Aging is Non-Discriminitory--- We Are All Approaching 80--- If We Are Lucky

Amazingly our somewhere around 92 year old neighbor, "Elle," has Alzheimer's dementia, and she is quite seriously on her own. It is not so very surprising that she is alone in life, no spouse, no relatives, no friends, it happens. What is shocking is that in the state she is clearly in, in the State of California, there is no help for her! Here are the facts: she is a veteran of WWII. She has lived in this building of 18 units for the past 40 years. she was fired from her job of many years as resident manager for some bizarre behavior (a result of beginnings of Alzheimer's) three years ago. She and I had been previously friendly, but after I was hired by the old old landlord to do the job she had held, she became verbally abusive whenever she saw me. Once when the smoke alarms in the building went off, house filled with smoke everywhere, I called the Fire Department, warned everyone, and when I knocked on her door she was scathing in her criticism of the responsibility I had taken, calling what turned out to be her pyrotechnics "just a small kitchen fire." I tried to remain friendly and helpful for a while, but decided it was best all around if I steered clear.

Another neighbor helped her out with several things for a few years. He was her only friend here, although everyone was courteous and friendly. One day about a year ago, in the middle of the night she banged on the door of the young couple living in the unit below her to complain of "loud music and noise." They assured me the next morning they had not been making noise, which I knew to be true. Elle had engaged in a struggle over their door, which had been opened slightly to her by the young man. He got it closed, and she banged so hard on it with something in her hands that she actually broke part of the moulding on the door. Soon after the couple moved out.

Once I heard a loud noise from the second floor where she lives, so I knocked on her door to see if she was OK, thinking she may have fallen. She yelled at me as if I had flung at her the worst insult imaginable.

Meanwhile, her helping neighbor had reported to the property owner that he had grown wary of Elle, her behavior was growing increasingly bizarre, he was no longer in a position to be of help to her. The landlord asked me to call social services to see what help could be offered to a lady of such advanced age, a veteran of WWII, on Medicare and Medi-Cal. Shockingly, Adult Protective Services could offer nothing beyond, "call the police to 52/50 her. The landlord must evict her." Not one to give up easily, I began a campaign of information gathering, to little avail.

A few weeks ago I ignored it this time when again I heard quite a loud noise somewhere in the building. One of the other neighbors, a young man knocked on my door to tell me Elle had fallen on the top of the carpeted stairs, that she had hit her head, he and another neighbor were attending to her. I called 911, asked them to send an ambulance. She spent a couple of days in the hospital. Meanwhile, I got on the phone to APS again, believing for all the world that this crises would galvanize them to action. I was told that unless she makes the decision to get help for herself, no one may step in to help her, not even if she is in a state of dementia rendering her a danger to herself and others. Help could not be given to her unless she herself sought it, even though Alzheimer's is a medical condition, causing deterioration of the brain. The property owner was given no other choice by Adult Protective Services than to evict, the prospect of which is loathsome to him, understandably enough.

I was told a few days ago by a first floor neighbor, that one night several months ago she had been awakened in the middle of the night by Elle banging hard on the door of two other very nice neighbors, yelling at them to "turn off that music!" Clutching hard at her sheets, the downstairs neighbor had grabbed her phone in panic, ready to call 911. People are not used to calling the cops on a 92 year old lady. Soon after the neighbors of the early AM door-banging moved out. The landlord and I never even knew the reason why, at the time.

A friend of Elle's visiting her for the first time in years called the paramedics to come pick her up in an ambulance. She had some kind of "shortness of breath." Back on the phone to report this to APS, I met with what seemed to me cold callousness, or ineptitude, no help, once again.

Elle back again the next day from the hospital, I returned around midnight two nights ago to the stink of chemicals and several messages telling me the police had been called, Elle had been hauled off again to Summit Hospital. She had been pouring bleach and Raid all over her apartment and the stairs because "the snakes were now everywhere, had been biting" her all over her body. I was told she had been threatening to murder the neighbor who had previously cared for her. She had become paranoid that he was stealing her money, taking her prescriptions.

The police took her again, without her keys.

I am the keeper of the keys, and I am "out of town." At least for a few more days.We all need some breathing room here, and she needs proper assessment.

She needs proper help. This is beyond the call of duty or the capabilities of the landlord, or anyone living in this building. We are not doctors, nurses, social workers, the police or a hospital. We are not her friends or relatives. Most importantly we do not have power of attorney.

