An open letter to Occupy seattle,
I work with Food Group. I jumped in with both feet three weeks ago and have been working my butt off and losing sleep since then to feed protesters every day and help build a functioning network of volunteers to cook & donate food.
Right now I am frustrated. We are all frustrated with divisiveness, police harassment, and a perceived lack of on-the-ground progress.
So really, it is time to ask ourselves "WHY". What are we trying to accomplish? Why are we all sacrificing so much time and energy and care to create what might amount to a shwanky mobile homeless camp with protest signs? I cannot speak for you, but I can tell you what my personal reasons are.
I am here to create a more compassionate world. I want to build a world where the economy works for everyone - an economy and society focused on creating plenitude and abundance, rather than the mechanized and de-humanizing "efficiency" of our current system.
Our power is not necessarily in our protests on the street. As we grow, our movement will help to enact top-down reforms of government institutions. We are working towards a government which regulates and controls corporations on our behalf, for the benefit of everyone. We are not asking for small things. We are telling The Powers That Be that they have fucked-up, and they are fired. We cannot wait for them to step down and hand us the reigns. We start by simply taking control of our own lives, communities, and economies.
That is why we are also modeling our new society every day. We are re-creating and re-educating and empowering ourselves and building accessible local governance. The General Assembly and the working groups are a seed of growth for our future. We are not waiting for the change to come to us. Not waiting for our government officials to "see the light" and begin to work with us. We are simply doing it. We may have to pick our battles and be strategic about how we grow and where we focus our energy; but we must always keep in mind a positive vision for what we are working towards. In this way, we can continue to grow, become more accessible to our communities, and be an open body for participation and a powerful force of change.
I want to remind everyone to be compassionate with yourselves. Be compassionate with those around you. Be compassionate with the police and with our Mayor. Compassion is NOT a weakness, but a means to stand up for our needs in a way that respects our own humanity. In this way, compassion is the greatest and most important of strengths. We do not want you to sacrifice your life to this movement. No one person holds Occupy Seattle on their shoulders. And if they do, that person is a weak point and we must find more people to share their tasks. Strength comes from our collective joy and positive vision. Everyday people give what they can to move us forward, and in the process, I hope we are having the time of our lives and creating the best, most joyful party on the whole god-damned block.
So Occupy Seattle, I ask you: what is your joy? How can we help you live out the work that feeds your soul? How can we learn to work together and support each to achieve Greater Feats of Awesomeness?
And [i]please[/i], join a working group!!!
Love,
Ginger
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
New painting!
Paining for a friend. Scanned it so I could make prints. Might sell prints as some point.
NEED TO DO MORE OF THESE!!!
NEED TO DO MORE OF THESE!!!
Saturday, September 17, 2011
On Compassion
Compassion is a difficult thing. Difficult, because the word is plagued by misrepresentation in Hallmark greeting cards and sappy commercials guilting you into spending "just a dollar a day" to feed some kid in a war-torn nation. It is much maligned by war-mongers (of which our nation has an abundance), and capitalists alike. Especially those clinging desperately to ideas of Social Darwinism to justify the destruction and destitution of many for the profit of a few.
But what about "real compassion". The Wikipedia definition says:
Compassion for the kid over in Rwanda whom you could feed for "a dollar a day" is meaningless. Well, it is meaningful, but that's not where we start. That compassion is too big. In order for that compassion to be meaningful, I can't just send a dollar a day to Rwanda. I have to examine every part of my individual life to asses how the life I live helps to create that poverty. And then begin to change things. That's how the scale works. And most people aren't ready to start on that scale.
But again, to have compassion for those in abject poverty and suffering, that is obvious and easy. Because their suffering is more abstract. The closer to home the suffering gets, the more difficult it is to have compassion. Sure, send a dollar a day to the kids in Rwanda, but those assholes down the street on wellfare, well they're just lazy sonsofbitches sucking the teat of the state dry, wasting my tax money. They probably traded all their food stamps for drug money.
But this is still a digression. Because it is always easier to have compassion for someone who is obviously suffering, obviously in a lower and weaker position than you. But what about having compassion for those above you or equal to you? Compassion for your boss who made you work overtime and miss your daughter's dance recital. Compassion for the police officer who pulled you over for speeding five miles over the speed limit on a country road. Compassion for a friend who has betrayed your confidence and stolen your lover. That compassion is the most difficult. Because it is the most likely to be labeled as weakness. Above all else, it requires compassion for yourself.
