Gaianitas: My message to future generations

"Everything that lives is holy." --William Blake

As everyone now knows, we are in the midst of a huge global pandemic that has sent us all into isolation, and that could easily bring our house-of-cards global market economy crashing down around us, leading to--who knows what? Chaos, suffering, and madness, to be sure.  All bets are off for the future of civilization--this civilization anyway...

(For more information on this, visit the most reliable information I have yet encountered on the progress of this pandemic, its economic ramifications, and the likely effects of various policy decisions: Chris Martenson's daily update on https://www.peakprosperity.com/tag/coronavirus/)

I am 71 years old and male, meaning that I am at high risk of contracting this virus, and in the likely prospect that our medical facilities are overwhelmed, dying from it.  Fortunately, my Buddhist practice has freed me from any primordial fear of death; I am at peace with my own impermanence.

My concern is for younger generations, who may suddenly face the prospect that the futures they had planned, prepared for, and dreamt about will simply vanish, and they will be left--even if they are untouched by this virus--with the irredeemable wreckage of the only world they've ever known, and with the unimaginable and unpredictable chaos and madness that will follow in its wake.
It is for them that I am composing this message.

I should start by explaining the word in my title: "Gaianitas"  It is the Latin formation of what, in English, we might call "Gaianity."  But what the heck is "Gaianity"?

First the short answer.  I would define "Gaianity" as a functional awareness that humanity is a part of, and not apart from, nature--its biological support system--coupled with the awareness that this system--our biosphere--is a complex adaptive system that evolves according to its own, incredibly complex, self-regulatory feedback loops.

A simple metaphor for this is a computer.  A computer consists of (1) hardware--its physical foundation in metals, plastics, circuit boards, etc. (2) software--the information enabled by, and flowing through, the design of its hardware.  And information, as Gregory Bateson succinctly defined it, is "a difference that makes a difference;"  that is, a difference transmitted along a circuit that feeds back into itself, resulting in either magnifying that difference (positive feedback), diminishing or eliminating that difference (negative feedback); or some combination of the two (regulatory feedback).  A classic example of a regulatory feedback loop is a thermostat, which measures and processes information about temperature changes, in response to which it either turns on or turns off the heat, depending on whether the temperature is lower or higher than its set point. (For a good basic guide to systems and their behavior, see Donella Meadows' wonderful book, Thinking in Systems.)

Software, for a computer, consists of two levels: the operating system, and applications.  Without the operating system, of course, no applications will run. But when the energy source is cut by unplugging it, the whole system shuts down, and all you have left is the hardware.

Now consider our planet. Its "hardware" consists of four essential ingredients that were classically labeled as "elements" (though not in the modern, chemical understanding of that word):  Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.  It turns out, moreover, that our ancestors, while ignorant of modern molecular chemistry as we now understand it, were very wise in discerning that these four "elements" are also the four essential requirements for life:  Fire (an energy source, usually the sun); Air (containing stored solar energy in the form of free oxygen--a highly reactive gas, which we breathe to power our metabolism); Water (which needs to be in liquid form to be useful to living organisms, meaning that it is only useful within a specific temperature range); and Earth (the mineral substrate from which living organisms construct their bodies). But unlike computers, living organisms are self-organizing complex adaptive systems--an important concept which we will revisit further on.

When biochemist James Lovelock and his colleague, microbiologist Lynn Margulis developed Gaia theory back in the late 1970s, they applied systems theory to Lovelock's question: Why is our global atmosphere in a far-from-equilibrium state (with free oxygen in abundance) while the atmospheres of all the other planets are in chemical equilibrium (for example, Mars and Venus both have 95% carbon dioxide--the natural "resting state" of oxygen molecules, bound to carbon), and almost zero free oxygen.

And once he had stated this question clearly, Lovelock immediately recognized the answer: life itself was constantly interacting with, and remixing, our atmosphere, resulting in our current far-from equilibrium state (with 21% oxygen and only trace amounts of CO2), while most of the carbon is sequestered in living organisms, oceans, and topsoil. Here, in brief is the way Gaia works:

1. Fire (energy) comes from the sun, of course, where plants harvest it to photosynthesize, thereby creating the simple sugars (effectively storage batteries of solar energy) that drive the metabolic synthesis of carbon and other essential elements into the growing structures of the plants themselves. As they do so, these plants symbiotically create diverse niches for many other organisms, from bacteria to insects to other plants and animals. Life propagates the conditions that sustain more, and more diverse life.
 
2. Earth (minerals) Without plants, there would be no animals, and without insects, worms, and microbes to process the minerals in the soil, there would be no plants either. Life propagates the conditions that sustain more, and more diverse life.

3. Water in its liquid form is essential to all life, while living organisms and ecosystems in turn store and filter water. Without life, there would be no fresh water on the planet--and there might not be any oceans either. So life likewise drives the water cycle.

4. Air. As plants draw in CO2 from the atmosphere for photosynthesis, they separate the carbon to use in their own bodies, and return the excess oxygen back to the atmosphere as O2. This oxygen has  high potential energy--is highly reactive (as you know if you strike a match--for the flame is nothing more than an explosive oxidization reaction), and so this energy, along with plant matter, drives the metabolism of all animal life. (That is why we breathe).  And when we breathe, we take in oxygen and return CO2 to the atmosphere, making it available to plants. Without plants, we would not be able to breathe--and without us animals, plants would eventually run short of atmospheric carbon.
Once again, life sustains life.

Without life, he found, the Earth would have an atmosphere much like Mars or Venus (95% CO2) with an average surface temperature of 280 degrees F and no liquid water. In other words, a hot, hostile world like Venus.  But with life busy sequestering excess carbon, splitting CO2 into carbon for complex structural molecules like lignin (i.e. wood) and releasing excess O2 into the atmosphere, we have what we have: a shimmering, blue, watery planet hospitable to life.

