b.rox

I don’t often do this, but here are some words written by someone else. I guess I should add a few words of my own. I read Ecotopia in the late 80s. Written by Ernest Callenbach, it’s an imaginative novel that speculates on what would happen if the west coast of the United States seceded from the union and established a country based on the radical idea of living sustainably. I read it in a class on utopian literature at Indiana University, taught by the amazing Edward Gubar. I loved that class. Incidentally, today I saw that Edward’s ex-wife Susan Gubar is on the front page of the Chronicle of Higher Education. She is also a writer facing her own mortality, just as Ernest Callenbach has done. Callenbach died a few weeks ago, and this letter was found on his computer. It was obviously written as a final statement. Please, please read it. Also, many thanks to TomDispatch.com for first publishing this epistle.
Read the rest of this entry »

Workers of the world, take a break and celebrate International Workers’ Day or as I prefer to call it: May Day. It’s a day to remember the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago. It’s good to recall that the eight-hour work day was not always a given, but something for which workers had to fight and even give their lives.

Absurdly, the US government has installed something you never heard of called Loyalty Day on the first of May, “a special day for the reaffirmation of loyalty to the United States and for the recognition of the heritage of American freedom.” It’s a laughable attempt to undermine the celebration of May Day.

Of course, there’s an even older history to May Day that goes way beyond 1886. Europeans brought this tradition with them to the New World as early as 1627. It’s a cross-quarter day, halfway between the equinox and the solstice. Technically the halfway point falls on Friday evening, so maybe we should extend our celebrations all week long. There are a cluster of old traditional holidays around this time that have interesting stories. Many are seasonal observations with an emphasis on fertility and the coming of summer, and some are a little spooky, which I like. May Day — Beltane — Walpurgisnacht — Vappa — Roodmas — Whitsuntide — whatever you want to call it — I’d celebrate them all if I knew how. I’d like to combine the pagan and labor traditions, the “green root” and the “red root” into a single holiday. A protest, a party, a ritual — all in one.

Hopefully if you’re in New Orleans you can make one of the marches planned here. No matter where you are, there’s probably something going on near you. Get out there.

Getting sick is like taking a trip. Not a pleasure cruise. Quite the opposite. Nevertheless it can be an interesting experience, even educational, if you look at it the right way.
Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Persephone,

You are fifty months old today. To celebrate we counted to fifty together.

The month got off to a rough start. You had a couple severe meltdowns while playing with friends. You’ve not had big issues with sharing before, so hopefully that was just a phase.

We read A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. That took about a month, reading a chapter most every night before bedtime. Sometimes we split long chapters in two. Though it’s clearly aimed at children, I would say it’s the most adult book you’ve read so far. There were some concepts that were new and I daresay a little disturbing to you, such as overt classism or an orphaned child starving on the streets with no one to care for her. It was frankly kind of heartbreaking to behold you encountering such harsh possibilities for the first time, and I seriously considered shelving the book, saving it for a year or two. But we toughed it out. All for the best I think.

Now we’re reading Prince Caspian, which is closer to your speed. Last night I was amazed that you’d already identified Nikabrik as “a bad dwarf,” even though we only just finished chapter six. Granted, the clues are pretty obvious, but you’re only fifty months old after all. What was even more astonishing was the way you put it: “My brain is killing me.” You meant that you kept thinking this thought to the point that it was aggravating. I can relate! Perhaps you’ve inherited my hyperactive mentality. That lead to an interesting discussion of how we can moderate mental events. I pointed out that you generally can’t force yourself to stop thinking about something. But if you “step back” and observe, it tends to help.

Speaking of books, there’s a popular one called Hunger Games which has just been made into a movie. You saw a picture of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen drawing back a bow and exclaimed: “It’s Artemis!” I used my phone to post your remark on Twitter, which is a popular social media service, and as I did so I read my post to you. The problem was that I’d specified Athena rather than Artemis. You swiftly corrected me. Which just goes to show that you know your ancient Greek mythology better than me now.

Some weeks ago I instructed you to say “Send in the clowns!” if your hear someone say something silly in a serious voice. Then I forgot about it. But you remembered, and you used it on me. I forget what I was saying, but it was well-played on your part.

On a similar note, here’s a transcript of a conversation we had last week:

Me: “Are we a part of Mother Earth?”

You: “Yes but we’re a funny part.”

Me: “A funny part?”

You: “Yes because we can forget that we’re a part of Mother Earth.”

I was about to fall out of my chair until you reminded me that you were repeating back something I’d said myself a couple weeks ago. Still I hope you can hold on to the idea.

One day, after a discussion of what meat is, you swore you were going to be a vegetarian from now on. Your resolve did not last, however. You ate some chicken a few hours later. Given how many vegetarian friends we seem to have, I won’t be surprised if this comes back up again later. I wouldn’t mind going back to a vegetarian diet again, but I think your mother might have different ideas.

On April 12 we celebrated Yuri’s Night with some friends and neighbors. It was a trip to hear you lecturing us about Yuri Gagarin.

Last week you announced that you want to get married to one of your pre-K classmates, a boy named Joshua. His qualifications? “I’ve never played with him.” Hopefully your standards will elevate with time.

I can’t close without noting one of the most touching things you said to me this past month:

Dada, once I see you I sort of smile, and I don’t know why.

I feel the same way.

We gather by the side of the road on the edge of an urban forest. I know the others only because they are dressed like me, in white clothing. We talk amongst ourselves, getting to know each other.

The signal comes at twilight, just as the sun is setting and everything is growing dark. We walk into the woods along a gravel path. We can hear the sound of drumming.

Soon we come to a clearing. There’s a circle made of lit candles and strewn leaves. Inside the circle, an altar and a pentagram. There are two women here, also dressed in white. These two I know, a little. One is inside the circle, drumming. The other is outside the circle, singing. She strides toward us. Her voice is beautiful. She reaches out and takes my hand, leading me and all the rest toward the circle.