Ah, now that's the seed. Compassion for yourself. That is the most difficult. That is the one that requires the most courage and resolve. It requires acknowledging your needs and your weaknesses, and focusing on them long enough to figure out how to fulfill them. It requires that you pursue what you need first, above the needs of others, but also that you accept and live with the consequences. To be so honest with oneself can be terrifying. There is a pagan saying, "Where there is fear, there is power." To be compassionate with yourself is to face your fears. To find the power within yourself and manifest it in the world.
And what about having compassion for your boss? Or the friend who seems to be walking all over your emotions and taking advantage of your generosity? Compassion doesn't mean not standing up to exert your desires. But maybe it means understanding that this person is on their own path, and is acting out of an attempt to fulfill their needs as best they know how with the tools they have. And if there is conflict, maybe compassion means being brave enough to acknowledge the conflict, give it full voice and express your anger and hurt and resentment and then maybe to start to heal the conflict. For me, compassion means giving myself permission to express anger when I feel it, to the person making me angry. To stand up for myself and assert my needs, because only by communicating my anger can the wound that causes it truly start to heal.
And perhaps compassion also means to sometimes decide that a need is not a need. Or that the need of another is greater. But only when I am truly honest with myself about my feelings and intentions can I tell the difference. Maybe that is the wisdom that comes with age and experience and self-reflection. So compassion is also an ongoing, lifelong journey.
All I know is, people need more compassion. With compassion comes courage, integrity, power, and beauty. Hell, who doesn't want those things? People who are convinced that they need to live inside their own personal hell, that's who.
Ginger
But what about "real compassion". The Wikipedia definition says:
Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy (for the suffering of others) are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.Well shit, highest foundations of society and personhood, huh? I think America fails at compassion. That's a digression though... or maybe it's the kernal. Anyways, it's not exactly what I have to say right now.
Compassion for the kid over in Rwanda whom you could feed for "a dollar a day" is meaningless. Well, it is meaningful, but that's not where we start. That compassion is too big. In order for that compassion to be meaningful, I can't just send a dollar a day to Rwanda. I have to examine every part of my individual life to asses how the life I live helps to create that poverty. And then begin to change things. That's how the scale works. And most people aren't ready to start on that scale.
But again, to have compassion for those in abject poverty and suffering, that is obvious and easy. Because their suffering is more abstract. The closer to home the suffering gets, the more difficult it is to have compassion. Sure, send a dollar a day to the kids in Rwanda, but those assholes down the street on wellfare, well they're just lazy sonsofbitches sucking the teat of the state dry, wasting my tax money. They probably traded all their food stamps for drug money.
But this is still a digression. Because it is always easier to have compassion for someone who is obviously suffering, obviously in a lower and weaker position than you. But what about having compassion for those above you or equal to you? Compassion for your boss who made you work overtime and miss your daughter's dance recital. Compassion for the police officer who pulled you over for speeding five miles over the speed limit on a country road. Compassion for a friend who has betrayed your confidence and stolen your lover. That compassion is the most difficult. Because it is the most likely to be labeled as weakness. Above all else, it requires compassion for yourself.
Ah, now that's the seed. Compassion for yourself. That is the most difficult. That is the one that requires the most courage and resolve. It requires acknowledging your needs and your weaknesses, and focusing on them long enough to figure out how to fulfill them. It requires that you pursue what you need first, above the needs of others, but also that you accept and live with the consequences. To be so honest with oneself can be terrifying. There is a pagan saying, "Where there is fear, there is power." To be compassionate with yourself is to face your fears. To find the power within yourself and manifest it in the world.
And what about having compassion for your boss? Or the friend who seems to be walking all over your emotions and taking advantage of your generosity? Compassion doesn't mean not standing up to exert your desires. But maybe it means understanding that this person is on their own path, and is acting out of an attempt to fulfill their needs as best they know how with the tools they have. And if there is conflict, maybe compassion means being brave enough to acknowledge the conflict, give it full voice and express your anger and hurt and resentment and then maybe to start to heal the conflict. For me, compassion means giving myself permission to express anger when I feel it, to the person making me angry. To stand up for myself and assert my needs, because only by communicating my anger can the wound that causes it truly start to heal.
And perhaps compassion also means to sometimes decide that a need is not a need. Or that the need of another is greater. But only when I am truly honest with myself about my feelings and intentions can I tell the difference. Maybe that is the wisdom that comes with age and experience and self-reflection. So compassion is also an ongoing, lifelong journey.
