...the Collaborative Word

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Thu, 19 May 2022 13:48:00 +0000

feeling feels.

should i blame it on the moon or give power to the story? should i call a friend or howl it out? i woke up early and just cleaned the house. corners accumulating dust, markets crashed. there were purple house spiders in my dreams. the fig tree leaves are blowing in. all the while my growing baby belly is gnawing, pawing and becoming. an aquatic mammal is inside of me. they say the ice caps are melting, and a new human is coming. i will teach him to swim. 

i like humans, fundamentally i do. i like myself. i like those rude mfkers i cross with. even those ones who spit and steal. i used to do both. so i can't help it. i like the messiness of it. i believe in us. we're not good or bad, we just are. and for one cosmic hot second i am also going be.

sometimes i also ask why: why we do we have be like this? why we gotta be fukd up to eachother so much? the garbage piling up on my corner is outrageous. dirty diapers and excess wealth in poverty stink. mind and matter, the gossip is flowing. and i've lost more of my sight over the years. 

but then i just remember, in the same corner of my mind i just dusted, as the morning sun peaks on mountain peaks : our messy human nature is our song, and it's just one song in an opera that sings in the divinity in nature. one day it will get snuffed out. but not today.

so maybe today i should sing louder.

(thanks Martin Prechtel. grief really is praise, i guess.)

AQUARIUS

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 03:52:00 +0000

It is said we must stop flying,
as if the Future has no flight, and
that we must crawl across the Earth
keeping our heads bowed from the Heavens.
But I know few birds who forgot their wings,
except perhaps the Dodo or the Penguin.
So I stumble in front of the impossible Horizon.
The Ice caps are thawing, they say,
and as those shelves of Ancient frozen Sky collapse and melt into their origins,
I also feel that falling.

It is said that Cities are like planes,
and as Buildings reach towards the Sky,
I remember those Ancient dwellings at our origin,
those made of Mud and Stone.
I mean, I never knew a flower that grew upside-down,
except for that one, maybe,
flowering in my Dreams.
So I dig to find my Grace again,
my fingernails scraping bare Earth.
And as the extinctions mount,
DNA erased and forgotten,
I dig to remember myself.

It’s somewhere between the rows of Corn and Squash, it’s said,
a Bean that reaches up towards the Sky,
winding itself perpetually against the stalk.
I walk these mounds like burial grounds,
Dancing, as I search, for a Vision.

Am I a Dodo or a Penguin?
Am I among the Dinosaurs or the Tree-ferns?
Am I among the Stars,
or is my body counted as Dust?
Just a wind that scatters the Bones of my ancestors.

I take a deep Breath,
because it is said that winds of Change are blowing,
and that the Metal and Wheels will grind to a halt, even though the signs
perpetually spin out in the Universe.
Because above my bended back,
hands deep into Dust and Soil,
there is an expansive mass of Black,
a Mystery with no edge or end.
And I hear the Sages whisper:
“in the Waterbearer you must trust”.
So I fall like water to these Seeds
in the downward nausea of pouring, Gravity pulling me to my knees
But still I can not help but to imagine
the Stars.

-Cassandra Caroline
& ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATION BY STEPHANIE DEANGELIS

When a Tree Falls in the Forest

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 02:59:00 +0000

Or
A reflection on terror and longing, and finding a way through the heart

----
Authors note:
I want to share my personal journey of working in the jungle. It is something hard to sum into words, and so intimate, that I feel vulnerable. But vulnerability is some of the best medicine - also a big part of working with medicine - and it means a lot to me to share. This post is originally from 2015.
----

The jungle is full of life, every tiny inch has something moving. When I first arrived more than a year ago, loneliness felt impossible since all around me was teeming with creatures and vibrant with an almost seething life-force. Even spirits live in these wild places, and will visit you if you ask, as Mariluz taught me how.

As a botanist, ecologist and gardner, to me, the jungle is the epitome of fascination. But it soon became more than that. As weeks turned to months, the more time I spent here, the more it became a mirror. Weeks of being alone with just one or two other people started the process of unpeeling from myself, as the jungle, in all of her power and wisdom, began reflecting me my most inner longings and terrors.

In the jungle, I experienced the tiring yet exhilarating dance of duality within my being - played through light and shadow, past and future, body and spirit, apathy and action, female and male, and wisdom and ignorance. Everyday became a new lesson on how to unite these desperate forces. And in the jungle, there are no places to run to that don't lead you back to yourself. So I faced myself, I faced my terror and delight. And I tried to find the center.

Terror. I say terror, and I want to explain what I mean. It's a strong word, but it's important to describe. Terror is any pure fear of what is unknown, unseeable. It is also the clawing sensation we carry, which from the inside feels as if something is terribly awry. Sometimes it is, depending on perspective. Terror is the realization of the unbridled, frenzied destruction of the earth and people. Terror is the hunger of longing that both eats and devours the self, the other, and nature. It is the unprepared meeting the great mystery, complete with dancing demons and a dose of Self hatred.

I come from the place where prairies flank the foothills of the Rockies. To describe my childhood relation with natural world, I would use the word "simple". The landscapes I knew growing up were open sky, forests of pine, spruce and aspen, the roar of 80km/hr chinooks and deafening quietness of winter - that sound of a forest blanketed by 4m of snow. It was like this for 20years, until I moved to the coast to study ecology and ethnobotany.

Seven years ago I studied in an undergraduate research station in an isolated part on the west coast of Canada. This was one of the first conscious times in my life when my relationship with nature become anything but simple, and explainable through science. I was struck by the terror of wildness. Here it was projected from me as the ocean.

That day, I went out on a boat in fine weather, on a small 4m vessel with outboard motor. We moored to gather information about an intertidal section where algae was exposed to air. It was summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and the tides low. We took a break to enjoy the water in the sun before we began to head back, but it was at this point the weather changed. Wind, direct from the open Pacific Ocean picked up. The waves grew. The color shifted as blues became grays.
And the ocean become bottomless.

Of course, we were not going to die, not that day. We made it safely back to the station. At the helm was my wild-research partner whose eyes became alive like the sea as she navigated roiling waters, determined. Though as we docked, what did not leave me was the sense of terror and peril - every hungry mouth of the wild sea snapping at me. Terror and fantasy to consume me alive. The raw power of nature, and the raw power of my story and fear, still miles from easy help.

The mother ocean is at once both creation and destruction. How can that be? Duality is one of life's great paradoxes. The jungle has also brought these teachings to me. The jungle, for me, is like the ocean. And if you have ever been here during an immense storm, or, on the most serene morning at dawn ... You will experience just some of her extreme faces. She is both the cradle of life, and the chopping board of death and decomposition. Sometimes, in the isolation when my guard was down and my layers peeled back, she even showed me how I am the cradle and how I am the knife.
In the jungle, in the wildness. I became the longing and the terror.

