Occupy Your Community, Not Another's

            I have spent the last two months in a community that is really many communities gathered together as one.  There are those who have organized within the land on which they live as well as those who have not named themselves, but gather with common interests - children, farming, ranching, and more.

            What I have found that I most admire among them all is they are reaching for their version of life that best matches who they are and what they want in this life.  But the other thing I have been thinking about is even more important for each of us to consider in our own reaching - and that is not what can the community I seek do for me, but rather what can I do to support the community I choose?

            Yes, John Kennedy said the same thing so many years ago about our country, but look how that turned out!  We have created a country that feels entitled to what everyone else has at any cost - only it is now we are feeling the pain of the costs incurred all these past years.  We have focused our giving on what we could get and not sharing what we want to keep what we have.

            As I write this as more and more are moving themselves into their opinion of the movements that are sprouting up everywhere to occupy places that represent the greed of our past.  While the desire to have a better life is at the core, the actions and words don't represent the solution, only a restatement of the problem. 

            In essence, we the 99% feel you the 1% need to give us what you have so that we can have what we want.  I don't know about you, but I can't get the people I love to give me enough to make me secure and happy 100% of the time.  How can it really work out to ask the same thing of people who don't like us, know us, or even care about us?

            The positive is yes, the people are recognizing the problem.  The negative, they still think the solution lies somewhere else outside their own mind, family, and community.  We want the solutions we seek to come to us from the outside to the inside, but the laws of this universe just don't work that way - hence the direction things have been going for most of the recorded history of man this time around.

           

            So, back to small communities and my deep admiration for those who are reaching to live their own solution.  As I listen to each person describe their lives I am stuck by their creativity, their willingness to face obstacles and challenges, and mostly the joy I hear deep within them as they creatively build their own version of the world they want to live in.

            It is a hard moment to awaken to the realization no one is coming to save you or solve your problems.  But, it is also the moment you truly are set free.  Waiting for someone to give you what you need is a long and often painful wait followed by bitter disappointment and resentment at their failures.  Just witness our relationships, our jobs, our health, and our country.

            But, when the anger and the rage and the blame and the need to be an innocent victim passes out of you and you pick up your hammer or hoe or pen to begin creating your own solution - you tell me which you were really happier and meant to do? 

            There is tremendous satisfaction in solving your own problems.  There is even greater satisfaction in helping others solve theirs by your contributions.  As some of you know the beginning of my journey was a little bit bumpy, but the one phrase that kept going in my head over and over is that no one reaches their dreams on their own.  I was blessed every day and still am by the generosity and willingness of others to share their wisdom and their skills to help me create my dreams.  But it feels even better when I can help others create theirs.

            What I would say to all the occupy protestors is go home.  Then, meet in groups that share your version of life that you dream of and start making it happen.  The 1% don't fear your anger and rage, they fear your absence and your indifference to them.  Energy directed at a source, be it for or against, is still energy that feeds that source.  But remove it and it has no choice but to whither and die from hunger.

            Spiritual wisdom says we can't reach Heaven alone.  I also believe we won't build the new world individually, but together.  It begins within each of us, but it must progress to our families and communities as we share our own wisdom and skills and dreams.  If you give to get you won't have for very long.  But, if you give to share so that everyone has more - then you have found the secret to success and happiness.  Gold in a box is not the answer.  Joy within a community is. 

           

Simple and Amazing!

            I must warn you the entry you're about to read will be most likely amazingly simplistic and boring to you!  The reason?  It will contain nothing earth shattering, revealing, or life changing - unless you know what lies beneath the words and images.

            I have been struck these last few weeks by the amazingly simplistic joyful emotions as I have done the most basic and rudimentary tasks performed by each of us every day without thought or care as we go through our lives.  As I've already written about making coffee and frying an egg, I'm sure you know where this is going….

            A few days ago I was sitting on my bed/couch with my girl cat and it struck me how perfect this moment was.  The temperature of the air, the comfort of my surroundings, and the time to actually just be, here, now.  My girl cat was lying next to me and I thought "Wow!"  I can actually sit here and pet her without strain to go and do something else and guilt about not going to do something I must or should be doing instead.

            Each day has had similar revealing moments.  Even though I have performed the tasks I do now almost every day of my life, as I have found was to integrate them into this new way of living, it is like discovering their purpose and my appreciation for them all over again. 

