Poverty is real and present in the USA

That was tough to read... but I know it all too well.  

Poverty is real and present in today's USofA.

Now, take a look at an innocent child. Imagine what that child would feel like in poverty.

 
This child is what poverty looks like. 

This is what poverty looks like for real. It is what Poverty is for these students and teachers; sadly, it is an acceptable loss for America and Americans. Sadly, we blame those kids, their parents, instead of taking responsibility ourselves. 

I am angry now. I am angry that this is acceptable. 

I am concerned that we are working on wealth creation, that we are building weapons, that we are putting up undemocratic governments at home and abroad, that we are devaluing children and life. 

Concerned.

More Eggs, Less Meat - The Return of the Weekday Veg

It's official.

Everyone knows it is time to change the way we are eating... and what.

And changing our diet can save the planet.

A lot changed since 2010. In 2015, we know shrinking meat consumption is critical generally.

But what about how coffee is back? Coffee - healthier than ever! It may even make you smarter.

You have 45 days to make your comments here.

My own personal testimony to the wicked goodness and lost opportunity to extended travel and life beyond 'the box'

Put three lines of three dots each on your paper. Connect all nine dots using only four straight lines. Your pen should not have to leave the paper. The dots should look something like this:

      *        *        *

      *        *        *

      *        *        *

Can you do it? the “9-dot exercise” instructs people to connect all nine dots, using 4 straight lines, without lifting your pen/pencil from the paper. But, how does it apply to how we are living?


.....
I have had some big inspirations. I have had some great role models. Bankers, Marines, neighbors, Anti-War activists, Priests, students and children. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...philosophers.

In travel in particular, I have met some great people, had some fun times, been inspired.

I have also become sloth, jaded, prejudicial.

I have gained weight, smoked a lot, drank too much, lost time.

Whatever you think you may be leaving you never do... you bring yourself and your baggage with you. If you are traveling as a team, friends, couple, family, get ready to be seriously tested.

Once I lived on the most exclusive island, in the richest nation, in the most prime town. This was the vacation Olympics. It was not at all unheard of for people to pay $50k a week, $300k a month. And this was happening twenty five years ago, and the houses they came plain, no servants, no bonuses.

And the majority of the guests came if they came as couples or families came totally unprepared. And if this was a singles retreat either there would be the left over 80's of burnout-to-fadeaway or the folks stayed so keyed up, so perpetually over stimulated and over high that it was the year's apex. Success.

Most of the nicest house I saw were filled with perfectly nice, civilized families, who had ZERO idea how to be alone together, far fewer ideas on what would make them happy, no experience being a family unit, and either immediately separated for the time spent 'vacationing' or fought ceaselessly.

Like I said, far fewer succeeded. And, I had not ever heard that vacations and travel were really just supposed to be about status. You only share the happy photogenic stories of paradise. It's competitive.


.....
So how do we improve on that.... seems easy. Either take it easy and relax with what your given. Or, make something better happen. Thus we have eco-tourism. voluntourism, educational tours, and philanthropic and NGO based Service work abroad. All of which I think get you a bang for the buck.

Like I said earlier, test, sample, try out your travel dreams, read, write, vision and prepare to succeed.

Not trying to scare you. Try and get into a good place. Find time to practice family life at home first.

The Prison Industrial Complex: Legitimate worry about effects from Wars Overseas

More and more, rational, normal every day people are sharing their legitimate worry about how the effects from wars overseas, torture, rendition, and covert operations are coming home and affecting freedoms. It is certainly enough to know that the types of behaviors we most disdain are taking place under the direction and supervision of our government and its military spy networks.

How we treat the least fortunate among us is how we should be judged as a society. Not only the loss of compassion and generosity of resource and spirit towards elders, children, and physically and emotionally challenged; not only the humane discharge of prisoners, or long term care of veterans; how we extend this ethos abroad is critical to waging peace and building tolerance among peoples.

How much does it say about each of us when we will not care for children the world's abandoned?

What does it mean when leaders are profiting off of incarcerating children and the oppressed?

Will privatization of the human condition continue unchecked?

Who can envision the eradication of all forms of violence? Who can see the end days of war?
 

Liberalism, Race, and the Future of the West

For all our "white" friends out there who have an interest in Race; this is a fantastic insight to structures or systems of racialized western experience and the existence of race.

Better, because it's written by a 'brown' woman, an Asian-American immigrant, it does an amazing job illustrating how we become racialized, how we adopt the racial supremacy model as real, and how inescapable it really is for all of us.