My terror and my longing only started to grow. Loneliness become devouring, and devouring became loneliness. To suffice, I made elaborate despachos that I learned in the Andes from Juan´s and discovered I spoke to trees. What was once considered a crazy myth inside my culture became reality. Spirits walked through my room. Trees talked back. Plants told me secrets, laughed at my ignorance and let me console in them. And all the while, as I went deeper, I hungered for the movement on the projects of my heart - work on sustainability initiatives in the region. I planned and made meetings. I hoped to make friends in the city when I had off-days to go and restock supplies, wondering as I knew, where I could find more a sense of belonging and people to work with in a team. When few appeared, and when meetings were cancelled, weeks turned to months and I retreated to the forest. The forest in the dungeons of my mind became both solace, and place of devouring. Friend and enemy. Just like me.
The forest became personified, anthropomorphized, and a mirror to the wheels of duality that turn us in circles and cycles.

On the second last day before I left (at the time of writing, I had been out for two weeks healing from dengue) we cut down a tree outside the casa grande. I made a despacho to ask it permission. I sat at his base for half an hour before I started and we talked. The immense pashaco negro told me it was over 500 years old. I said he didn't look that old, and he laughed at me, and said "rarely do you humans count the young years when us trees are just sprouts in the shade". I told him we needed to cut him down, that he was probably rotting from the inside and that in a windstorm, if he fell, he could crush and kill us. He laughed again, and said he would fall one day. I began to cry softly at his roots as I asked him to help us, and I prayed for us humans, hoping we could remember some of the good ways we once were and keep all those new lessons we've learned - all to become better. The tree became a symbol of humanity's struggle both against and with nature. As I quieted and listened, he listened back.

Then I prayed that we could survive alongside the breaking-at-the-seams Earth. That we could become stewards of the Earth, and worthy in our culture of eating the Earth's foods, seeds and animals. I started the despacho at his roots in a hole. It took 5 hours to burn to nothingness.

That night I saw a vision in one of my dreams. I was in a house, and I went to look through a window looking-glass. Behind the window was an ogre who deplored me, told me one from a series of holy-people had chosen me. A woman dressed in full Andean paqo robes stood up with her baby, she was elaborately dressed in the finest alpacas and held a magnificent wool accordion with her baby. Her hair glowed as if illuminated. She told me "the sacred is in design". I was surprised, taken aback even, and stood back from the looking glass. When I looked back through, the room was empty. The place where the ensemble of saints and holy people, and the ogre, was shuttered.

The next day when I woke up, the mood was already tense. This tree was massive, and had been on our list of dangerous and risk trees for several months. It needed to come down before the seasonal wind storms arrived, and all five of the forestry experts who had visited us as consultants agreed. It weighed many tones, and had an elegant, but unstable, arching canopy at a 90degree insertion angle to the trunk. It was one of my most studied trees, because I saw it every day from my window and had gone there many times to sit and think. Tiny insect holes bore into the naked trunk. We planned to use all the wood, with no waste. We found later, it was almost hollow inside.

The three men were ready, but obviously on nerve. The work lasted from early morning until dusk. They used heavy-cables to anchor and pull the tree on the desired path, after Miguel climbed over 40m up into the canopy to help secure them. When Claudio started the work on the chain saw, I was asked to leave the house. The risk of the tree falling on the house was not small, but the team were experts, and they knew how to work within risks to find the outcome they needed. This was a job to increase everyone's safety, and the men were serious and respectful. Still, the chance for disaster was very real. The jungle is not predictable or controllable. But there is something in design...

I readied my camera hoping to include the film in our coming documentary on artisanal logging practices here. My tripod and camera were in a far corner, far from where I thought the tree would fall. As Claudio began sawing, Miguel tightened the heavy cables. The tension in the tree shook the canopy. Everyone was praying or smoking Mapacho. Suddenly there was a ripping sound, and the cracking that still to this day fills my bones with the same terror that the ocean did. A clawing terror. The weight of wood falling through wood all falling through heavy air.

The sound of the world falling down.

I watched from a place I had ran to, and saw how the tree did a full 360 rotating from it's breaking weight. It kicked far from is broken pivot and swung towards the house. The falling came. The falling arrived. Right on top of my camera.

I will never know if the images I received when I spoke to plants, like this now fallen tree, were real or figments of my intelligence. How can you know? But many experts say we can indeed communicate with plants (see Stephan Harrod Buhner), and that we can communicate with spirits. When I asked the tree if he was ready to die, there was silence. Acceptance. Neither yes or no, just acceptance. It took me 2 days after the dream I had the night before we cut to realize I was getting a signal: The despacho from the day before had been complete, hence the Andean paqo. The blessing was full: the holy woman was like the mother Mary and her babe. She told me "the sacred is in design". The tree fell and missed our house by meters. No one was injured. My tripod was destroyed, but the camera untouched. The video was not recorded. Testament that perhaps no moment can be captured and replayed, but only experienced.

The terror remained in me for days. The feeling of the wood crashing through wood. The visual of the death. Like many images and smells of my life, especially images of death, my flesh hangs on them. I feel them in my bones, rattling in my dreams. As the tree shows, Death is nothing to be controlled. Not with cables and not with preventatives. When it's your time being close to a hospital will not save. The only way to escape is not to live. The paradox in this is terrifying, and liberating. The tree shook me deeper to my core.

It's no small wonder that since then, the next day after I left, I contracted dengue. It took several days to develop, but it was a fever that entered my body and made all the bones feel as if breaking. It was tiredness so complete I could not even sleep.

As I have laid on my back for the last 10 days, I have been asking myself daily what does it mean to be on the middle way, especially here, as I live in the jungle. The sages have written at length in some of the world´s great philosophies and religions. For me, as I have been painstakingly learning, the middle path is one where hunger is fed by the heart.

Hunger comes from many things: physical needs of the body and spirit, and non-physical desires and disgusts of the ego. My hunger has been both longing and terror. I can not count how many times I wanted to run away from my discoveries here, especially ones about myself. But I knew enough that if I ran, I would arrive again, exactly where I left-off.

Instead, I have to face it. Accept it. Hold duality as close as I can, right to my heart.
It is here, in the heart, it can be held in the wisdom of compassion. In compassion we are wise, in the heart we are present. From this place we can act wise, and build a culture that feeds.

I don't know how long it will take to fully live these teachings. Or how long it will take till I can hold my terror and my longing, just as peacefully as the mother paqo held her babe. I don't know if I ever will. But I can not run.

And so, as the trees live and fall in the forest, I stay to listen.

: The rotting insides of the Pashaco, cut and ready to be lumbered...

: Proof to me that my camera could still capture beautiful images, even after a tree fell on top of it (a picture of Orchids we cultivated at Canto Luz)

: Miguel climbs to the top limbs, 40m above the forest floor.