            Like the egg and the coffee, simple stuff like finally being able to put on lotion or chapstick or trim my toenails has had a whole new burst of recognition and gratitude for being able to do these simple things.  On the one had it appears silly, but when you understand how life itself is called forth then it is groundbreaking after all…

            Desire and appreciation are the two greatest gifts we have to create our lives around us.  But so many in the western world have become so complacent and unconscious about our lives that very little of either is felt anymore.  Having the water actually IN my trailer to draw a drink from was a profound moment.  There are as many in Africa and the Middle East right now that cannot pour water from a spout as there are others who can, yet whose desire and gratitude for this task would be greater and therefore more powerful in calling forth life itself?

            I am repeatedly reminded by others who look on my tiny trailer as some kind of failure or loss or step down - but is it loss or sacrifice to awaken again to the joys of life and the power of creation that joy and appreciation bring with them?  I am starting over and building from scratch in many ways, but alternatively I am also learning and loving and finding a level of peace and joy and contentment I have not had before.

            I recognize that my path is not right for most people, but it is not the form of the path that matters, but rather the content you gather while you are walking along that counts.

            This old world is getting pulled apart, but I don't see it as a bad thing.  We have become complacent and lost our connection to what this earth really is and how we live within and on it.  What looks like loss in one moment gives us every opportunity to find something new and beautiful all over again.

            I'll try and find more interesting things to share in the days ahead, but for today even the ability to sit at my computer and write this with a minimum of effort and strain to do so is a gift in itself I have not had since I left my California home.  When I took my Mac from its big box in which it traveled with me bouncing in the back of my trailer, it was with gratitude and happiness I could use it again - yet how many years have I had it and forgotten how much I loved it?

            Each day I find something new that is really old to fall in love with all over again.  What could be better than that?

No Residency for You!

            I have met my first unfriendly and unhelpful person in New Mexico.  Yesterday I went to town to do more business of living things - transfer funds, get car insurance, and then I tried to register my car and get a driver's license.  At this time New Mexico is under fire for handing out driver's license like candy - you pay the fee and you get the license.  So, maybe this person was feeling the brunt of the times.

            I'd been warned to not go to the local DMV, but rather head one town over to the really nice office.  But this one was on my way, so I decided to stop in, took my number waited for 15 minutes and went to the counter.

            I pulled out my paperwork that I'd seen on line to have and the woman pushed it back at me with the words "you must have a physical address" and was clearly ready for me to leave.  I showed her where my physical address was on my rent receipt and she told me "you must have a lease."

            So let me get this straight, the only people who can get driver's license in New Mexico must have a one year lease?  "Yes."  Again, so you're telling me all the people who rent in New Mexico month to month can't get driver's license?  "NO."  And again, she told me, you must have a physical address AND lease with a physical address on it.

            At this point I was getting frustrated and it was clear I wasn't going to make any real progress, so I gathered my papers and left thinking I should have listened and gone to the other DMV!  But after a few minutes I remembered who she reminded me of.

           

            For those who watched the TV show "Seinfeld" there was an episode where a man made incredible soup.  But, he was very strict about how you ordered and if you displeased him he cried out while pointing his finger, "No soup for you!"  And then you were barred for life or if lucky, only a year.

            He was referred to as the "Soup Nazi" and he was a lot like the lady at the DMV.  "No residency for you!"  And while she didn't point for me to leave and she didn't say these exact words, the effect was much the same!

            What is fascinating about this is that at a time when states have very little money she would refuse my willingness to give her mine.  I stood with more identification papers than needed and it's fairly clear I'm not an illegal alien trying to pull one over on her, but her need to right and rigid was the driving force in her focus of thought.  She entirely missed the bigger picture - that if I didn't have my paperwork filled out the way the state wanted, what did I need to change?

            Once I calmed down, I was able to ask the people who had issued me my other identity documents to make the change with the physical address on it and I am hoping this next attempt will be more successful with the nice lady at the next town over, I'll let you know.

            But the point to this story is how often each of us miss the moment life is trying to teach us while we are busy being right and rigid - regardless how this is working against what we really want.  I am assuming while this woman probably doesn't like her job, she does want to keep it and based on the feedback I've gotten, almost no one goes to her DMV and people will happily wait over an hour at the other town's just to not have to experience her and her office.

            She may be yelling at me "no residency for you" but the long term effect of that is "no job for you!" because without paying residents of your state, you won't have a job much longer!

            I am happy to report she has been my only unpleasant experience and it may actually turn out better in the long run after all.  There is the unpleasant task of getting this trailer registered somewhere and maybe the nice lady won't make me drive it all the way down to her tiny town?  We'll see, but for today, I encourage us all to let go of needing to be right and try and see what we might be missing that is for our best interest in the long run!