Next!

So what now? We have so much technology... is that what is going to save us?

No.

It's getting to know each other more, releasing each other from our fears and pains and blocks... it's courageously looking at my relationship of 25 years and acknowledging "We've been working on this for years and we're still stagnant and it's just getting worse;" it's trusting that a higher Power is at work; it's realizing that I am free in a way I've never been; it's searching for and doing whatever it is I am uniquely here on the planet to do; it's encouraging you to do the same; it's seeing that we are all saints already and our fears hold us back from expressing that; it's unplugging from Facebook and taking a friend out to dinner--

We will be saved not because of technology but because we finally stop being driving by our fears and then hitch our souls to our dreams.

Back into Foreclosure

I was very depleted after five years of so much effort to manifest the Home of the Future. I took a break. Last week I decided to come off break. I made a list of pros and cons regarding making the effort to keep this project going in this incarnation, and what actions I would need to take in order to sustain it.

The pros outnumber and outweigh the cons.

As if to reward me for pulling my head out of my navel, I got a Notice of Trustee Sale taped to my front door yesterday. The timeline is super short; December 13th. I'll call the bank and see what's up.

I'm in a pretty good mood about it. I really feel God's love and support. The "right" thing is going to be the thing that happens. The right thing is already happening. I'm feeling His presence within me. With Him as my center, my heart, my shelter, my shield, whatever happens out in the world cannot undo me.

The Pause

I hired my coach again.

Years ago, Nika Quirk helped me reach into my yearnings and pull out an action plan that got me to today. I'm caught up with the steps we outlined. Many manys of rewards and unseen consequences have occurred; for example, I have oodles of opportunity before me and my family has moved out and the big old house is effectively empty.

So, what's next?

Don't know.

But I'm curious to find out.

Litho-capture

This journey towards true sustainability has taken some big twists and turns. I've learned I feel sustainable when powerfully supported by other people. Yet when those relationships fall away, where is my sustenance?

Just this past weekend during a Reiki session I found a connection to my own rootedness that is brand new to me. I've ached for it since birth, and sought to fill it with so many diversions and delusions.

I've been pinwheeling out over the chasm for so long, Wile E. Coyote-style...

It feels good to let the earth rush up to enfold me.

The Saga of the Hot Water Heater.

Xena and Caitlan bought a water heater and brought it home in the tiny car. Gently. I heard all about shopping at Home Depot in high heels. Caitlan wondered, "Why was everyone calling me 'Dorothy?'"

A couple days later while unboxing it I saw the bottom was crumpled, as though the unit had been dropped from a great height. It had been purchased on Caitlan's debit card, so I called her away from spending the day with her boyfriend. She brought him and his van. The box fit much better in that vehicle than in our Geo Metro.

At the store I explained it was damaged. "Not a problem. Go find a replacement and we'll swap it out." We could only find a different model. They didn't have a replacement; this damaged one was the only unit. They couldn't swap it, and I didn't want a different model.

"When will you get the next shipment?' I asked.

They checked. "We can't tell. But there is an identical model at our store down the freeway. Here, let's credit you back this purchase." We drove to the other store, picked out the unit, talked our way into the same great price that Xena had gotten on the first water heater, and went to pay for it. The card got declined, since it takes 24 hours for the reimbursement to process. "Don't you have another way to pay for it?" Not then we didn't!

I dropped into a really crummy mood, but I made sure the kids knew I was very grateful for their help.

More time passed, without hot water in the kitchen.

Our tax refund came in. I rented a truck, drove to the hardware store (no project is complete until I've been at least three times) and bought the unit. I couldn't get them to give me the $90 discount that Xena and Caitlan had managed. On the same excursion I picked up a mattress and box spring from my friend Nika. "How's it going?" she asked.

"Well, I have a funny feeling about the water heater I'm installing tomorrow," I confessed.

The next day, rusted-solid pipe joints yielded to WD-40 and stern words from Xena. We got the old heater out and immediately drove it over to the scrap metal yard and then returned the truck. All day long my wonderful neighbors kept offering to help. "Is it time yet? Do you need help?" The project was so linear that I didn't, but it felt great knowing that if I needed something they would be there for me. I got the new unit in position. I went to hook up the gas and realized I'd left the connector in the other water heater. I drove back to the scrap yard and unscrewed it.