: The elegant canopy of the Pashaco, before he fell.

: The team holds a moment with the camera in between their silent reflections on the felling of the great Pashaco negro.

Los Nietos - an amazonian food forest.

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Sat, 12 Nov 2016 22:09:00 +0000

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For 3 months the chakra lay dormant waiting for us. The clearing work was done in November 2015 on lands of our neighbor. It was not that we have no land for planting. Rather, we are guardians of primary forest and our neighbour's once agricultural land is more ecologically suitable for food forests. (In Peruvian Spanish chakra means a cleared space used for growing food).

The first time I saw the land, I gulped. As if the jungle was creeping back in, the wild-plants were growing again, and there was a lot of woody debris to navigate. The task of planting our Food Forest was going to be tough. We would place over 300 plants with 32 different species of fruit, vegetable, flower, medicine, bean, dye and fiber bearing plants in a span of just 2 weeks.

Come rain, shine or insect, the foundations for a food forest would be born.

To be charged with so much life is not something I take lightly. The ecological toll for clearing land, as well as the life of all the baby trees is serious business. I thought the rainy season would pass fast this year. El Niño always brings unpredictable weather, especially in Peru – droughts here, floods there. Our part of the amazon is wet in February, but the last strong el Niño year rains were short and there was drought. This year I worried we were too late to plant the trees.

But we set-up carefully. Not only do we use ecological principles and design practices, but we also welcomed a group of volunteer professionals to help us plant.

Our volunteers Hannah, Vince and GaChing arrived first, followed by Shane. Along with these volunteers, local workers were busy helping to remove leftover woody debris so we could walk unencumbered through the plot. Our food forest is about a ½ hectare, which sounds big. It is actually “human-sized”, manageable with just a few pairs of hands and lots of sweat.

Ecologically we planned this food forest to manage soil. Forest soil in the Amazon is tricky and has a fertility that deceives. Voracious growth of plants, abundant water and beating sun are not all that they seem: nutrition for growth is locked up in the plants themselves and only released in a complicated cycle of decay. Here a cleared area has a couple of years of fertility, but if you don't protect and build soils, a farm will fail or require chemical inputs. No thanks.

When we cleared, we didn't burn. High oxygen burning, common to this part of the amazon, releases vital minerals like a big bang, and scorches all bacteria and fungal networks that help with nutrient cycling. When rain comes the nutrients are washed away, leaving empty sands and clays, and no top-soil to grow life.

As we cleared we left green-plant material on top of the soil right where it lay. The idea of this "green mulch" is to slowly decompose and maintain water in the soil. When the powerful Equatorial sun comes after the rainy season, we hope it will do just that.

We also utilized woody material. We have made hugelkulture-like beds of large sticks that over the next several years will decompose with termite action. Under the weight of green material that we will place there these piles will become a repository for black soil... one day at least - we just have to be patient. How patient? We are not sure. It's a theoretical experiment we are basing on the black- organic rich soils (Tierra del monte) that are found around decaying tree logs in the jungle. These wood piles also provide spaces for small creatures to set up home.We did not pile all of our woody material because there was a lot of it. Some of it was burned in small piles, and the ash we saved and put in our aging compost pile with local Guinea pig manure, goat manure, and humanure. In a year this will be lunch for the hungry tropical trees.

Then we got busy planning. Vince, a soil expert, helped us map the soil at the chakra. We found there was mostly suitable soil, but quickly ran into a challenge – nearly half of the chakra was water-logged for part of the year, meaning that most species would wither and die from too much water. The question was whether to make a canal and try to remove water. In the end we decided to favor the water as it is. We planted palm fruits to mimic the watery palm groves found throughout the jungle, and would plant other local water-loving species, too. Nature knows, just follow.

: Dealing with so much organic matter is an important task in the jungle soil cycle - this photo demonstrates the types of soil management we chose.

: the soil found at one of the soil test sites - sandy-clay loam with topsoil -- better than we thought.

: Don Ancillmo piles wood. a lot of wood! The wood is from fast-growing colonizer species (mostly cecropia), which began to grow after our neighbour left his cleared land fallow.

: An aguajal is a natural wet place where palms rich with fruit grow.

We were ready to find the plants - Sourcing plants is no problem here as this region is garden central! We visited the local reforestation organization ARBIO to get advice and find plants – frijol de palo (a nitrogen fixing bean tree), moringa (the superfood salad green) and the tasty fruit trees cacao and copoazu (a local relative of cacao!). Luckily through our talks, we learned it may actually be (weather cooperating) the perfect time to plant. We hope for rain.Then we went to the local market and found even more trees and shrubs. Achiote for red dye and smudging… well-known fruits like avocado, starfruit, pineapple, mango, passionfruit, lemon and orange... as well as local fruit specialities like anona (DELICOUS!), araza, casharana, bread fruit, vitamin-c rich camu camu, and the cheesy flavoured noni fruit, which is very healthy. We also found flowers like toé, and medicinal plants like coca, tobacco, turmeric, ginger and lemon grass.

: bananas travel upriver with us from Puerto Arturo

: Claudio helps transport some of the plants we found - others we will start from seed and cutting.

: A jungle style nursery helps shield seedlings from the harsh sun.

Meanwhile we visited our neighbours, and in the native community of Puerto Arturo we found yuca and bananas. Mariluz, Canto Luz staff, helped us find two types of wild taro root – this delicious tuber in the araceae family is boiled and becomes starchy just like a potato. We also were able to plant local varieties of cucumber and pumpkin.

Our favourite addition to our plant list however was planted by a wild-gardener. Imagine our surprise when in the middle of the chakra we found papaya growing! Who did it? It turns out the tayra, a wild weasel relative and omnivore, has a taste for ripe papaya, and while roaming the Amazonian countryside it defecates papaya seed from its previous meals! This happened through our chakra evidently, and we hope it will come again and again and again.

: The Tayra - a wild species that loves papaya, and is not endangered.

When we were ready to start the planting we put up a tent to protect the tools and compost. The compost was a mix of gathered forest soil collected from a rotting log, and types of manure and charcoal. We were ready to plant. Using our tree map we staked out the tree locations, planning for their eventual height, canopy size and maturation time.

But it had not rained for nearly a week.

The work was so hot, and we agreed that even by starting work in the early morning we couldn’t imagine putting new plants into soil under such hot sun. The thought made us all take a swig of water and ponder hard. The best plan was to start in the evening.

It was a good choice - Imagine the joy of beginning work hours before sunset when all of the sudden a gentle, cool rain begins. The new plants shone brilliant green, especially while we sang songs for them as they entered the ground.

We finished planting 3 days later in perfect timing because each day it rained. The rain allowed our freshly dug plants to drink, and set their roots in. Throughout the days, they each seemed perky with hydration, and some of the banana plants even started sending out leaves.

