Resilience in Community

I am part of a loosely affiliated group that meets to discuss and act on our community’s transition to life after cheap fossil fuels. The group had its first bi-monthly meeting last Monday.

Our discussions are guided by the book, "The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience", by Rob Hopkins. We chose this book because Hopkins focuses on actions we can take as a community to plan for (instead of being surprised by) an inevitable energy descent.

Last Monday we discussed theoretical frameworks for our activities as a group; Will adaptation, evolution or collapse occur when fossil fuels are scarce and climate change is affecting our ecosystem? We didn’t agree on what the future will bring, but we did concur that whatever happens, we’d like to be a part of a well-knit, capable and locally sustainable community.

The activities will be hands-on—individuals take turns sharing experience/experiments in resilient living. Last Monday we cut up locally scavenged apples and left them to stew during the discussion portion of the evening. After the discussion, we canned the applesauce. Ingredients: free apples, glass jars, lids and laughs. On December 22nd, we’ll be learning to make soap from lye and vegetable oils.

This group is in its forming stage, but I am truly excited about the list we generated of skills to learn and skills to teach.

What we’d like to learn from others

• Living sustainably without alienating others, being elitist or escapist and being aware of the dynamics of privilege
• Gardening
• Food preservation
• Fire-building
• How to make this group multi-generational, -lingual and -racial
• Knitting
• How to build rain barrels
• Getting off the power grid: Having a home that relies on closed loop systems
• Feel more empowered to make changes
• Cooking
• Yoga
• Making kombucha
• Straw bale houses
• Soap
• Drum circles
• Basic bike repair/maintenance and winter riding tips
• Low-maintenance lawn coverings
• Organize volunteers and hook them up with needy non-profits
• How to spread the word, connect with other communities
• Share mutually
• Recycle water
• Live without so much electricity, natural gas, coal and oil
• Make instruments from scavenged materials
• Eat wild plants
• Build simple structures with easy-to-come-by materials
• Turn dead animals into meat, fur, leather and other useful materials.
• Treat illnesses without modern medicine
• Local plants and wildlife, herbal medicine, holistic mental health
• Self-defense
• Survival in freezing and subzero temperatures for sustained periods of time
• French, Psychokinesis, Tabla drumming, kiai and bi-location
• Fermentation
• Earth-centered paganism

What we know and can teach others

• Fermenting vegetables
• Making kombucha
• Making wine
• Making soap
• Making moon pads
• Living in community
• Interacting with homeless people
• Cooking
• Baking bread
• Rendering tallow and lard
• Knitting
• Yoga
• Pilates
• Modern dance
• Zen meditation
• Website making
• Making apple cider
• Setting up rain barrels, harvesting rain water
• Making plant medicine and Identifying plants
• Growing mushrooms
• Bio-remediation of soil and water
• Fixing bikes
• Capoeira
• Facilitation
• Listening
• Singing
• Playing
• Tromboning
• Chanting
• Outreach
• Working with kids
• Conducting Anti-oppression workshops
• Raising chickens
• Repairing Volkswagons
• Making biodiesel
• Juggling
• Womyn's health
• Mentrual pads
• Salves
• Making massage oil and massage
• Nonviolent communication
• Impromptu theater/dance, rap
• Percussion
• Fitness
• Self-defense,
• Finding free stuff
• Souture thrift shopping
• Action as opposed to talk
• Various arts/crafts (collage, button-making)
• Moderating discussions
• Writing
• Mental health and alternatives to traditional psychiatric methods
• Fermenting veggies
• Changing motor oil
• Converting diesel cars to veggie oil
• Constructing cold frames
• Making mead
• Testicular & prostate self-exam
• Martial arts (tai shin doh)
• Basic womyn's self defense
• Hiking
• Painting houses
• Home repair
• Deck-building
• College radio and audio production
• Natural history
• Spiritual resilience
• Diabetes self-care
• Strategic planning for grassroots groups
• Grant-writing

In the Wry

Perhaps adolescent angst is an appropriate reaction as the human race comes of age on a finite planet. Like teenagers on punishment, we all need an allowance reduction and suspened driving priveleges. 

Take most people, they're crazy about cars.  They worry if they get a little scratch on them, and they're always talking about how many miles they get to a gallon, and if they get a brand-new car already they start thinking about trading it in for one that's even newer.  I don't even like old cars.  I mean they don't even interest me.  I'd rather have a goddam horse.  A horse is at least human, for God's sake.