We are each in turn ritually purified with incense. When all are within the ring of light, the circle is cast by calling the quarters and invoking the elements. And within this sacred space the ritual unfolds, as the full moon slowly rises.

This is an esbat, not a seasonal celebration, and so something new and unfamiliar to me. The heart of the ritual I might describe as energy work and group therapy. H. Gunaratana Mahathera describes Buddhism as “much more akin to what we would call psychology than to what we would usually call religion.” This is not a Buddhist ritual, but I’m reminded of this nonetheless. We are invited to think of some area in our life where we’ve reached a plateau, some area of our personal or interpersonal development where things have stagnated, where we’ve grown complacent or are just plain stuck. We think about ways to release that energy, and we engage in a few activities to visualize that release. Strategic symbolism, perhaps.

This may all sound very solemn, but there was a lightness to it as well, and laughter. We also drink margaritas.

Later, we sit in the moonlight sharing food, drink, and conversation. I hear a voice through through the trees. Soon it comes again, and again, impossible to ignore because the unseen person is shouting. He sounds angry. Then another voice joins the first. A woman. Their exchange becomes a song. Then instruments kick in: accordion, double-bass, sousaphone. The music is lusty and uproarious. There’s a whole band back in the woods somewhere.

After a few verses and a rousing chorus, the song crashes to a halt, and there is a round of applause. Judging by the sound there must be at least fifty people there. A couple members of our party are dispatched to scout out the situation. They report that it’s a gypsy-punk interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s Salome.

Many strange and wonderful things happen by light of the moon.

Photo: Moonrise / Eric Miraglia / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The coolest thing about this year’s hike, from my personal perspective, is that I’ve had hardly anything to do with organizing the event. (Term limits, y’know.) Yet still it chugs along. That’s extremely gratifying.

But there are other cool things: This year we’re reversing direction, hiking toward the river for a change, so people can tap into French Quarter Fest if they so desire. Also we’ve got a brass band this year. It was just a matter of time. Aaaaand this really should be your last chance to hike the corridor in its current (neglected) state as I just heard plans are to break ground in October.

Please join us as we TAKE A HIKE along the Lafitte Greenway on Saturday, April 14, 2012. The annual hike is roughly 3 miles, and parts of the path are overgrown and weedy. So dress accordingly, and you might want to bring some sunscreen. Flip-flops are probably not appropriate footwear!

9:30 AM: Bike Easy will hold a bicycle safety workshop in the Delgado Community College parking lot. Bike Easy will also offer FREE bike valet services for all participants of the hike.

10 AM: Meet at the Delgado Community College in the parking lot (parking and bike valet available).

1 PM: Finish at Congo Square in Armstrong Park with a culminating celebration featuring Baby Boys Brass Band, refreshments and more.

2 PM: Head to French Quarter Fest!

These times are tentative, as we’ll be hiking in small groups with plenty of fun activities along the way. Different groups will probably move at different speeds.

The Hike and Bike Valet are both FREE and open to the public.

Please register in advance to help us gauge how many participants to expect. The more the merrier!

And just in case it’s not clear, I will be there hiking with the rest of y’all. In fact I’m a Greenway Ambassador so I should be leading a small group. Maybe you’ll be in my group. See you there.

Back in August when Persephone started school my morning routine changed severely. Instead of being responsible for bundling a toddler off to daycare, suddenly I was seeing wife and daughter on their way. I waved goodbye and then they were gone.

And there I was, with the house to myself, and at least an hour before I needed to leave for work.

What to do?

After a couple weeks I’d exhausted the more obvious possibilities. I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to establish a regular contemplative practice, to fit meditation into my daily routine. This was something I’d been wanting to do for at least a year, since reading Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry and attending the Contemplative Academy.

OK, great idea, but again: What to do? There are many types of meditation. Hmm, well, how about mindfulness meditation? That’s something I’ve heard about repeatedly. Sounds interesting. Maybe I could try it.

I found a short article in Psychology Today, titled “How to Practice Mindfulness Meditation” by Karen Kissel Wegela. She made it sound so damned easy.

So I decided to start, just five minutes a day.

I didn’t really know what I was doing. It must have felt good or something because I kept on doing it. In those first few weeks I got some of my most dramatic results. They are hard to describe. The practice seemed to induce an altered state of consciousness, a subtle euphoria, a feeling of mystery. I might say that it evoked a sense of the numinous. After my brief sessions, I tended to want to listen to ambient music rather than my regular eclectic mix, because that seemed to keep the mood better. I also noticed a slight increase in impulse control, and a corresponding negative correlation with alcohol consumption. When I meditated in the morning, as a rule, I seemed to drink less in the evening.

However, as I kept at it, these effects seemed to wear off a bit. The shock of the new practice was over, and my mind was reverting to form. After a time I realized I didn’t even know what “mindfulness” meant. I decided if I wanted to deepen and strengthen my practice I would need to learn more.

I cast about the net looking for resources. They are plentiful, but the diversity of perspectives was a bit confusing. For example, one guy says mindfulness meditation should be limited to five minutes, whereas others talked of sessions lasting for hours.

I needed something deeper than short web articles. I found Mindfulness in Plain English by the Venerable H. Gunaratana Mahathera. It’s a full-length book, available in print but also floating around on the web in various forms.

I read my way through this book slowly over several months. I’d never read anything quite like it — a practical meditation manual. It’s written from a Theravadin Buddhist perspective. I don’t know much about Buddhism, but I gather the Theravada branch claims to be closest to the original teachings of the Buddha. Despite this, or because of it, there was little religious baggage. There was some, however. I’m not sure I buy the talk of enlightenment and liberation and Nibbana. There were also some passages, such as a brief allusion to sign-objects, that I found mystifying. But for the most part the writing is admirably clear, and I found the practical advice very helpful.

