Christmas Eve

John & Glenn's house near Captain Cook, Hawai'i

Even as we embrace the present, Gordon and I are exploring alternative futures.

Four years ago, our friends John and Glenn took a leap of faith toward warm ocean waters and part-of-the-year isolation by buying a house on the Big Island of Hawai’i. We’re grateful to be celebrating Solstice, Yule, Christmas, and the coming of the new calendar year with them here.

Gordon & Stephen by the koi pond, in the hula spirit

It’s indeed an island of contrasts. Such lushness and tropical beauty. Such stark volcanic ash. The largest number of growing zones in one place. The elements – fire, water, earth, air -- in high relief. All of them soft, and extreme.

John and Glenn have created a beautiful garden, complete with bananas, papayas, avocados, lemons, limes, spiders, toads, and exuberant fountains and ponds (that require lots of maintenance). Their house looks out over the ancient City of Refuge--the one place you could go, if you could run fast enough, when you did something wrong, and be forgiven. We could all use cities of refuge.

Near that city is some of the best snorkeling on the Island. And snorkeling, for me, is like a dream. I enter another reality. I can fly like in my childhood fantasies. And just when I think I’ve seen every color of luminous fish – green parrot fish, yellow angelfish, wild Picasso fish – there’s a black fish with opalescent stripes showing me how to swim and sway in a new way. Or a sea turtle blinking at me. Or an octopus curled up in a ball.

This is certainly a contrast to Christmases in Minnesota, where I grew up, and where, this year, they’re actually having a White Christmas. It seems a lot of folks who grew up with cold winters are loving being here -- surfing, snorkeling, sipping lilikoi margaritas.

Glenn & John enjoying sunset at Kealakekua Bay

Best wishes for balance and peace to those celebrating everywhere.

Travel is such sweet tonic!

Looking out from Roma Termini train station at a tourist bus; it only rained on the fast train to Venice!

I’ve always loved travel. Friends have dubbed me “En Route.”

After a challenging year of hard work and mood swings, I learned again how healing it is. I spent 2 wonderful October weeks in Italy with a friend — Rome, Venice, and Tuscany. Totally delightful. Beautiful weather. Good pacing.

Eduardo and Angela near the Roman Forum

A mini-skirted movie-star-style guide to the Roman Forum and a sweet, smart gay ex-Catholic guiding us through the Vatican. A hip-hop Italian version of “Peter Pan,” complete with magic wands and audience participation ("I believe in fairies!") Magical time in Venice including a jazz concert, a new-music-version of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis,” an Indian dance performance — while staying at a new guest house with a stunning rooftop deck and brilliant views of the city.

Kids on a field trip to Piazza San Marco

Golden days in Tuscany, staying at a wonderful agriturismo with some other Americans, visiting stunning hill towns and ancient Roman baths.

Edward Guthmann loved our beautiful green Motiz as we traversed the Tuscan Hills!

There was a resonance with my very first trip to Europe in 1970, when I spent 3 months studying roots of Western Civilization... a month each in Greece and Italy, and 2 weeks each in France and England looking at all the things that had been ripped off from Greece and Italy. That was a life-changing trip. It opened the frame of my vision personally, socially, politically, creatively. I was also reading a book on alternative futures for America by Robert Theobald, who became a mentor and an important inspiration in my attitude and worldview. (He said: “Some of us have got to define ourselves and world problem-solvers.” and “You can get change, or you can get credit for change — but you can’t get both.”)

This trip could also prove life-changing, but in more subtle ways. I’m at somewhat of a crossroads with my work, and play. Gordon and I are facing a possible move in the next several years. We are also looking to spend winters in a warmer spot. He is interested in doing more teaching of the considerable things he’s learned and taught himself about wax-carving, and jewelry and bell making. I’m wanting to research and write a biography of James Broughton before his friends all die away.

So, I find new inspiration in the Romans’ ability to see the big picture (even if they had other blind spots), be patient, and balance work and play. I’m ready to dive in — and want to still support the youth arts program Power of Hope, the news council concept (though I’m going off that board next year), and the youth communication projects on Vashon. So how to do all that, and still enjoy my gorgeous husband, the wonderful spot where we live, and leave time for nature and spiritual renewal?

