Oprah's extra

Yesterday on Oprah, she had on people who made the conscious choice to dumpster dive. This was the first, according to Oprah, that she’s heard of people doing this practice who didn’t need to. One woman used to make “six figures” until she saw that the only reason she kept working to such a degree was to fill her life with things that she didn’t need. And Oprah asked the poignant question, why are the corporations throwing so much away? The woman brought of the legal issues that they just don’t want to get sued. I have heard that argument when groups like Food Not Bombs have tried to get things from "super"markets. True, laws exist and they can get sued but the real question for me is why the overproduction in the first place? Surely they know how much people buy of their product - but that's not the point though, is it? Because some corporations instead of serving a need create a need… And now it's gotten to a point where food companies are selling food with enzymes in it to help us digest our over-produced food. (If we didn't kill the enzymes needed to digest milk products in pasturization, would we need these yogurts with the bacteria added back in?)

So we wonder why there is so much crap at the end. I didn’t study business but if I were to consider it logically, businesses who over produce probably factor what’s wasted in their bottom line – so on one hand, their creating the need for us to consume based on overproducing, however, if they don’t sell all that’s produced, they still profit because they’ve gone above and beyond the natural need.

And they don’t give away the extra. Why should they? If consumers knew they were giving away what they didn’t sell, who would buy? Wouldn’t we all just wait until we got it free? So they throw it away – and by the act of discarding it, it becomes useless. Until another person looks at it another way and sees the value in the trash. So is that how we solve the problem of overproduction – valuing trash? Reusing, not consuming…

And how then the recycled movement would thrive. And how Goodwill and Salvation army would need to expand their parking lots for all their extra customers…. If only.

I saw today that they’ve put up a mall near the birthplace of Walt Whitman. So as a testament to the iconoclast that railed against consumerism and beheld the natural wonder of life, they’ve erected a mall. Perhaps that’s why the Whitmans moved away from it in Walt’s early years – knowing the kind of people who lived there… (If you want a mug depicting his birthplace, you can get it here). Couldn’t they have put up a Goodwill instead?

TJ's

Now that I work at home, I plan journeys out so I don’t completely lose my sense of the outside world. And now that one of my headlights is broken, they are usually in the middle of the day before the “witching hour” of dusk rolls in. I’m living vampire hours in reverse. Of course, fixing the headlight would remedy this but that’s a day excursion without my car and I haven’t worked my way up to it yet. I will though. In the meantime, I’m off to Trader Joe’s.

Here I am at Joe’s trying to get to the soy milk refrigerator case but it’s blocked by the empty cart belonging to the couple at the coffee grinder. It’s stuck out, not thinking about who it is blocking. Is this really enough justification for me to throttle these two? I can’t go around it because another woman is at the adjacent refrigerator case with the door open blocking the way in. So I stand there waiting without any acknowledgement from the couple grinding away. Finally the other woman finishes and I squeeze in only to see that the kind I want is the last one in the row – and it being on the very top and way back, my 5’3” frame can’t reach it. Stuck again. I normally prefer being self-sufficient but in this case, I need to reach out for assistance. I go to the TJ employee at another refrigerator case where he puts away yogurt. “Excuse me, can you help me?” No acknowledgment. Is my ask too meek that he can’t hear me over the TJ musak? He seems rather slow as he puts the yogurts away and I wonder if he’s actually a “special” employee. Maybe I shouldn’t be bothering him and should ask someone more “mentally capable”. However, I finally get his attention and his only challenge may be his youth. He goes back for the soymilk. It seems a few minutes have passed and I go back to my first conclusion of his mental faculties. "Maybe he didn’t understand me?," I think. Finally he comes out. “You wanted a box right?” “Um,” I stutter. “Just kidding,” says youthful employee. Ah, humor. Perhaps it's a generation gap and I have a different view of work ethic (meaning he's into taking his time) but he is sweet and got me what I needed. So happy now, I leave him to put the rest of the organic, no sugar soymilk out for others to enjoy. (You'd think this version would be the least popular but it's not....)