My advice to everyone of any age, especially those more or less on their own, is to make a living will, and set up a good friend or pay someone to have power of attorney, just in case. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. Alzheimer's, or any dementia can spiral out of control at what can seem like a moments notice. We are not a society practicing the control of population at one end or the other. We do not limit the birth rate, we keep people alive long after in earlier times they would have been dead. Since 1960 the world population has doubled. This trend continues exponentially. The state of California is in a fiscal mess beyond reckoning. Californians have voted in a state constitution by which laws cannot be changed or made except by vote of the people, who are largely short-sited, want only not to be taxed. 2/3rds majority legislative vote and Proposition 13 limiting property taxes have nearly broken the system. In the seventies it was decided in an election by the people of California, that they did not wish to have extended care coverage as part of Medicare, which could have been paid for by individuals who wanted it, seven or eight bucks a month. Elle has Medicare and Medical, a nursing home will be paid for, if only the professionals will take some responsibility. in part their hands are tied by legislation enacted at the behest of both liberals and civil-libertarians of the sixties, horrified at the state of our mental health institutions, the cause taken up by Reagan Republicans, who for financial reasons tore down the entire system. The baby was thrown out with the bath-water.

So, whats it gonna be my fellow humans who are aging, going inexorably toward what lies ahead for half of us if we are lucky enough to make it to eighty, namely Alzheimer's or other Dementia? Do we want a safety net for Elle? Do we want a safety net for ourselves? Do we want to be put in the position of caring ineffectually for neighbors and friends, doing work that is beyond our capacity? Do we want to see buildings burn, neighbors threatened with or actually murdered, poison dumped in the hallways where we live? Do we really want to see our oldest and most frail turned out into the street, or having to face an eviction judge in their (our) eighties? Nineties? More than 100s?

After Elle was once more sent to the hospital for starvation and sitting all day in the sun on the front stairs in her underwear (she had locked herself out of her apartment and no one at home had an extra key to let her in; I was not home. The landlord could not be reached), I received a call from APS. They wanted to be sure her door would be open, they wanted to dump her off yet again.

I spelled it out for them what could happen to this most vulnerable lady, if they brought her back again. I left no rock of detail in place, exposing in the harshest terms what I felt they would be responsible for, should further harm come to Elle, due to their negligence.

It seems this time they heard me; possibly even they felt they could not turn a blind eye to Elle's predicament. She has not been back in several weeks. The landlord informed me the other day that Elle will not return, she is now being cared for in a nursing home.

Written For an Exhibit at Deep Roots in Oakland Where my Work Was Shown Alongside That of My Friend Pedro Moreno in 2005 and an Update