  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, spoken by the character Holden Caulfield

This fall I think you're riding for - it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind.  The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom.  He just keeps falling and falling.  The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with.  . .  They gave it up before they ever really even got started.

 ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 24, spoken by the character Mr. Antolini

Hearing Colors

Really Bad's Challenge

Christine is right. As far as I know, not I, nor anyone in my circle of friends/acquaintances bothers to comment on clevleland.com. If I didn't live here and based my opinion of Cleveland solely on the PD's site and subsequent comments, I would gladly avoid this city.

Exile

I spent two days and one night in suburban Columbus, Ohio visiting my family last weekend. During a visit to the burbs, I will generally suffer from isolation-induced boredom, lack of exercise compounded by an unwalkable neighborhood and malaise brought on by chain restaurant food and strip mall scenery.

To stave off the onset of acute suburbitis, I packed my knitting, 2 books and my laptop to catch up on work. While having quality time with my family as we gathered together to not speak to each other in front of the TV, I may have offended by reading during Television Time instead of actively participating in the watching.

To hasten my recovery, I sang along to Liz Phair's, Exile in Guyville cassette as I drove back to Cleveland. I started to feel better once I was north of I-480.

Sinking Street; Neighbors Meet

The surface of Chatham and West 30th had been leaking water for a few days before a large sinkhole opened up and swallowed an RV. It was about 15 feet deep and completely hollow minus a couple of bricks and some rushing water. 

I had called the water department a few days before and they had evidently visited because there were spray painted glyphics on the street in red and yellow. I can't imagine they knew the immediacy of the problem from their investigation, but from the photo you can see the red arrows pointing right at the edge of the sinkhole. 

Last night the RV kept falling deeper into the street and it was up to the rear window before bedtime. I am not sure how it was towed it out, but it was gone this morning.  When I got home from work, the hole was filled in somewhat with cement.  

The positive to the bottom dropping out of the street was speaking with a lot of my neighbors as we gawked at the scene and tried to keep the kids from the edge of the crumbling street. 

I Voted Today: No Sticker

The last two presidential elections did not inspire my confidence in Ohio's version of the free and fair franchise. I don't feel this way because my candidates of choice lost; I feel this way because I think they probably won. I am not prone to conspiracy theories, but I can't dismiss a greater plan to disenfranchise: hanging chads in 2000, the touch screen debacles in 2004, long lines both years, etc . . .

In the primary election last spring, a BOE poll worker actually inspected my ballot. She opened it up, read my vote, detached the portion that was supposed to stay attached (I found out later), and then put it who knows where. Believe me, I love going to the polls on election day to commune with my fellow voters -- to get that sticker, but I decided not to risk it this year.

In 2008, I voted as safely, securely and tamper-resistantly as I know how. I requested my ballot by mail and filled it with leisure at my kitchen table with the help of the League of Women Voters. Today I delivered it in person to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections and dropped it in the locked, blue ballot box myself.

Lessons

I am in the middle of a career transition. I am a "retiring" modern dancer who just can't quit dancing despite her knee problems. I completed my Master's degree in May, left my year-long assistantship in August, and started a new job last week. Sounds pretty great on blog.

This transition, however, is defying my expectations. I had envisioned a swan song of sorts to end my dance career. One last performance. An evening-length work that would have premiered Spring of 2008 just as I was finishing school and before I moved on to the next phase of my life. I had it all worked out perfectly with no messy overlaps. I was to be so distracted by my new job that I wouldn't have time to mourn the end of a too-short 7-year dance career.

The reality has been that my dance company, Antaeus Dance, has had a difficult time securing a presenter and a venue appropriate to the work. We are still creating the piece that I thought would be just a fond memory by now.

Besides the obvious time, energy and scheduling issues, I am having a difficult time observing myself being replaced in the ranks of the company. Next month another dancer will be performing my role in my favorite dance. I know that it is time for this to happen, but I didn't expect to be present to witness my own obsolescence; I was supposed to be retired at this point.

The piece we are creating, Molt, is about transformation. As the piece progresses my colleagues and I shed our layers, as we struggle for growth. How ironic is it that my own growth is being stunted by my dedication to a dance piece about transformation? Every time I go to rehearsal to dance about change, I am confronted by my own commitment that prevents change.

There are lessons here for me: transformation is painful, let go of expectations, do not linger when it is over. I am sure there are more.