I continue in my normal clockwise turn around the store but the throng of people curtails this and I dare to go the opposite way, stopping my usual routine of having to get all of my things in the store clockwise. (No I don’t have OCD – there’s a time-efficiency factor to this.) By the time I reach the frozen food section, I’ve already fended off the temptation of the “snacking” isle. However, above the frozen food bins, there are even more temptations (does TJ’s do this on purpose?) I see the lady of the coffee grinder picking up the savory crackers. Ah, my favorite! For some reason I wanted to tell her, “yes, aren’t they wonderful,” but then I thought, “why would she care?” So I didn’t. But she saw me take them right after her and she looked at me with a smile and I smiled back. She was no longer, the lady of the coffee grinder but the lady of the savory crackers. This totally outweighs for me any annoyance I had felt earlier. You'd think my ultimate message here would be, I learned patience in Trader Joe's. It's not. It's more about the awesome bonding power of food, in particular savory crackeres. And thus ends my adventure out for at least that day….

Making Room

I’ve been manifesting new changes in my life. Yet, to change the present, I’ve needed to clean up the past. So I’ve been cleaning out old things: clothes, books, photos, letters, cards, memories; and with that, old attitudes about myself. I’ve made a significant dent. And as I’ve done the cleaning, sorting, dusting, vacuuming, my physical body has tightened into knots.

Because of the knots, I went to get a massage last week and I asked the Universe for the perfect massage therapist. Part of changing attitudes about myself is to not think about myself as “the girl with back problems,” so when the therapist asked if I had “issues” I told her that I’m trying to manifest changes with my body. She answered, “you’re not trying to manifest, you are manifesting.” Wish granted in getting the ideal therapist.

I told her that I’m cleaning out old emotional issues. When she got to my neck and upper back, the tensest part of my body, she told me I was holding on very tightly to something. “Breathe in, hold, and that breathe out ha!,” she instructed. I breathed in, and thought, "I’m releasing and letting go," and I breathed out. “Wow!,” said the therapist. “You just released your back and neck with just that thought. See how powerful you are!” As the massage continued, she had to bring me back a few times during the massage as I spaced out. I had to continue to focus my attention on areas that needed releasing. It was then I realized I needed to "work" to relax! Or a better way to describe it was paying attention about how powerful our thoughts are in our physical body.

When the therapist massaged my left arm, a.k.a. the receiving arm, she said she got a flash of a closet needing cleaning out. I immediately got an image of my pillow full of Duran Duran & Adam Ant pins in the hall closet. I had been annoyed the day before because the closet was so jam packed and disorganized. “Yeah, I know the closet you mean,” I said. She reminded me that when you’re manifesting for the things you want, you have to make room for them. She told me notice how I tensed up again thinking about that closet. “Just say to yourself you will clean out the closet but not to worry or dwell on it now,” she offered. What, me dwell? Ha! Lately, I’ve been thinking about how the words dwell - i.e. ponder a thought to death, and dwell - as in to live are related. I definitely dwell in thoughts… And my dwelling is full of them, hence the need to clean.

So, the day after my massage, I cleaned out the closet. My pillow still needs to be dealt with but at least there’s space. My left arm was sore, so I continued to breathe, using ha! I’ve done that technique in yoga before but I didn’t realized how profound a release the move was. I felt the release of my body more deeply as I was standing and letting all the area of my back collapse when I exhaled. I felt elated. I was actually dumping out my tension. With those combined actions of physically making room and then releasing the tension in my body, I have open space to breathe.

Evacuation - Fall 2007

Evacuation – what would you take if there were a fire….

About 15 years ago, there was a serious fire in the Oakland hills that threatened to come down the hill into my neighborhood. I watched the news intently and then I decided to pack. I took what normal people take, the photo albums and the important papers but that wasn’t enough. I packed my Chinese jewelry box that my brother gave me. I packed a rod-iron candlestick my friend Austin made me. I packed up all of my artwork. What I selected were things that I couldn’t replace.