Inspiration for this Show and a History

I moved to the Dutch boy Paint Factory Art Complex in 1987. This dilapidated patchwork of buildings in the heart of the industrial neighborhood of the Fruitvale District of East Oakland is considered by most to be the first artist's live/work studios created from an old factory or warehouse in the East Bay. At the time I moved in, while mostly artists lived and worked in the complex, I was told by my neighbors that the heyday for artists in these particular lofts had already past. Many were moving, had moved, planned to move. These circumstances, I was told, were due to two major factors: after artists had made their places habitable (without reimbursement from the landlord), rents had steadily climbed, pricing most artists out of the market, the other factor being the general unwillingness or slowness of our scofflaw slumlord to fix anything that might be in need of attention in our units. He was (is) an absentee landlord, who from the beginning took advantage of the poverty and need of artists for cheap space and lots of it, to use as residence, studio, gallery space, and storage. He cunningly made use of the inventiveness and creativity of people who were capable of making raw, formerly undesirable space into something quite attractive, while they simultaneously drew people to what had been and remains a remote, forbidding terrain. While I noticed that artists were indeed moving out, other artists would move in to take their place. More often people who were not artists moved in, attracted to the allure of a place that had built its reputation on the hopes and pioneering enthusiasm of artists. Also attractive were the high ceilings, large spaces, and again, perhaps the hope that something of what it is to be truly creative might rub off in some way, be contagious.
Jump cut a decade or more into the future, it is 1995. A baby has been born, is living where we were all assured from the time we moved in that all toxic materials had been removed from the days when our homes had been a factory. The baby is found at a local clinic to have dangerously toxic levels of lead throughout his system. The clinic by law must report this alarming news to the proper authorities at Housing Code Violations.
I date the beginning of the time when all hell broke lose in this place for all tenants from that child's personal calamity, which became the process of eviction for us all. To placate his alarmed tenants, who already saw the writing on the wall, the landlord initiated several meetings, where nothing was accomplished. Nothing was meant to actually happen. Soon after, the evictions began.
Understand that soon after 1978 when my landlord began to do live/work loft business, all tenants were given thirty page leases carefully delineating the demands of our landlord and the regulations governing our residencies on the property; fundamentally, our own rights were signed away. Understand that his agents instructed us with a wink- nudge- nod, that although we were to live here as others had and would, we must keep that knowledge carefully hidden from City Officials and Inspectors. Understand that this landlord was a notorious scofflaw, with or without City sanction and knowledge- the man was doing business without regard to official demands of building code, or permit processes. Understand too, that twenty-six years after he began assuring tenants the clean-up had been done, during which time he had rented to several people who lived here with children, including his own employees, toxic clean-up began. Nine years after the city busted him, forced to enforce by the finding of an infant with lead coursing through his blood stream, toxic clean up finally began.
In the fall of the year 2004 our numbers were down to about 20% of our former population, interestingly almost all artists again. Twelve trees were cut down on the property. Mountains of dirt that had been brought in from the Oakland hills the year previous would soon be put to use. Other mountains of toxic dirt heavily laced with lead and arsenic were trucked out. Under the ground where seven trees in giant wooden tubs had been removed from the parking lot, were seven underground vats containing 94,000 gallons of linseed oil, 12,000 gallons each. A caravan of 48 toxic clean up trucks removed the linseed oil. Next Eighty-seven cement mixer trucks came through to fill the underground tanks with concrete. What had taken the landlord twenty-six years to get around to, finally had been accomplished in roughly three weeks. The kicker is that he had the very cheapest concrete mixed. The stuff exposed at ground level still can be seen to be merely sand under foot at the above ground entrance to each tank. We live above a parking lot filled with sand.
Meanwhile, ongoing construction in the spaces of tenants evicted over the ten year period continues. Essentially the majority of the large spaces are being gutted and divided, most often into thirds, each of which the landlord plans to charge as much for as the previous entire space. It is unknown whether he will again allow tenants to live in the spaces, he has taken out bathrooms, is not building new ones. Sheer wall goes up, windows get covered, and the remaining windows of antique frosted chicken wire glass are relentlessly replaced by the thousands with clear panes. Aside from privacy issues, aside from the obvious earthquake safety of chicken wire glass, aside from aesthetic issues, most of these windows face southeast. On the hottest days of the year the sun comes blasting in. Imagine seeking refuge in your home from 95-degree weather to an indoor area 10 to 15 degrees hotter. I can only imagine this state of affairs when the relative protection offered by frosted glass is removed.
The man who had built a career on lying to the tenants he had built a fortune on, the man who had lied to and evaded city officials always, was finally cleaning up and making his buildings stronger. The man, who appeared to be doing the right thing for once, was once again doing it on the backs of his tenants.
Pedro Moreno became my art student, and very soon my friend, in the summer of 2000. Once a week he visited my studio for the sake of art and learning, in all day sessions that continued for three years. In this time we became the very best of friends. When a loft mate moved out two years ago, Pedro told me he would like to move in to the upstairs studio and bedroom across the larger downstairs studio from my upstairs living quarters. Although at first I felt the need to deliberate long and hard over this decision for many reasons, I gave him the go ahead, and feel now for many more reasons, that it is the best decision I ever made. We are friends, and we are companions in battle against the landlord.
The landlord has been trying to evict Pedro and me since my last ten-year lease ended in January of 2004. On September 1st, the same day of the opening of this collaborative exhibition commemorating our art and our valiant stance, the last evicted tenant will have moved from our building. Pedro and I will be living together, alone in a huge three-story structure that has become a vast wasteland of sporadic construction activity. Our busily productive live/work studio is the last of its kind here, for now. It is, and we are, endangered species.
Our legal battle for now takes place at the City Of Oakland Rent Adjustment Program. Our primary aim as of this moment in time is to both assert and establish our rights as residential tenants, under the law. From the time my last lease ended and the landlord began to try to evict us from our home, it has been one year and nine months. Thus far, we prevail.
Chandra Garsson, 2005




Pedro and I are the best of buddies. We have the kind of friendship that is steel both strong and flexible as can be the case when friendship is subjected to the fire of mutual suffering, the only way I can characterize the eviction of artists.