Race does not hurt just 'colored' people or blacks - and there is no post-racial America happening. But, when you can grasp how fundamental it is to us.... you can see the way out.

AS the MAAFA instructs us, the only way out is to go back through.

Take a gander?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/how-liberalism-and-racism-are-wed/?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region&region=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region

The Gardener and the Earl

The Gardener and the Earl

In an old small mining village in South Wales, there was a poor miner who received a lot of land as compensation from a mine accident. It was the scrubbiest, hardest, rockiest burnt earth scrub of earth.

One day, the Earl was passing. He was admired of what this crippled miner could do.

"Goodly work!" he shouted over the fence to the miner, "look at what you and the Lord can do!"

"Yes we can!" - gaily replied the gardener "But, you should have seen it when God had it all to himself." This fun snippet is a Quaker metaphor.

This can apply to life, if you are willing to make your life.

It does apply to your life. It is your here and now.

There are several gardens in one life. The miner found his spiritual garden long before he received his 'a-lot-meant'....


http://www.quakerquaker.org/profiles/blogs/metaphors-for-quakers


http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00335638309383663?journalCode=rqjs20#preview

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-ratner/rare-old-color-photos-of-_b_6513044.html

Upgrading your confidence: Avoiding unflexible and harsh conditions of airlines

One way I know most of us continue to feel boxed in - thus afraid to travel - sheer cost. When you couple costs of tickets with unflexible and harsh conditions the airlines have established for making certain you know they will screw you in the end, that 'opportunity cost' shrinks into a 'possibility I might go broke if I take the risk' cost. Simple truth - you can't afford not to take the risk. Benefits of simply doing something new, unexpected, or that which changes who you are is too great!

Here's a fun link to help you feel better. It turns out the risks that the airlines keep selling us are false.

I have a confession to make.... I have been addicted to Sugars my whole life

[Most links below are in Spanish - you may try translating them using easy Google Translate]

My parents gave me the most important three gifts beyond giving me life.

They swaddled me in their arms and gave lots of skin-to-skin contact and touch.

They fed me with 'mother's milk.'

And they surrounded me in the womb of their voice, of the voices of nature, and played music for me (especially Mozart and classical piano).


But it was not until I heard this played back to me from the ultimate authority that I began to grasp the significance of my parent's gifts. They had done most things right; including touch, music, love.

When our son Twain was only two days old we got our first appointment for a pediatric check up with Dr. Jorge Pronsato. We had no idea he was an authority of great note. His ideas about following the most basic discourse of nature with child rearing have permeated pediatric thought world wide.

"Give the baby mother's milk for as long as you can - at least until the baby is more than a year old," Dr Pronsato advised us. "Your baby benefits from lots of skin contact, as much as possible is perfect."

"And Mozart!" the Doctor added. We were realizing he had given this pep talk many times. "Surround the baby with your songs, your voice. Sing and talk to your baby," he chimed along happily. "Classical music. Jazz. Plenty of it. Plenty of Mozart. Mozart is best. Until at least the age of four! But sing together as a family. Make music and your voice the memory of early childhood."

We ate it up.


Here he lays it out medically in Spanish.


.......
We have chosen to afford these same opportunities to our own children. We were very priveledged through education, family, culture, and self confidence to choose to have both our children at home, naturally, and without any medicine or intervention whatsoever. It is very important that I pause here to state that as a male, a brother, and a husband, I respect women's choices with their bodies and their decisions regarding childbirth to do what is right and just for themselves and their children.

Having seen two natural births up close and personal - I think it is amazing and I encourage planned birthing as a rule - but it could be scarey. It is especially potentially scarey if you have experiences like I had with my mother; or, if you have been exposed to too much of the negative and misguided and misinformed sensationalism around the pain or panic that some persons have experienced.

......

Here is my chance to tell you - an intervention saved my life. It probably saved my mother's life also.

Though I was born a cone head and spent my first few weeks in an 'incubator,' the giant beside the preemies (I was 9.9 lb which in 1970 coming out of a 5'3"small framed mother was considered obscenely huge and over sized), I survived; because of modern medicine; due to my parents shared willingness to take the rare and dangerous risk of cesarean mid-delivery. So, I am sharing this to say that Dr Celsa and Dr Jorge both agree (they are doctors) that some medical intervention has saved lives. We all agree that some amount of medicine may be needed for babies born under circumstances or in critical environments - and that this may not be - many times it is not - the fault of parents behaviors: lack of exercise, bad diets, too much drink or drugs, bad genes, or anything else.