My favorite passage:

We are learning here to escape into reality, rather than from it.

According to this author, the ecstasy I sometimes experience is not really the point of the practice. It’s a pleasant side effect, but just like the unpleasant side effects, one should not get distracted. Getting attached to any experience, however pleasurable, is a distraction. That’s a tough pill to swallow for a hedonist like me. But I do see the point.

Let me recount one particular experience I had somewhere along the way. This was several months ago. Like all such experiences it is hard if not impossible to describe. I’m foolish to try, probably. I will have to resort to metaphor because that’s all that I have.

So I’m sitting there, and I seem to become aware of a wind blowing through me, through the house, through the earth, through the entire cosmos. It’s blowing through all of us right now, and has been for our entire lives, through all time, only we don’t ordinarily perceive it. It not only pervades all but gives shape and motion to all.

I guess that’s a classic mystical experience. I find those kind of experiences compelling, but I also understand the need for detachment. If you sit down with a desire for some particular kind of experience, or any particular expectations, you won’t be fully alert and aware to what is actually going on.

There’s a paradox there, of course. We may be drawn to meditation because we perceive we’ll gain some benefit. And there are benefits. But the practice is worth doing for itself with no end in mind, and I suspect it’s more beneficial when it’s approached without anticipation or expectation.

But what do I know?

A truly wonderful thing about my job is that I’m able to explore so many divergent interests. And so it was that I found myself headed to Bryn Mawr College for the Fifth Annual Mindfulness in Education conference. It was a pleasant trip and an interesting experience. (I took some photos.) The conference concluded with a day of silent mediation. I’ve never done anything like that before. On the way home, I wasn’t sure what I’d really gotten out of the conference, but after a few days I realized I’d learned plenty. Sometimes it takes a while.

I’m now able to offer a definition of mindfulness off the cuff. Several definitions, in fact. Mindfulness is paying attention to your attention. Mindfulness is awareness of the present, moment to moment, without judging. Mindfulness can be practiced at any time; formal meditation is just one way to promote it.

I think virtually every human being values and practices mindfulness to some extent. It’s a basic part of being alive. But we also do plenty of things that run counter to mindfulness, sabotaging ourselves and our own best efforts without even realizing it. Formal practice can help us figure stuff like this out, and allows us to cultivate mindfulness in our whole lives.

Footnote: The license attached to Mindfulness in Plain English indicates it may be “freely copied and redistributed.” So I’m taking my first venture into e-book publishing. You can download a copy of the book, reformatted with minor corrections by yours truly, in EPUB format. I’ve not done this before, so if you run into trouble please let me know.

With apologies to Suzanne Collins: This has nothing to do with that.

It recently occurred to me that I am drowning in food.

I have often remarked that during the Katrina crisis and the flooding of New Orleans, despite being displaced, I never missed a night’s sleep, and I never missed a meal.

What’s even more remarkable is that I don’t think I’ve missed a meal in many a year, and I could hardly remember what true hunger felt like. Until now.

Because of my metabolism and narrow frame, I’ve never been labeled obese. People still sometimes call me “Slim.” Nevertheless my doctor usually advises me to lose a few pounds. He’s a stickler.

Once upon a time, I was alarmingly skinny. I ate like a teenage boy well into my twenties, yet remained almost skeletal. I gained twenty pounds after getting married in 1993, and another twenty pounds or so upon moving to New Orleans in 1999. I got fatter, but it wasn’t all fat. Several rounds of strength training regimens added some muscle mass as well. But I was still eating like a teenage boy. Meanwhile my metabolism was catching up — a little.

Eating voluminous amounts of food became part of my identity. I would always go back for seconds or thirds. I was a human garbage disposal. Once upon a time I needed the fuel. Now it’s just habitual gluttony. If the average American eats like I do, no wonder we have an obesity epidemic.

But about a month ago something changed. As part of my seasonal purification rituals, I thought about fasting. Hmm, fasting, what a concept. That would involve being hungry.

And that’s when I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I was truly hungry.

I was never taught to fast. Fasting was not a part of the religious or secular culture in which I was raised. One might even say that I was taught never to fast, not explicitly but implicitly. The very notion seems to run counter to our national psyche. As Americans, we like to believe we live in a land of plenty. We like to celebrate abundance.

I went looking for information on the subject of fasting. Here a few resources I uncovered:

• This month’s Harper’s features a relevant essay that looks interesting. You have to be a subscriber to read it, and sadly my subscription has lapsed. But the Tulane library has it and I hope to bike over there and read it soon. A friend who’s read it tells me that, “Apparently Mark Twain would always cure himself of cold and flu by fasting until it went away.” Intriguing.
• The International Natural Hygiene Society is ostensibly grounded in science. Then again it may be pseudoscience; I haven’t done the research. They’ve got an article on “What to expect on your first fast.” I’m skeptical of orthopathy by reflex, but this seems like pretty solid advice, at least at first glance.
• Associated: Fasting for Renewal of Life by Herbert M. Shelton who seems to be an authority on the subject. Shelton was a key proponent of the Natural Hygiene movement. The book is several decades old, which makes me wonder if the science is current.
• A more recent volume is Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program for Conquering Disease (1998) by Joel Fuhrman, M.D.
• And there is a functioning Yahoo Group on the topic of Water Fasting.

I’m not sure I’m ready for a fast quite yet, because I’m exploring a radical new concept, namely eating less on a daily basis. This means experiencing a radical new sensation, namely hunger.

At a rough guess I figure I’ve knocked out about 10-20% of my daily calorie intake by the following simple measures:

1. I’m not drinking alcohol.
2. I used to eat a snack every evening before bed, essentially a fourth meal. Usually this was a small meal, a bowl of cereal perhaps. But it often was more substantial, especially if I’d a few drinks earlier in the evening.
3. I’m not having second helpings at dinner, and I’m trying to keep what portions I do have at dinner modest.