I landed in a tiny apartment by a lake to live in, my studio of four years is in an old Bank of America Building (a step up I suppose from an old paint factory---at least it is not on toxic ground).

The place was given to me by a dear friend and collector of many years. Very sadly, she died. Her son inherited the building and me. Now he is evicting me. He tells me on the official eviction notice all tenants received:

"Chandra---You don't have to move on the same schedule as rest of folks. Also---I have a space for you that I think will work well. Love, David (happy face drawing :) )"

The move was heavy and long. Much was sold cheap and much else was trashed. Much was fixed after being damaged in the move. Some was left behind by movers disgruntled by a bigger project than they had bargained for. Much was retrieved, including my sanity, after four years of allowing myself to do only that which I choose.

I have tried in vain for a week and a half to arrange a time to see the studio or at least the complex which he thinks I will find suitable, to see if indeed this is the case. I have left several unanswered messages. For now, my only plan is to wait. When he sees fit to show me the other space, then I shall begin the steps necessary toward vacating my studio once again, again to haul, and to begin to build again in a new place.

Love Made of Heart by Teresa LeYung Ryan

My friend Teresa LeYung Ryan (left in center photo, and to right of me at top) wrote the exquisite fictionalized memoir, Love Made of Heart. At a point in our friendship, she commissioned me to paint my interpretation of her book, inspired by the cover, on her book shelves (photo above). To see reviews of her book, click on photo of back cover.

I so enjoyed Teresa's book, that I have read and re-read it, and I have given it as a gift to several friends. There is profound authenticity here; there is so much well written story about the author, and about her world. It is a coming of age tale in the vein of the best of those written. Also, what can be said of her work is that there is transcendence, renewal, faith, and hope. Teresa, and her book are an inspiration. From her website, which I encourage you to visit and re-visit:

Teresa LeYung Ryan

http://www.WritingCoachTeresa.com

Career Coach for Writers

and

Manuscript Consultant

• polish your manuscript by identifying the themes and archetypes;
• market yourself to agents and publishers;
• map out your career.

Teresa edits women’s fiction, mainstream fiction, memoirs, children’s and young adults’ fiction, and short stories.

Some comments from her clients:

“Teresa is not only a lovely writer and a wonderful person, but also an enthusiastic, inspiring, and thorough mentor. Her far-reaching knowledge, networking expertise, and organization ensure that an aspiring writer will have the strongest foundation possible to launch him/herself on a successful career.” Pat Windom

“Teresa, . . because of you, the story has grown. You make me dig deeper and it brings more life to the story.“ E. Hartshorn

“Teresa, . . . I even see myself succeeding and being put into print and making money with my writing ability. I am so grateful to you.” D.Warner

Teresa LeYung Ryan is:

• Member-at-Large at Women’s National Book Association-SF Chapter;
• Past Co-Chair of Group Mentoring at California Writers Club-San Francisco Peninsula Branch;
• Past President of California Writers Club-San Francisco Peninsula Branch;
• a 2004 recipient of the Jack London Award for her services to California Writers Club;
• Speaker and instructor.
  

Teresa LeYung Ryan uses her mother-daughter novel Love Made of Heart to advocate compassion for mental illness and to help survivors of family violence find their own voices.

In Love Made of Heart, protagonist Ruby Lin is forced to look into her past when her mother shuts down her own painful world. The story explores the complex bonds between mothers and daughters, the choices we make when our hearts are broken, and the choices we make when our hearts are healed.

• archived at the San Francisco History Center;
• recommended by the California School Library Association;
• recommended by the California Reading Association;
• used in Advanced Composition English-as-a-Second-Language classes.

www.LoveMadeOfHeart.com

Todd Lilienthal, Artists, Babysitting, and John Henry

I am reminded of the day I met Todd Lilienthal, now a thundering musician, singer, steal-drivin' banjo man with his band out of Boulder, Colorado, Moonshiner.

I met Baby Aaron's brother Todd when he was just a year older than in his photo (right), closer to the age he is in the photo with Aaron, but earlier than that, at about age six. I was glad to know this talented person until he was eight. At the time I was very happy to meet such a personable, engaging, friendly boy in my new job as nanny on Quail Avenue, in the Berkeley hills just shy of Grizzley Peak, near Tilden park.