Hmmm, it means making more conscious choices. [This, in the middle of increasing success of the Journalism That Matters project and my desire to do more writing of articles.]

We’ll see how I do.

Peggy Guggenheim's terrace on the Grand Canal, Venice; no place like it on earth!

Living on the Edge

For 18 years now, I’ve lived on the edge of a cliff. Literally. [I live on other edges, too, but that’s another story.]

It’s been an exhilarating ride, indeed. I feel honored to be steward of such a spot. It’s also been a major headache as the cliff is on an unstable part of the island.

Until this year, there has been little movement to speak of on my property (other than the 1999 storms which caused a mile of the island to sink 8 inches, ending at the edge of my house). This past March, we lost about 15 feet of the edge of our cliff.

The good news: we discovered the slide was caused by a leak in our own drainage. The bad news: we had to build a retaining wall and new drainage to ensure there won’t be more slippage. The better news: we built a new observation/yoga/meditation deck atop the retaining wall, giving us glorious views of Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains.

Gordon and I call our house Soundcliff: both a description and a prayer [And – thanks to those who’ve asked – we fared OK in the recent rain and windstorms.]

***

Soundcliff / Sacred Space

Our home is sacred space...
and on sacred land
Soft land that won't be here in centuries
But now both sacred and somewhat scared...
Amazing water views, floating...
Witnessing that majesty of horrible fire, Tahoma
Air creatures, sea creatures, land creatures all around
Botanical exuberance delights and feeds us
Each room a shrine to daily life
Each life altered at the altar of existence
Inviting inner reflection while inspiring outer beauty
Better not to talk about it
Just be in it
And listen...

World AIDS Month (or Year?)

This commemorative program which I edited was distributed at the dedication of Bailey-Boushay House in January, 1992

In the late 80’s and early 90’s I was nearly paralyzed with grief, as friends and acquaintances were falling left and right to the plague – Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

One thing I could do about it: say yes when Betsy Lieberman asked me to join the board of AIDS Housing of Washington, an organization created to build the country’s first AIDS hospice designed specifically for people with AIDS. (That organization is now called Building Changes, with a mission of eradicating homelessness in Washington State.)

What resulted was Bailey-Boushay House, a 35-bed residential care facility in Seattle’s Madison Park neighborhood which also runs an Adult Day Health program that serves, among others, many homeless people with AIDS.

On Saturday, December 1 (World AIDS Day), Bailey-Boushay House (the building) was turned over to the Virginia Mason Medical Center, the pioneering health care organization which has administered the hospice for 15 years and will continue to operate (and now own) it. The handoff happened at a joyous celebration at Seattle’s Museum of History & Industry, where a new documentary on the history of Bailey-Boushay was screened. Over 150 people showed up, even though it was snowing.

The reason: we’re all passionate about Bailey-Boushay, and we remember with great emotion people who’ve died there, people who’ve created art and music there, people who continue to thrive there. And we remember our struggles: how difficult it was to raise money, to change laws, to overcome neighborhood opposition to the hospice when it was in development between 1988 and 1991.

In the film, I recount one action by some Radical Faeries: when locals complained that an AIDS hospice might result in “overt homosexual behavior” in the neighborhood, we held a “terrorist shopping spree” where we dressed up in outrageous clothes and – as an example of “overt homosexual behavior” -- went shopping!

We think we diffused some of the negative opinions with humor.

I’m very proud of Bailey-Boushay (the first building I know of in the U.S. named after a gay couple) – and am delighted that Virginia Mason will continue the high level of care and compassion the community has come to expect there.

But I’m also concerned that the AIDS time bomb is still ticking – most obviously in Africa, but all over the world. Dr. Robert Wood of the Seattle/King County Health Department told me that infection rates are still high in the U.S. He estimates, for example, that 40% of gay men now alive will contract the virus if current rates continue.

Yikes!

No smiles?

No smiles?

While dropping off digital images to be printed into photographs at Flash Photo on Vashon, a curly-haired young man showed up for a passport photo.

“OK, don’t smile,” the photographer said. “The passport agency won’t take photos that are too smiley.”

You’ve got to be kidding, I thought. What about those for whom a smile is their default, if not their umbrella?

“No, they want relaxed facial muscles,” he explained.

OK.

The mood of the country.

The new default smile.

Thanks, thanks, thanks!