Back home, the cold water pipe (with the shut-off valve) couldn't quite align with the parts I had. I went back to Home Depot and got a longer flexible copper connector. There on the warehouse floor was the damaged unit I'd returned, with the box very definitely the worse for wear! They had also received new identical models! Oh, well.

Back home, everything all connected, I pressurized the system. A few minor leaks appeared. A quarter turn here and there and the pipes seated nicely.

I read the lighting instructions. Cool! It's got a piezo-electric igniter! I fired it up. Nothing. "Continue clicking the igniter until the pilot lights. Do not attempt to light by hand." Fine.

Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.

Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

"OH FOR PETE'S SAKE! XENA!" I roared. "IT'S YOUR TURN!"

"What's wrong?"

"THE DAMN THING WON'T LIGHT AND I NEED YOU TO TAKE OVER RIGHT NOW!"

In an extremely reasonable voice she asked, "Isn't there a phone number you can call?"

But I was beyond reasonability. "PROBABLY, BUT IT'S UP TO YOU NOW. I CANNOT DEAL WITH THIS EVEN ONE MORE SECOND!" I stormed away.

God bless her, she let me go. Betsy asked what was up. I felt so much better now that I wasn't in the same room as the water heater. "Oh, I've installed it and it won't light. So I've asked Xena to take over."

"That's pretty great, that she is doing that. Once, not too long ago, it would have been your job and she'd have told you, 'Just march yourself right back down there and take care of it!'"

I've got to agree, this was much better. I'd have burst an aorta if I'd been unable to hand off the project at that moment.

Xena and Nicholas fussed with it for a while and couldn't get it to light either. Xena came back upstairs and I went down to hang out with Nicholas as I was feeling much better. He and I fiddled with it for a few minutes, and it lit!

As far as I know, he and I didn't do anything unique or different. But it lit. Random elements at play, as they have been for some time, in my life and home and family.

So now we have hot water in the back half of the house again. There's been something of a rush on washing dishes. "Oh, it's so nice to wash dishes in warm water!" everyone keeps saying. I predict the novelty will wear off before i even finish typing this post, but it's fun to hear people excited to wash dishes instead of dragging themselves to do it.

A final footnote: Xena has found that the next model larger is now $10 cheaper.

Showing Up and Saying Yes

When really tough things happen and hard choices must be made, my Silver Lining Powers run up to full power. I hear the Word of God and choose to act on what is revealed.

Last time we were in a tough spot about shelter, there was very little awareness in the world about "going green." Transition Towns were still in the future. Urban Permaculture didn't exist. The chance to buy this house came up and I heard the Call to buy it.

I was in great fear, for it was a big loan. The house needed work. My family perceived that the timing was bad, with Xena in her final quarter for her degree and both kids trying to wrap up a school year.

I showed up to the challenge of buying the house and said "Yes." I felt the fear and did it anyway.

What I did not do was take the time to hear what my family was saying. Well, I heard them, but I ignored them, for the most part. I was on a Holy Mission to buy the house because It's For Your Own Good.

So in great clumsiness and with minimal regard for my family I plunged forward. I wrote all those experiences in this blog. Against the backdrop of finding housemates, paying a big mortgage and building a gray water system I learned the terrible costs I was asking my family to pay; Xena had to go to school an extra year after dropping a class that then wasn't offered until three quarters later, for example.

I have seen the tremendous benefits that living here in community have given my family and me. From common meals to other kids to play with or be annoyed by, from co-parenting to playing music together, from shared vacations to help with homework living here has been incredibly enriching.

But it is also true that I shoved it down their throats.

With my Silver Lining Powers.

Now, in the beginning stages of short-selling the house, I have a real opportunity to make amends. This time I hear God's Call and it is to Listen. I am listening to my wife's fears. I am listening to my son's anger. I am feeling how their emotions affect me.