When I told Celsa the story of seeing a child who was challenged at a public theater performance;0 how much her mother struggled to help the child focus on the show, stop crawling onto strangers, and be relatively quiet (he had a disorder which caused him to chronically call out in loud sounds); and, how I had wanted to approach this mother and tell her how perfect her child is and what a sheroic job she is doing with two boys close in age (maybe 8) who clearly loved her and each other but had radically different needs - Celsa said, "yes, they are perfect - every child is a gift of god's perfection." You probably are with me in sentiment here - they are perfect - every one.

I wrote this blog to tell my readers and the world that I have a confession to make, I am not perfect as an adult - SURPRISE - but I was as a child. Children are perfect.  My parents made some mistakes, (many 'wives tales' of their times have been mass eclipsed by lies we knowingly consume today).

Our homeopathic OB/GYN Dra Celsa Breunner, is organizing this entire country's OB/GYN and Pediatric doctors to form a manifestation of positive health for infants and at birth. She is working at the National University in Cordoba leading a group of doctors (and in particular female doctors) who believe that healthy birth provides a door to healthful options through life. GOOD NEWS!

Here are some examples of upcoming work and merits of their critical thinking and challenging of 'las normas;' norms around Argentina's medicalization and violence of intervention at birth (80%).

Here is another one of the Drs health tips that play out for a life time of healthful consciousness. Don't put socks or shoes on your baby. Dr Celsa did a lot of research on childrearing by indigeous tribes. She noted that they had zero foot maladies for life. "No constriction at all on baby's feet," she advised, "and you will avoid a lifetime of health concerns." So many indigenous cultures know and practice this. It is difficult in climates the closer we get to the poles. But critical. Worth our effort.

......
Here's the big confession, I am overweight. I suffer from it physically and emotionally. And, I have been addicted to Sugars my whole life. This is not good for any part of my health (at 45) but I am ok. I am ok with this.  I am capable of making changes for the better. My parents dipped my pacifier in honey to quiet my crying. Today, pacifiers, honey, and quelling crying are all known to hurt not help.

Parents Doulahs, doctors, and Parteras are working together for the humanization of birth. It is a natural act and a regression to our more natural states - as the world occupies us to regain our stewardship of this marvelous planet and become gardeners of the healthy families we all expect.

Mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends and family you can have a second opinion.


I have a confession to make: I have been addicted to Sugars my whole life. But, I am changing. I am consuming less; and, I have educated myself to dangers of sugars and addiction. Peace be with you.

This is a link to the group of people GROWING in support of healthy human birth

This is a link to the group of people GROWING in support of healthy human birth in Cordoba, Argentina. They are building birthing centers 'casas de parteras' houses for healthy homebirth, unions of midwives (parteras y doulahs) - and they are advocating for the necessary changes to remove the excessive medicalization in childbirth, allow for and encourage non-violent non-intervention birth wherever possible and by a family's choosing. They are leaders in the reduction of formula fed children in the advocacy of lactation (natural breastfeeding). They are bringing back the concept of non-plastic surroundings and diapers free of toxins and non-GMO organic offerings for children. For all of this they should receive a Nobel Peace Prize!

But, if you are not on a Nobel committee - just visit this facebook page or web page on Parto Humanizado

The Pineal Gland is overlooked on weekends.

The Pineal Gland is overlooked at work.


The Pineal Gland is overlooked on weekends.


The Pineal Gland is overlooked observing children's play.


The Pineal Gland is overlooked when we plan our next vacation


The Pineal Gland is overlooked in meditation.









The Third Chakra - The Vowel Sound is O 

Did you Mardi Gras? A very public tradition continues

My mother wrote today, "Did you Mardi Gras this year?" She loves carnival and promotes its goodness worldwide and in our family directly through the annual bestowing of King Cakes.

This year, I have been happy to see the amount of fermenting on the topic of privatization, secularization, race/class relations, and the use of public space and public dollars for Mardi Gras. I am always quickly saddened by comodification and crass reduction of spirit in the way the media usurps and distorts New Orleans' story. But, I am equally pleased to see the nonplus reminders of vigor as New Orleans gives gas face; blatantly, Dyonisianly; consuming and plundering the moral sentiments of outsiders' regards like a vacant and excessive monarch - bourache en le petit morte

As New Orleans showed very clearly in 2006 six months after Hurricane Katrina. Mardi Gras, her grandness doesn't seek permission, does not cost you anything, is welcoming to all, and is a simple decision to be real to yourself and 'join the parade.' And thank goodness for the debates, the satire, the politicization, the pandering and comic lightness of it all - it is all a very public tradition continued.