In fact I’m aiming to follow the advice of fellow Hoosier Adelle Davis, to “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”

But most of all, I’m learning not to mind being a little hungry, or even pretty darn hungry, from time to time. It’s not a bad feeling. It reminds me that I’m alive. Mindfulness meditation has taught me the value of simply observing such sensation, and realizing I have a choice to respond to them or not. And if the craving for food gets me too cranky, a glass of water or a cup of tea often helps.

What’s especially interesting to me is how quickly my standards have changed. After just one month, I’ve already noted that if I eat a large meal like I used to enjoy, I now feel bloated and overfull. In fact, even my standard lunch (carrot, sandwich, apple, water) is starting to seem like a lot. I no longer crave a cookie or something extra afterward.

Even more wonderful, I’ve noted that healthier food, like fresh fruits and vegetables, are more appealing when I’m really hungry. Ironically, something about overeating seems to make fatty and salty foods more attractive, to me anyhow; I don’t know how other people experience this.

Despite what I wrote above, these changes are not truly radical. They are incremental. But I think that’s for the best.

We may even save on our grocery bill.

Photo credit: Cropped from original, Four Baby Robins by Ruth Everson.

Dear Persephone,

You are forty-nine months old today. I thought after your fourth birthday you might slow down, but no. You continue to develop at an astonishing rate.

A few weeks ago you drew your first real representational drawing. As a would-be cartoonist and visual artist, I consider this a huge milestone. I know I mentioned something similar last month, but that was a virtual drawing using an iPad app, and I coached you pretty heavily, drawing shapes first and then undoing them and letting you try. This time you drew with marker on paper, and I didn’t touch anything. I only suggested what to draw, “two circles for the eyes,” like that. And the result was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

I tried to teach you to draw a cat, but that requires triangles, and you don’t seem interested in mastering that technique yet.

A couple days ago I took you to the doctor for your annual checkup. You were due for a round of vaccinations, the last you’ll need for seven years. A dilemma: to tell you up front about the shots, or to wait until the last moment? The latter would seem to spare you some dread, but perhaps there’s value in confronting fear, facing it down. I kind of hinted that shots were a possibility beforehand, and then when we were waiting we discussed that more explicitly. And you handled it very well. You were brave, and only really cried after the fourth and final needle stick. And you so charmed the nurses neither of them wanted to be the one to administer the shots. But you got over it very quickly. In fact, you were mostly excited about the stack of stickers the nurse gave you.

Speaking of being poked and prodded, we recently had you tested by a couple child psychologists. It’s not something we would have done if left to our own devices. Nope, it’s just an attempt to grapple with the bizarre school system(s) in this city. And here’s where this gets tricky, in terms of knowing what to write here. I have to consider your privacy. So let’s just say we had you tested for smarts, and you came through with flying colors. In the end I’m glad we did it, no matter where you go to school, because it’s assuaged some of the fears I’ve had relating to lead poisoning. I take such tests with a grain of salt, but at the very least it’s an indication that you do well at tests. Perhaps you take after me; I’ve always done well on tests, and it’s made life much easier.

I do have to agree that you’re pretty quick on the uptake. For example, we’re now reading A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett. It’s a bit over your head but you love it all the same. In the first or second chapter we came across the word “pupil,” which I figured you wouldn’t recognize, so I defined it for you. You’ve heard the word again in subsequent chapters, and apparently you’ve learned it, because last night you casually mentioned that “there’s a pupil in my class named Christian.” That led to a discussion of the word “vocabulary,” how each person has their own vocabulary, how it keeps getting bigger each time you learn a new word.

Finally, I wanted to mention that you asked me a question I’ve been anticipating, and also kind of dreading, for quite some time.

“Is the Tooth Fairy real?”

“That depends. What do you mean by real?”

“Real means that something is real.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“Well, I think the Tooth Fairy is not real.”

“I’m so proud of you for thinking about these things and asking these questions. Let me ask you this: Do you like the story of the Tooth Fairy?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a fun story, isn’t it? Sometimes that’s what really matters. Did you notice I never actually answered your question?”

“But Dada, will you tell me, is the Tooth Fairy real or not?”

And so forth. I never really gave you a straight answer. Maybe when you’re old enough to read this you’ll understand why.

Now we enter that half of the year where the days are longer than the nights.

The equinox came this morning at fourteen minutes past midnight. I have to make an effort not to fixate on that single moment. I was asleep anyhow. Better to extend the celebration. The equilux was last Thursday here in New Orleans. Why not start there?

I got a second equilux this year, as I flew up to Philadelphia. The equilux, that day when sunrise and sunset are most nearly twelve hours apart, varies by latitude. It comes a day later there.

I went to Bryn Mawr College for the fifth Mindfulness in Education conference, which culminated in a full day of (mostly) silent meditation. I’ve never done anything quite like that before.

In retrospect, it was a great way to celebrate the equinox. Mindfulness surely cultivates balance. But I missed my family.

Then I came back home, and kept Persephone home from school Monday, so we could celebrate the equinox together. In addition to baking our weekly bread, we dyed eggs to decorate an “egg tree,” prepared a vernal-themed feast for dinner, and ran to the doctor for the girl’s four-year checkup and vaccinations. The meal was delicious: spring greens with sprouts, quiche, and charoset for desert. I also made black and white cookies, but didn’t get them done until later that night. By the time I finally hit the sack I was quite exhausted. I bit off a little more than I could chew. Not very balanced.