All I know is, people need more compassion. With compassion comes courage, integrity, power, and beauty. Hell, who doesn't want those things? People who are convinced that they need to live inside their own personal hell, that's who.
Ginger
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Free Radical
I recently purchased a Free Radical, which I will use to convert a mountain bike into an Awesome Utility Bike. My intention is to use it to become a bicycle powered construction contractor. Or just enable me to never need a car.
The words "free radical" also feel right. Very close to my current psychological and spiritual state. Now, more than ever before, I am succeeding at becoming myself. "Fulfilling my destiny" sounds a little too melodramatic and pretentious, but something along the lines of becoming the person I imagine myself to be in my dreams. Resolving cognitive dissonance, to me, means finding a balance: between being fully present to each moment and enjoying life to the fullest extend with things such as they are, and at the same time striving to change the discomforting and upsetting things in myself and the world around me.
The biggest cognitive dissonance I find staring me in the face on a daily basis is thus:
Right now it seems like I have two paths available to me (the dichotomy here is entirely linguistic - there are infinite paths and options, but for ease of discussion there are two main themes).
One is to become a Commercial Building Energy Consultant. Or at least, to continue further down the path of being an Energy Auditor / Consultant. The opportunities are certainly there. It has the potential to be very lucrative. Or least provide a stable income. And it is totally within the realm of "working for a greater change". It also involves a lot of computer work, data analysis, dressing and acting more in the official "Consultant" role. Things that would all be Challenging Growth Opportunities... or would I really just be fighting against my inner nature to try and fit a role I'm not sure I'm comfortable with...? If I do this, it will have to be on my own terms. In the past, when I've tried to fit myself into some corporate image of "The Professional" everything just feels wrong and icky. But the options and possibility to pursue this Energy Consultant path are definitely there. I could take it and run with it and rock the shit out of that shit.
The other path is less clear. It feels warm and fuzzy. Down that path I see art, and earthen building, and community, and a near constant struggle for money and stability. But also glory. This path seems like the path of being a construction contractor, but just using that as an umbrella for whatever project I get engaged in at any particular time. This path involves getting paid to do my art. It involves building earthen houses in Seattle. It involves transforming myself into the community leader I want to be, to push and cajole people to get to know their neighbors and work together to grow food and build shit and work less and spend more time with their families. This path also holds the adventures and travels and spiritual work that I feel so called to do. It is more radical. Fuck sitting at a computer running models and numbers to figure out how Albertsons can use less energy, or even be Net Zero. I want to completely reconceive the building from the ground up (ok, yes, it is really important to work with the existing structure to make improvement, I just think that work is the wrong fit for me...). I want to reconceive the community it serves, and the concept of the grocery store in the first place. How can we expand farmers' markets and CSA's and urban farming to bring people closer to the source of their food and reconnect them to the earth, to the cycles of life?
Choosing one path does not necessarily exclude the other path, but as my dad has told me many times, "you gotta focus on something." I gotta pick a thing and put my energy into it, to the exclusion of other things, in order to get good, to get into the craft of a thing. Right now I choose earthen building. It feels right.
But maybe I am also choosing to be a generalist. I feel confident about my current choice to do earthen building, but I'm already looking beyond that to think of what I'll do in 15 or 20 or maybe five years, when my body stops cooperating with this choice. Maybe the two paths I see now are not divergent, but will be woven together in a way I have yet to conceive. As a generalist, maybe I can help span the gaps within each area of focus (farming, building, transportation, community) so that we can reconceive a healthier society.
Of course, for now, all of this is posturing. I'm not personally involved in any long-term community groups, or working to build any particular structures. I just have ideas. For now, I'm still incubating and growing and moving around too much to work on building the things I'm thinking about. But I've got plans. For now, step one is building the FreeRadical.
The words "free radical" also feel right. Very close to my current psychological and spiritual state. Now, more than ever before, I am succeeding at becoming myself. "Fulfilling my destiny" sounds a little too melodramatic and pretentious, but something along the lines of becoming the person I imagine myself to be in my dreams. Resolving cognitive dissonance, to me, means finding a balance: between being fully present to each moment and enjoying life to the fullest extend with things such as they are, and at the same time striving to change the discomforting and upsetting things in myself and the world around me.