In looking around my apartment now, what would I take? The lazy part of me says – nothing – because I’d want to take everything – but most importantly, my computer. This is where all my creative work is now… stored up… but the thought of schlepping that to my car… well…. just the thought of moving anything sounds exhausting. Maybe it’s the smoke in the air – oh yeah, Southern California is raging with fire. Fortunately I’m not in an effected area but we can still smell the smoke.

Events like these make me want to cut down to the bare essentials so I won’t worry about losing anything. What is it that I really need? When I left to live in Israel for a year, I put my things in storage. These were things I could not possibly have departed with. Away, I thought about my things while I was living in other people’s quarters. I ached for them; these things belonged to me and me alone.

Gleefully, I opened the storage unit, when I came home to be reunited with my things. Then I saw them and thought – why the hell did I keep this stuff? I didn’t really have the emotional attachment to the items that I used to when I first put them away. I was willing to pay 25 bucks a month to store them for a year. I probably couldn’t have sold those things at a garage sale for what I had shelled out. I was attached to some of the things because of the stories they had – like my futon that I got at discount because the original one I ordered couldn’t be delivered on time because the truck was hijacked. But in reality, the futon wasn’t very comfortable. It didn’t have much value beyond the story. Aside from books, there wasn’t really much there that was worth it. And I learned a lesson from that – things can be replaced, even precious things because things change and feelings change.

But now I have a new set of precious things – well sort of. I try to clean house more… I go thru things, articles, and shake my head. Why was this important? Why couldn’t I depart from it. There are things I’ve given away that I miss – but do I really miss them? Or is it something else I’m clinging onto?

Finally, a non-violent video game

A Buddhist game to help teach ethics 490 words 13 March 2007 The Nation (Thailand) English (c) 2007 Nation Multimedia Group Public Co., Ltd

Concerned about a news report of a boy attacking his mother because she refused to give him money to play online games, a senior officer at the Religious Affairs Department decided to create a game himself.

"Ethics Game", created by Pakorn Tancharoen, director of the Moral and Ethical Development Office works by using a principled game to overcome decadent games.
"It is impossible to stop kids from playing games or flocking to online-game arcades. So, let them play, but play good games," Pakorn said.

The game aims to indirectly teach players about morals, doing good and the five Buddhist precepts. When he first came up with the idea, Pakorn - who had never played online games and has no children of his own - decided to work it on it in secret, as he was not sure that his boss would go along with the idea.

He spent his after-work time at online-game arcades to observe what kinds of games attract children. "Most of them were about killing," he said. He then devised a game plot that includes four main characters: Dharmmahapanyo, an old respected monk; Charn, an orphaned boy who is mischievous but clever; Nu Na, a girl who is clever and kind-hearted; and Paloe, a big half-Chinese boy who was born into a rich family and likes to tease others, especially animals.

The Woes of Water

Water shortage has been on the news lately. Neighbors are ratting out neighbors in Atlanta if they are illegally watering their lawn. Will it be a harbinger of things to come for sunny Southern California where I live? I hope not. I hope we can learn the lessons beforehand before it gets to that. For me, it’s about paying attention. Hard not to, I think, when the Water Board is running ads on the TV that, according to them, the water infrastructure in California is near collapse and the water tables are at an extreme low. The environmentalist in me wants to say, ha, ha – we told you so! And for pete’s sake, we live in a desert climate and people plant (and water things) like we’re living in England! But I digress.

The fact is, we are in draught. But I don’t want to focus on the word “draught.” It can be a scary word if you let your mind wander to the parched lands of Africa. Maybe the word itself here simply means that we don’t have as much anticipated water as we’re using currently. We are asked to “conserve.” That’s a few steps away from restriction. Then scarcity. I don’t want to have a scarcity mentality. If the Universe is full of abundance then how can we have a scarcity? And yet, here it is. So why? Is it because we are so unconscious in our use of things? Is the amount of water consumption we use really necessary? Is this water shortage just based on an anticipated need? And if so, do we really need what we are using? Hmmm.