Then I ask questions to learn what the greatest good they can imagine would be for them. Right now it is all about having choices and not being railroaded. So even as I feel transformative power take hold of me I make absolutely sure that I am honoring their place in the journey as well.

This time, in our search for shelter and security, I am aiming for us all to get what we want.

My new job is... newer.

The folks who come out to your house and install solar panels are called "solar integrators." We design custom systems from modular components, to give rate-payers the best bang for their buck as they secure their energy future. 

Unfortunately for solar integrators, it's a real slim margin industry. It's tough to make ends meet as a small company where a single job's parts costs as much as the next four job's profit. The solution? Integrators are themselves integrating.

Light Energy Systems has just been acquired by publicly traded Lonestar, and combined with another integrator as Acro Energy. We'll be learning each other's strengths, and teaching better practices as we discover each other's weaknesses. The end result will be better pricing and service for our clients.

I'm pretty glad about this, because now there's a learning curve for me again. And that's when I'm happiest.

I Laughed Out Loud

 I caught site of this shopping cart mosh while assessing a roof for solar access. From the look on my client's face as I burst into laughter I am sure he was concerned for my continued well-being up on the roof.

I don't know why this made me so happy, there in the rain three stories up, but it did and I'm glad to share it with you.

More Clarity for Me About Eating Meat

Thank you, everyone who commented.

My guru has spent decades sifting wheat from chaff in spiritual teachings and scriptures. It is his opinion that there is a hierarchy of consciousness, and that while all life is precious, self-aware human life is very precious.

As I held the dying bird, I could feel some of what he must know; this living, breathing creature shares a measure of Everlasting Spirit. It's not wrong to take this life, but it is wrong to do so in a way that demeans all life or corrupts human consciousness. Eating meat should be an intentional choice and an act of reverence, even more than our thankfulness for the bounty of plants God has provided.

Possessiveness

"That's my window!"

"We can share the windows."

"No! It's mine!"

"NO!!! It's my window!"

Caitlan pauses as she converts the water heater box into a rocket ship. "Thank you for having just two children," she says to me.

Xena, Did You Know..?

Frosty Belongs Outside

The big pay-off of getting the forced air heat re-routed? Comfort inside when it's very chilly outside. Last night, open water in the backyard froze to a depth of 1/8th inch. I'm not asking for and I don't expect empathy from anyone whose power got knocked out last week from an ice storm.

This is just me, rejoicing about realizing a goal held for several years. Living in Sandra's drafty old Victorian in Alameda we had very few choices about how to manage the heat. She had a furnace that was big enough, but the layout of the house meant all the heat whooshed right up two flights of stairs past the door to the attic and out. Moving to this house resulted in using electric heaters for two winters. That's about the most expensive use of electricity available to a consumer. I'd laid plans for how to solve the distribution of warm air two years ago, but it took until this past fall before we had the resources to do the project.

I am so grateful to finally, finally be comfortable in the house when it's freezing outside. This reward of home ownership is precious to me. I delight in frosty mornings, and my joy is even stronger now that there isn't an emotional hill to climb to get there.

Many Hands

I noticed today that I finally (finally!) feel like I'm part of a community. This community. Today I don't feel like I'm at the apex of "Who's in charge around here" (otherwise known as Who Can I Complain To) nor at the nadir of "Who wants to go play?" (or Who Other Than Bob Wants to Go to San Francisco and Party All Night). An avalanche of small things added up and I simply toggled.

Xena and Betsy laughing in the kitchen.
Karl and Aaron taking on constructing the first six feet of french drain.
Xena making two crockpot cook-ahead meals for the coming week.
Nicholas making cookies.
Little girls running underfoot.
Trying to get a haircut from Jess.
Jess and Betsy running around the lake together.
Nini showing off the markings Crafty Girl applied to her flesh "so the fairies will recognize me."
Having help to install toilets.
Sitting down to yet another delicious meal, this one cooked by Kevin.
Borrowing Karl's wonderful power tools without asking.
Tim asking how things were going.
Jori coming home early from work.
Betsy asking me to keep an eye on the bus as it aired out after she cleaned it.
Liz setting up movie night under the willow, and all I had to do was provide speakers.
Getting a "Hi, I haven't seen you in a while" hug from Christine.
Xena and Karl reviewing all the projects around here and discussing possible schedules.
Nini rubbing her pregnant belly.
Harvesting tomatoes with Karl. In November. And eating them.
Chickens scratching in the yard.
Karl and I talking about sharing cars . And bicycles.
Liz and Nini plotting how to have a Freedom School here.
Karl and Aaron reviewing the vegie oil settling tanks.
Aaron trading me a drinking-water quality barrel for a vegie-oil quality barrel.
Hanging out in Nini's café waiting for dinner to be ready.
Xena buying me beer.