I was primarily there to care for his new born brother Aaron, A little bitty boy, layin' in the palm of yer' hand... oh wait. I guess that was John Henry, Aaron was a little bigger than that, 'tho he was but two weeks old when our association began.

I found them both on facebook! Amazingly, the boy I knew from age six to eight, Todd, is now the leader of a steal-drivin' gang... hold on. He is a great banjo picker, a singer of John Henry, and covers of other great bluegrass, soul and rock tunes such as Time (Pink Floyd), Brown-Eyed Women (Grateful Dead), as well as some they wrote themselves, and many wonderful others. The painting is of some of the tools of my own trade.

Moonshiner has been described thus:

"The hard driving newgrass outfit from Boulder County is known for their invigorating innovations of traditional forms with insurmountable twang."

- Marc Tonglen, The Mountain Ear

"Moonshiner formed based on long standing friendships and common, deep rooted musical interests. The band is focused on playing high energy shows and writing tunes that fit their unique style of playing..." is their description of themselves
Moonshiner link is to your right at this blog, have a listen!

Baby Aaron

The miracle of facebook for me is that I was able to reconnect with Aaron, the tiny babe I cared for from the time he was two weeks old until he was two years old. What an adorable little golden- curled personality was this child.

I would stroke the little soft spot where the cranium has not yet closed in infants ever so gently, barely touching it. A look of sweetest contentment would enlighten his already Yogic little face as he lay upon my belly, then the two of us would sleep an hour or two.

His first word was "Nanra," for Chandra. Then he said "Mama," "dogie" for doggy, "hoie," for horsie for the giant horse that the Revolutionary War soldier rode in the enormous painting at the Berkeley Art Museum. It was wheelchair/stroller accessible, and I frequented it with Baby Aaron on a regular basis.

I had taken care of and taught art to hundreds if not thousands of children (beginning when I was eleven, until well into my thirties) by the time I met Aaron, and after as well; but he is the stand-out in my memory, the most precious little infant of all. we met when I was twenty-eight, as I recall. Now Aaron is studying for the Bar examination!

Pages are from my book, Insomnia (Awakening).

Assemblage sculpture was the first of it's kind that I did. It is made from the baby-suit, tiny tee-shirt, and outgrown stroller given to me by his mother. It was created in the garage of his parents that they graciously allowed me to use as my art studio.

The original photo of the piece (smallest, yellow and black) was taken by Amanda Dahl, for the website created by Aki Sasaki for my work, http://www.darksecretlove.com/chandra.

San Francisco Ballet, Romeo and Juliet

I took my best friend, Pedro Moreno, to the San Francisco Ballet again. This time, how lucky we were to see the Helgi Tomasson choreographed production, danced by Prima Ballerina Sarah Van Patten as Juliet, and Primo Ballerino Pierre-Francois Vilanoba, as Romeo. How thrilling to see the pair embodying the tragic lovers.

How gorgeous to revisit through exquisite dance, perhaps well-meant but nonetheless cruelly consequential and misguided parental skills, as danced by Mariellen Olson as Lady Montague, and Jeff lyons as Lord Montague.

How delicious to once again partake of Shakespeare's supreme psychological insight into the desructive meddling goodness of the perfectly beautifully danced parts of Nurse, and Friar Lawrence by Anita Paciotti, and Ricardo Bustamante, respectively. How horrifying to realize yet again the cruelty and ignorance of human existence through the barbaric testosteronic ego and body slaying antics of the supreme athletic grace in the dance of Damien smith as Tybalt, Pascal Molat as Mercutio, and sad to say, Romeo.

All, all, all, were as great as can be expected from a world-class ballet company, and much greater than that. Ask me if I am a fan of the ballet, and I shall tell you truthfully that as an artist, and the artist that I am, I am in a position to appreciate as much as any, all of the higher arts. I should have been partaking my entire life, but the cruelty of economics in this country prevented me from going as often as I most assuredly would have preferred. Ballet, Opera, Classical or any other musical form should not be only for the wealthy. Theater was intended by the greatest playwrights, including Shakespeare, for the masses. I rue the day when art museums began to charge for admission, and then to prohibitively increase those charges, year by year. Volunteering is an option, but competition for placement are fierce, and people must work to earn a living, so time is short.

