathers round the table and we all bow to each other and say a traditional prayer of thanks before serving the food. The monks are not what I expected at all. They laugh, tell jokes, and carry on jovially. The topics of conversation, to my surprise, have nothing to do with Zen, enlightenment or the Buddha. The main dilemma today is the compost pile. It seems it almost takes an act of God to get the rotting process going at 9000 ft of elevation in 12 percent humidity. Plates are clanking and mouths are slurping soup while a plan involving nitrogen rich alfalfa is discussed. The monks immediately make me realize I’ve spent way too much time thinking about God, Nirvana and Enlightenment and not enough time thinking about something sensible like putting some polish on my shoes. After lunch I walk outside into the silence again. Strolling down the path, a small stream of water runs down the hillside toward the great basin below and I have to step over it to climb into my car filled with fossil fuel. I wonder to myself what it would be like to hear the sound of drilling rigs off in the distance night and day. I wondered if it was important to keep the flow of silence and emptiness moving here. I also thought it ironic that after all my years of trying to collect concrete things from the outside world in order to find happiness, that I’d come to find silence and emptiness as the one commodity I could not do without. Everything important in my life started from there. I’d actually found the most precious gift and experience in my life came from nothing. I laughed out loud at even the thought of it. Driving into town I pull up outside of the local coffee shop to a wild-eyed, angry local, screaming at a dog that tried to bite him in the entrance way of the place. “If I’d had my knife I would have sliced that bastard”, he says to me. “Nobody’s gonna take a swipe at me and not get cut. I don’t care who it is. Goddamned dog” , he says walking away. I think to myself, ‘that used to be me’. It’s a sharp contrast here in town to that of the Zen center. It’s like I’ve come down the hill and back into the Old West. Beat-up old trucks line the dirt streets under ancient cottonwoods and drainages outside the coffee shop. Women in print prairie dresses and dreadlocks hang outside the old western store front, draped with colorful prayer flags, smoking. It’s a strange, typically rural Colorado, mix of hippie and cowboy. The one thing unique about Crestone, it occurs to me, is that there is really nothing here. Unlike other supposed spiritual centers I’ve been to, that are filled with tourist stands and plastic, smiling, glow in the dark Buddhist swag, Crestone is etched out of the wilderness. I can’t imagine Jesus wanting to go to Sonoma for his 40 days and 40 nights stint in the desert , but I could see him hanging out here. I figure out I’m at the wrong place for my scheduled meeting, and I ask a bearded man sitting in a beat-up old Dodge if he knows where the right one is. He points me in the right direction with a crooked finger, and I off-handedly ask him what he thinks about the drilling that might happen out on the Baca. “Damn shame,” he says. “They are gonna come in here and ruin this place - mess it all up.” “There’s no hope,” he said in a quiet voice, “they’ll just do what they want and leave. They always have and always will,” he says. “They might be able to bring it to a halt,” I say optimistically “If it was a different time,” he says with a wry smile,” we’d a run em’ off with guns.” I finally find a local restaurant, The Desert Sage, and sit down with some new friends Hob and Kyrena. Hob is an 89-year-old channeler of the dead and ex -Wall Street tycoon that somehow had a stark moment of clarity some years back, and wound up trying to lead a spiritual life. His wife Kyrena, is a healer who heals by using colors. A cute mop-topped Tibetan girl in Go-Go boots brings me a Yak burger and a chia tea as I ask them what they think about the proposed drilling. Their happy faces suddenly turn serious and sullen like someone has just threatened to kick their dog. “I don’t know,” says Hob,” we’ll see what happens but it doesn’t look good.” “It’s been on our minds a lot lately,” Kyrena says. I ask what brought them here to this remote region of the country. They tell me they had always looked for a place like this that was peaceful and quiet in nature where they could live and practice . They had tried other places but the remoteness and beauty of Crestone caught their hearts right away. “We love it,” says Hob, “there’s an energy to the land and people here that is almost indescribable.” After a great dinner and conversation I ask Hob if he could Ccannel someone from the dead for their insight on the drilling. I told him I needed some input from “the beyond.” He said, “Do you have any requests?” “I don’t know,” I said, “I’ll let that be your call.” He smiles with glee at the thought of the task, and says. “I will report back upon contact.”