In the spirit of purification, I haven’t had anything to drink since Mardi Gras. (Well, actually since the weekend after Mardi Gras, but really, who’s counting? We had a visit from Ed the Meat Poet and I popped a cork.) I’ve been tapering off the coffee too, down to just a few swallows this morning. I hope to start on some dandelion-chicory root tea later this week. The idea of a seasonal detox session is appealing to me. In the same spirit I’ve even looked into fasting, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that quite yet. I am eating less, but that’s a topic for another post.

And if the spirit of the season can be maintained why not continue until Hellacious Saturday? Or Easter? Or Passover? Or forever?

Six months ago, at the autumnal equinox, I dedicated myself to a full year of discovering or uncovering my religion. This is the halfway mark, the inversion of that time across the mirror of the year. The dark half of the year is behind us for now, the light half ahead. The past six months have been fruitful, but my spirits have often flagged. I haven’t written about that much. The idea was to post less often and to write more thoughtfully, but to remain continually engaged in that process. Instead I’ve lapsed into periods of complete disengagement. Perhaps I need that reflective exercise to maintain a proper perspective.

It’s always a good time to begin again. Looking forward, I feel a buoyancy.

March 14, 2012: International Day of Action to Defend Blasphemers and Apostates.

I suppose I am both an apostate and a blasphemer, at least by by some definitions. I’m fortunate to live in a country where religious freedom, though constantly contested, is guaranteed by the constitution.

But things are very different in some other nations.

On the YouTube page for this video, you’ll find a great list of resources for more information.

Please support this cause.

So for the last seven months I’ve been baking bread pretty much every week.

It started on Lammas, also known as the Loaf-Mass, when Persephone and I baked mother and daughter loaves.

After that I decided to keep baking for a while. Xy and I are in the habit of making sandwiches for lunch at our respective workplaces, so my main aim was to make decent sandwich bread.

Based on a vague recollection, I decided to buy the Tassajara Bread Book. I baked through most of the recipes in the chapter on yeasted breads. Oatmeal bread, summer Swedish rye bread, cheese bread, millet bread. The author, Edward Espe Brown, advocates a sponge method which I found generated decent and consistent results.

Soon I was looking at some of the other chapters. The section on sourdough looked intriguing, but also suspiciously easy. Too easy. I looked online and quickly got intimidated at the prospect of starting my own starter from scratch. So I put out a plea via Twitter, asking if any locals wanted to hook me up with a few ounces of the good stuff. No dice.

Then, a month later, by strange coincidence, Michael Pearce contacted me. He wanted to know if I was interested in some sourdough starter. He never saw my request, but he noticed the photos of bread I’d been posting.

And so I found myself with a batch of starter — but more importantly I found a mentor.

Under his tutelage, for three months I baked nothing but sourdough. Now I seem to be settling into a pattern of baking with natural leavening one week and using commercial yeast the next. I’m now working my way through Bread by Jeffrey Hamelman.

There have been some mishaps along the way, hilarious in retrospect at least. I’ve managed to destroy a ceramic casserole, explode the lightbulb in our oven, burn myself a few times, and of course there was the time I put waaay too much cumin in the dough. Yet despite all these pratfalls, only that cumin batch has been marginal in terms of edibility.

Whenever possible I try to involve my daughter, though as I’ve fretted more over technique I haven’t always done a good job of keeping her interest.

Baking bread is mostly a matter of technique, and I feel like I’ve come a long way. It’s a trip to look back at my first naïve efforts and compare them to what I’m doing now.

But perhaps the prime value I derive from baking is humility. I’ve learned a lot, but there’s always more to learn. No matter how much better I get there is always room for further improvement. And my mentor, who has been baking for well over a decade, feels the same way. He bakes some of the most excellent bread I’ve ever had the pleasure to eat. Yet he tells me, “I’m still waiting to figure out how to bake bread.”

In some ways, to bake bread is to be an eternal novice.

In fact, I’ll go even further: It is a spiritual practice and a religious ritual.

It may not look like ritual to some eyes, but to me it is. I suppose intention is a big part of it. As Waverly Fitzgerald writes at the School of Seasons:

Bake a loaf of bread on Lammas. If you’ve never made bread before, this is a good time to start. Honor the source of the flour as you work with it: remember it was once a plant growing on the mother Earth. If you have a garden, add something you’ve harvested — herbs or onion or corn — to your bread. If you don’t feel up to making wheat bread, make corn bread. Or gingerbread people. Or popcorn. What’s most important is intention. All that is necessary to enter sacred time is an awareness of the meaning of your actions.

Making bread is a fun activity I can do together with my family, for my family. It connects us to history, culture, science, and the natural world. (Not wild nature, obviously, but nature nonetheless.) And at the end we have a delicious and healthy food. More than just a treat, it’s the very stuff of life.

When I bake bread I feel that sense of reverence and awe and connectedness and wholeness so often described as spiritual or sacred. Not always, not automatically. But that is my intent. Like my levain, it requires regular feedings for renewal.

Dear Persephone,

You are four years old today. So: Happy Birthday! But also: Happy Mardi Gras! The last time Mardi Gras fell on the 21st of February was in 1950, which was not only before you were born but well before I was born. These dates will line up again in eleven years, for your 15th birthday in 2023. It happens again in 2034 and 2045, eleven year intervals. Beyond that I’m not sure; I haven’t found any calendars that calculate beyond 2050. I don’t know what’s up with the eleven year intervals either. Weird stuff.

So, how does one celebrate a birthday on Mardi Gras? We tried to tie in with the number four for obvious reasons. We thought about the four seasons and the four directions but ultimately settled on the four ancient elements. You know the elements pretty well. After all, they’re in the lyrics to one of your favorite songs:

Earth, water, fire and air
We may look bad but we don’t care
We ride the wind, we feel the fire
To love the earth is our one desire

(The astute culture critic will have no trouble identifying the origin of these sublime verses as that eco-goth trio par excellence, namely The Hex Girls, as seen in Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost. Only a pedant would quibble that we’ve changed the word slightly. The actual lyric references “earth, wind, fire and air,” which of course conjures images of a certain funk-soul act from the 70s. But wind and air are pretty much the same thing, and everyone knows water was one of the four ancient elements. What’s up with this blatant anti-waterism?)

