The Dream

In 1989 I graduated from college, sold my few worldly possessions (except my drums, which I left with my brother) and moved to the South of France. Although I had spent my school years living a rather monk-like life, I was not headed to a monastery. This was going to be pretty much pure pleasure.

As a French major I had a chance to spend a year teaching conversational English at the Université d’Avignon in Provence. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Avignon, a medieval city of cathedrals and quiet cafes, was temporarily home to the Pope during the 15th century. With the Pope’s Palace rising next to a plaza at the center of town, a turreted wall around the perimeter and gorgeous countryside beyond, it is postcard beautiful.

The job required only that I be in class three days a week, 3 hours a day. The rest of the time I was free to do as I pleased – travel to nearby hilltop villages, drink Beaujolais, visit museums and watch old French movies at the local cinema. There were no papers to correct or exams to prepare. I simply had to discuss world events with 30 college students for an hour at a time, giving me a chance to engage a total of 500 French minds, 450 of which belonged to women.

Excited, with visions of Truffaut and Goddard films dancing in my head, I got off the plane with my French degree thinking I was fluent in the language and ready to parle francais with the natives.

Boy was I wrong.

I quickly learned that what I really spoke was classroom French at about 33 rpm, while everyone else in France was speaking street French at 78 rpm. Sentences flew out of people’s mouths like darting little birds, a flock of unknown verbs and colloquial expressions swirling around my head at dizzying speed. I could no more catch individual words and translate them than I could discern each beat of a hummingbird’s wings. If I was going to survive the year, I had some serious work to do.

Each morning I would meditate, drink a bowl of espresso and head out to do battle with the French bureaucracy. I was outgunned at every turn. A simple trip to the phone company became a three day ordeal in which I risked being arrested because of my inept language skills. At one point I tried to tell the woman behind the counter I would take anything, just as long as it would ring. What I think I actually said was I wanted a phone so I could start an international espionage ring. She was not amused.

Finally I was able to secure an apartment and get my life set up. After several exhausting weeks I started getting into the swim of things, though I still found myself occasionally drowning in a torrent of unrecognizable sounds. I had to translate everything in my head, which made it really difficult to communicate. Just as a conversation would get off the ground some twisted locution would come whizzing at me – did he really say “I have ants in my arms?” - and I would have to try and wrestle it to the ground so I could unravel it. By the time I had it figured out, the person I was talking to had flown so far ahead in the conversation that I had no idea what they were talking about. I spent a lot of time with my face frozen in an idiotic grin while my brain was frantically searching for meaning.

Then one night I had a dream that changed everything.

In the dream I walk up to a French Chateau, all creamy limestone and wrought iron details. I knock on a large red door and an old stone-faced man answers; obviously the Butler. I follow him down a long hall to a large sunlit room with only one chair. I sit down and wait. I’m not sure why I’m here, but I have the sense it’s for an important meeting.

Before long I hear heavy footsteps marching down the hall toward me. My heart starts beating in the same insistent rhythm, echoing the sound of the footsteps. The door bursts open and a Nazi soldier stomps in. He looks me in the eye then raises a rifle and pulls the trigger. The explosive sound of the gun wakes me up.

For a moment I still feel like I’m in the dream, my heart pounding in my ears as I look around my room to see if the soldier is still there.

It takes me a long time to calm down and go back to sleep.

The next night I have the same dream. I walk up to the same chateau and the same soldier comes into the room and pulls the trigger. Again I wake up as the gunshot goes off.

This goes on for several nights and every night the dream is just as intense, until by the end of the week I am delirious with exhaustion and fall into bed dying to go to sleep, but dreading the dream.

Once again that night I walk up to the chateau and knock on the bright red door. The Butler answers and this time he smiles at me. I follow him down the hall and sit in my chair but now I’m aware I’m dreaming and I know what is going to happen. I realize I could get up and leave before the Nazi comes, but I can’t run, I know I must sit and wait. Sure enough, I hear the footsteps and my heart starts pounding and the soldier bursts into the room, raises his rifle and shoots. I hear the sound of the gunshot but this time I feel the bullet hit me. I fall to the floor and my mind reels as I feel the cold tiles strike my face. Then, like a camera panning up from the scene I see myself laying on the floor, bright red blood forming a pool around my body.

I open my eyes. I’m sitting up in bed. A salty taste on my tongue causes me to instinctively stick my finger in my mouth. I pull it out and blood drips off the end on to my bedspread. For a split second the veil between my dream and my life is gone and I think to myself, “I’ve been shot!”

I put my finger in my mouth again and realize there is a gash in my tongue. Then it dawns on me. I must have bitten it when the gun went off in my dream.