I do know this. I was afforded much time my entire life to make art by the fact that I could rarely attend the art of others. I was rendered poverty-stricken by the fact that as a teacher of art I was very poorly paid, and the better jobs went from scarce to nearly non-existant. So work as an artist I did, long hard, rigorous hours. It's a bit different for me now, in so many ways; that is all subject for other blog entries, other times in the future.

Juliet is one of the Three Sisters of Hope and Fear, You may know her by her cap, and by the fact that her Shakespeare written words emerge from her youthful lips as jewels. She is created from found objects, fix-all, pigmented resin, texture gel, and vintage and antique jewelry. The assembled tiny hands in the panels behind her are cast from the hands of my five year old friend of several years ago, Heather Bui, daughter of Rebecca and Thai Bui.

Romeo and Juliet are in reality Adam and Eve, playing the roles for just this blog entry. They inhabit their 5 and a 1/2 X 4 foot canvas, swathed in their nakedness by acrylic and oil paints, various secret and hidden textural drama, and a fig-leaf (or two), symbol of repression (in this case), but more hopefully also symbolic of sharing, and fruitfulness (fruitility?). they are owned by Maureen Anglin.

Pyramus and Thisbe, owned by Barry Ress, are also stand-ins and early inspirations for Romeo and Juliet. They are created on the backs of wooden drawers, each 21"x 21" from tin, wood shavings, vintage can labels, and layer upon layer of acrylic I painted using dual tools of concentration and love, wielded from faith in my own universe.

The jewels in the black table I began to make in the tiny apartment I now inhabit, my studio being much smaller than in years past, and across town, an hour and a half away by bicycle, as opposed to the short trip downstairs that I made in the past to produce my work. They are comprised of Turquoise, Coral, various quartzes, aquamarine, garnet and other jewels fit for young Juliet.

Deep Green is Not the Same as Dark Green... Gushing Oil Blues

A prominent theologian recently wrote a book detailing the green movement as a religion, which he calls "dark green religion." Another who conflates ecology with religion because she grew up in a forest with a father who was both fundamentalist Christian and a forest ranger says that both fundamentalist Christianity and the Green Movement have in common a dearth of humor. She asks if anyone has ever heard of stand-up comedy performed by the proponent of either.

Well, I have also never heard of stand-up comedy about the Holocaust, slavery, child abuse, rape, or mass murder. I have not heard a whole lot of stand-up about war, which generally along with greed and the corrupt usurpation of land and power practiced by nearly all nations and peoples throughout history, is widely glorified and celebrated.

I am deeply green. This is not a religion for me, although I do hold life as sacred. I am aware every day of my duty toward preservation of the planet, including our atmosphere and our oceans. As such I do not drive. I happily walk, ride a bicycle and public transportation everywhere I go. I proudly state for all to hear that I have brought no child into this world to exponentially increase my carbon foot-print in perpetuity. I do not use heaters or air-conditioners, or excess electricity (I keep all plugged into power strips which I regularly turn off when not in use), and I use CFL bulbs. If I owned the place where I live I would go solar. I have not eaten meat, neither chicken or fish, for almost two thirds of my life. I get my Omega 3 fatty acids from Flax Seed Oil. I never fly in a plane.

I deeply mourn for the Gulf of Mexico off of four states, and who knows how much by the time this finally ends, who's coastlines and wetlands will be devastated by the gushing British Petroleum rig sunk more than a mile deep into the waters where perpetual oil bleeds from a major artery without end until it is capped (???), or until our earth is a suffocated, poisoned, dried up little wrinkled raison of a planet forever doomed by threat from nuclear annihilation from the dual catastrophic hazard of both weaponry and energy.

Originally the piece photographed and presented here was made in compassion for the child victims of the Catholic Church. It is part of an installation presented at ProArts Gallery in Oakland, California in which I exhibited over two hundred artworks detailing my feelings about human on human cruelty, called Insomnia (Awakening). It is now time for humanity to awaken from it's long slumber with dreams attending of money, lust, and power; there is still hope that we can save ourselves yet. I recommend knowing how you truly feel and allowing yourself to feel it, for starters. I am talking about deep greening of yourself.

Earth Days

As the Icelandic volcano Eyjafijallajokull spews ash across Europe, Mother Earth complains to humanity with the barest tip of the Iceberg that is her power and wrath. Her rage at unthinking, uncaring, ignorant humanity is a just, deafening, blinding, inferno. "Ground the damn planes now and forever!"...seemingly she shrieks. We can all have empathy for a planet besieged by one species--- humanity--- which having the capacity to know better, is concerned only with puny self. It is time to begin to think, and think carefully, and think again about the cruelty of bringing new ones into this world. The new ones are innocent, just as Mother Earth herself is innocent. They are undeserving of what greater and greater havoc will be turned by her on the glut of greed and ego that is the ever unthinking and exponential human birth rate.