Although few people recognized it at the time, this insight changed everything. Until that moment, the default assumption among scientists worldwide had been the "Goldilocks theory"--that life arose on our planet because we were lucky; it was just far enough from the sun for water to remain at a liquid state, with a naturally oxygenated atmosphere, and just enough solar radiation for photosynthesis, and so forth. Not too hot, not too cold.

But Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis painted an entirely different picture: life was not a passive passenger on a hospitable planet as everyone thought. Rather, once it got started (and we still have no idea how), life created, and cybernetically regulates, the atmosphere, oceans, and land surface to make them all increasingly hospitable to the propagation of life.

After it was published and developed further, Lovelock's Gaia theory encountered hostility from mainstream scientists, on one hand, and religious (especially Christian) communities on the other. Scientists were appalled by his unapologetic willingness to bridge the cultural divide between science and myth by using a mythic name "Gaia" for a scientific hypothesis. This was heresy in their eyes--an attack on the prevailing reductionist paradigm, and a dangerously mushbrained (in their view) conflation of evolutionary biology and wishful thinking about an all-nurturing mythic "Earth Goddess." The biosphere, they insist, could not have any agenda overall--it could not "regulate" anything. It simply evolves in response to blind forces like everything else.

The religious folk, of course, were equally appalled. The idea that the Earth was alive and somehow sacred was, in their view, a dangerous reversion to paganism, to nature worship, which must be vigorously discredited.  At the same time, the Gaia meme was enthusiastically (and uncritically) embraced by new age hippies in California, already predisposed to worship any nature goddess they could find.  And environmentalists jumped on board, quite naturally, since it gave them another rhetorical tool in their chest for fighting back against corporate polluters and despoilers.

The mass media, meanwhile, initially seized upon the connotative richness of the concept with no awareness of the science behind it. Even today, mail-order businesses like Gaia (formerly "Gaiam") market upscale cosmetics, health care products, and fashions to green-minded suburbanites...  But by and large, the idea of "Gaia" has disappeared from the screen of public consciousness altogether--not because it is invalid, but simply because most people, living in a mindset formed by agro-industrial assumptions about "man" vs "nature" (or "economy" vs "ecology") fail to grasp its significance.

At the same time, serious Earth Systems Scientists and exoplanet-seeking astronomers have completely adopted Lovelock's theory--they just call it "Earth Systems Science" rather than "Gaia."  So why do I cling to this concept, which seems to have been only a very brief blip on our cultural radar, a passing fad?

The answer can be summed up in a small book by British philosopher Mary  Midgley entitled Gaia: the Next Big Idea. (This book is now out of print--another passing blip on our cultural radar screen!)
Midgley's argument was that really big ideas--culturally transformative ideas--take a long time to germinate, like dormant seeds in inhospitable conditions, because they fundamentally subvert the dominant cultural paradigm--the set of presuppositions that runs so deep in our cultural consciousness that the vast majority are unaware of them.  And these presuppositions are encoded, ironically, in the word "nature."

For the vast majority of us, the word "nature" is automatically conceived in antithesis to "humanity."  Even Bill McKibben, one of the most astute environmental thinkers and warriors I know, entitled his first book The End of Nature--by which he refers to those parts of the world still unaffected by a human presence. His argument was that every square inch of the biosphere has now been affected, usually for the worse, by human civilization.

On the other hand, most people, if asked, will accept the obvious--that we are a part of nature; that like every other living organism, we breathe, drink water, and eat food made from other living organisms. But we still routinely talk about "nature" as something "out there," away from ourselves and our society. For developers and economists, "nature" is nothing but a "resource" waiting to be transformed into commodities for market; for environmentalists and recreational enthusiasts, "nature" is a refuge from civilization--somewhere "outdoors" where you drive to, pull on you hiking boots, and "get away from it all." And for scientists, "nature" is an object of study at the other end of their microscopes.

And yet no indigenous, tribal, nomadic, or horticultural society that I know of even has a word for "nature" as distinct from "humanity."  Despite their vast differences in mythology and customs, these cultures share a surprisingly common set of assumptions. They see the world as "all their relations" and their communities as embedded in this sacred world, which includes not only the plants and animals they depend on for their survival, but also the unseen forces that influence their lives and are personified as deities, and their ancestors watching over them. But "nature" as something outside of themselves is completely alien to their worldview.

But for us, the distinction between "man" (subject) and "nature" (object) is axiomatic, going right back to the dawn of the agricultural revolution, when a sharp distinction arose between cultivated and "wild" landscapes. The Wild--the area beyond the pale of cultivated (monocultural) lands, became the adversary--the zone of danger (from neighboring tribes, or from wild animals and agricultural pests).
But it was also the zone of opportunity, since it could be "subdued" and transformed into cultivated land.  Hence the injunction from the Hebrew God in the Genesis creation story: "Fill the earth and subdue it."  (It is noteworthy also that these Hebrew texts have now been dated to the dawn of the Agricultural revolution!)

The Gaia concept was quickly squelched from public consciousness, I would suggest, because it is radically transgressive: it subverts this basic "man/nature" dichotomy, which is the theoretical foundation of our agro-industrial civilization.  In his original books, Lovelock pretty much ignores humanity altogether, other than dismissing us as a temporary "plague" upon the planet.  But some of his disciples--particularly Stewart Brand in California, and thereafter Bill Mollison in Australia--went a lot further. In his 1970 Whole Earth Catalog, Brand coined the slogan of what was then known as the "whole earth" movement, which in turn has evolved into the Gaia movement: "We are as gods, and may as well get good at it." 