Such a glorious life I am blessed with.

The Newly Disenfranchised

I borrowed this graph from the BBC. Exit polls showed that the 25% of the US citizenry that identifies as White Evangelical Christians voted roughly 3::1 for Palin as V.P.

Folks in the LGBT, body-modified, other-than Evangelical faith, or otherwise new-mainstream communities, I have a message for you:

Minister to these lost souls.

Many of them are terrified of you. They don't know that you are their children's teachers, that you are the police officer who pulled them over for running that red light, or that you took their order last night at the restaurant. Okay, perhaps they knew their server was... different from them. But the rest of the New Mainstream hides in plain sight.

I wonder how many Evangelical Californians turned up to vote? Are Palin supporters also people who would vote for inequality under the law? Would they ban same-sex marriage? I would think so. Perhaps California Palin supporters provided enough of a tip to defeat Prop 8.

New Mainstream, we're familiar with the failure of bullying someone into our viewpoint. It didn't work on us, did it? So now take a page from what we know how to do, and lovingly use your powers of non-violent communication to speak with the New Disenfranchised. Hear their concerns. Whatever your connection to the ineffable says to do, whether it's pray, bless, hold, or witness, help them explore their discomfort and release their fears.

Believe it or don't, we need them and their opinions in order to continue to build this great nation. Don't be afraid of them any longer. Get out there and make them your friends. Show them how majority rule doesn't mean squashing the other people's hopes and dreams.

Root Canal Release

Ah, the marvels of tooth care.

More than a dozen years ago, my dentist sold his practice and the new guy didn't do such a great job. He used the new (at the time) resin fillings, and they really weren't very good yet (my amalgam fillings are thirty+ years old and doing fine). The resin fillings broke down, decay set in, and I've just completed a pair of root canals.

Yippee.

I worked hard to not need those root canals; I got the fillings replaced (but not in time), I did a bunch of visualization (yet I could feel the Universe sending me the "No, you've got to go to the endodontist" message), I took Chinese herbs and had acupuncture (which probably helped keep the infection down). All of these alternate treatment modes did help postpone the inevitable, and if I wanted to lose my teeth they were fine therapies.

I've been in chronic pain since... oh, perhaps July.

I've got the new job, I've got my design business ramped back down to hobby status, I've initiated construction projects around the home, and it just feels good to take care of this problem. Like most people, having someone else root around in my mouth is about the last thing on my list of how I want to spend time (I suppose open-mouth kissing is an entirely different category, since I do want more of that).

I explored my hesitation about the procedure and realized it was the lack of control of my circumstance that made me uncomfortable. So I re-cast the experience, choosing to think of the endodontist as an extension of me. I focussed on the idea that I hired him, I delegated this care to him, that I chose this course of action. Do I have time and inclination to learn to do this myself? Ha! DIY dentistry is not on my horizon. Would I rather have someone with thousands of successes at work deep in my molars? Absolutely.

I did such a good job of becoming less fearful and more trusting that I even fell asleep in the chair for a little while.

He told me I'm likely to have another couple of days with significantly more pain, but then I should be pain free. Ahhh, that will be nice. It's been interesting being my positive, outgoing, inspirational self while also holding the pain at bay.

A Little Lonely

I am having fun imagining where Xena is, even as I sit and work, or do laundry, or listen to Nicholas tell me about his D&D game. She's been on her trip just a couple of days, and so I don't really miss her... much. Except I do, because other times when we would go three or five days without seeing each other, I knew she was available by phone, and I could even sometimes wrangle a quick dinner or a few minutes in the car between doings.