I lay awake the rest of that night trying to understand what was happening to me. As the morning sun starts to filter through the shutters on my window it hits me. My dream was telling me that if I really wanted to learn French, part of me had to die in order for someone new to be born, someone who could speak the language. I had to kill off the last of the American identity I was clinging to in order to embrace becoming… what? I obviously wasn’t going to become French. I decided the answer was to become a citoyen du monde, a citizen of the world, no longer solely American and not quite French, but something beyond both.

The Nazis of course were enemies of the French, so it made sense I would choose them to represent my executioner. Days later I realized the symbolism of chomping on my tongue. I literally had to bite my native tongue, to stop my internal English dialogue. The word for tongue in French is la langue, which is also their word for language.

After that my language skills improved quickly. I started thinking directly in French and even dreaming in French. I stored English in the back of my brain, only pulling it out for my classes at the University and then tucking it safely back.

By the end of that year I was able to see hummingbird’s wings slowly beating up and down everywhere I went.

I think the world is going through a similar struggle right now. We are all dying for a change but we have to let go of who we are before we can become citizens of a new world. It’s a shift in perception that, if we are open to it, can lead to a new mindset and a completely different way of living together on earth, our planet home.

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

This crisis we are facing is both metaphorically and literally a life and death story.

An Eco-Logical Mind: Prologue

The following post is a draft of the Prologue from a book I am planning. I would appreciate any comments or feedback you have.

Prologue

A flock of bicyclists floats quietly across the Hawthorne Bridge as the rising sun spreads a golden glow over the city of Portland. A stream of pedestrians flows along the sidewalk next to the bikes, echoing the movement of the Willamette River below. Cars seem almost sheepish as they crawl across the bridge, outnumbered by bikes and people on foot.

My daughter Aliza and I are headed to the farmer’s market to buy fruit and vegetables from the people who grew them, perhaps some cheese and bread from area artisans. We love the market, with its sensuous smells, colorful booths, generous samples and happy atmosphere of people chatting as they shop (“sweetie, try one of these amazing plums”). It’s a chance for father and daughter to bond while getting a taste of the thriving local food movement.

We live just across the Willamette River from downtown, an easy 30 minute stroll to the market. It’s a warm spring morning and so we decided to walk, which Aliza loves. Given the choice she always wants to go on foot rather than by car; it gives us a chance to talk and I’m focused on her, not the road.

Aliza is a typical eight-year-old: curious, thoughtful and well on the way to having a mind of her own. I really enjoy our conversations and I always learn something. Like a lot of children, Aliza intuitively feels a kinship with the natural world. She has a highly developed reverence for life and steadfastly refuses to harm a living soul. She won’t let anyone else kill anything either, not even spiders and bugs, which she doesn’t particularly like.

“They have a right to live too, just as much as we do,” she says matter-of-factly.

As her dad I have become quite adept at catching creatures in jars and setting them free. I have to admit it always feels good, like I’m acting in consonance with the laws of the universe.

Children give us a glimpse of the future and Aliza is a constant source of inspiration and hope for me. More than many adults I know, she understands the interconnectedness of life. “Waste paper, waste breath,” I heard her say to her older brother when she was 5. When I asked what she meant she explained that trees make oxygen, which we breathe, and paper is made from trees. “Waste paper, waste breath.” Words to live by.

Our journey to the market took us through an industrial sanctuary on the east bank of the Willamette, where machine shops and auto repair businesses sit next to warehouses and manufacturing plants. The area is in transition and many of the old buildings now house creative services, with architects, graphic designers and other creative types rubbing shoulders with truck drivers and blue collar workers.

As we reach the crest of the Hawthorne Bridge I admire the beauty of cherry trees blooming in the green park downtown, which runs along the Westside of the River’s edge below. I marvel at the sun reflecting off solar panels on an office tower ahead and imagine the innovation a new Center for Sustainability will catalyze when it is built a few blocks away. Birds peacefully ride the breeze overhead and I think about the turbines just outside of town that turn the wind into renewable power. Everywhere I see humanity and nature taking the first tentative steps as partners in a new dance of cooperation.

Aliza squeezes my hand and shakes me from my reverie. She asks in a clear strong voice, “Daddy, when did people take over the world?”

My dream of the future melts away and I experience the world from Aliza’s perspective: I see the urban environment the way she does, a dense grey mass of concrete, glass and steel. I am assaulted by a cacophony of car noises and I choke on the acrid smell of exhaust. A bus rumbles by, rattling the bridge and shaking my vision of detente between man and nature.

I realize she’s right; at some point we did take over the planet and the results of our domination aren’t pretty. We have created a built environment that to a child feels dirty, ugly and arrogant. In our rush to turn the planet into products we lost sight of something essential and only now are we beginning to realize it.

So we find ourselves on the bridge between our industrial past and a promising future. Will we make it across? If we do, what will find on the other side?