Happy Mardi Gras!! Let your good times roll wherever you are!

DOP - Door Of Perception - Thank you is what we can say! Say it loud say it proud!! I am Thankful!!

This is the garden perspective. How shall I leave with no one to tend my gardens. Will they fall fallow? Yes.

In a mother's womb were two babies. One asked the other: "Do you believe in life after delivery?" The other replies, "why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later. "Nonsense," says the other. "There is no life after delivery. What would that life be?" "I don't know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths."

The other says "This is absurd! Walking is impossible. And eat with our mouths? Ridiculous. The umbilical cord supplies nutrition. Life after delivery is to be excluded. The umbilical cord is too short." "I think there is something and maybe it's different than it is here." the other replies, "No one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery it is nothing but darkness and anxiety and it takes us nowhere."

"Well, I don't know," says the other, "but certainly we will see mother and she will take care of us." "Mother??" You believe in mother? Where is she now? "She is all around us. It is in her that we live. Without her there would not be this world." "I don't see her, so it's only logical that she doesn't exist." To which the other replied, "sometimes when you're in silence you can hear her, you can perceive her." I believe there is a reality after delivery and we are here to prepare ourselves for that reality.

via Ben at DOP - The Door Of Perception

https://www.facebook.com/SynapticStimuli?fref=photo

Four years ago today.... Dispatch from the Rainforest!

We have been immersed in all things Amazonia. Needless to say,
internet time has not been much of a focus. We do spend plenty of time
coming up with blog entries and titles. We are carrying around our
netbook and drafting some ideas (Brittany has all sorts of cool new
eco-touristic green business ideas sprouting from this trip).

If there was a title for yesterday´s blog it might read something like
án ¨easy day crossing three borders´´.  We have been slowly moving
between Peru, Brazil, and Colombia. It is as if no borders exist. Of
course, we know they do, but it is fun to pretend this is what it
could be like without borders.

Portugese is coming slowly. There are very marked differences between
the latino and Brazilian cultures.

We did go out into the bush. There our guide took an axe to a rotting
tree and pulled out maggots the size of your hand (he fried them and
served them to us). We also fished for and ate Piraña. Also, it rains
a lot. Trying to dry our stuff has been another part-time focus. Food
is delicious. New fruits and vegetables are everywhere.

Stay tuned. We head down river soon. There should be lots of time to
type in our hammocks on the river boat cruises....


And this is the same story told a different way.

This time told in a letter to our 8-year old nephew...

Dear J,

Just in case we don´t get back to internet before we leave on our
River Boat I wanted to send you a note telling you how cool (actually
hot and rainy) the Rainforest and the Amazon Rainforest and Rio Negro
and 'Amazonas' River are - REALLY COOL!

We have eaten Grubs bigger than your hand.
We fished and ate tiny piraña (not much bigger than big sardines.
We saw a pet marsupial in a native village which is a family pet
It was like part rat, part rabbit, part,
kangaroo, part pig! COOL!

We hiked a lot in the rain (cold) and were really soaked. Not very much fun.

And... there are crocodiles with very long noses, pink dolphins, and manatee.

So, the amazon is cool. Really cool. Where we are now there are three
countries meeting, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. So if you can find a
point on the globe where these three countries meet you will see where
we are.


End blog note: This is where we were four years ago today. This was written almost one year prior to the birth of our son here in Argentina. Now, three years (posthaste) the newest arrival is set to begin her journey, again, from Cordoba, Argentina. Many of you will think it is wild, "how much they travel," that may seem true from your perspective. Looking back, remembering, this was really our last big travel abroad I begin to redefine travel in different ways I have experienced it - and ways which I have heard it defined by other long-term travelers. (Travel is a search for your destination; Travel is leaving where you are; Travel is sightseeing; Travel is interchanging cultural and social being with other communities; Travel is seeing the world; Travel is the search for someplace new.)  But this story... Dispatch from the Rainforest! reminds me of the newness of real travel. Reading it - and some others I am just uncovering and rereading from this journey including one on meeting a group of Louisiana Evangelical Baptist preachers recently gluttonously wealthy from privatizing Louisiana and Texas prisons - all this reflection reminds me  of one thing: to Eat the WORMS!

Good luck and god speed to each and every one of you!

What it is like to have your child born abroad

We are just back from "Registro Civil". It was an enormous success. And we feel blessed, joyful, at ease.