Mollison, who cited Lovelock's Gaia Theory as his primary inspiration for his Permaculture idea, was also influenced by Brand, whom he took at his word, by developing his system of landscape and human habitat design based on the Gaian consiousness that humanity is a part of nature, but a part which has gained  unprecedented power over the whole, and therefore has the responsibility to create a symbiotic, rather than parasitic relationship with our biological support system if we are to survive. He then undertook to show us how--and this was the beginning of the worldwide Permaculture movement.

 Gaian theory was eclipsed by the passage of time and the dominance of industrial consumerism (for which I have coined the term "Glomart"), firmly predicated as that is on the  (illusory) man/nature dichotomy. But Glomart--the order of money--runs on a set of premises or production rules that is the polar opposite of Gaia:

1. Glomart: More is always better/Gaia: Enough is enough.
2. Glomart: You are what you own/Gaia: You are what you do.
3. Glomart: Nothing has value until it has a price/Gaia: value is a function of interrelatedness.
4. Glomart: The bottom line is the bottom line/Gaia: Life itself is what matters, from one generation to the next.

Models and theories are of interest only to scientists and intellectuals; the rest of the world is in desperate need of something practical--a way to survive the coming apocalyptic collapse of global industrial civilization, and to rebuild a new civilization from scratch, based on a more accurate understanding of our relation to Gaia, the complex adaptive system that is our biological support system.  To achieve its transformative potential, Gaian theory needed a coherently formulated Gaian praxis to go along with it.  And thanks to Bill Mollison, David Holmgren, and all their disciples worldwide, this has happened. Permaculture is the praxis, based on Gaia theory, that may yet spawn a new global culture that is symbiotic with, rather than parasitic upon, Gaia herself. And it is a transformation in which we can all participate, starting in our own backyards.  If I die of the current plague, this is the message I hope to leave with any or all future generations who see these words:

Everything that lives is holy, and life itself creates, sustains, and propagates the conditions that further support and propagate life.  So get busy today, growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness.  Glomart (our global market economy) is dying; long live Gaia!

Idiot Wind

 "Idiot wind

Blowing through the buttons of our coats

Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind
Blowing through the dust upon our shelves
We’re idiots, babe
It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves"

--Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan's lyrics have a haunting way of coming back in new contexts that give them whole new shades of meaning. When he wrote this scorching ballad back in 1975, around the time of his heart-wrenching divorce from Sara, the love of his life, it was little more than an inspired scream of rage from a man who had just lost his wife. And--as always with Dylan--the lyrics touched on the broader cultural implications of this painful marital breakup--including (then and now) the general spread of idiocy throughout our culture--"Idiot Wind...blowing like a circle around my skull/From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol..." 

But today it has yet another, rather grim meaning for us all, here in the Northwest. My wife and I spent the past long weekend--and had intended to spend the rest of the week, at our time share on the Oregon Coast.  The first three days and two nights had been, as usual, spectacular, with crystalline blue skies over the Pacific Ocean right outside our window, with distant white caps, a fog bank along the horizon, pelicans and other sea birds soaring gracefully here and there, and--if we were lucky--the occasional spout of a migrating whale.

But then, in the middle of the night, the wind changed, and a fierce, hot easterly wind swept from the high desert across the Cascades, the Valley, and the Coastal Range, meeting up with other coastal winds from the north, all fanning the flames of wildfires into raging infernos and bringing a pall of reddish smoke and cinders over our whole region. We awoke in darkness, the power knocked out by falling trees and woody debris everywhere--but then, despite the sunrise, the darkness got even darker, as the sky turned to a lurid red. Our coastal Heaven-on-Earth had turned hellish overnight, and so we packed up and left, heading south since our normal northern route through Lincoln City had already been blocked by downed trees and another wildfire. When we turned East at Newport on Highway 20, we saw that the smoky reddish-yellow sky cast a pall over the entire Willamette Valley, due to wildfires raging out of control and sending panicking residents fleeing from their homes, farms, and villages up through the Santiam Canyon. Right now, I sit in my suburban home at the south end of Salem, hoping that the fires surging from the mountains to the valley stop short of our city.

Idiot wind, indeed.  This easterly wind, bringing desert heat and blowing wildfires up into conflagrations, has been called a "once in a century" weather event.  But in this age of accelerating climate chaos worldwide, "once in a century" has come to mean "every few years." So it is also for "record" floods throughout the midwest, for untimely and destructive monsoon rains in India and South Asia, for European and Alaskan heat waves, and of course for unprecedented wildfires not only here, but in Australia, California, Washington, British Columbia, Alaska, the Amazon, and elsewhere...not to mention hurricanes in the Caribbean, breaking new records annually for their frequency and ferocity. Indeed, "it's a wonder that we still know how to breathe..."

Probing a little deeper, it is interesting to note that the word "idiot" in ancient Greek did not simply mean "a stupid person" as we use it today, but specifically, it referred to a private person (idios)--one who was interested only in himself, and did not engage with, nor care about, anyone else. For the Greeks, whose definition of man as a "political animal" was intended as a compliment, not an insult, there was nothing worse than withdrawing from engagement with the polis, the (democratic) community, and becoming entirely self-absorbed and self-interested.  Such a person was, indeed, stupid, as far as they were concerned.

Yet today, we have created a culture of idiots, each watching their own TV news channel (with Fox being by far the most idiotic of the group) and reading their own online news, specifically filtered by algorithms to reflect their own particular interests and biases.  And so people of different political affiliations often inhabit different universes altogether, each of which is equally "real" to them--because they don't even talk, much less listen, to anyone other than people like themselves.

One of the worst consequences of this general spread of idiocy--of self-absorption and susceptibility to partisan propaganda and media manipulation--is the politicization of science. This has been most recently evident in the (thoroughly idiotic) refusal of many people to wear masks or respect social distancing, on the grounds that it "violates their constitutional rights" even though it is nothing but a sensible public safety measure, universally prescribed by epidemiologists worldwide who know the potential consequences of a new and deadly virus which spreads rapidly, asymptomatically, and exponentially through aerosols we breathe. This means that all of us are potential carriers of the virus, whether we know it or not.

