collective

Cafe Gratitude Serves Up Love at Occupy Oakland

A big thank you to Terces and Matthew from all of us! Thank you for being fierce love warriors, for always being a space of love, and for listening with compassion for all of us. Thank you for always seeming to get bigger! Thank you for holding the space for dialogue and giving us the opportunity to share our amazing organic food and love!!!

The Strength of Mud

The Mud Girls is a bartering network of builders collectively creating local renewable structures and devices for the local areas of Lasqueti Island, near Vancouver Island in Canada. This collection of 13 women builds walls, cabins, ovens and more with various clay and natural recourses and recycled materials such as bottles or tires. Mud Girls mix together a sculptable clay mixture called cob by hand and foot, which is a mixture of sand, clay, straw and water. Cob is an ancient and widely used building material which uses only renewable and natural resources and can be gathered locally. The collective also holds workshops to teach locals how to work with cob and build naturally, expanding the knowledge base, and furthering the ancient craft of mixing and building with clay. Photos on their website show women and girls of all ages covered in mud and smiling in front of curvy artfull buildings built together with other women. This is truly a community worth learning from.

The Mud Girls was founded in 2004 by a woman who wanted to create and build in traditional ways but didn’t see a space for women to do so because of the binary gender chore divide of women indoors and men outdoors. Jen Gobby decided to put an ad out through her local monthly newspaper for likeminded women to come together. Fifteen women answered her call and they created what is now a bustling, productive, sustainable, loving, and communicative network of strong and free women. They create together, communicate with love, and address all challenges as a group. I admire them for the productive, creative and vibrant work that they are doing, with not just their practice in community building, but for the earth-honoring and feminine curves of the structures that they build. The Mud Girls are a great example of female empowerment and productive strength through feminine vision.

100 People... 4 years... Go.

On October 30th I woke up to this blog and video on Superforest (my favorite way to greet the world when I turn on my computer!)It really made me think... even more deeply... that, if there were only 100 people in the world, I would of course want to make sure that EVERY ONE OF US had enough food, clean water, shelter, health care. I wouldn't be able to live in a world of 100 where any of the members of my little community was suffering while I was eating enough and sleeping out of the rain. So... if I wouldn't let that happen if the world only had 100 human inhabitants, why do we let that happen in a world of billions and plenty?

It seems to me that it has to do with the fact that, on a very fundamental level, we don't believe we can truly make a difference. In other words, we don't get that we matter.

Then, because it seems overwhelming to care about so many or so much, we tighten our focus so we can manage what's right around us. Another way of thinking of that tightening of focus is, in the words of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, our hearts begin to shrink. I don't believe that our hearts shrink out of malice or resentment like the Grinch, but they shrink because we simply don't know how to hold all the pain, suffering and injustice around us. In other words, they shrink because, like the Grinch, we hurt.

Another way of looking at it is that we get taught that we aren't enough - in so many ways - old enough, smart enough, good looking enough, kind enough, rich enough... the list goes on and on. So we pull in, doing our best to build thick walls to shield ourselves from the pain "out there" and to quiet the torment "in here," and focus on the who's and what's right around us - our families, close friends, pets, finances and homes. And, sometimes, we even shut out those closest to us.

I'm not saying everyone does this, but that it is often the norm of behavior. There are most definitely exceptions to this, but I'm more interested, for purposes of this conversation, in the majority of us who tend to ignore the homeless person on the street or at least brush them off with a "Not now," or who say we don't have enough money to help build schools in Uganda while sipping on our daily latte. I'm talking about myself here, too....

I'm also not talking just about caring for people but about caring for all beings on the planet and for the planet itself, as a living organism. We are part of a much larger whole, members of the family of earthly inhabitants, and when we consider that we are part of the whole and not separate from it, we can begin to grow our hearts again. We can unlearn what we were taught... we can re-member who we are and begin to trust ourselves and the world again, and reach out.

I mean, if we knew - really knew - that whatever we thought, said, believed, did or expressed had a ripple effect that would emanate outward and be absorbed, reflected and returned to us, we'd probably think very differently about the choices we make.

I mean, what if every one of us really got that we mattered? How would that change... everything?

There's a organization that is addressing this conversation in the most potent way I know of; it's called Four Years. Go. I invite you to watch the video, then commit to taking action in your life such that a thriving, just and sustainable world is possible for all. What this means is we must make that possibility - that dream - our collective galvanizing principle in the next four years... because what we do in the next four years will determine the quality of life on our planet for the next 1,000 years.

Oakland Youth Center Community Garden

I believe that, in that world of 100, we would make sure that everyone was fed, housed, clothed and cared for in every way. Those of us who had homes and more than enough would reach out and bring our neighbors sleeping in the rain in out of the storm. We would offer food, a shower, a bed to sleep in and a home.

We would care for all beings and consider every decision. We would convert our lawns to food gardens and share the bounty with our neighbors. We would save our rainwater and use composting toilets because we know the preciousness of water. We would consider where all the stuff we buy comes from and where it goes when we're through with it. We would buy only that which we need. We would repair our appliances instead of throwing them away to pile up in landfills.

So, how do we translate that level of care to a world in which there already is more than enough food for everyone (but it just doesn't get distributed to those who need it)? How do we assure that all beings have homes?

I believe it starts right here... in remembering who we are and getting that we all matter.

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Cafe Gratitude Serves Up Love at Occupy Oakland

The Strength of Mud

100 People... 4 years... Go.

Gratitude !