Before completing her first week of Life our new baby Whipple Anne Llewellyn has received official government permission for her name; she has had her birth officially recorded into the National Birth Registry in Cordoba Capital and by the Provincia de Cordoba; and, if all goes as planned, in 15-20 days we will receive by courier her official DNI (National Identity Card) allowing us to apply for her Passport and allowing us to get an appointment with our own county's embassy to plan for her registration of birth abroad and her first US Passport. Now, if all this sounds like a lot - it is! But, we managed it with only one trip by the whole family (big brother, almost three, went with his father on Wednesday for the preparatory trip where we got all the information that we were missing, prepared for the translation of documents related to our marriage certificate and the proof that Whipple's names are real names (not inventions or brands which are prohibited in Argentina).

Why would anyone choose to go through this? What is it like to have your child born abroad?

Wonderful, Easy, Lucky, Amazing, Kind, Humane, Non-Violent. Non-Intervention, Healthy

Well, hiking up the hill in the February heat of scorching Summer after only four days recovery period from an undrugged, unassisted home birth is harrowing. Ask Brittany! The daunting task of finding your way through the Argentinian mega-bureaucratic government I would not recommend on my worst enemy. But, their is a simple solution for all the fear and misgivings - this is why you don't do it on your own.

Apart from some weird super-existential post-modern writings and maybe sci-fi fantasy - we are not alone. I hope this breaking news comforts your days. You are not alone; we are with you. Just reading my blog is company; I am writing it partly to share information with you. We can gain so much by allowing the movement of social integration and free information speed up our learning and research purposes, can't we.

We were not alone today also, more importantly, because of the kindness of humans. (Brittany and I have experienced this is 30+ countries on every continent except Antarctica - which we are sure  also has it).

Today our whole team showed up. Our Doulah Jose (she has been on board since we first wrote her with a vague idea that Cordoba might be the place we would birth our first child in 2012); our doctor Celsa - probably the single greatest authority on the triumphant organic and natural beneficial gift of childbirth in all South America - there with us; defending the rights of humanizing birth, the rights of children to be welcomed without violence of any form including the defenseless obstruction of bad government; and our world renown birth photographer Natalia "Naty" Roca.

****

If you want to know how we organized any of this with the Argentine government, our US embassy, getting official Name permission, travel details, social networking, housing, medical assistance or other questions Please feel free to leave a comment with your email or write to me nathannola@gmail.com THANKS!!

Labels: What is it like to have your child born abroad?  Wonderful, Easy, Lucky, Amazing, Kind, Humane, Non-Violent. Non-Intervention, Healthy, new baby, translation of documents, marriage certificate, proof, Whipple's name, DNI (National Identity Card), birth, officially recorded, National Birth Registry, Cordoba Capital, Argentina

Keep us in your prayers tomorrow!!

Keep us in your prayers tomorrow!!

Update - tomorrow we go to Registro Civil to take Whipple's picture, have her little fingers printed (digitally) and she will be "written into the book" as an Argentine and given her DNI (National Identity)!! We are going with our whole TEAM - our OB-GYN, Dra. Celsa Rite Breunner our doula Josefina Aguero and our photographer and documentarian Naty Roca. We are honored by this group and how they are choosing to be present, to be our 'Testigos'- and how our births here continue to align with justice for families and children, rights of home birth, non-violent practices, and the movement of midwives and doctors for 'la formacion de partos humanizados" (supporters of humane birth practice)... What an honor! Also, we feel like we are genuinely raising these kids right - organizing their participation in a human political movement and human rights march right into the head office of governance .... and this was the same office where we struggled so much w Twain's legal status!
 

In the past six months I have realized that six great friends and mentors.... passed on without my knowing, or when I had just gotten in touch with them. Everyone I was saying this to. Everyone. So, RUN AND HIDE because I do not want to put any sort of death wish on you. I want your freedom.

$5000. It is 10 to 20 times what poor families are living off of in a year. It is the total amount of money earth has in its total resources for you. Everytime we spend more per year we are literally creating an imbalance where for our 'survival' we have to take money and resources from others less fortunate (or just less wealthy). Or, we take it as our own economic debt we have measured against the world. We say, "I am worth this much more than the world allows me (or I am willing to bear)."

Does not have to be this way. And, yet, those of us who are trying do not have the first inkling of how to change. We could be like Jesus and Ghandiji and give up monies and live off nothing. But we can't.

So here is a hypocritical proposal which I think could be provisional because it leads somewhere....

Plan to give $5000 per year to make changes in yourself, for a friend, for a stranger, or in community.

