New Years Evolution

Poetry stenciled on the window at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center on the Long Beach Peninsula

Forget what I might resolve
It's more prescient to evolve
What's giving me labor pains? What's rotting my fetid brain?
Look -- look out over the sea
Fierce blanket of blue-green fudge
Roiling tides of question marks
Thick crashing expletives
Do a downward dog --
Look between your legs
Say goodbye to lies and hate
Leave them back in '008
Say hello to mystery
Open lines of conversation
Ask questions of the moon ...

I'm standing with Malcolm Dorn as my scarf whips in the chilly wind on Long Beach

Indeed, it helps to go to the sea when things seem murky. The constant crashing, the negative ions, the tidal motions – the inside’s out. You move through different states of consciousness more easily. Perfect for this particular new year, which feels in many ways like the beginning of the 21st Century.

Clearly, the 20th Century was amazing – incredible inventions, horrible wars, great art, horrible and wonderful movies, astounding progress in civil rights in many places. It was the century of exponential growth. And that, in 20/20 hindsight, didn’t work. The Club of Rome was right. There ARE limits to growth, and other things. The planet is showing us now with its pains and strains, its new extremes. Unchecked greed kills (thanks, Cheney et al).

So now, where? Fortunately, we have a new leader who does not have all the answers. He sees the complexity of it all, and welcomes everyone’s ideas. And the Internet provides a way (albeit imperfect) for us to have more global conversations.

Parker Lindner's beautiful new house in Ocean Park sits beside the 12 x 14-foot beach cabin where she escaped for 20 years

Seven of us danced in the new year with 10 dozen oysters, champagne, and a beautiful new house to christen at Ocean Park on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula.

The oysters from Oysterville -- just of few of the many we shucked and sucked

We enjoyed group-facilitated yoga, stories by the fire, 8-handed massage, and underwear fashion shows. Four of us made timelines of our lives, through 2040 (we’re still working on parts of those).

Inaugurating Parker and Ann's new house with New Year's Dancing: Gordon, Malcolm, Parker, Collin, Tuti (from Hawaii)

We walked back in time at the amazing village of Oysterville (where we actually bought 12 dozen oysters and two oyster knives). In the church there, Malcolm played the piano and we waited for someone to light the gas lights. (Nobody did, so we enjoyed the dark.)

The Fresnel lens which used to send beacon 20 miles out to sea from Cape Disappointment has been replaced by a weaker, electronic light.

Gordon and I stopped by the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, where they ended their expedition with a wet, wet winter and Maia Lin has created some stops on the Confluence Project.

In fact, our time on the coast was also wet and windy, but that didn’t keep us from beach walks, beach runs, and amazing times together. What a great way to enter this new time.

We left a snowy scene at home, but by the time we returned it was gone. Happy New Era!