: A compost mix - used to topdress fresh plantings.

: A finished map of the chakra (just missing the yuca).

: Our jungle tool shed protects the compost from rain and sun.

: hannah and vince mark plant locations and bring mulch for new plantings.

: Rain makes everything seem more connected.

: a demonstration of our complete planting method: sapote with mulch, compost top dressing and a stake to mark its placement, to prevent us losing it when the jungle starts to grow again.

Now that we have finished planting, our next steps will be to continually care for this chakra until the plants age and plan other activities in relation to this work.

The day before we finished all our work we made an Andean despacho with the help of Juan's father and Q'ero nation resident Lorenzo. When Lorenzo asked what we named the chakra, I told him, "se llama Los Nietos - it´is called the grandchildren", and then I recalled a conversation I had with a neighbour. The neighbor asked why we did not plant faster growing food crops like rice or corn, and instead fruit trees that could take years to produce well. The reality is a fruit tree project is one for future generations. Of course we expect to eat from it, but the best years will be down the road. "Los Nietos" is quite literally for the grandchildren - both human and animal.

So, here is to food that feeds the future, and also to many more years of good work in this chakra! We hope you can come visit. The papaya should be giving fruit in a few months... but you may have to share with the tayra!

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This post was published in March of 2016, just after we finished the work. We are happy to report that so much has grown and flourished. almost all the plants have survived the dry season, however a noni, a moringa, all the granadillas died. We nearly had a forest fire, but the rain came just in the nick of time, and somehow cows arrived from nearly 3km away, and ate one banana before we chased them off. The chakra has a lot of wood and medicinal "volunteers", that is plants who grow on their own accord. One of the most prolific is the sangre de grado, a powerful medicinal used for wound healing, as well as disentry. We have produced tomatoes, cucumbers, papaya, moringa, squash and some medicinal herbs. It looks like all is going well, and the rainy season is coming again

Homo Luminous

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 06:01:00 +0000

i have been discovering old poems, here is one i wrote in 2007.

In a wild world, bourn Wild from sprouting seeds
holding ancient memories of ritual human deeds,
we were each cast by spirals of DNA
Twisting like snakes
Made for remembering
where we come from,
and where we are going through Kundalini arising.

To remember what wildness we hold,
we must be bold:
First we ask for and listen to the whispers of ancients
illuminating exactly what we need,
for in the strands of ourselves we will see,
a DNA template to activate, assisting us through everything.

Human beings are sleeping cacoons
waiting for transformation, and soon to swoon
like butterflies.
Path into the Heart of Things we can go,
up on human wings that will soon unfold,
flapping,
Our power balanced
with the sweet fragrance of remembrance.

The thriving fabric of existence,
is in our persistence
to remember that our bodies are bridge between the worlds
The one that cradles us,
and the spirit filled dream world that leads us to worlds untold.

Humanity, we take up our role in the Heart's Hearth,
and come into belonging.
We are the saviours of ourselves from our long history of our grief and longing
to be together, in community,
because the vibrant village heart is one of immunity.

Hear children of Earth and beat the drum for our ecological way,
so that those still sleeping
will stir awake.

photo: Mark Henson "La Semillera"

Climate of Shift

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 05:41:00 +0000

i have been discovering old poems, here is one i wrote in 2007.

from space they say you can see her face
the face all scarred and oozing
black of blood born from the backs of
dinosaurs and carboniferous forests
so ancient you wouldn't know
when we drove to work this morning
we were burning 1 million years of history
vaporized into the atmosphere
some scientists say it will be misery
if the temperature rises just 4 degrees
ice caps melting and raising seas
some call it global warming, see
I call it intense climate unpredictability
complexity with non-linear affects
so that we haven't quite grasped the consequences yet,
and the irony is that while we battle to grapple
if its happening or not
our chance to respond is a whole lot
less, because lack of action
puts immense pressure on our chests
and implies that to wrestle
this beast down to the ground
means we'd have to turn our whole ship around
from the edge of some sort of "can't go back zone"
where there is no replay or harmonizing tone
so if oil is one way we power our destruction
climate is the monkey on the back that fuels our
construction
of a different model
funnel the oil money into better ways to save tomorrow

photo: New Pioneers by Mark Henson

Ache

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Thu, 27 Nov 2014 04:51:00 +0000

I ache for what my spirit is becoming.

As if I could know,

if a bird aches to hatch,

as if it knows

what it means to fly.

Perú en Tres Partes - 1st short stories in Spanish

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 17:31:00 +0000

Las Ventanas y Elefantes del Perú

Pongamos las cosas en orden. Es una historia sin inicio, claro, pero necesito empezar en algún lugar. Los pasos son como piedras de paso,

pero solamente en retrospectiva que pudieran tener sentido.

Puedo empezar la cuenta hace 7 años, o hace un mes. Da igual.

En el desierto de España cuando hacía sol cada día, llegue. Estaba yo allá por razón de un sueño de noche que tuve. El sueño que todavía me hace sudar con calor, posibilidad y miedo: la cara de un lobo, Los jardines de un mundo mejor. El sueño me preguntó

-¿¡Sabes cómo callarte y escuchar?!-

Pero te digo, en España, temblé de depresión. Sabía que había una razón para estar en España, especialmente después de los sueños. Y de verdad, lo quería más que todo, pero en los momentos de la depresión sin final: nada tenía sentido. No podía ver el futuro, pero tenía la sensación de estar creándolo.

-¿Cómo se puede crear lo que no se puede ver? ¡Qué paradoja!- me pregunté.

No podía levantarme de la cama. Cada día había un elefante sentado en mí pecho. Deseaba ver

“el por qué”, pero no podía aguantar el peso.

-¿A dónde fue mi autoestima?- y me di cuenta: fuera de la ventana.

-Ayúdenme – pensé, a nadie y a todas. De la desesperación sufría, mudándome en círculos. -¿Qué pasará?- pregunté al mundo –no tengo ninguna dirección-.

-Ven a Perú, dama bonita- me respondió la voz de una amiga –Constrúyanos un buen bosque comestible-. Ella rió de la simplicidad. No era algo simple.

-¿Cómo?- me lamenté, si fuera una tocadiscos rota.

Vino el próximo sueño: tres abejas y una frase –presta atención, Cassandra. Esto tiene significado tan importante-. El sueño desapareció, y en su lugar me dejó una esperanza.

-¿Puede ser que estoy aquí para ir allá? ¿A Perú?-. No podría saber. Miré por la ventana.

Practiqué español si estuviera practicando por un concierto. A veces con ruido, con la gente corriendo por las colinas. A veces más suavemente: la lengua salvaje y los hispanohablantes vinieron para escuchar. Él me enseñó un montón. Mientras yo practicaba, llegue a la cruce para ver si la dirección era más clara. Vi en sueño un camino en frente y los verdes diferentes de la jungla. Con hambre en mi mente, las ganas me levantaron, y estaba justo en ese momento que el elefante salió.