So for this Mardi Gras you masqued as Air, you mother was Fire, I was Water and your virtual uncle James was Earth. Of course reality was a little more complicated; we were joined by an additional Water, played by Catherine, not to mention your grandmother (my mother) who didn’t dress as anything particular but was a most welcome addition to the festivities.

As for this last month of your life, you’ve accomplished many firsts. You composed your first poem, drew your first representational drawing, and sent your first e-mail.

Yyrpppiiuuyrwqweyqs
Aasfuillzzzzcvnmm,nvcvqwertttyyyuuiiooop..,mvnmmmmkkjjjdsssaa
Poiuuyttrreewwcccqpiugdaommnxxz,poyttq

Loigfftyuiiuuuoppghhffdsaaawwwqwrrrtttyuuioopp
Llhrewcvbnnnzzcvbnmmmmmmbvhklljgfdsqqeu.   Vbbbbbbb jkkhfssaaaaaaaaassss,lllkjjjjhhhhhhjjjkppouytreeewrrrrrrrrmjjhbgnhhhhhj,kjuyytt chhgggffffffddsaadllgf bvvcbbbvbvvvvvccccfddfvggnnhgasgjjopptrrropplhxxghjkooyf
dppoutreaddfggghjjklllllmnnvvcxzzaadfffgggkjgghpotrewwqq
qwrfkklgdaqqrtyuioppqddd,cxnmoiyfiopppooputreeewqqasdghhjjkp

So much more to relate, but I’m exhausted from a full day of traipsing round the city in costume. Perhaps I’ll come back and edit this later. For now good night and lots of love.

Read the rest of this entry »

Most if not all of the major spiritual traditions on our planet seem to embrace the path as a metaphor. Maybe that’s why I’ve found the prospect of a greenway in the Lafitte Corridor so inspiring over the years. There’s been something very compelling about imagining a trail in what is currently fallow, empty land — and treading that ground with others who share the dream each year.

Slowly, slowly, we’ve made progress. Plans are underway. We expect the City of New Orleans to break ground for the greenway next year. This will be a great new public space for the citizens of New Orleans.

Planning continues. The initial build will be minimal: just a trail, with no recreational amenities along the way. Those can come later, but will require full community engagement. And certainly with upkeep and maintenance, to say nothing of improvement, the greenway will never be “done,” as in finished, as in requiring no further attention. There’s plenty of work still to do.

I’m very excited about the prospects for the greenway, and very proud of the role I’ve played in moving it forward. I convened the inaugural hike in May of 2005; I was a founding member of Friends of Lafitte Corridor; I’ve served as FOLC’s president for the last three years.

And yet. And yet. And yet.

Over the last six months or so I’ve felt curiously detached. I missed some meetings because of schedule conflicts and family issues, so that got me feeling a bit out of the loop. Yet it’s more than that. I’m not very detail-oriented, at least not for these kinds of details; I’ve never been able to get down in the weeds of the various planning documents and so forth. Fortunately others have played that role, but that’s left me wondering about my own role. Maybe I’m the kind of person who likes to get things started, which is different than what it takes to keep things going. Yet again, it’s more than that.

In December we got a visit from the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. It was a singular experience, sharing the podium with a highly placed official from the federal government.

I took my talking points from fellow FOLC board member and past president Daniel Samuels. Yet I felt that I made the speech my own, and I felt that I delivered it in a way that reflected well on my group and my city.

It was a proud moment for me, personally. I felt a sense of renewal. Had I questioned my role? This, this was my role. I can stand here with authority figures and, you know, represent.

Hubris

I’m ashamed to report that my thoughts did not end there. I also thought: Who else in our group could do this? No one! Only me, me, me.

Such egotism. Such hubris. Even if it’s true, it’s still hubris. Because, you see, I wasn’t born this way. In fact for most of my life I’ve thought of myself as a lone wolf, if you will, neither a follower nor a leader. That’s how I’ve been perceived by others as well, but I daresay that’s changed in the last five years or so.

I recall quite clearly that last time I expressed a fear of speaking in public. It was in early 2007. A few days later, I spoke to a crowd of thousands. It was a terrible moment, one which I sincerely wish had never transpired, but even so it was a transformational moment, for me. Crises often are.

It’s not so strange. Few of us are prepared for life. We’re thrust onto the stage, and we do the best we can. We discover our inner resources when we need them. If I’ve been effective as president of FOLC, it’s because I was tempered by such events: The flooding of New Orleans, the March for Survival, and others.

It was very easy to stand there at the podium and think that I was irreplaceable. That was a sure sign that I needed to be replaced. FOLC’s successful advocacy of the greenway has been a team effort, remarkably free of this sort of egotism. No one else in the group will develop to their fullest potential while I’m hogging the limelight. No one will step up until I step aside. I’ve had a good run, but now it’s time for someone else. Our potential is developed when we move in to fill a vacuum, and that only happens when the crisis is ripe.

Reaching My Limit

So when we had our strategic planning session a short time later, the discussion of term limits resonated with me in a new way. I realized our organization needed term limits. I’d thought that I would hold on until we broke ground, but once the idea got in my head I realized that would not be fair. I also realized that I personally was ready for a break, right now.

We adopted limits at our next board meeting, and guess what? I’m at the end of my term. I’m glad for that. We could have configured things differently, but I made it clear that I thought this would be best for the organization and for the greenway. I was compared to both Jesus and Kim Jong Il, which was flattering and a little weird.