The biggest cognitive dissonance I find staring me in the face on a daily basis is thus:
Cars: gasoline powered personal vehicles, and all of the infrastructure and economy that comes along with them... are destroying our society, environment, and personal health. "Cars" themselves are not the problem, per say. But the paradigm in which it is considered more "efficient" to use a two ton combustion vehicle to convey individual human across town, rather than for them to use a bicycle, or for our society to invest in public transportation, or to even take the time to walk a long ways. This situation is only really "efficient" within an extremely narrow set of parameters, excluding a vast array of other conditions and factors. (I could go on here, but I think I'll dedicate this rant to a separate post). But, on a daily basis, I find it necessary to drive a vehicle, either for work or borrowed from a friend for an errand, consume gasoline, and otherwise continue to feed the monster. Hence the bicycle project...
The same basic idea is similarly and succinctly argued in this poster, regarding the plastic spoon:
This very basic dissonance is at the heart of most of my current motivations in life. The underlying paradigm that feeds this reality in our society feels very, very wrong. On a daily basis, it makes me want to kick and scream and shake people (especially co-workers) and tear things down and fuck shit up. But I can't, because that wouldn't really be productive. So I channel all that energy into various ways that I can reduce the influence of cars and petroleum in my life.
Right now it seems like I have two paths available to me (the dichotomy here is entirely linguistic - there are infinite paths and options, but for ease of discussion there are two main themes).
One is to become a Commercial Building Energy Consultant. Or at least, to continue further down the path of being an Energy Auditor / Consultant. The opportunities are certainly there. It has the potential to be very lucrative. Or least provide a stable income. And it is totally within the realm of "working for a greater change". It also involves a lot of computer work, data analysis, dressing and acting more in the official "Consultant" role. Things that would all be Challenging Growth Opportunities... or would I really just be fighting against my inner nature to try and fit a role I'm not sure I'm comfortable with...? If I do this, it will have to be on my own terms. In the past, when I've tried to fit myself into some corporate image of "The Professional" everything just feels wrong and icky. But the options and possibility to pursue this Energy Consultant path are definitely there. I could take it and run with it and rock the shit out of that shit.
The other path is less clear. It feels warm and fuzzy. Down that path I see art, and earthen building, and community, and a near constant struggle for money and stability. But also glory. This path seems like the path of being a construction contractor, but just using that as an umbrella for whatever project I get engaged in at any particular time. This path involves getting paid to do my art. It involves building earthen houses in Seattle. It involves transforming myself into the community leader I want to be, to push and cajole people to get to know their neighbors and work together to grow food and build shit and work less and spend more time with their families. This path also holds the adventures and travels and spiritual work that I feel so called to do. It is more radical. Fuck sitting at a computer running models and numbers to figure out how Albertsons can use less energy, or even be Net Zero. I want to completely reconceive the building from the ground up (ok, yes, it is really important to work with the existing structure to make improvement, I just think that work is the wrong fit for me...). I want to reconceive the community it serves, and the concept of the grocery store in the first place. How can we expand farmers' markets and CSA's and urban farming to bring people closer to the source of their food and reconnect them to the earth, to the cycles of life?
Choosing one path does not necessarily exclude the other path, but as my dad has told me many times, "you gotta focus on something." I gotta pick a thing and put my energy into it, to the exclusion of other things, in order to get good, to get into the craft of a thing. Right now I choose earthen building. It feels right.
But maybe I am also choosing to be a generalist. I feel confident about my current choice to do earthen building, but I'm already looking beyond that to think of what I'll do in 15 or 20 or maybe five years, when my body stops cooperating with this choice. Maybe the two paths I see now are not divergent, but will be woven together in a way I have yet to conceive. As a generalist, maybe I can help span the gaps within each area of focus (farming, building, transportation, community) so that we can reconceive a healthier society.
Of course, for now, all of this is posturing. I'm not personally involved in any long-term community groups, or working to build any particular structures. I just have ideas. For now, I'm still incubating and growing and moving around too much to work on building the things I'm thinking about. But I've got plans. For now, step one is building the FreeRadical.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Restarting
Restarting this blog... it's hard for me to sit down and write stuff without creating some context... but I suppose life is a good enough context?