She's completely out of communication. Right now she's somewhere between Cloudsrest and Tuolumne.

So I find myself wishing for a good friend, a dear friend, to just sit with, to share the bits of the day that are interesting, to think about tomorrow, to agree that parking tickets for alternate week street sweeping suck, to celebrate the jobs I got done today. To do this as naturally with me as a wife does, as a cousin does.

I've been this kind of friend for other people. It's currently missing in my life, and so the absence of my wife is felt a bit more acutely than circumstances warrant.

Oh- and she has my camera. I'll need to borrow one from somewhere to do an interview later this week.

Karma... Dharma?

I've had some extremely potent chemistry going on inside me for a few months. It reached a crescendo and collapsed; now, a week or two later, blood cleansed, I am getting perspective.

Much of this internal work I won't share, but this piece I will: upon searching deeply I discovered I was angry with God for using me to do someone else a life-altering favor. God, why me as tool? Wasn't there some better way to get to this result? These were the wrong questions. The question that finally got a response was: "What did this person ever do for me?"

God answered, "Do you enjoy your community? What effort did you do to develop it, to help it grow? The one who I helped through you, was instrumental in helping your community. Be grateful. Be in thanksgiving."

Okay. I will. I am. I love living here. But God, if there is anyone else I should thank, let's find a different way next time.

Making Room Inside

Mariposa Grove and Willow House members are in various stage of prep to hie off to Black Rock City. I'll miss them while they are gone. I know they will all have fun and come back to me in that special flavor of burnt and recharged.

Many people in my life are choosing self-assessment and personal growth right now. Wonderful; terrible. I have to put extra attention in to staying on my own foundation-- the energies are just all over the map, so one day is really hard and the next is ecstatic.

I really appreciate you who have commented, here, in emails, and to my face, about issues I raise. These thoughtful people have finally pierced my obstinancy about my ENFP communication style. I'm... shifting? broadening? eager? ...to incorporate, erm, a gentility into my conversations, to allow that other people need a bit more space to give voice to their truths.

I'm still very much me: the inner dialogue goes something like "That person hasn't reached the same level of intimate self-awareness that I have and so I have a responsibility to pause for them to complete their self-check and speak up." Eh, it's a start. There is some grace there, and soon perhaps I'll be able to see my own specialness as well as the specialness of others, without assuming that either is more developed or deficient.

One key bit for me is I am unwilling to amputate some of who I am in order to allow space for someone else to have their full experience. And yet that is often the message that gets delivered: Bob, you're using up all the air. Leave some for other people.

As a Champion, an Inspirator, my view is that I'm creating abundance by being myself at full volume. I don't understand the scarcity view that if I am full, that I am somehow diminishing another. Rise up! Join the fray! I don't yet know how to be inviting to the meek. But I am beginning to understand that I really do need to be.

Envy

I admire, nearly to the point of envy, those people who are able to work harder when they are feeling blue. I'm wired entirely the other way: I work harder and better when I'm on the upward part of the spiral.

Nourished by Movie Night

Last night after the community meeting a few of us pedaled over to The Temescal Street Collective's free outdoor movie night. About 300 people were arranged on the street, the movie was projected up on the side of a bank, and the sound system was balanced for good acoustics as well as being a good neighbor to the nearby residences.

Sitting among a half-dozen of my good friends in the cooling evening, passing a bottle of wine surreptitiously between us, sharing olives and bread with brie a little less so, noticing an alternative lifestyle triad kissing each other occasionally in front of me, seeing local landmarks such as Lake Merrit and the running trails along the bay projected large, watching an inspirational account of local youth being encouraged to do something completely outside their own expectations, I was once more overwhelmed with gratitude for the amazingness of my life.

Sure, here in O-town we have some serious issues, but we are also working hard to find life-affirming solutions to those problems. Last night I got to dwell in a little bit of the heaven we are trying to build. I am restored to take on more gladly the work that is rightly mine to do.