Thanksgiving 2007

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s all about gratitude, friends/family, and great food. What could be better?

Poetry, costumes, and imagination – our culture (and I) desperately need more of it.

It’s become a tradition since I moved to this house (now called Soundcliff) in 1989 to host friends for feasting on Thanksgiving Day. Each guest brings at least one dish, and a poem, story or blessing.

We usually eat turkey, but there have been years when we’ve ventured into goose, Beef Wellington, and even stuffed squid (that year the theme was “Aphrodesia”). One infamous Thanksgiving, one of the guests decorated himself with fruit and frosting and served himself on a giant cardboard/silver tray for dessert (along with an original poem, “I’ve been Desserted”).

This year’s theme: Subversive Conviviality and Conjunctive Creativity. In other words, we made it up as we went along.

Blessed with great weather and a near-full moon, we also took hikes and read poetry, sang songs and chants and incanted blessings between courses. We began at 1 p.m., and finished sometime around 11 p.m.

Friends often ask to see the menu, so this year I’ll put it on the blog:

Pupu Course: Spiced cider, Champagne, Martinelli’s Sparkling cider, San Pellegrino

• Coins de pomme de terres -- fingerling potatoes with leek butter and French sorrel chiffonade (Gordon and Doug)
• Croutons with homemade goat cheese and membrille (quince paste) (Doug)
• Assorted nuts, cheeses, pate, olives, and one pickled green tomato
• Avocado & black bean paste
  

[Two dachshunds on the porch—barking]

Poetry (Steven)

Soup course:
Sunshine soup (Malcolm)
Squash, golden beets, Yukon gold potatoes, sipolena onions, garlic, yellow fennel, pinch of curry, golden and red peppers

Salad course:

• Poetry of William Carlos Williams (Tom)
• Video: “Living Salad” – documentary of a ritual from last month where Doug Gosling served 40 people salad from a bed, which they ate on their knees with no hands (with spray vinigrette)
  

Mother Garden Confetti Salad (Doug Gosling of Occidental Arts & Ecology Center)
Baby lettuce, beets, carrots, & mizuna with pineapple guava vinegrette

Blessing circle: candle, globe, and 11 men (Sequoia)

Main course: Turkey (Gordon), dressing, sausage stuffing (Chris), sweet potato pecan cassarole (Sequoia), cranberry horseradish relish (Lurid Pink/Chris), mashed potatoes & celeriac (Dougo & Gordon), pumpkin date nut bread (Evan), ziti with fresh picked chard and mushrooms (Tom), guava chutney (Michael).

Palette cleanser: Lemon rosemary sorbet (Stephen)

Dessert:
Layers of Fall (Neil) : Carmel roasted pears, almond struessel, pumpkin chibouste, cider reduction Tuille triangle

Chai (Sequoia/Malcolm/Lirio) & after dinner whatevers (all)

So, with memories of that meal and all its layers filling me up even now, I wish you the best of this dark season. And despite supposed 'needs' of the money economy, I encourage engaging the gift economy: making presents, recycling things you love but are ready to let go of, and using the opportunity to communicate what needs and wants to be said to those you love (or maybe don't)...

The horns of our dilemmas

Table in our living room; painting by Mark Fockler

“Clarity about being messed up invites divinity.”

So said mythologist Michael Meade yesterday at an all-day workshop on “Leaping Between the Horns” – an exploration of how to live with the contradictions and craziness of these times.

Goddess knows we need a bit of divinity—but are we clear about being messed up?

If you look into the eyes of many Americans, especially at airports and shopping malls (those bastions of patriotism), it does seem there’s a “malaise,” as Jimmy Carter called it in the 1970’s. I certainly can feel disappointment and depression in the air.

Meade’s presentation was a tour de force of poetry, song, storytelling, drumming, philosophy, mythology, and active questioning. He invited us each to consider where we are in relation to the divine spark (an eagle in an African story he told) that is the reason we’re here. Are we fulfilling our higher purpose? Are we living up to our genius? How many of our own best ideas have we squelched?

He invited us to jump between the horns of our dilemmas, to pay more attention to our wounds--to consider what’s the core tension in our life. What happened in early childhood that might have blocked us from our true purpose? What initiation experiences might be incomplete? “Your wounds and your gifts may come from the same place.”