But getting back to the wildfires that have turned our sky a pale, sickly yellow, with fine cinders floating down in all directions and an acrid, smoky odor--this "idiot wind" has been blowing across our country, fanned by Republicans with the lazy complicity of Democrats, ever since 1988, when our foremost climatologist, NASA space scientist James Hansen,  testified before Congress about the imminent dangers of fossil fuel-based carbon emissions accumulating in our atmosphere. Since then, the Oil industry (ExxonMobil in particular, but all the others as well) has funded a widespread misinformation campaign, sowing public doubts about the reality and/or the implications of CO2-based climate change, while Republicans undertook a ferocious campaign of denial, even smearing senior climate scientists like Michael Mann. As a direct result, a total of 32 years have elapsed since Hansen's dire warning to Congress, and despite a vast array of confirming evidence from all over the world, our nation has done next to nothing to reduce our carbon emissions, and we still have a pig-headed climate denier in the White House who has withdrawn the US from the hard-won Paris Agreement--the first of many such attempts to actually result in an international treaty to cut global emissions--and he has given the oil, gas, and coal industries everything they ever wanted.

Meanwhile, glaciers worldwide continue to recede at faster and faster rates, both poles are melting rapidly, sea level is rising, wildfires are sweeping the world, coral reefs are vanishing due to warmer ocean waters, permafrosts many thousands of years old are melting and releasing huge reserves of methane (a greenhouse gas 72 to 100 times more potent in trapping infrared heat than CO2), and catastrophic weather events, from devastating hurricanes and tornadoes to record-breaking floods to long-lasting droughts and ferocious wildfires on every continent (except Antarctica)--all grow worse year by year.

And so, the Idiot Wind continues to howl and blow around the world and inside our skulls...or to quote another dark Dylan song, "Something is burning, baby, are you aware?"

Letter to Kassi

Kassi is a vibrant and enthusiastic young woman in her twenties whom I first met when I co-taught a free course offered by the Marion Polk Food Share called "From Seed to Supper."  (At the time, I was a trainee in the Master Gardeners program, and knew very little about gardening, so my co-teacher, Victoria--another bright and talented young Twenty-something--did most of the teaching.) The following year, Kassi enrolled in the Master Gardener program herself (where she excelled) and then--following my advice--she enrolled in Andrew Millison's Permaculture Design Certificate course at Oregon State (which I had taken the previous fall), and again she excelled.  More recently, during the pandemic, she has married her long-time boyfriend, and together they have assembled a thriving Permaculture garden.

 The following letter is an attempt to leave behind a legacy that could inspire Kassi and other like-minded young people.

Dear Kassi,

How are you and your husband doing these days? When you get the chance, I would love to hear more about your Permaculture garden, and what you are learning from it.

But the deeper reason I am reaching out is this.  As you well know, I am 70 now, and though I'm currently in excellent health, I am at a stage in life where I have one of two things to look forward to: either death, or slow decrepitude and death. You, by contrast, are just beginning your adult life, and while I harbor great hopes for you, I also have great fears for the world that my generation is leaving behind for you. So I wish to channel these hopes and fears alike into some thoughts to share with you, such that, if I die tomorrow (or 20 years from now), these thoughts might help guide you through the encroaching chaos to find your path as a healing agent for our planet.  For from the day I met you, I saw this great potential in you.

I will not waste your time recounting all the threats you and your generation are facing now, and will face in the future--they are obvious to any careful observer. Instead, I would like to share an aspiration I will never live to fulfill, but which might inspire you as well, as you pursue your own path through the darkening times to come.

Imagine, then, a Dharma Gaia Practice Center, here in Salem. This would be on a piece of land, in reasonable proximity to the city, with, say, 1-3 acres on it. (It could, of course, be more or less). 

The goal of such a center (which may or may not have a residential core of people for whom it is home) would be to cultivate a synthesis of vertical and horizontal healing modalities, for ourselves, our community, and our planet. It would be, ideally, replicable, based on a core design that could be transplanted anywhere else, with local variations. Here are some possible components of such a center:

I. HORIZONTAL HEALING (Garden, Community, and Planet)

1. A Permaculture Demonstration Garden, or living laboratory, for creating, testing, and refining Permaculture design techniques, in accordance with the pre-existent climate, topography, and soil types and conditions of the chosen site. For this reason, a residential core group of one or more couples (like yourselves) would be ideal.

2. Periodic Courses and Workshops in any and all aspects of Permaculture Design, bringing in guest instructors when and where possible, to provide ongoing education to the community.

VERTICAL HEALING of body, mind, and spirit:

1. Periodic workshops in holistic healing modalities, such as yoga, massage, and acupuncture.

2. Regular meditation and study sessions, open to anyone interested, to cultivate mindfulness, as rooted in my tenfold Dharma Gaia mantra: 

    a. Breathe, Observe, Let Go; [Reclaiming the moment from distraction]

    b. Be well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch;  [A generic daily agenda]

    c. Learn, Teach, Heal, Create.  [Revisiting our life agenda]

INTEGRATING VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL HEALING:

3. Satyagraha. In the event of encroaching tyranny and repression from corporate fascists and continued depredations of our living planet, training workshops in the three branches of Satyagraha, or nonviolent nocooperation with evil): 

   a. Satya:  Speaking truth to power, mindfully, strategically, and relentlessly. Finding skillful means to expose tyranny, lies, and repression wherever they arise, and to nurture communities of nonviolent resistance.

  b. Ahimsa: Training workshops, as necessary, on self-purification and nonviolent civil disobedience to prevent tyranny and protect its victims--mindfully, strategically, and relentlessly.

  c. Swaraj: Cultivating local self-reliance at the personal, community, and regional level by propagating Permaculture theory and practice as effectively as possible, in order to plant the seeds of a new, symbiotic Gaian culture to displace the dying, parasitic Glomart culture.