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Established in 1994 by Maurice and Hannah Strong, the Manitou Foundation was established in Crestone, Colorado with a mission to preserve wildlife and protect the natural environment through developing and supporting programs which promote environmental awareness, Earth stewardship and sustainability. Its other goals were to advocate and support the preservation, teaching and practice of the world’s wisdom traditions, sacred arts, ancient healing and medicinal sciences. They established the Foundation and started donating land to various Spiritual lineages from around the world. The Catholic Carmelites, Japanese Shumei, Tibetan Buddhists, and Zen Buddhists are among the traditions that have monasteries here. Maurice Strong’s history, though, is as long a walk as contradiction itself. In 1992 he orchestrated the United Nations Earth Summit, and has been labeled the “father of the environmental movement” by some. But before that he seemed to have made billions in a vast array of big businesses that dipped their hands into all kinds of things. This mixture of do-goodism and self-interest ironically got its start in the oil business. By his 30s, Strong had made millions in small energy companies, rising to become president of Power Corporation, a Montreal holding company. In 1976 he ran Petro Canada, the national oil company. By 1981 he had moved on to Denver oil promoter AZL Resources. As head honcho and largest shareholder, he was sued for allegedly hyping the stock ahead of a merger that eventually failed. Nonetheless, Strong came out a winner. AZL, which owned a number of western ranches, merged with oil refiner Tosco Corp. in 1983. When Tosco unloaded some AZL ranch land, Strong bought the Baca Ranch - 160,000 acres in south central Colorado. (Which eventually became Baca National Wildlife refuge) In Crestone, he later founded American Water Development Inc. to grow high-protein grains. Soon the plan became a scheme to pump water from under Baca to the Denver suburbs, an idea that the locals said would harm the ecosystem. Caught between his reputation as an environmentalist and his pocketbook, Strong bowed out. He was quoted as saying his partners labeled him “softhearted.” So it seems ironic that the same hands that were dipped in oil bought this beautiful place and are now tied to folks in the fight to keep the oil industry out. Ah, but hey, redemption is every mother’s son, someone once told me. At least it seems that way in this case. From what I’ve seen and heard, the commitment at Manitou seems to be spiritual and environmentally pure to the core. They don’t seem to be doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Which made me wonder about Lexam, and I made a call to them. I wanted to know if they were planning on making any special efforts to protect the sustainability of what was already here in Crestone. I got the company voicemail, left a message and waited. Silence. Was it the same silence that seems to move in waves out across the Crestone basin? What was it telling me. I called back several times and got the same thing. Silence. It told me a lot about Lexam. Just like sitting meditation does - if you sit long enough in the silence, it speaks to you in profound waves.

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Back at the Zen center, the fire is roaring and I settle back down for another conversation with Christian Dillo. His office is clean and organized, his face a happy glow of contentment, despite the talk about the drilling. We conjure up another conversation, this time more about spirituality and our own experience. I ask him what brought him to his spiritual practice and an eventual place of peace. He paused and said, “Well, a traumatic experience in my life wracked with a whole lot of pain.” I said, “I can relate man, for me, pain has always been the touchstone to my progress. I asked him if he thought “a whole lotta pain” was what it was going to take solve the drilling dilemma here. “I hope not but maybe so”, he said, with a shrug, “I guess time will tell.” There seems to be a whole lot of pain and uncertainty going on here as a result of the proposed drilling, the pain of the community to survive, even the potential pain of the Drilling through the aquifer system and silence here is like drilling through the heart of the community. It’s the life blood. It’s the equivalent of open heart surgery. One mistake and we all die on the table. Not just Crestone, but a little piece of Colorado, the country, and the world as a whole.

Driving out of town, I’m finally able to get cell phone service, and there’s a message from Hob. He’s laughing hysterically on the other line and telling me he’s channeled from the dead none other than Henry David Thoreau. Passing a hand painted sign on the highway that reads “Stop the Drilling on The Baca” I listen as Hob reveals Henry’s quote from the great Walden pond in the sky. He says…..“All will be better served for bypassing the truly historic San Louis Valley, with its richsoil, large body of pure water, beneath its “well”-farmed surface, and let remain what Mother Nature has provided for all to enjoy and benefit from.” I hung up the phone and laughed out loud into the seemingly endless nothingness and silence that surrounded me, and as if on cue, it actually laughed back.

Technorati Tags: Baca National Wildlife Refuge, buddhism, Colorado, Crestone, Crestone Mountain Zen Center, drill, energy, gas, nature, peace, religion, sen, wildlife

Boulder, Colorado, turns 150 years old.

1859 ~ 2009…

…And we’re just getting started.

I was born and raised in Boulder…and then, like so many hometown yahoos, never thought I’d come back once I left for the Big City (in my case, Boston). I came back in ‘98 to help lead a Summer Camp that I’d attended, or staffed, just about every year of my life..and in ‘99 I came back again, this time to help lead a Buddhist seminary up at Shambhala Mountain. There, I fell in love with an English rose, we moved to Boulder when the summer was over, I got a job and an apartment…and when my girlfriend and I broke up (we were off and on for four long years) I found myself once again firmly entrenched in my little hometown.

Only it wasn’t all so very little, anymore. Now that I was 21 (25, in fact) the town seemed twice as big. There was so much to do in and around Boulder. I could go to Mountain Sun, or later The Kitchen, or Rhumba (now Centro) or the West End, etcetera etcetera. And I discovered how healthy Boulder was—I soon lost my East Coast paleness, weakness and baby fat and started biking more and more (I now am able to bike commute every day throughout the year, thanks to our sunny weath—300 days of sunshine a year—and extensive, if never quite extensive enough bike paths). Now, 10 years since moving back, I find I’ve spent 23 of my 34 (nearly 35, life rolls faster and faster) years in Boulder, Colorado.

This year, we’re turning 150. Of course, we go a ways back before that, before the White Man kicked out Chief Niwot and the other natives. In any case, we’ve a mostly proud history—with the exception of the aforementioned anti-Native American crusades, and some KKK presence back in the early 1900s, we’ve been a center of science, outdoor sports, Buddhism, yoga and forward-looking, business-savvy environmentalism and “ecopreneurism” ever my parents—Linda and David, from LA and NYC—first came here back in 1972.

Sesquicentennial Videos:

Boulder makes the Best Places to Retire list, via US News:

Cheesy, but gives a good glimpse:

An excerpt of my talk with environmental hero, great writer Bill McKibben at the historic, Buddhist/locally-owned Boulder Bookstore:

Technorati Tags: Boulder, buddhism, Climbing, Colorado, cu, cycling, folsom field, history, mckibben, naropa, running, Trungpa, university of colorado, yoga