This book provides a possible answer. It’s about how we can once again integrate with nature. It’s about the benefit of no longer thinking of ourselves as the dominant species, but simply a contributing member in the web of life. It’s about the joy and beauty of being part of something larger than ourselves and the peace and empowerment that connection and integration could provide.

The promise of the future is a world in which our children will feel at home and thrive. But it will take new ways of thinking to get there. It will require each one of us to develop An Eco-Logical Mind.

The Beauty of Biking

I have to admit, for a long time I thought that riding my bike to work was going to be a pain in the ass. It rains a lot, it’s cold, blah, blah, blah. Besides, I drive a Prius. Isn’t that good enough?

Apparently not.

That quiet little voice in my head that sometimes whispers “hypocrite” recently started screaming at me on a regular basis. So in an attempt to shut it up I got my old bike out, found my helmet, put on my sweats, threw my suit in a backpack and rode to work on a crisp sunny morning in September.

The first thing that hit me as I sped away from my house – ok, it’s downhill or I would have probably been crawling - was a slap of fresh air more invigorating than a triple shot of Stumptown espresso. I was instantly wide awake and acutely aware of being in the world, rather than observing it, as is the case from a car.

I also realized I was extremely vulnerable. No huge hunk of metal-car shell protecting me. Visions of dumping my bike and becoming intimately acquainted with the pavement flashed through my brain. Better pay attention.

Strangely, I didn’t feel afraid. Quite the opposite. I was awake, alert and vibrantly alive!

I rode through the backstreets of my neighborhood, making eye contact and exchanging smiles with people walking their dogs, reading the paper on the front porch and a young girl doing a headstand in her front yard.

Hmmmm. Positive contact with other humans. Not something I usually experience from the insulated confines of my car.

As I approached the east bank of the river that separates my neighborhood from the central city I was joined by other bicyclists on their way to work. Soon I was in the middle of a people parade, pedaling across the Hawthorne Bridge into downtown.

My route took me to the esplanade that runs along the west bank of the Willamette River all the way to my office in John’s Landing. Blue Heron perched on pylons along the bank. Dragon boats raced silently across the surface like large caterpillars dancing on the water. I could hear birds singing and the breeze blowing through the trees.

For one half hour the separation between me and nature had been erased and I was part of the web of life.

I arrived at work exhilarated and ready to embrace the day.

The real price of oil.

Once again, the press is reporting an event in doleful tones as if it’s terrible news, but I’m jumping for joy. Exploration of oil has dropped significantly due to lower demand and the fact that the production costs don’t make sense with the current low sales price for oil. For people with the old mindset, that means we may have to pay more in the future for oil as demand goes back up and supplies are low, causing a serious escalation of price at the pump.

Fantastic!

If you look at it from the new mindset, this economic shift provides more incentive to develop alternative fuels because they will be able to compete on price. And the fact that consumption is down means that the emission of greenhouse gases is down as well!

What is the Chinese character for Hummer?

Well, the Chinese may be ascendant in the world, but they are not infallible. You probably heard that GM dumped their Hummer division on a Chinese company, which will continue to manufacture the tank-like vehicle in the US. Looks to me like at least some people in China are still enamored with the old US image of military domination.

Just another example of why it’s so important for us to present a new set of values for the world to emulate.

Consciousness Nurtures Contentment

Riding to work this morning I heard that U.S. retail sales were down again in April. While the announcer presented this as bad news, I think it’s great news!

There is an inverse relationship between retail sales and national measures of well being - the less we consume the happier we get, which is not surprising if you think about it. Contentment is the absence of wanting. If we decide we don’t need to buy so much stuff the pressure is off. Whether it’s because we can’t afford it or because we are painfully aware of how our insatiable appetites are literally consuming the earth – we can stop worrying about what we don’t have and start appreciating what we do have, including the people and experiences in our lives that make us truly rich.

This brings up a bigger question: why are we so obsessed with things like retail sales and Gross Domestic Product as measure of how we are doing as a country? It’s time to jettison that outdated way of thinking.

Look at GDP, for example. It simply measures economic activity, it doesn’t distinguish whether it’s good or bad activity. After hurricane Katrina, GDP spiked because of all the money spent on rescue and repair. The swine flu causes GDP to go up as we spend millions on vaccines and prevention. War causes GDP to go up as we spend trillions of dollars to fight the enemy.

But GDP doesn’t measure things like the value of education, the health of our children, the condition of our infrastructure and buildings, or the negative value (cost) of crime, degradation of the environment or our carbon footprint.