Officially I’ve got a few more days, and believe me I am counting them. (These final moments of my tenure have not been devoid of drama.) It’s been a great ride for me personally. I don’t know who FOLC’s next president will be, but I do know the board is chock-full of talented and motivated people. Someone will rise to the occasion, and I hope they find the experience just as rewarding.

I’ll still be around and involved of course. April 14, 2012, will be our eight annual hike. Save the date and join us.

Meanwhile the path I walk daily is leading me elsewhere for a while.

I drew these candles and asked Persephone to color them red with yellow flames. She understood my instructions perfectly, but it seems she has a mind of her own.

Happy Candlemas!

Dear Persephone,

You are forty-seven months old today. A few weeks ago I mentioned to you that I was writing these letters, and you were intrigued. What are they about, you wanted to know. I told you that, in part, I try to record some of the things that you’re doing so that you’ll be able to know about them years after you’ve forgotten. You started listing some of the things that you do, so I wrote them down. The rest of this letter was composed by you, with very little prompting on my part. I merely transcribed your words.

• Swimming.
• Watching TV called the Wiggles. Watching cartoons
• Helping Mama make pancakes.
• Helping Dada bake bread.
• Cutting scissors at school.
• Drinking.
• Do work at school with pretty colored markers, and they don’t have any brown, and they don’t have any gray, and gray is your favorite color right?
• Praying at school.
• Helping Mama and Dada going to the grocery
• Take colored baths with those little fuzzy tablets.
• Pretend I’m sailing in the bathtub.
• Going to ballet class.
• Go to a ride at the mall.
• Riding in the car with Mama and Dada.
• Smacking the washcloth. I’m giving it a spanking. The washcloth is being bad, Daddy. He doesn’t know it’s bath time.
• Washing my hair without soap.
• Praying to Jesus and to baby Jesus. We even got a colorful statue of him at school.
• Make projects — letter people projects on paper that have already been lined.
• Praying to Mother Earth.
• And one day I saw Dada get his hair cut. I just peeked my head in. No one saw me but you Dada.
• Coloring Brigid.
• Watching TV called Dora.
• Taking a snowflake bath one in my sparkling purple seltzer water. The snowflake made that.
• Sleeping with Quiet Bunny.
• I don’t want to put anything about Lala and Lily.
• Always I say why, why, why. I don’t know why. Ha ha. See, I’m saying why now.
• My favorite letter is P. I don’t know why I’m saying why.
• I’m making up my own recitals, Dada. Some people even make fun of my recitals. I’m pretending you make fun of my recitals.

Postscript: For more daughter-authored content, see the Tea Party video.

Here I am on my 20th birthday, with my mother and sister.

My hair was thicker then.

That was 25 years ago today.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve contemplated my mortality on an almost daily basis, yet I’ve often behaved as if I think I’m immortal. I’ve frequently envisioned myself as an old man, while clinging to an extended adolescence.

Those aren’t really the contradictions they might seem to be at first. Nor do I think of myself as particularly morbid. In fact it makes perfect sense if you look at it the right way. Youth and age are linked. Life and death are not mutually exclusive. They are necessary correlates. You can’t have one without the other.

An acute sense of my own mortality has stimulated me to live life fully. It has given me the impetus to courage when I needed it.

Yet time marches on, and I’m no longer young. I’m somewhere in the middle of life, or so I hope. I’m happy to have made it this far, and with any luck I’ll have some ways to go before my inevitable demise.

A game I play at each birthday is to double my age and see what that sounds like, to think about what it means to be halfway there. So now I am halfway to 90, and for the first time I have to admit that’s a pretty intimidating number. For the first time, I have to admit I may not make it that far. My great-grandfather Paul Hollmann did, and then some. But you don’t see a lot of 90-year-olds over six feet tall. Maybe us tall types bump our heads too often. And so for the first time (ROX #88 notwithstanding) I have to admit, I may be past the halfway point of my natural lifespan.

On each birthday I have also gotten in to the habit of taking stock of how my body seems to be holding up, and generally congratulating myself on feeling young. When I turned forty, I said to myself that I felt like I could be thirty. I could be twenty. That era has ended. I’d mark the change as beginning around my 43rd birthday but as with any long slow process, it’s hard to be exact. I’ve never been especially robust; I’ve always had my aches and pains. But they have started to accumulate. The challenges faced to my lower left extremity are a case in point.

I’m getting my first hints of what life will look like through the other end of the telescope. When I was younger, I’d suffer sudden visions of my old age, almost overwhelming in their visceral clarity. When I am truly old, if I should live that long, perhaps I will be haunted by my youth, just as in my youth I was haunted by my dotage.

Right now, though, I’m in that gray middle place. Middle aged. Middle class. A little thicker in the middle from accumulating belly fat. That’s a lot of a middle for a guy who claims to value the periphery over the center.

I still get the willies when I contemplate my mortality, but I have to admit it doesn’t thrill me like it used to. Part of that may be parenthood. There is now someone else to worry about and care for, someone for whom I’d lay down my life without hesitation. That’s represents a profound shift, and it’s dulled the edge of the old fear considerably. But I’d also like to think that I’ve grown somewhat more accepting of life’s natural cycle.

Enough of that. I’ve survived another year, and that is of course a cause to celebrate. I was in a bit of a slump for a few years there: My birthday tended to suck, and I didn’t care. But last year my birthday was a blast, and this year I’ve actually got presents. I baked myself a savory cake for dinner tonight and some clove cookies to share with my co-workers. I’ve got to work late, but it’s a meeting of the Saint Katharine Drexel Book Club, so that’s a pleasure.

It was five years ago today that I got the terrible news that Helen Hill had been murdered in her home. She will not be forgotten.