Culturally, he pushed for “olders” to become “elders,” to engage creatively with younger generations instead of retiring to golf courses. “Culture is the sum total of its imagination,” he said. “The world can only end if it runs out of stories.”

What kind of future can we imagine? That’s the task for young and old to engage together, as we tell stories that leap through the horns of our many personal and cultural dilemmas.

National Philanthropy Day

This fabulous booklet, Telling our Stories: Philanthropy in the Northwest, published by Philanthropy Northwest

National Philanthropy Day

Yes, it is! Happy “Love of Mankind” day. Practice a random act of philanthropy.

Last night I witnessed a dramatic depiction of organized philanthropy (arguably the most clunky kind) at the annual meeting (and 30th anniversary) of Philanthropy Northwest, our regional association of grantmakers.

It was stunning in its honesty and reminded me of my years working in the field of professional philanthropy. I learned:

• If you work for a foundation, people don’t always tell you the truth. They tell you what they think you want to hear. It can distort relationships.

• Power dynamics are at work, big time, when money is involved. There are the donors, then there are the “hired hands” who help distribute the money, then there are the supplicants, and the grantees.

• Foundations are actually repositories of “news” on the creative edges of culture, as they receive proposals for funding from social entrepreneurs. Journalists should pay more attention to this news source. (Especially the grant requests that are turned down.)

The presentation, Four Short Plays: Four Big Ideas, brilliantly directed by KJ Sanchez, was made up of tidbits remembered from interviews with people in the philanthropic realm. It highlighted disparities between rich and poor, intentions and “guidelines,” heart and head. I’m sure it made some people mad. I hope it inspires conversations that will, in fact, result in everybody becoming a philanthropist. (You don’t have to have money to love humankind.)

Why Blog?

Here I am at St. Mark's Square in Venice!
Why blog?

Because I can…
And must
Express
What I can
When I can
How I can…
I’ll feel better
It’s an open letter
I’ll get it off my mind
And into the blog
Out of the slog
Into the ether of the Internet
Into the noosphere
Maybe, just maybe
It’ll help me think more clearly
It’ll make me wiser
It’ll make us wiser
Why be a miser?
Co-create
The next way of saying
What game we’re playing
And how to move forward

Soundcliff
12 November 2007

What I would have said to the FCC

Over 200 of us spoke to the Federal Communications Commission – or to 4 of the 5 commissioners – last Friday in Seattle.

It was a great opportunity to ‘talk back’ to those who are the stewards of our broadcasting airwaves. They were considering whether to relax the current restrictions on media consolidation and cross-ownership (the law that says you can’t own both a newspaper and a TV station in the same town). About 1,000 of us showed up--all ages & colors, with only 5 days notice.

I spoke about how the sale of the Minneapolis newspaper to an out-of-town venture capital firm was not serving the public interest in the Twin Cities, or so it seemed to me. I honored the youth who brought their voices to the hearing, and who said things I wanted to say better than I could have.

And I urged the commissioners to look at the big picture, to help us maximize our communications capacity as citizens, to think about what will serve us as we reinvent democracy for this century. I suggested they keep a copy of the Constitution nearby as they do that, to help us:

• To learn what we need to know about the common good and social capital – and how each of us fits into that equation – to form a more perfect union. To listen to each other. To establish Justice.

• To be able to communicate with each other, with our media, with our government in a way that allows us to insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare.

• To have accurate information about how well our institutions and government are doing to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

My two minutes were up quickly. And of course in retrospect, I could have done better. I wish I had brought the painting that my friend Josh, who’s one of the 2 million Americans in prison, sent me a couple weeks before. “Liberty Awakening,” it’s called, and it says more than I can say in words. It was painted by a fellow inmate.



Whew. (What does it say to you?)

Then I would have shared a bit of what we’re learning in our Journalism That Matters gatherings around the country:

• that media literacy is critical to our future

• that basic skills of journalism (verification, multiple sources, etc.) be part of our education from a very young age

• that media learn better how to mediate our conversations as citizens, by convening and encouraging conversations of all types

• that the 5 W’s of journalism need to be expanded beyond who, what, where, when and why to include a sixth: What’s possible now?

What’s possible now? A better, more diverse communication system that serves us and our communities as we reinvent democracy.