Los mapas se estiraron en frente de mí, ubicando el camino. El hocico del jaguar me besó con la explosión de la jungla. En sueño volé como el pájaro. Y sin fuego, sin celebración, soñé todos los colores del camino en frente: la escuela natural, el árbol de cacao y Juan, quién me dijo –he vivido muchas vidas.-

Las noches de sueño y la dirección del día se mezclaban juntos en un arco iris que vi encima de Puerto Maldonado. Por fin, todo tenía sentido cuando los verdes diferentes me pasaban y se convirtieron en la jungla y sus oportunidades. Las que se puede ver solamente en retrospectiva, después de una vida hecha por paseos, hecha de pasos sobre piedras, y después de llevar a un elefante.

Pero no hay elefantes aquí en las junglas de Perú, ni ventanas tampoco.

San Pedro

Las nubes prometían lluvia cuando cruzábamos la plaza de armas. Un Husky saltó a un lado de la fuente y Fernando me preguntó si conocía a Misha.

-Nunca- le dije.

Fernando empezó a explicar su relación con el Husky, que desapareció en la jungla solo hace 4 semanas. Empecé de cruzar la calle, pero él quedó, como si estuviera en sus propios pensamientos. Todavía recordaba el día que recibió la llamada.

–Estaba en el cemetario con un estudiante- me dijo, casi riendo –qué sitio, ¿no?- podía ver sus emociones mientras caminábamos hacía el mercado.

-¿Lloraste?- le pregunté. –Sí- me dijo y me mostró su tatuaje del otro Husky Sasha, al que tuvo antes de Misha.

Sascha y Misha eran como niños para Fernando. Él me parecía un poco triste todavía, pero quizás por vergüenza, su atención haya cambiado hacia el mercado. –Mira, este mercado fue…- pero lo paré.

-Gracias por compartir- le dijo, mis manos en su pecho. No sé si fuera así, pero me pareció que lo necesitaba y continuó con más de la historia. Empezó de llover, así que cuando llegamos estábamos listos para entrar.

Vi los colores de las tejidas colgados en la entrada. Noté las piedras del suelo y Fernando me dijo que el mercado tenía casi cien años. Eran suaves y muy gastados. ¿Pueden ser piedras de las construcciones antiguas de las incas?

Paramos para nombrar las frutas y no vi ninguna nueva, pero tuvimos una mini lección de los tipos diferentes de plátanos. Mientras él me contaba de su familia me preguntaba a mi misma sobre las familias y niños que crecen en el mercado. Cuantos niños hay de los trabajadores del mercado de San Pedro. Él me habló de las tradiciones de los trabajadores allá y notó que muchas eran mujeres. –Como mí mami- sonrió Fernando.

Pude oler las carnes y vi a la gente vendiendo la leche fresca, reciamente hervida esa mañana. Toqué el material de una manta. – ¡Qué colores!- pensé. Le señalé un cactus de San Pedro, y hablamos de los orígenes de las cosas en el mercado. Cuando nos acercamos a la entrada, supe que Fernando tenía que irse.

Me sentí agradecida con Fernando por mostrarme el mercado y le di las gracias a él por la tarde juntos. Cuando nos separamos, el cielo se había puesto más oscuro. La noche llegaba. Subí los 545 peldaños a mi casa, paso a paso con paciencia. La que necesito para aprender español en la manera que espero.

Al final empezó la lluvia con fuerza.

Lo blanco. Lo negro.

A menos que quieras conocer a un espíritu, no te vayas para un cemetario en Latina América, donde los vivos y los muertos existen al mismo tiempo.

El grupo de siete músicos marchaban al redor de las tumbas de los difuntos. Dos hijos jugaban entre los pisos de sus ancestros. Era la segunda vez que estaba en un cemetario aquel día. El cemetario de San Jeronimo tenía flores en cada dirección. Hacia arriba, vi las lapidas con flores cortadas. Y por todos lados las flores de las tumbas de los pobres en el suelo crecían como si fueran cultivados por amor. Pero las flores en todos los rincones sugerían que fueran por destino. Quizás los espíritus sean en un conjunto con los vivos, por qué solo las fuerzas de la naturaleza con la mano de los vivos podrían esculpir algo tan bonito.

En el cemetario de Almudena, vimos a un hombre. El cortaba una caja de seguridad para que pudiera entrar. Se agachaba encima de la caja, limándola imperturbablemente. En la cripta más antigua había velas negras derretidas en el concreto. Después reflexionábamos sobre la magia negra y Fernando me dijo que pensaba que el hombre que vimos no era un hombre. Con un sentimiento distinto de escalofríos, no sabía que debía pensar. Pero si tuviera otra oportunidad miraría al hombre con el gorro raro por más tiempo.

Ni que en contrario a las velas y el hombro que quería entrar, el papi de Juan nos dijo de una mariposa blanca que vivía en la tumba incorrecta de su madre, Matilde Flores. La mariposa blanca quería salir. Y si puedes creer en la magia entre los muertos y vivos, es posible imaginarte una mariposa volando por voluntad para separarse desde los huesos de Matilde Flores hacia la tumba de su hermano. Es que no le enterraron ella como ella pidió, al lado de su hermano. Pero después de la mariposa blanca, nadie podía creer en ninguna otra posibilidad: había un milagro. ¡Mudar los huesos! ¡Celebrar los difuntos!

Para distinguir las diferencias entre los muertos y los vivos, no te vayas a los cemetarios de Latina América. Lo blanco de los deseos de ellos es que quieren descansar, y lo negro es que no pueden. Son notas de la misma canción, donde los niños y los ancestros bailan juntos al compaz de la banda.

Ecoforestry Insights & Stewardship in the Jungle

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 04:27:00 +0000


The tree house of Canto Luz, in Madre de Dios, Peru. www.cantoluz.com photo: Maria Garnet

For two years now, I have been wondering what role humans can have in positively affecting ecosystems. I am trying to put all the pieces of my passion and training in ecology, sustainability & permaculture into work experiences and living opportunities.

Last year, I was invited to help design and initiate the eco-forestry based food-fibre-fuel and medicine forest for a 600 hectare project in the Amazon of Peru - this blog will be an online space to share the experiences learning, living and working in these places I am becoming part of around South America. These are aspects of projects who are working towards a sustainable vision for humans in tropical jungles -

In my separate jungle blog, I will share my experiences about the challenges, successes and dreams of people in the projects I am working with during the next 6 months and beyond. I am sure during writing that I will be coloured with a foreigner's perspective, being that I am in a very new landscape and culture - I hope this is amusing and useful for you - but I also hope to bring in other perspectives, too.