Several new measuring systems are under development and many countries, including France, are working on adopting one. The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) is a good one to check out:
http://www.rprogress.org/sustainability_indicators/genuine_progress_indicator.htm

The image at the top of this entry is from Chris Jordan, a brilliant artist from Seattle. The top image is the entire art piece and the images below are closer and closer details of the art, until you can see that the image is composed of 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world's oceans every hour. All of the plastic in the image was collected from the Pacific Ocean. This will help you visualize the size and impact of our out of control consumer culture.

To see other amazing works by Chris Jordan, check out his website:

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

Out of the Wilderness

By all accounts the Republicans are lost in the wilderness. Their misguided belief that it’s every man for himself created a politics of fear, driving them so far right they landed beyond the fringe of American thought. To paraphrase a Zen koan, if a Republican falls in the forest and there’s no one there to see it, does anyone care?

Well, I do, actually, which is ironic coming from a lifelong Democrat. As a Democrat, of course, I’m in 7th heaven with Obama at the helm of this country. I agree with him on pretty much everything, including the need for a vigorous debate about the issues we face at this critical time in history. The problem is there’s no opposition party to enliven the national dialogue. Obama even tried to emulate a Republican (Lincoln) by putting a “team of rivals” on his cabinet that would provide opposing viewpoints for all to consider, but there were no Republicans available with any ideas.

So now we, the Democrats, are basically talking to ourselves. I mean, if the views of Robert Rubin and Robert Reich form the outer edges of our debate on finance, for example, then we may not get the kind of bold new thinking we need to reinvent economics for the 21st century. I’m a big fan of Reich’s and he’s capable of pushing the idea envelope a long ways, but he, like all of us, would benefit from someone who could challenge his assumptions, point out blind spots and shine a light on areas he might not have considered. I don’t think Rubin, Larry Summers or even Paul Volcker (Democrats all) can do that effectively.

As a Democrat, I loved reading David Leonhardt’s interview with Obama in the Sunday NY Times Magazine. His clear understanding of the issues and ability to articulate his response was thrilling after 8 years of Bush idiocy, er, Presidency. But I missed having Obama tackle the really big questions, like how are we going to reintegrate nature into our economics to include the value of eco-systems services, which are currently an externality on balance sheets? This is, after all, at the heart of why we keep abusing the environment, because we are not accounting for the true costs of goods and services. And what about recalibrating our measure of success using something like the GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) instead of simply GDP? The GPI measures the value of things like education and the durability of our infrastructure, 2 of the many things GDP doesn’t measure (more on this in my next blog).

Would conservatives push Obama to tackle these big questions, which I believe are part of the key to changing our thinking about the relationship between business and the environment? Is it possible they could argue for an even more rigorous approach than the Dems to solving the climate crisis?

Are you kidding?!?!?!?

Well, actually, they might. Not American conservatives, of course, but the new British brand of conservative thinking.

In the current issue of World Architecture magazine the Right Honourable John Gummer MP, a key member of the conservative party, is quoted as saying: “Architects should prepare themselves for a revolution the magnitude of which hasn’t been seen since the industrial revolution." Gummer, who would likely be in charge of the country’s planning if the conservatives are elected next year, believes that we should be delivering Zero Carbon buildings, now. “The environment can’t wait ten years,” he proclaims.

Gummer went on to say that “if zero carbon is mandatory, then the market will find a way to deliver the volume at a competitive price.” Talk about faith in the market! Gummer even came up with some IDEAS (!!!!!) about how the financing might work.

The Conservatives are investigating a radical restructuring of finance for buildings, where energy supply is as much an integral part of a building’s cost as interest on a mortgage.
Gummer said that they (the Conservatives) were negotiating with utilities to create a finance package that will allow building owners to pre-purchase energy at a reduced rate, possibly even linked to the building’s mortgage. The savings made on energy costs would be used to finance the energy saving improvements to the building.

As the Brits say, “brilliant!”

What’s going on here??? Could it be that a conservative is interested in conserving energy? What a concept!

Not that long ago the British conservatives were wandering in the wilderness just like the Republicans. Defeated by the liberal Labour party amidst sex scandals and economic collapse, for years they kept pushing the same old ideas and for years they kept losing. Finally, along came David Cameron, a young, media savvy conservative who understood the importance of the environment, especially to the next generation. He quickly came up with a new logo, a tree (see top of this article). He also recognized that we are all in this together, a key mindset difference from the Republicans.

So what if the Republicans took a cue from the British right and embraced the environment and a more collective mindset? Imagine how much progress we might make on climate change and reinventing the economy. And we might do it in a way that encouraged business to play a powerful part and maybe, just maybe, maintain a sense of fiscal conservancy as well.

So here’s a new bumper sticker for you: INVIGORATE THE DEBATE - REINVENT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

And here’s hoping the Republicans find their way out of the wilderness. Ironically, the best way for them to do it might be to recognize the value of the real wilderness and bio-mimic the British right.