 

Wage Wage a Peaceable Common

http://lambswar.blogspot.com.ar/2013/01/being-quaker-is-not-point.html

https://arewefriends.wordpress.com/2013/01/10/the-ghost-of-denominations-past/

Let us wage Peace together. Let us go out only when we are prepared to build community.

Let us always aim to forgive and yet stand ready to take on the shaming actions of our own yokes.

Even if we are the best prepared, we can do nothing without bringing forward our past.

MAAFA - the only way out is to go back through.

Accept that you are racist. Accept that you are biased in gender, in economics, in education.

Move forward knowing that you are improving the Earth.

Plan to be a steward. Raise a commons.

Worship your beneficial ancestors. Question and burn sacrifices. Pray to God(s).

Then, after all of this, look inward and listen, the silence will come, the light will open, you will know how to practice your community mindedness. This will give you Ease. You will pray more.

Life is then goingt o begin to take over for you. You will have constant meetings which you merit.

Start out in every town looking to give in gestures without ever being approached. Imagine peace.

Raise awareness. Lose the shy side of being embarassed whenever you think you are doing good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ixY5rnrZhs

What is your biggest reservation you have to get over before taking the leap? The "Great escape" is neither Great nor an Escape.

Nathan:Will everyone who is interested post here or send a question asking either: 1) What benefits would you expect/prioritize in travel-healthcare and/or family first choices; or, 2) What biggest reservation do people you know - who like this idea - still have at taking the leap? I need more feedback to be able to answer questions and plan to help you make an exit nathannola@gmail.com 

Question #1 is from a talented woodworker, husband, stay-at-home dad in small town New England:
 
Mike: The biggest obstacle I see is getting the time away from work. I can see on the baseline how costs can be offset by savings, but the obstacle of having a job to come back to is a big one.

 
For living abroad, extended travel abroad, or any health vacations or family first decisions we make - when it is really a big choice, a difficult choice to explain (or get permission for), if it seems too expensive or perhaps semi-permanent in any sense - then how we plan to do our leaving basically means how do we come back... in one piece. This is real and needs significant preparation.

For those who are following the beginnings of this plan/blog Mike pointed out to us a "great escape" quagmire: How to leave basically means how to get back more than peace; alive, affirmed, healthy. 

Short quick answers are just that: easy and free of the real details. Here are the easy answers; you have to (!) reduce debt and costs before leaving, have a plan to create zero or very little debt (!) this is also as a perspective cost of leaving, you cannot expect to but may possible be able to make money or set up a foundation for making money abroad, how can you lower costs abroad, will you be able to come back with new skill sets, spend newly acquired time adjusting or planning or executing new businesses, microenterprise, or career shifts to come home to. What are your street chances - do you hustle, play music, make jewelry, teach English, Teach Kids, teach Yoga on a beach, build a website, start a school. What can you do in a free Year, six months, three months 72 hours, one day, 4 hours?

Are you eligible to get your family a front on a small inheritance (!) , are you an able to articulate and be honest enough to be a recipient from friends or family (!) ; or, can you save and have the money and/or monjob you would need lined up when you leave... Or... take a (series of) shorter practice trip(s), take a sabbatical, take a forgiveable loan, fundraise, build a nonprofit, get church support, or make your trip your mission. One way or another, unless you are a trust fund victim, a gun or drug dealer, a permamooch, or an insidiously advantaged loaf - you will need to adopt one or many of the above characteristics. The key I would offer - who are you in service to? What am I missing people? 

One simple truth is that perspective is great.... once it is past it cleans up. We go, it is hard, we are miserable and scared, times are tough, we are tested; yet we come back and remember the best times.

So knowing that should be empowering.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-ratner/rare-old-color-photos-of-_b_6513044.html

http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20150116-living-in-2015s-hottest-cities
 

The Loving Kindness Autism Reorder

The POWer of Chakras; or, loving autism

Want to feel better/happy in 7 minutes?

Seven Minute Chakra Tune up - Vowel sounds

OR

Maybe you are ready to feel loved by a nice tearjerker?

For all my nice autistic (undiagnosed?) friends and family!


.....
And this one for the therapists and those who started out wanting to help.

Here is something you can do - buy a floating wreck, park it directly in front of an eco-hazard-island-over-reef construction site

Here is something you can do - buy a floating wreck, or even a nautical buoy of a sailboat; and, park it directly in front of an 'emerging' eco-hazard-island-over-reef ecologically ruinous construction site.....
and directly challenge the supremacy of the government of China to take over our world - Seriously.