As always, I will be sharing poems when they come to me, pictures where I can load them, and offering some inspired essays and reports on the possibilities of strategic social and ecological sustainability, rooted in community based efforts for ecosystem stewardship and the creation of thriving well-being.

For this 6-month journey, I am packing a small typing instrument, so I can easily record updates about ideas, poems and projects that I am working with. I will be living primarily in places "off-the-grid", and being removed from both electricity and internet I will make postings - sometimes pulsed out on masse - when I am in towns.

Please stay posted with me.

You can see all the updates here: http://earthfullcircle.blogspot.ca

Resilience Restoration: a Paradigm for humanity

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 20:11:00 +0000

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/11/gas-company-manu-park-amazon

A leaked document tells us about illegal gas operations in Manú Park, Perú. The news tells us about a percentage of the world birds, butterflies and mammals who live there, and different Peoples too. UNESCO says that Manú is a protected area that has biodiversity that "exceeds that of any other place on Earth" : around 10% of the world's bird species (that means 1000 species), 5% of all mammals (around 250), and 15% of all butterflies (that's around 2625).

But what does that mean...

...to you?

Tell me of something near to you that's threatened.

To me, I get an overwhelming sense from having lived in different parts of the world that everywhere has something special that is threatened. I have seen and heard of ecosystems, watersheds, rivers, mountains, cultures, languages, community buildings, species, individuals, and it goes on and on. What seems to me as common is that the cause is so often, but so easily, summed up as “humanity: the evil, the virus”.

I tell you about an experience that seems so familiar to me, does it also feel familiar to you?: You read/see/hear/experience something awful, feel outrage, and then go to some degree that is between full-on action (“save the world” … “stop X,Y,Z” ... “fix the problems!”... “Do less bad”) or apathy (“well, we're screwed anyway”... “it's impossible”... “please tell me something good, instead”). It's that perspective which either tries to stave off destruction for one more hour, day or year, or at least try not to feel/notice anything while it happens.

But this only one way to react.

Paradigm is the word used for how a community sees themselves in the world. A change in paradigm is ultimately that which affects what is thought, and done. It's a pattern held collectively, and then, from it acted individually.

What is it that Humans do, as individuals and as a species? Biologists call this activity a “niche”, economists call it a “product” or “service”. Perhaps a Westerner perspective would call it “career”. For others it might be called “living life”. I want to call it ecological role.

Some say another paradigm is possible, and I am trying to find the words to express it here because I live with some big questions in my heart, and I live them everyday. When I see or read something that makes me feel so sad or angry, especially articles like this, in my heart I need to feel that there is a fundamentally different way for humans to live/be/and operate here on earth. So I look for it.

Are humans born predisposed to cause pain or destruction, or at least remain ignorant and seemingly powerless? Who knows, but this is the story we often tell ourselves and it's part of a current paradigm, and the perception of ourselves. But there is a different paradigm, too. At the moment it's seems a sometimes quiet one... but you'll hear it here and there. This is the paradigm of rule changing, system shifting, of doing not only “less bad”, but as living as a steward. It's a paradigm of moving just beyond sustainability, and toward resilience and restoration.

Could this be humanity's ecological role here on earth? And if we were to live that way, how would it look? How would it be in your life?

(picture from frans lanting: http://franslanting.photoshelter.com/image/I0000L2wqc4XKO6Q)

Desert Ecology

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 19:52:00 +0000

In one moment of full desert stillness,

I felt the Saharan wind come.

In gusts it blew away ancient rock,

each line hand-carved by time's hands.

The Sun fulfills me here,

and even in the safety of an ever proud fig tree,

He penetrates the shadows.

But thirst knows no one here,

for the river runs like summer snowmelt,

fed by slow seeping into the same subterranean crevasses

that pockmark this vast moonscape.

Turtles and frogs swim in the waters,

and since food is found when you know eyes to look,

I have never met hunger here either.

In these gardens Earth's bounty drips from our sweat:

and even in the heat, She refuses to cease.

The desert is only a mirage of death,

but one that will consume you if you stay long enough.

Do not disbelieve that this river oasis is the only pulse of life here:

Sun parched, but vibrant, life here in the dry

is living amongst us in all directions.

In the corners and small places,

the life of the desert is not outrageous!

It's humble and humbling,

enough that just the ecology of the Light here

reflecting off the gypsum at sunrise

will bring you to your knees -

Let alone the ecology of the wild relations who breathe!

Jumbo Ski Resort briefing paper

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 11:32:00 +0000

Link to the briefing project I worked on. It was related to Environmental protection and assessment

I worked on this project January to April 2009 in a senior-level Environmental Studies class.

These Old Songs

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:20:00 +0000

These Old Songs.aif

Old Songs

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 16:34:00 +0000

These old songs I want to remember are an ancient doorway - an entrance to life's house where melody keys are a puzzle and perfect repetition illuminates the unlocked rooms of the mind. In ritual chant, a flood of consciousness flows almost seamlessly into the darkened corridors of the forgotten and unconscious; music is the soul's keyhole to insight. Spirit deftly sings through these songs - they're the spellings of life become animated, where swirling galaxies become the soup of seas and the backbones of DNA made spines that uphold on strings the world we get to see by dreams. Here, the incense smoke of life's flame is rippled by the breath of wind from the lips of shamans living in the eyes of animals who stalk these wild moments. These liminal moments when we sit in prayer, in trance singing the elder's songs, channeling the alchemical wisdom of ages. These songs that weave the patterned fabric that covers the hearts of every human, like a quilt. You'll hear this patterned fabric if you remember - so remember, this is where we're from! The songs that grandma sings & babies cry, that dolphins make and insects create with legs on wings, that runs the symphonies of forests and makes blaring in the silence of deserts. These songs are played in rush of blood through your own ears, almost hidden, but listen! The primordial beat of something we almost forgot; these old songs, I want to remember.

photo: rock man.

Wall

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 07:20:00 +0000

Can you only know immense suffering  after it touches personally?
Will compassion only be skin deep  until the mortars break apart everything you´ve known?
Who builds the walls between "us" and "them"?
A wall is a division.

On windy nights, my cheeks touched with the freezing frosts of horror,
 I am left stumbling and gasping at endless hate
Still warm to life’s goodwill, though growing cold by the second, and though my own hate cools, too,
 I try to catch what life remains with peace throbbing through veins.

Is it true The Wall Will Fall? Whose wall?
I wonder when will bullets echo, and finally shatter into emptiness, 
ceasing, and no longer hitting human shields carried as hardened human emotions.
What crumbles in the softness of tears?

Vulnerability is a human thing.
Every pool of blood, 
it laps at eyes and hands and feet,
but festers only in those who swear it isn't theirs.

Buddha said breathe it in:
every scream, and fear and pain,  
every ache and sob and shudder -  every mortar, every dead child.
all of this is ours to breathe in and out, released beyond the borders and walls of experience.