I do not call for a complete halt, but this is a call to each individual to assess for her or himself the true need for another vulnerable little one added to the mess we have collectively brought down upon our world. This is a cry out to think about how casually we fly in machines that spew millions of tons of carbon dioxide into our friendly skies. Think also of the killing machines we drive which are costing us our atmosphere and killing more people each year than Cancer or heart decease. Automobiles have killed many times the amount of those killed in the hundred or so years since their invention than have all the wars fought by soldiers in the entire history of the U.S.A.

1000 deaths, 240,000 auto accidents caused by driver cellphone use in 2002

1,187,037 Americans killed in wars 1775-1998 3,159,489 Americans died in U.S. Highway accidents 1900-1998 

I urge everyone on the planet to re-think their dietary needs and realize once and for all that they do not need meat, it's a very bad habit learned in childhood; it is a habit easily broken. Simply learn to appreciate delicious vegetarian and vegan food. Learn the virtue of good whole local food, food from close to it's source. Support your local Farmer's Market! Grow your own food!

In honor of Earth Day, I urge you to throw out your air-conditioners, jettison your addiction to electrical, gas, and wood heat; learn to dress in layers, move your body to stay warm, open your windows, open and change your minds, before it is too late.

You've been told before and in defense of Mother Earth I'll say it again: use CFL bulbs, turn off lights not in use, plug electronics into power strips then shut them down when not in use (for the day when you leave the home, for the night when you go to sleep), then turn off the power strip. It's easy, it gives you the wonderful feeling that comes with doing what's right, and multiplied by billions, it will make a huge difference.

Let us all put an end to the individual use of pesticides, herbicides, and huge corporate agribusiness. Pressure corporations and congress to come up with solutions to the crisis of global warming and ocean acidification now. The time of worship of the almighty dollar has passed. It is time now to embrace again the ecological philosophies of ancient indigenous cultures worldwide, especially those we stole this land we call America from, the American Indian (they laugh at us for calling them Native Americans---they never called this land America, and all of us born here are native Americans).

Each of us must finally realize, we are in this together, it is not only about my ego, my money, my power, nor is it about yours. It is about a sustainable future for the planet's suffocating atmosphere and oceans and it is about the survival of our and all other species.

All of us together are one eco-system, mutually dependent on us all for everything. Do you care enough about your child to care for her the way she deserves? Do you care enough to not bring him into this world?

I am proud to say I have never brought a child into this world, I am proud that I have been a vegetarian for nearly two thirds of my life, I have not turned on a heater in years, never have I owned an air-conditioner, I never fly, I have never owned a car or driven one, after the license to drive one that I obtained long ago. I walk, ride a bicycle, and public transportation everywhere I go.

I am happier and healthier for facing the truth, I am proud of doing all I can individually and bringing pressure to bear on collective humanity, including the biggest and the most powerful. We are all David against Goliath, if only we are willing.

A Reminder of the Beauty of Life...

...In the form of a few simple gifts from the Earth: Turquoise, Aquamarine, Beryl, Carnelian, Garnet, Amethyst, Fluorite, Moonstone, Quartz, and more. It is interesting that coincident with the economic downturn, I came to realize with sadness that this was yet another gift not given of Earth's own free will. Excavation, wounding of the Earth, the destruction that is mining is involved. I slowed way down, production of these jewels has all but come to a halt. Now, photography of them has become the thing for me, still not ecologically pure, sadly, yet a nearly harmless pursuit of the joy I take in any creative endeavor. I continue to weigh what I give, what I take, and where I am closest to my ideal of ecology, the areas of greatest neutrality.

Thank You to the Heroes of the Catholic Church Who Courageously work to Bring to the Attention of the World Rampant Child Abuse

It affects children of the church, families, neighborhoods, every kind of temple, schools, swim teams, I defy you to name which part of our world anywhere has not been affected by this scourge. The sisters of this evil are rape of women and men, every nameable and unnameable human on human cruelty. Silence = complicity. Say no to every form of tolerance of every form of child abuse perpetrated anywhere by anyone.. Jail the offenders!