This, then, is my dream in a nutshell.  As I mentioned, I am probably too old, and certainly lack both the skills and the resources, to implement it myself.  But I am passing it on to you to inspire you, in your own life path, to pursue any or all aspects of such a goal for your own generation, as you inherit this distressed planet from my generation.

Much love,

Tom 

Downward Spiral

All the news is bad.

A morally bankrupt, feckless, vindictive, delusional fascist has six more months in the White House (at least!) before we have our only remaining legally santioned way of getting rid of him: election and inauguration of a new president. And the Idiot is getting more desperate, more crazy, by the day, deploying shady, unidentified heavily armed federal storm troopers to Portland and other major cities, against the will of their mayors and state governors, to "dominate" protesters by teargas, flash grenades, "nonlethal" rubber bullets, and nightsticks--thus provoking further confrontation and outrage. Murderous violence is sure to follow...a horrific civil war of attrition as the worst, most choleric of both sides take up arms and battle it out in the streets, with no end in sight...

Meanwhile, the Coronavirus pandemic rages exponentially and unstoppably, overwhelming hospitals and sentencing tens of thousands of Americans of all ages to an early, horrible, lonely death, with their loved ones unable to come anywhere near them. And the Idiot in charge is either in total denial about this, smearing and discrediting the experts like Anthony Fauci, or else he moronically blames the rising statistics on "too much testing."

And meanwhile, hurricane season has already arrived in Texas, promising mayhem, and the wildfire season will not be far behind--both exacerbated by accelerating climate disruption from fossil fuels (another, longer-term grim reality denied and exacerbated by the Idiot). Floods, drought, and famine are spreading worldwide, creating a tsunami of desperate refugees, met--as usual--by battening up the hatches in the industrialized world, and by the rise of more virulent fascists, exploiting panic, racism, and aggressive nationalism for their own nefarious purposes.

And the Idiot in Charge is also following the time-honored advice to tyrants: "Busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels"--by accelerating hostile confrontation with China (whose own new fascist leader is only too happy to reciprocate) thus threatening a vast global trade network and risking the outbreak of hostilities, which could easily trigger World War III--an unimaginable global holocaust, sucking the US, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, India, and Pakistan into a nuclear maelstrom that will leave few if any survivors.

Meanwhile, as the rest of the world steadily and cautiously reduces the infections and moves beyond the pandemic, the US wallows in panic and desperation as the cases continue to rise exponentially, with no end in sight. We are now a pariah nation, banned from traveling to the rest of the world, left to stew in our own follies and hatreds. And if the election does not go well (or is called off for some convenient "national emergency" that The Idiot dreams up in his fevered fantasies of domination), we will become a failed state--due to incremental disintegration of our economy, our political institutions, our educational institutions, our communities, into a maelstrom of hunger, homelessness, desperation, crime, hatreds, local militias, and internecine violence, as local warlords displace elected officials...Indeed, as an article I read this morning laconically observes, 2020, with all its current horrors, may soon come to be looked back upon with nostalgia as "the good old days."

How do we cope with this accelerating horror all around us?

Breathe. Observe. Let Go.  The present is all there is; the past is gone, and the future hasn't happened yet...

Both past and future are simply mental formations--intellectual constructs we have devised, either to shape and give meaning to our individual or collective memories, or to our hopes and--especially now--our fears. Only the present moment actually exists.  Take refuge there.

Be Well. Do Good Work. Keep in Touch. While letting go of attachment to outcomes, do something today that increases your personal health, competence, and resilience. Tend to your garden, and make plans for the coming season.  The more food we grow ourselves, the less dependent we will be on a supply chain that is already strained, and soon may break down.  Take care of others--your spouse, your children and grandchildren, your friends, and--to the extent you can--those in your community who are more needy and desperate than you.

Learn. Teach. Heal. Create.  Make these your standing goals in life.  To learn new skills, new ideas (especially Permaculture and systems thinking) and new ways of doing things--whatever those around you are in a good position to teach you, take time to learn it. If nobody is around, try instructional videoclips on YouTube, or books.  Make learning something useful, interesting, or inspiring part of every day's agenda.  Teach what you know to others, whenever the occasion arises. Be a healing presence, avoiding toxic contention (about politics in particular) by being prepared, at any time you encounter someone whose political views are anathema to your own, to "agree to disagree" and move on to other topics. And be there as well, of course, for others in distress--whether family, friends, or strangers, offering empathy and assistance in whatever ways you can.

Finally, exercise your creativity whenever possible, whether to solve a problem in a garden, make good use of something you would otherwise throw away, or simply write a story, draw a picture, or play (or compose) a song. Or draw up a plan or create an organization to achieve goals that exceed your personal power.

So this is my gift to the world, a gift I hope will outlive me: a simple mantra for choosing love over fear, whenever the choice arises:

1. Reclaiming the Moment: Breathe, Observe, Let Go.
2. Reclaiming the Day: Be well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch.
3. Sustaining (your own and others') Life:  Learn, Teach, Heal, Create.

Independence Day

The following are a string of posts that I offered to my local community on NextDoor, the neighborhood social networking app, over the Fourth of July Weekend this year.