For each of us have these walls insde.  Each constructed by every division.
And renewed we will be, to go past these walls in ignorance laid, past the headless graves,
where concrete turns soil. Here flowers grow again
despite what they know -  despite what they saw. Between the hard places and the soft. Heart.

We don't have to try to heal the pain from these walls. The pain is too great, too deep in our viens.
But Listen! What throbs! Memory touches deep into our cells. 
Life enduring through every imprisonment, every death and every ricocheted dream. 
Because oh! how our hearts keep persisting. Know we could be free. If the wall falls.

All walls are just as high.

(image: banksy, 2005)

Poise

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 13:40:00 +0000

Poised between Heaven & Earth is life.
Humanity – pulsing like a heart at the hearth –
the sternum cage holding us in breath.
There is a better way than what we think we lack,
a way of being in service to that which we belong to.
Here, in the centre of all we know, of all we are.
Knowledge originates from a verb – honour & doing - 

An inner explosion of Awareness to follow the journey, weaving
In & Out: a thread that joins together all frames of perception & experience.
The Compass, and a Sense of Purpose are tools from within. 

Humour of sweetness; Sword of Precision; Map of Mindfulness;
and Honed practice of listening to what draws us here,

into the enormity of Heaven on Earth,
where we stand or sit or lay.
Our Mother is holding every story
of why our compass points towards reconnection with the web

we only thought we were no longer part of. 

Never Separate - only in various states of re-membering this state; embodiment,
poised in life between Heaven and Earth.

(photo: Samborek)

spider

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 10:36:00 +0000

in the world of dreams
i come to me, hanging on a thread of reality
- a spider dangling in the frame -
connected seamlessly in simple relation.
Eight legs for the eightfold path.

Cast up between heaven and hell, mountain and sky
in the centre of every duality, within and without,
I am in my own doorway
and my precious sleeping body is in bed.

The eye that sees I recognizes
my own fear, and i wake up
screaming from the spider,
and suddenly so aware of myself.

When is the last time you woke up,
unstuck from the glue of unconsciousness?

Hanging ,
I am seen so clearly and vulnerable
left exposed in the dark of bright corners
and light of hideous shadows.

Afterward, in the mirror, I see my my face,
carved in fine lines turned canyon
by all my relations.

The fabric of paradox is relational
and the confluence of merging
is emergence.

Everything that shall be, and is,
is here between us,
cast in the centre of duality,
dangling.

Too Big to Fail

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:55:00 +0000

disgracefully
we're too big to crash and yet the wall's
coming on unpredictably fast
coupled with natural capital decline
we won't last
because the cash cow is only cash
past the slaughter house
and with such a narrow focus
we're too blind to see
that to untangle this economic mess
we need a different policy
about what has value
its fiscal responsibility
to have measures of progress beyond GDP
something easy to communicate
with indicators that demonstrate
human behaviours for true wealth
to finally become non-disparagingly poor in money or health,
mental
we're masters gauging green transition
to the new solar tech position
economy
past the debt and the lack
the famine and the fat
balance THAT spread sheet
beyond the math, intangible
love economy to value the fact
that we're relations
because what is measured matters
Let this be inspiration
to align with the abundant metaphor of the sun
Run renewable run!
its death-life-death-life full circle close the loop
ride the cycles
and harness the conveyer
of the natural capital coup d' tat
flexible platform
and new lifeforms
that
grow eco-imagination
solutions for a smarter planet are navigation
to our future

we need investments
time, energy money and heart,
passion and spirit
for this state of the ark
don't skip a beat mr Bank
and private sectors should rank
natural value
its a big bang for your buck
to catalyze a green economy revolution
is not speculation or luck
with 4.3 trillion a year
to kick start humanity
past fear into the golden age
let's live to turn the page to build societal trust
clean tech, smart grid
and leave the guns to rust
no more fighting over fossil fuel we're free
for mama earth to grow us
true wealth
as a self fulfilling prophecy
if we see management of oikos as strength and what matters
drop our ego identity with what will shatter
when the bubble bursts
Because It's survival of the fitting that fits us in the systems
nested in systems
in systems

we are enough, and
we know when enough is enough
but greed says this a hard one, it's tough
a debt based economy
means enough is never enough
unless our consciousness shifts
acknowledge instant gratification does not equal happiness
multiplication of patience
is the flow of life
slow money is the economy
so slow down and enjoy delights
of this Earth's Garden,
but to enjoy it right
we have to be stewards
keep wealth going
keep money flowing
because money is energy
and stagnancy is disease
and we'll certainly, most certainly
never be free
if we don't feed the cure
which is pure
return of exchange
ease the pain
use our brains
reciprocity to gain
back each other
and trust
all relations, all roles, all hands on deck
so we can do our very best
together
humanity,
drop the vanity
thinking we're better than everyone and everything else
because when we're trying to hoard
only focused on self
is a ditch
beside the low road
with risk of sinking on lower than low.

well-off is abundant and not narrow money minded
abundance is the means and the end
so let's intend that
money be byproduct
directed by socioecological sustainability to extend
economy
after all this pseduoscience is our super power ability
so let's make adam smith proud with
endless growth
and grow life to infinity.

Humans Towards Sustainability

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:50:00 +0000

Sustainability

It's not about never consuming energy or things

truth is we must to exist

But It's the way we do it that determines

What of us in the future persists

Through society and earth changes we face

We must reduce negative aspects and impacts

That disgrace

systems which support us

Natural laws and cycles lead the way,

listen to what biologists and physicists say

Entropy, a law tells us all matter spreads

Let us then Choose wisely what actions for consumption are fed

Poison metals , co2, methane and persistent compounds

These are challenges to our systems

We need stepping stones,

dematerializations and substitutions

And to focus on flows nature gives,

maximize energy gains to live

With what's sustainable

Solar , geothermal and geogravitatonal

We can do more with less

Efficiency and specificity of consumptive patterns

to evolve our best

Human capacity

It's a truth of fascination

We are the masters to determine our destination

The solution to our questions

Strategize material wellbeing

Lets Make it the quest now

Earth stewards! Sustainable human beings!