Who has $50k they want to change their lives with? Who loves tropical paradise and sailing?

Put it together! Be the change you want to see! It is no question whether or not small groups and dedicated individuals can change the world - in fact, they are the only thing that ever did! In the process you'll find sponsors, media attention, sun, recreation, and a great taste of world travel.

The idea is this folks; do not set limits either to your ambition, your goals, or to strategic outcomes.

Do not continue to sell yourself short. Do what calls to you. Do it. You have it in you. Challenge us with your action. Make a scene. Count on a web of intraconnectivity and manage your own message.

Now, once you have decided that due to fear of sharks, terrible navigational skills (me) or seasickness - taking on the power of China's government is not actually your individual or group starting point - admit this all to yourself and start discerning and visioning - what IS your will to power?

Ghandi's Ashram BAPU KUTI

 I am asking for some questions from each reader here to help us shape our two-fold blog.

One uncovering what it is that we can provide.

When we visited Ghandi's Ashram BAPU KUTI in the harshest middle lands of Maharashtra state we heard that no poison bug, no venemous serpent, no stinging or biting or horrid monster could be harmed, they could be tolerated, or captured and carefully transported out to the netherreaches of the miserious landscape. And, then we learned to do that, or we practiced doing it ourselves. When we ate, we ate as a group with the ashramites - eating harmless foods. When we chanted we did so at dawn... There is so much more of that visit that I would like to and could answer or flesh out more now... so much more that there is to gain for myself in reliving and retelling it. But, the perspective I want to share is that I can give you a ticket, I can draw you the map. But, in some way, you are already there. You are getting there, and you are happier for it. Thanks for coming. Now, please sit down and write me, take a walk and make a note or call yourself and leave a message with what you intend to write me, tell us what you think will continue to hold us all back - what would be more reasonable expectations for us to have of you, and you and yours and yourns- what can people really expect to gain from this, this life, this living, this land etc? IDK. I may never know. But, I'm looking.

And really, the best thing we can ask, is that how each of you, you already did it, and you continue to help us to grow a vital community that can help us shape the blog and the 'business plan' which is at this point basically - how do we start getting people to save money, have amazing experiences, and get some take aways that are skill sets, health changes, aptitudes, or cultural and beneficial exchanges beyond the borders of their current perspectives. BTW - you are already doing it just by responding. Each time I have written to you I see a couple nuggets which I am pulling out and setting up as blogposts. So... off to less winter more Sun. More rain for growing, Take the serpent and be kind. Bapu Kuti.

THANKS AGAIN!!!

Settle down or Center Down?

Every time I start out with one of my blogs, I think I will reach new people; that I will help people to see the benefits intrinsic to travel and experience. I want to share with others some of what I have discovered in myself; and know in others that  which comes from opening the door, taking off, leaving home. I want to express healing, release, forgiveness - as it allows your spirits to mingle in.

Settle down or Center Down?

In a recent issue of Spark, on Centering Down, Nadine Hoover writes an essay titled "Life is Enough" about three critical aspects of Friends community which are immediately executable and payout as results - allowing a richness of engagement to replace mundane or experimentally antithetical life.

1. To STOP, see the power of Life beyond ourselves and know that it is good
2. To face directly, release, and heal the human pain and injustice in our lives 
3. To experiment with love and truth in our lives and share what we learn

Then, towards the end of her essay, she describes how some of what she finds she can apply herself she learned by observing other cultures abroad, "In Indonesia, they take to this centering down, public lamentation, and community discernment naturally. Their traditional governing town meetings are called musyawarah. Before decisions or actions are taken on major decisions or disputes within a community, everyone is called to attend and given a chance to be heard." 

We have to become as 'Public' as possible in the determination to be fair to our peers and family. We can Center Down as opposed to Settling Down - the former referring to centering (or meditation) a clarity of focus on the marvel of  'peace graced upon us;' the latter seeming to refer to the inertia of sluggishness, a general loss of lust for life, which must accompany boredom, moroseness, and sloth.

I lost a cousin almost twenty years ago who would always ask me, "how do you do it?" My response to her was unfair, inconsiderate, 'How do you not?' We are all in different places, different stages, we have different capacities, and we work to support and learn from each other as we can. Travel can occur in our minds, in our souls. It can occur  daily in the slightest interactions, between drivers, pedestrians, at the park, in a grocery line, on a phone call... in books, looking at a painting, a photo.