 I. The Declaration.

The Declaration of Independence is not only a historical document; it is our national charter--that which defines us as Americans. Without it, we would be just another tribal, idiotic nation-state. Whereas all other nation states are defined merely by territory, shared history, and ethnicity, ours alone is rooted in a Logos--a universal idea, that transcends territory, shared history, AND ethnicity. So let;s take a look at the core passage of the Declaration, which articulates its main thesis:
"WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL..." This is a claim of value, not a claim of "fact." We know, of course, that we vary widely in talents and abilities. So the authors (Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Rush) go on immediately to define what THEY mean by ":equal." "THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS." Note that they say "All men" (and in the 18th Century usage, "men" meant "humans"--not just males). They also did not say "All Americans,,," They were not writing a nationalistic screed, but a universal philosophical claim--that applies to everyone on the planet. "THAT TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS, GOVERNMENTS ARE INSTITUTED AMONG MEN, DERIVING THEIR JUST POWER FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED." This is, in my view, the most important sentence in the whole document, because here they set forth the theory of government, for which all before it is their major premise, and all that follows derives from it. So let;s parse it: 1. "To secure these rights..."--that is, the universal, inalienable rights that all people (regardless of ethnicity, gender, or nationality) have to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 2. "...Governments are instituted among men deriving their just power from the consent of the governed." This is the sole legitimate purpose of government--to secure the rights of all people to life, liberty,.and the pursuit of happiness. And their power is "just" only if it is based on the "consent of the governed"--that is, the voting and active participation of the population. And this alone, and above all, is worth celebrating. It is who we aspire to be, if we are truly to call ourselves "Americans."

II. Nationalism vs. Patriotism

Thomas Ellis

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Woodmansee Park

Most people confuse nationalism with patriotism, in part because, in most countries, they are indistinguishable. But we are an exception. Nationalism is simply tribalism writ large. And there is nothing dignified about tribalism--it is what we have in common with all the other apes; the need to identify with a "leader" and with one's own clan, and demonize and/or kill everyone outside of your tribe as an enemy. In that respect, nationalism is no different, in essence, from being a football fan--except that rather than simply "beating" the other team, you want to kill them or subjugate them. This is what drove the Nazis to subjugate Europe and kill all who opposed them; it is what drove Stalin to annex the Baltic states and subjugate Eastern European countries; it is what drove the Chinese to trample Tibet. And what drove Bush to invade Iraq as well--in direct opposition to the UN Charter (which we ourselves sponsored, back when we still had the integrity of our founding principles) So that is nationalism, for which I have nothing good to say. Tribalism is, unfortunately, an innate tendency for our species, as Dr. E. O. Wilson, the Harvard biologist, has often pointed out. But it CAN be transcended. It just takes some thinking--some introspection. However, all the greatest and wisest people of our history throughout the world have encouraged us to transcend petty identification with our own tribe--including Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, St. Francis, and even the Founders of our country--especially the author (Jefferson) and editors (Franklin, Adams, and Rush) of our glorious Declaration. For us, this means that true patriotism is different from nationalism. It consists in adherence, not to "the flag" nor to "Americanism" but to the universal founding principles that brought together 13 very different and often quarrelsome British colonies to lend their unanimous support. Otherwise, patriotism is no better than nationalism--and as the 18th Century British savant Samuel Johnson wisely said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

III. An Asymptotic Goal

The Declaration sets forth an asymptotic goal, not a statement of "reality." "Asymptotic" is a word from mathematics that refers to a curve that starts horizontal, but then curves upward to the vertical axis gradually, such that it constantly draws closer to the vertical axis, without ever fully reaching it. So an asymptotic goal can be defined as a goal for which one constantly strives, but can never fully achieve. Once such an ideal is defined, our policy decisions and/or collective behavior, whether in domestic or foreign policy, can be evaluated only by whether it draws us closer to that goal, or farther away from it. So again, the asymptotic goal articulated in the Declaration is that of a government which exists to secure the inalienable rights of all people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and which derives its "just power" (i.e. legitimate authority, based on legally defined constraints) from the "consent of the governed" (expressed by voting and free expression of ideas). And the Constitution was a carefully crafted, intensely debated and discussed, blueprint for a government that pursued this goal. It had, built into it, a mechanism for its own evolution with the times (i.e. the Amendments). So nothing in the original Constitution is set in stone, but only the asymptotic goal which the Constitution was designed to implement and pursue--a system that balances unity and autonomy, and exists to secure our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. From the start, the reality on the ground fell far short of this goal, as we all know--the two most egregious examples being the intergenerational crime against humanity that was the institution of slavery, and the genocidal subjugation of the native peoples. And of course, the entrenched patriarchy that barred women from any meaningful participation in the public sphere. But as time has gone on, not smoothly, but with frequent setbacks and conflict, we have edged closer to that asymptotic goal--through emancipation of the slaves, women's suffrage, the New Deal, the Civil Rights Movement, the environmental movement, et al. But we are currently, of course, in a major setback, due to corporate domination, the extreme upward concentration of wealth, the rapid erosion of the middle class, and the consequent resurgence of toxic nationalism and racism. Still, as long as we keep our eyes focused on this adamantine, asymptotic goal of a government whose purpose is to secure the rights of all human beings to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, we can recover, not only from the pandemic, but from the toxic resurgence of racism and partisan tribalism and rancor that is afflicting us today.

IV. Self-Evident Truths

Now, to go a little deeper, I would like to consider the notion of "Self-evident truths." A lot of contemporary "postmodern" thinkers scoff at the idea that there even is such a thing. Current postmodern dogma holds that abstract, generalized language can refer only to itself in an infinite regress. (Ironically, they consider this claim to be a "self-evident truth" since it can be neither proven nor disproven!) I beg to differ. While it is entirely true that human equality is a claim of value, rather than a claim of fact, and that there is no such thing as "natural rights" (a concept dear to 18th Century thinkers), I take my viewpoint from Aristotle's claim that "Man (Anthropos) is a political animal"--that is, that the values that sustain us arise from our participation in a community--and hence, communication. And again, modern biologists like E.O. Wilson would agree that we are quintessentially social and political animals. That is both our greatest weakness (tribalism) and our greatest strength (the ability to collaborate on complex tasks). So whence do these "rights" arise (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness)? I would argue, quite simply, that people are happier when they are treated with dignity by others, rather than being devalued or oppressed. So a system of government that is based on an assertion of human equality and basic, universal rights will likely conduce to a stronger, more resilient civil society than one in which one part of the population is free to bully and devalue another. And this, to me, is self-evident. As the Dalai Lama constantly reminds us, "Everyone wants love and happiness, and wishes to avoid fear and suffering." And this is why I am a democrat (with a small "d"--not referring to a political party, but to a belief in democracy) rather than an autocrat or a fascist.