Ancestor

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:11:00 +0000

Ancestors whisper to me,
I am on my knees. Show me.
Swept off my feet, I wept with my head held high
You, the colourful breeze swept by
and I could hear in my ears
the secrets of life in the wind,
whistling and embracing me again,
the breath of my ancestor kin.
Remind me of my birth
a dream of me on this earth
created before our time
prepared and planted
my heart, my lungs, my mindI live and dance for the seed
of what will become
flourishing in collaborative deeds,
past, future, and present ,
I am forever present
in my breath.
I want to sing with you the turtles to the sea,
gather the sands of the desert
and be a cloud nourished by the water and sun.
Ancestors,
I am dissolving into your breath, the wind, as one.
Now I dream of you, as you dreamt of me, undone,
becoming truly free.
Oh, ancestors whisper to me,
I am on my knees
Breath to wind
Tears to sea
Personify in me the trees
that grow like my hair and nails,
your sunlight eyes have not failed
to fill my heart.
Whisper to me , Whisper to me
Tell me again how you used to dig clams,
I don't remember what they taste like.
Tell me again what it was like to love.
I am not forgetting,
I am just evolving
trying to remember myself.Tell me again,
Who are we again?
I cry on my knees.
Whisper to me,
Whisper to me,
Whisper to me….
Ancestors in the breeze.

On a Moment's Notice

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 17:36:00 +0000

Inspiring words, spoken and heard
Old stories that freestyle me, tongue in cheek, rice and wheat.
Feed me, earth, we want to be free
Dreaming to be what you are, bring us back again
Full circle
way of the SUN
Club moss and tree ferns
We come from, I learn, a primitive seed
but I ask you,
how did we evolve into the greed that blinds our mind's desire?
Color me,
GMOh no oh no
Is this true, the path we go?
Off the land the water flows and into the cities the farmers follow and go
But by whose hand will the food grow?
Am I alone?
not Killing nor trashing, wasting nor smashing, nor creating any sort of do-dads
Because do dads and moms know
It's at our head that points the this time bomb gun?
Why do we think that making the bed isn't fun?
Grandma tells me in my unmade bed I'll lay
but damn, I cry!!!
These lessons I learn are hard for I
know there is only one way,
full circle, the way of the sun,
Either that or become
the void that exists in a clear cut forest.
Lessons to learn.
Fed me, free me, I am now thinking I would love to be,
Undone like the miles of genetics we think we control
Oh no
Mother earth, what is your word on this grip hold?
It couldn't possibly be that we control what took you billions of years of mastery to unfold.
Elder, tell me that this story has be already told
For I feel bold in this mystery
Awakened by the plight
and I know the day always comes after the dark cold night
To shine a new light,
Sun rise to sun set
The answer seems so simple in this circular mind set....
Full circle, I return to that
And the grip doesn't seem so strong.
But it still feels wrong.
We're at canter now, full on.
Running for the edge
Thinking science will fly usd past our broken earth an to the moon
But I am telling you another flower is in bloom
One that challenges us to embrace the bird
Don't identify with the shell
Instead listen to the bird, the one that hasn't spoken yet
but if a moment's breath is taken, can be heard.
And get to know your neighbors at that.
No way am I going to the way of the genetic patents.
I got too many years of genetic history to fall back upon...
Please, let us search our base pairs,
The answers must be in here somewhere!
We just forgot it
Harvesting and loving and struggling yes,
but at least we'll have pride on our breasts
because we have worked the land far much longer than we have ever eaten GMO
and word on the street is that changers are coming a lot faster than slow
so embrace the coming changing floods
because those masses spinning in the heavens know.
And be ready to go,
On a moments notice.

Bridge again

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 17:34:00 +0000

Why do processes of fragmentation persist 
when paradoxically all systems becomes more interconnected?
 Is it that the bridges between riverbanks, between us
come second?
 How can change go beyond restructuring,
 and towards re-conception?
 Remember that the angle and angel that lets us free 
is the power of perception.
 Freedom is to maneuver,
 and we're losing mobility everyday 
when there is a patchwork of pieces that don't fit 
Together 
we'll weather anything. 
But we must start seeing the bridges between us,
 this is the social genius of our genus. 
Homo sapien 
Grow our brains again,
 so that we're many minds  in the Mind frame, connected by intention of interconnection,
 when the bridges matter again.

Refined by Shadow

zjivkas@gmail.com (Cassandra Caroline) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 14:17:00 +0000

I want to be a better person; a better friend, worker, partner, environmental steward, child, sister and better to myself and all my relations in my world. By referring to “better”, I do not use it as a standard of comparison made up through ego or society’s cultural norms. Better is not something consumable, nor something I accomplish so I may sleep more soundly at night. I do not use better to refer to some model which I want to live up to. Rather, I use better to refer to how much I participate in all of my relations. To me, better refers to my level of presence as I am being present in my life. I visualize this as the brightness of my true self shining and illuminating my relations through my light of living.

I describe presence as a mindfulness, or focused awareness. It is to look at life with an open and nonjudgmental attention and see our darkness in order to develop insight. He suggests it is the basis of all Buddhist practice and is the key to liberation. As I show up for my jobs, school or other relationships, I am being present. In showing up, I see my presence as attentiveness to life’s expression. Further, I see it as a simple and important gift which I can give. Giving my presence is what “betters” me.

Living my intention of being present, mind and body, in all my relations, I have become increasingly aware of myself and my surroundings. Moments when I “slip” into an less-present state now appear to me more obvious, like cutting myself badly while day-dreaming during the use of a sharp knife. I see these “slip” events as indictors of my presence and also as subtle (or not so subtle!) reminders to be more present in what I am doing. With more attention, I would be less likely to cut myself and could also practice using my knife with more precision.

While this simple example is true, I use it as a metaphor to suggest the path of presence can provide an opportunity for deeper personal work. As I am alive, I have an opportunity to participate within many complex relations. Just as I have a relation working with my knife, I have relations with myself, my family, larger communities, organizations and systems, like cities or ecosystems. I see that through my participation in these relations, each provides feedback to inform how I may become better present within them. My relations are like a mirror, providing reflection so I may see myself more clearly.

As I begin to see myself more clearly, I notice my “slip” events taking specific form through inner conflicts, burdens of my emotional baggage affecting my relationships and the challenge of facing parts of myself which are unfocused “rough edges”. I call these parts of myself by many names, because they have many faces; greed, self-absorption, guilt, shame, fear, gluttony, aversion, hate, laziness, apathy, and on and on. Collectively, I refer to these parts of myself as darkness, because they seem so opposite from my light. Though, I believe this perceived duality is only an illusion, because I recognize these parts of myself as extensions of a basic lack of presence. Furthermore, when I react to the challenges of darkness from a place which is not centered, they become even more sticky, crunchy or challenging, and often spiral into intense stress in my life. This stress manifests itself through physical or mental sickness and conflict with others.

My darkness is not only a source for conflict, because I also acknowledge that with the intention of being present within them, facing these dark parts of myself are true opportunities for transformation. As I do so, I become better informed of how I can participate in my life with greater awareness. It is not my intention to cast away darkness and promote only my light-self, for this is likely impossible. I acknowledge in myself both sides of these perceived dualities, and each provides significant information to re-form myself, to unfold myself, and to explore the mysteries of my true self. By experiencing this polarity of presence within myself, I further refine my presence and walk my red-road and spiritual path. Better.

image by Joel Schmid