I just spent two weeks with the Mud Girls up on Denman Island, BC. We were building an earthen house at a co-housing property, for a woman who is an graphic designer and a tattoo artist. The weeks were an intense learning experience in learning the building technique, and also a uniquely empowering experience to be on a construction site run entirely by women. Denman is a semi-rural island with many artist, farmers, and also much of the typical small-town troubles. In an email to a friend, I had these thoughts after returning home:
The more I think about these thoughts and make my plans for the next year, which involve spending the entire summer 2012 living on or around Vancouver Island, doing an earthen building internship, the more I wonder if my life will take me out into living in some rural area. Being away from the city, away from internet, and movies, and media just felt so damn good. I don't know whether my future will be in Seattle, or near my sister in Bellingham, or even somewhere around Vancouver Island or some other rural area looking for organic farms in need of earthen buildings. What I do know is that right now I am walking the right path, learning earthen building, doing more art. I feel very strongly called to spend time on Vancouver Island. I'm just enjoying the beautiful things in my life this summer, and incubating the ideas of Awesome Projects percolating in my head.
I just spent two weeks with the Mud Girls up on Denman Island, BC. We were building an earthen house at a co-housing property, for a woman who is an graphic designer and a tattoo artist. The weeks were an intense learning experience in learning the building technique, and also a uniquely empowering experience to be on a construction site run entirely by women. Denman is a semi-rural island with many artist, farmers, and also much of the typical small-town troubles. In an email to a friend, I had these thoughts after returning home:
'Ready to go back to normal life?'.
I missed home, and I was ready to be home and reconnect with friends at the end of the week. I did not miss my job one bit, nor even think about it at all, and now I'm here again, fiddling at my desk in a government cube farm, doing paperwork and feeling all of the collective computer EM radiation, spiritual complacency mixed with unconscious despair, and temptations to dick around on the internet all day and eat peanut M&Ms from the vending machine. And I remember that the main benefits of my current job are that it is non-challenging, low-stress, reasonably well-paying (allowing my to save-up money for building The Bicycle and Other Things), and most importantly temporary (because I'm a temp). It is still energy auditing, and I'm happy to be doing it for a low-income weatherization program, but the whole system of things makes me itchy. I feel like the time I spent on Denman was falling into place in another life, as a different person that I've always meant to be but never figured out how to. Cognitive dissonance. Coming back to the city feels good, like to fitting back into a well-worn jacket, but maybe comfortable because of it's familiarity, not necessarily because it's the right fit. But just leaving here and moving somewhere new (somewhere like Denman), doesn't feel right either. Somehow I've got to figure out how to more fully be the person I am when I feel free like that... within the structure of the city. Creating my own reality. Re-making the city, or at least some small corner of it, to feel like Co-Ho landing... But such things take time to manifest. I've got plans for making it all fall into place. I dunno if it'll work, but I gotta try, because not trying would be just going back into the despair and dissolution and complacency that I've only recently managed to pull myself out of.
The more I think about these thoughts and make my plans for the next year, which involve spending the entire summer 2012 living on or around Vancouver Island, doing an earthen building internship, the more I wonder if my life will take me out into living in some rural area. Being away from the city, away from internet, and movies, and media just felt so damn good. I don't know whether my future will be in Seattle, or near my sister in Bellingham, or even somewhere around Vancouver Island or some other rural area looking for organic farms in need of earthen buildings. What I do know is that right now I am walking the right path, learning earthen building, doing more art. I feel very strongly called to spend time on Vancouver Island. I'm just enjoying the beautiful things in my life this summer, and incubating the ideas of Awesome Projects percolating in my head.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Summer Plans
So I have this half-cocked plan for the summer, which involves selling my car, saving up a bunch of money, then quitting my job and taking some months to
a) volunteer lots and lots,
b) ride my bike lots and lots
c) have the time to pursue and educate myself about new interests which include, ecology restoration, urban/organic farming, and starting/running non-profit organizations.
I'm pretty confident and excited about this. I'm don't have a specific plan for what I'll do with my time when I don't have a job, but I currently have so many interests and organizations to work with that I'm really expecting to be almost as busy this summer as I am now, and at the same time, less stressed and enjoying my life more.
I am operating on the assumption that out of this "project" a specific path will emerge and result in a paying job (hopefully before my savings run-out, but I do have some backup plans for that). The only logistical problem that really worries me is not having health insurance for an indefinite amount of time.