A few months ago I had the decidedly bittersweet pleasure of viewing Helen’s final film, The Florestine Collection, which was completed by her husband Paul Gailiunas. A true labor of love, the final product is a really fine piece of cinema. It was a trip to chat briefly with Paul at the screening, as I never thought I’d see him in this city again. I regret I wasn’t able to spend more time catching up with him, but parental responsibilities intervened.

I suppose this would be a fitting time to mention that ROX #96 is finally complete. (Read my production notes if you are not clear on the connection.) We’ve broken the episode into three parts for online viewing. Part 1 touches on Helen’s passing. Watch it now.

Meanwhile, what of the city and the persistence of violent crime? I can’t say it any better than this missive from SilenceIsViolence:

Today begins a month of somber reflection, and of focused rededication, for the community-led movement that has come to be known as SilenceIsViolence. Five years ago on this day, local musician Dinerral Shavers was murdered as he tried to protect his family — and a week of cruel, relentless killing took hold across our city. When another beloved local artist, filmmaker Helen Hill, was shot in her home one week after Dinerral’s death, the Times-Picayune declared that “Killings Bring the City to its Bloodied Knees.” For once, such a headline did not seem overly sensationalistic.

The city banded together after that week in early 2007, marching together by the thousands to City Hall, and demanding that city leadership do more to support victims, to fix a broken criminal justice system, and to partner with a population frankly desperate for a safer, more civil city. City leaders stood, and listened, and vowed to make the homicide crisis their #1 priority.

Five years later, where are we? Sadly, in a city that is, if anything, less safe than before. The homicide rate has climbed steadily over the past year, and for the first time since 2007 we risk losing 200 of our residents to murder this year. Beyond unacceptable, this situation in a city our size is actually insane.

From time to time, city leadership utters the same vows we heard in 2007: that safety is the #1 priority, that proactive services for vulnerable young people, and support for victims and their families, are a city-wide focus. But those vows are starting to sound pretty empty.

Certain families do receive support. They are the families of victims like Dinerral and Helen — victims who, for whatever reason, grip the public’s attention and the media’s concern. But in the five years SilenceIsViolence has spent working with victims outside that spotlight, we have seen hundreds more who never receive material, emotional, or basic logistical support in the aftermath of their loss. Most victim families have a hard time even reaching their own homicide detective or prosecutor by phone. Meanwhile, the first thing we now learn about victims of violence from the police and the media — and often the only thing these families will ever see in print about their loved one — is a prior arrest record. This without consideration of the severity or relevance of these records, or even of whether the arrests were ever tested in a court of law. And without the slightest compassion for the families that must read these postings, and whose sense of betrayal and further eroding trust in the system is eating away at any chance of constructive community/system collaboration.

Last week, many of you answered our call to support these forgotten victim families. You sent contributions that have purchased clothes and food for sisters and brothers of those lost; furniture for witnesses who must independently relocate; and childcare for parents who have lost a partner. Thank you for your unquestioning compassion for those in need. Tragically, this need only increases with each passing day, and we invite the support of every concerned citizen who is able to give something to a traumatized family. We are happy to connect you directly with those families, or you can make a tax-deductible contribution to SilenceIsViolence, and we will distribute 100% of the donation for you. Those who contribute $75 or more will be recognized as “Peace Agents” for 2012, and will be invited to participate in our annual second-line parade, to be held on April 1 of the coming year. You can donate or reach us for family contact information by visiting our website, www.silenceisviolence.org.

Over the coming month, as we approach the annual Strike Again Crime (January 23-28), SilenceIsViolence will seek to re-engage our city in remembrances and efforts on behalf of these who are victims of, or vulnerable to, violence. Each week, we will tell you individual stories about the families we serve, and the victims they mourn. These stories are compiled in a Victim Allies Project report to be released at the end of January, including data detailing our findings over the past year with respect to law enforcement, criminal justice, and other official civic interactions with these families.

Details about Strike Against Crime week activities will be forthcoming over the coming weeks, as well. Meanwhile, thank you once again for your support during a year that has been very difficult for all of those who desire a more respectful and safer New Orleans.

Please join me in supporting SilenceIsViolence.

So there’s another year gone. This was sure an interesting one from the planetary perspective, what with all the the revolutions and the Occupy movement. I remain skeptical, but also cautiously hopeful, that anything will come of all this foment in the long run. We desperately need revolutions, but are these the revolutions we need?

I will also remember 2011 as the year of Project Conversion, “twelve months of spiritual promiscuity” by a guy named Andrew Bowen. Simple concept, one new religion each month, lived and embraced with a genuine desire to understand. I first mentioned PC at the halfway point, six months ago; now it’s complete, and I feel like I’ve learned and grown from it. I found his journey inspiring, and it has influenced my own. By way of expressing my gratitude, I put together a tribute mix, featuring one track for each of the twelve religions Andrew explored.

It was a holy chore chasing down some of those tracks but I am happy with how it came out. I tried to aim for toward traditional sounds rather than contemporary stuff.

I think finding the Zoroastrian track was the hardest. Also, a quirk of 8tracks is that it will only let each listener hear the tracks in the specified order the first time. This is for convoluted legal reasons. Which is a shame because in this case the order will matter to anyone who’s been following PC for the past year.

And because I’m in New Orleans, the first and last tracks are from local artists. Strange but true.

(As a bonus, I threw together a little Gregorian Chant mix in honor of the final month, Catholicism.)

Of course the year wouldn’t be complete without a mix of my favorite 2011 releases. And here’s another tribute mix, my pick of the hits posted to Fluxblog over the past year.

But as a rule I’m not particularly focused on new music. Who cares if it was released in the last year or not? And so, I offer the personal discoveries from 2011 which excited me the most. Among them: Exuma (thanks to the American Zombie), Fikret Kızılok (thanks to Ghost Capital) and of course the late great Damien Tavis Toman (visit The Memorial Society).

Enjoy, and by all means let me know what you think.