20 hr ago

The Promised End

In these desperate days, when the Coronavirus pandemic is surging out of control in our country, and we have no leadership at all--or even worse, a pernicious "leader" in utter denial about the reality of what we are facing, who encourages irresponsible behavior from his cult followers--in such times, we all would do well to start facing what we all prefer to avoid--our own, inevitable death. I have not written about this topic so far in this blog, but I'll see what I can do, here, to make some sense of the great mystery facing us all, whether sooner or later.

At a purely intellectual level, of course, it is quite easy to embrace the idea of Impermanence--the idea that everything in the universe is a space-time event with a beginning, middle, and end, including our own lives. But at a deeper emotional level, we resist this idea, in large part because, as living organisms, we have the same basic vested interest as every other living organism, from bacteria on up: to keep on keepin' on; to eat, survive, and reproduce.  And for those (like myself) who are fated by circumstance not to reproduce biologically, we (or at least I) do my best to reproduce myself within the sphere of information and ideas--by writing, or by finding ways to propagate Gaian thinking and its practical manifestation in Permaculture. This is why I felt so gratified, so fulfilled, yesterday morning when my interview with Andrew Millison, my Permaculture teacher at OSU, aired on KMUZ radio here in Salem. I was "reproducing" myself in effect, broadcasting seeds of information out into the public sphere.  And it is a lot easier, I find, to face mortality, when we feel we have accomplished a purpose in life that is unique to us, that carries the stamp of our identity into a future we will never know firsthand.

Still, the big question arises: what will become of this "I," this keenly felt sense of unique identity, looking out from behind my eyes, after I die? After, that is, these same eyes are simply dull, gelatinous blobs floating in an inert skull that serve as tasty morsels for maggots and nematodes? Will this "I" persist in any form whatsoever, or will it simply evaporate as an abstract mental formation, in the same way that all the information in a computer evaporates if the system shuts down, and if its components are scattered to the four winds?

Of course I don't know the answer. Nor does anyone else, despite what they may passionately believe. This is why self-serving religious ideologies have such a tenacious hold on so many of us. If we can find a community who reinforces a belief system, (along with the threat of horrific sanctions for "nonbelievers" like "eternal hellfire") it acts as a hedge against the yawning uncertainty, that "cloud of unknowing."  A quick scan of Afterlife mythologies throughout the world shows that they have practically nothing in common (very much unlike the core ethical teachings of the world's religious traditions, which are virtually identical). This diversity of beliefs suggests that these myths are all motivated, above all, by a need to believe, a way of fending off fear, doubt, and uncertainty.  It stands to reason that our unique, carefully nurtured concept of self--that thinking being residing somewhere behind our eyes--simply recoils from any idea or notion of its own extinction.

So what is that mysterious "self" that we all so carefully conceptualize and will do anything to protect?  A number of Buddhist contemplative practices encourage us to look for it, somewhere in our bodies, knowing that such a quest is futile. The conclusion of the deepest of these teachings is that the separate "self" is illusory; a mere mental formation, a kind of moire pattern of interference, caused by innumerable, converging flows of information from our past, from our bodies, and from our world. Yet it is a lived experience for all of us, all the time.

So again, what will happen to this me-ness, this unique point of view on the world, with its thoughts, feelings, perceptions, memories, intentions, dreams, and fantasies--when its platform--our body--is extinguished? Will it just wink out, and that's that?  Quite possibly. A few years back, I was put under general anesthesia briefly during a colonoscopy. When I awoke, it was as if the hour or so when they were operating simply did not exist: as if the moment before I fell under the anaesthesia came immediately before the moment I awoke from it. The interval when I was "out" was...nonexistent.

On the other hand, back when I was young and in my second year of graduate school, I experienced a profound "awakening of faith" after a night of insomnia (wallowing in self-pity and existential anguish because my housemate and best friend had once again seduced a woman we both were interested in, and had spent the night at her place). I construed this "awakening"  in Christian language--the Prayer of Jesus--a kind of deep acceptance and letting go--a "Thy Will be done" moment, and I thought at the time that I had somehow embraced Christianity.  But in my subsequent efforts to make sense of this moment of awakening, I discovered that the language of Zen Buddhism made just as much sense to me as the language of Christianity.  But however vain, laughable, and maudlin my circumstances were (at least in retrospect), my "awakening of faith" was a genuine turning point in my life. I felt a deep, pervasive sense of peace and equanimity, an unshakeable trust in God, a sense of the "rightness" of everything.

That very afternoon, my friend (with whom I had reconciled, due to my new "awakened" mind of compassion and forgiveness) and I were bicycling to visit friends across town, when we came to a fairly busy intersection from a residential street.  Being young and reckless, we simply kept pedaling out across the main road, ignoring the stop sign--when a car came roaring around the bend to our right and was on the verge of hitting us.