Brittany, my wife, came home from a bus ride after spending the morning in lines for imaging appointments at a big hospital here in Cordoba, Argentina today. "I really enjoy the reaction I get when I give people unexpected doses of unusually grateful happiness and thankfulness." The bus driver, the old lady sitting next to her on the bus, the mammogram technician, an unhappy very pregnant 19 year old,  an old grump. "I know what you mean," I said, "I get such enjoyment from just holding the door open for people a little bit longer or more unexpectedly than they have experienced.
 
Just by coming here, to a blog you are choosing to travel with me and share our experiences abroad.

What pleases me in the first weeks of my publication is not how much the blog went worldwide, nor how 300 friends and acquaintances have come to read it - but the encouragement, comments, and questions which have been raised in just putting it out there. Thank you!


God speed!!

 

En Avocation for the Stoic in Life

I've heard a lot of 'stop being so stoic;' so, I think there's lots of meaning packed into this statement.

Place your agreement into this simple essay because as we receive kindness that we give of ourselves we can reach that timely place where acceptance of the 'other' allows us to share pathways. This is the philosophical early death -'le petite mort.' Stoicism. Joy in realization of Evidence. Evidence based philosophical inquiry of mind “hic et nunc.” It is like a subsidence of souls. It is the way hillsides give earth to rivers. It is a mixing of elements: Time out of time, or, states of being. Serene.

"Meditation, mindfulness and focus on virtue make up the core of Stoic practice."

Keep being more Stoic! Stoicism surrounds in the consciousness of human time. It contents.

"try to figure out more coherent ways to understand the world (science) and better choices for living... life (philosophy)." Massimo Pigliucci

Buy yourself a little extra dose of perspective.

http://timetoteacheaseandliveabroadfree.blogspot.com.ar/

This blog aims to share with a broad public, experiences and interests that serve for building a stronger, closer, more viable world community. It explores issues of fairness, cultural competency, green living, internal change agents and much more.

It is a survey, an opinion, a political missive - but it's mostly addressed to you. In it, I want us to try and understand how collective experiences, strengths and self interest can be stewarded/harnessed.

I studied Quakerism, considering Friends my faith community my whole life. The same may be said for Buddism, Sufiism, Taoism, Shamanism, Shintoism, Confucism, Islam, mysticism, erotism, philosophy and philology. I am a cosmologist by vocation and by the luck of upbringing and ancestry.

One intention I have for this blog are to bring forward some core philosophies and aphorisms shared through these religions, through thinkers, through poetry that you can use for liberation.

In Quakerism, we use leadings and queries individually and as a community to provoke ourselves.

Here are some Queries I have written that would be useful to decide what you would expect here.

What would peace and happiness look like between family and friends with you?

How do we get our self a little extra dose of perspective?

How do we get those chills boiling up and down our spine again (excitements we felt as children, as teenagers, as a young adult or maybe college person - but which is fading)?

What would peace and happiness look like for you individually?

How much time do we take to visualize that success?

When we got close last, what was the jumping off point? Why did we hold back/come back?

What would peace and happiness look like for your family abroad?

How would our giving ourselves a little extra dose of perspective change our relationships? When we are being honest, is the service to others becoming more transparent?

What would peace and happiness look like for you and the 'other'?



Here are my answers:

You are rich. You live in the rich world. Something (God or otherwise) put you on this side of the balance sheet. You make your choices Buy yourself a little extra dose of perspective. Go on.

Or, if you can't do it now... buy someone else a day, a week, a month.

This is something I am going to get into more. Pay it forward. It worked.

As I started voluntarily giving away, gifting without any expectation of physical return, doing the easy 'no-strings-attached' kindness of treating people with the respect to trust and take chances with them... well each time I gave up the expectations of a return, I could lose or win, I could be dismissed, defeated, or deflated by missed opportunity - but it had no hold on me! And, my tiny assets, my micro funds for doing more; my "bread money" filled the tank back up.

I hope I can communicate in this blog 1% of the ways this is working. And it is not to preach. It is to release you. This is to say... go ahead and stay where you are - because you already hear. So thanks!

When you are ready to do something; anytime you need the extra encouragement from us! [And I know I may be down in the britches, tired with my head in the gutter when you come asking!] I am here. More than that, if you want to wait, if you can, I can connect you and help you find ways to put your tiny splash on the face of someone you truly care or and love... so you can help that way.

In the past six months I have realized that six great friends and mentors.... passed on without my knowing, or when I had just gotten in touch with them. Everyone I was saying this to. Everyone. So, RUN AND HIDE because I do not want to put any sort of death wish on you. I want your freedom.