Outside of that, my father is going to flip his shit when he finds out what I'm doing. And I'm not sure what to do about this. I don't know why, but my dad's incredible cynicism and general lack of support in anything outside of the mainstream job/career plan really gets me down and saps all of my confidence when I have plans like this. I feel like I have two options with this:
I could try to engage him in debate, and convince him at least that I least I'm not about to make myself destitute. I have some specific arguments. I really feel like engaging in this debate will just make me upset and discouraged though.
My other option is to avoid seeing or talking to him for an extended period of time, and I feel like this would be the best option. This seems like a very difficult decision to make though. On some level, I really want my dad's input and support, but I just don't think that's going to happen.
Oh well. ONWARD.
(my dad and co-workers are blocked from this post)
(cross-posted on facebook with lots of discussion)
a) volunteer lots and lots,
b) ride my bike lots and lots
c) have the time to pursue and educate myself about new interests which include, ecology restoration, urban/organic farming, and starting/running non-profit organizations.
I'm pretty confident and excited about this. I'm don't have a specific plan for what I'll do with my time when I don't have a job, but I currently have so many interests and organizations to work with that I'm really expecting to be almost as busy this summer as I am now, and at the same time, less stressed and enjoying my life more.
I am operating on the assumption that out of this "project" a specific path will emerge and result in a paying job (hopefully before my savings run-out, but I do have some backup plans for that). The only logistical problem that really worries me is not having health insurance for an indefinite amount of time.
Outside of that, my father is going to flip his shit when he finds out what I'm doing. And I'm not sure what to do about this. I don't know why, but my dad's incredible cynicism and general lack of support in anything outside of the mainstream job/career plan really gets me down and saps all of my confidence when I have plans like this. I feel like I have two options with this:
I could try to engage him in debate, and convince him at least that I least I'm not about to make myself destitute. I have some specific arguments. I really feel like engaging in this debate will just make me upset and discouraged though.
My other option is to avoid seeing or talking to him for an extended period of time, and I feel like this would be the best option. This seems like a very difficult decision to make though. On some level, I really want my dad's input and support, but I just don't think that's going to happen.
Oh well. ONWARD.
(my dad and co-workers are blocked from this post)
(cross-posted on facebook with lots of discussion)
Friday, March 13, 2009
The life plan keeps changing
I've been combating an overwhelming feeling of being lost recently. Which isn't so different from usual, but it tends to come to a head at certain points which causes me to look for significant changes that I can make in my life to "fix" things, or at least put myself closer to the right path.
Wants:
A bikable work commute (less than 4 miles w/no bus).
A job that I care about.
A communal house with hippie/good friend/women housemates, a yard for my dog, an organic garden, a large garage, and a quirky, rambling aesthetic.
So, issue #1 to fix, is the job.
Problems with the job: lack of meaning. wrong culture (too conservative). not flexible enough. not enough vacation time
Solutions: Working in Environmental Restoration? Urban Gardening (how do I go about this?). I specifically want to work on physically restoring the environment. Also, urban community building around gardening and volunteering. Community building and environmental activism/policy work.
The path: volunteer with People for Puget Sound as much as possible.
Important lifestyle bits: Spending less money = more vacation time. buying the Mazda Protege was possibly the dumbest thing I have ever done. no way out of it now? I could sell the thing. just sell it. Or trade for a motorcycle? or a truck?
Bike everywhere. Tap into urban gardening community? Think of ways to build urban community, ala communal public spaces, restoration volunteering, home landscaping & gardening. But how do I go about all of this? I do I go about following this path?
Wants:
A bikable work commute (less than 4 miles w/no bus).
A job that I care about.
A communal house with hippie/good friend/women housemates, a yard for my dog, an organic garden, a large garage, and a quirky, rambling aesthetic.
So, issue #1 to fix, is the job.
Problems with the job: lack of meaning. wrong culture (too conservative). not flexible enough. not enough vacation time
Solutions: Working in Environmental Restoration? Urban Gardening (how do I go about this?). I specifically want to work on physically restoring the environment. Also, urban community building around gardening and volunteering. Community building and environmental activism/policy work.
The path: volunteer with People for Puget Sound as much as possible.
Important lifestyle bits: Spending less money = more vacation time. buying the Mazda Protege was possibly the dumbest thing I have ever done. no way out of it now? I could sell the thing. just sell it. Or trade for a motorcycle? or a truck?
Bike everywhere. Tap into urban gardening community? Think of ways to build urban community, ala communal public spaces, restoration volunteering, home landscaping & gardening. But how do I go about all of this? I do I go about following this path?
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