At that moment, which is firmly etched on my memory, I clearly recall a kind of bifurcation of my identity.  My body--my physical self--went into panic mode (like any other animal), adrenalin pumping, as I firmly gripped the handlebars and pedaled furiously to avoid the oncoming car.  But all the while, my blissful, awakened mind seemed to float above the scene, looking down with amused compassion as my body lurched into action. At that moment, I saw clearly that it did not matter if I lived or died; that my mind (or soul or spirit--whatever) transcended life and death altogether. This was as deep, compelling, and trustworthy experience as any I had ever had; I saw clearly that life and death were both illusory. I had a vivid sense of continuity, right across the threshold of death, and was deeply at peace.

Since that day, I have never had a primordial fear of death--the kind of choking anxiety that many I know have about it, so that even talking about it makes them uncomfortable. The feeling I had at that crystalline moment was entirely trustworthy, and still is, when I revisit it now, some 45 years later.

So in answer to the Big Question, "What will happen after you die?" my answer is quite simple: (1) my body will be recycled, just like that of any other organism, whether plant, animal, fungus, protist, or bacterium; (2) the mental formation "Tom Ellis" will be just a memory for a few other people, for a while; (3) I have no idea, but--due to the above experience--I am not afraid.  And I am completely at peace with these three answers. And as long as I strive to act with wisdom and compassion in all I say or do, it doesn't matter whether I die in the next hour, or in the next 25-30 years, or any time between. Thy will be done.

Civility and Community

Civility and Community:

The word “civility” is cognate with “civilization.” And the word “communication” is cognate with “community.” Both civility and communication, I would argue, are essential, if we are to sustain our community and civilization, and thereby avoid endless tribal warfare, in our locality, in our nation, and on our planet as a whole. When civility and communication are undermined by bad faith, sneering, and rancor, it threatens both our community and our civilization. This is one reason why learning how to communicate ideas clearly, with civility, is so important—especially during an unprecedented global crisis.

The words “civility” and “civilization” both derive from the Latin world “civitas,” which means “city.” And cities, as opposed to small towns, are places where people of many different backgrounds—ethnic, social, religious, and ideological—are in constant commerce and interaction with each other. In order to do business, and in order to get along, people in cities had no choice but to learn how to communicate with people unlike themselves in a civil manner.

I have lived long enough now to remember when civility was the norm in our national political discourse. When I was young, there were only three television networks—ABC, NBC, and CBS. These networks were staffed with the top tier of career journalists—people like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Harry Reasoner, Howard K. Smith, , and later, Robert McNeil and Jim Lehrer, with a solid liberal arts education and backgrounds in both radio and newspapers, who had internalized norms of civility throughout their careers, and promoted critical inquiry and thoughtful debate among their guests. They also selflessly served the public interest, holding both Democratic and Republican administrations and elected officials accountable for their actions and words, and their newscasts were followed by everyone in the country.  And so, at that time, widespread public demonstrations like the 1963 March on Washington, or Earth Day 1970, were covered extensively by all three networks. At these times, America was the envy of the world, emulated by everyone else (except, of course, their ideological foes in totalitarian countries like Russia and China).

What happened? There are, of course, multiple causes for the decline of civility into the kind of divisiveness, sneering, blatant lying, malice, paranoia, and rancor that have contaminated our public discourse to the point where people are afraid to even discuss politics unless they know ahead of time that the person they are talking to is “one of us” rather than “one of them.” One could blame the Internet, of course, for creating a situation in which everyone can create their own information bubble, where giant media monopolies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon use algorithms to develop profiles of users and feed them only the news and views (and misinformation) they want to hear.

But this decline in civility and decency, at first gradual, became more precipitous with the rise of Fox News, the malignant brainchild of Australian media mogul and scandalmonger Rupert Murdoch and master Republican propagandist (and convicted sexual predator) Roger Ailes. These two evil geniuses—there is no other word—created a worldwide media empire by abandoning all the norms of decency and civil discourse, and appealing instead to sensationalism, and to the fears, hatreds, and prejudices of the lowest common denominator of their audience. In so doing, they outdid both Hitler and Joseph Goebbels in poisoning the well of public discourse in order to create an unholy alliance between the interests of the corporate elite, on one hand, and the uneducated, embittered, easily manipulated,  lumpenproletariat (i.e. suburban and rural white working class) whose communities were hollowed out and demoralized by globalization, due to multinational corporations exporting manufacturing jobs overseas in search of cheap labor.

Their agenda is to turn the growing rage of this population—not against the corporations that had once provided them secure jobs and a decent lifelihood—but against “the government” who has allowed this, and especially against the “lib’ruls” whom they demonize as “elitists” who pose a direct threat to all that is godly and American. Their logic is simple and deceptive: ethnic minorities and foreigners, supported by “lib’ruls,” are taking away their jobs—while the corporations (that abandoned them) are their friends and will come back as soon as enough corporate tax breaks are given and environmental regulations are lifted.   Through the brazenly partisan 24-7 propaganda of Fox News, led by scurrilous, sneering hatemongers like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Ann Coulter, these angry, frustrated people are worked up into a lather of resentment and paranoia against anyone who supports taxing the rich or  legislation or regulations in the public interest—rather than against super-rich corporate interests.  Republican operatives call this “energizing the base”—a term whose double meaning should be an obvious indicator of their actual contempt for those they are manipulating.  And oil-funded billionaires like the Koch Brothers planned and subsidized so-called “grassroots movements” like the widespread “Tea Party” protests to defeat an Affordable Care Act that ironically benefitted the protestors themselves.

Yet as late as 2008 and 2012, basic civility between the parties was still evident at the highest levels. I well remember the dignity of John McCain, promptly and firmly suppressing the ugly sneering and catcalls of many of his supporters during his concession speech in 2008, saying of Obama, “He was my political opponent, but now he is my President, and we must all congratulate him.” 

Then came 2016, the rise of Donald Trump, and the end of all semblance of civility in public discourse. In the words of Matthew Arnold, “And we are here as on a darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/Where ignorant armies clash by night.”