I hate to be the water police. And yet, when I walk into bathroom at work, see someone brushing their teeth while the faucet is running at high blast, I have to say something. You only need the water to wet the toothbrush in the beginning and to rinse it off, and the spit out in the end. Why keep it on? How can they not realize the waste – that when you open the tap halfway or even all the way, you’re wasting more water by the second? For what? It simply isn’t needed at that point. I tried to say it nicely, pass it as a joke, like, ohmigosh, how silly of you. Yet I’m seething inside because I can’t believe someone is that naïve or unconscious. Especially when she’s part of the group that does PR for the environmental defenders. Try reading the literature. But like I say, that person is unconscious. But is their unconsciousness a choice?

Just because I say I hate being the water police, doesn’t prevent me from continuing. When I walked into the kitchen, saw another co-worker rinsing out the sink at the fullest blast, I have to admit, I shrieked. I could see gallons going down the sink! How can you waste water like that!,” I told him. “What? I’m washing out the sink,” he said in his defense. (A weak point, I would have to say). “Don’t you know we’re in a water crisis!,” said me, still shrieking. The culprit said, “What crisis?" My other co-worker standing next to me validated my point. “Don’t you watch the news?,” said I, incredulously. “No, too depressing,” he retorted, like that would make a difference. The sink water, during this exchange, remained on full blast. Did it get any cleaner? No. Did my co-worker learn anything? I’m not sure. To me, he’s willfully ignorant. Perhaps he does have deep-seated reasons for not watching the news. Well, I gave him some and he chose to ignore it. He didn’t want to change his behavior. To him, he was acting just ducky.

That brings me to the behavior of the Atlantans who continued to water their lawn? Why? What purpose does having a lawn have? From what I understand, the genesis of having a lawn in this country was a status symbol. Showing off to your neighbors that you could have a lawn meant prosperity. Does it still mean that? Are people really aware of it? When people see a dried out lawn are they thinking, “Well that’s a conscious neighborhood saving water!” I think actually people criticize that person, thinking they are a lay-about who doesn’t care or have self-respect. But then again, I don’t know what people are really thinking. I just know that when I see someone who has replaced their lawn here with a xeriscape lawn, I get very excited. I may even frighten the neighbors when I enthusiastically tell them, “way to go,” and “that looks really cool!” I also may frighten the ones that I glare at when I pass them on a walk just standing out on their property watering, in this middle of the draught…. Oh, wait, not draught – in this water challenged time.

In Los Angeles proper, (I live outside the city), they have begun restricting when people can water their lawns. You can still water but it’s on select days. Why are people so attached to their lawns? Why the maintenance, the expense, the fuss? Okay, if people have kids, I guess they want a lawn for their kids to play on. Wait, aren’t parents these days even afraid of letting their kids play outside because of predators? I might be more hesitant to let them play on a lawn full of herbacide. What if they pick up sprayed grass and put it in their mouth? Here I go, digressing again. But I do want to continue the point about what people spray on their lawns, to keep them green and weed free. These poisons kill things like dandelions which are actually beneficial plants, not only medicinally but nutritionally. It’s the whole unconscious thing. Do they know why they are killing dandelions? When did dandelions become bad, and homogenized green lawns good? Did someone say, “Go on! Get those terrorists weeds and get a real man’s lawn!” It just seems like a pointless struggle to me.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just to plant native species, that don’t need high maintenance and care? And if people have backyards, and kids, they can designate a space for them. And if they really want their kids to experience nature, why not plant an organic vegetable and herb garden that can be more than just an ornament? It can feed their family. I see people already doing this, using their front lawn to plant a vegetable garden. Maybe the new status for the future is being able to have the free time to grown our own food again. Not all of us seem to have the time – caught up in the business of our lives - to have the time to even stop and think, why do we have lawns? What is necessary? Can we do this before the water stops running?

In the meantime, I’ll continue what I’ve been doing for years. I don’t flush my own toilet after #1 ever single time I use the toilet. And I try to flush the toilet as often as I can using the water I’ve collected from the shower. When I rinse my veggies with plain water, I use that water to water my plants in the yard. My landlord pays for my water so I don’t do it to save money. I do it because I appreciate that I have water and that I don’t have to go to a well and fetch it. I appreciate the abundance that I have and I want to use it wisely. The real thirst I have is to live a life that is not wasteful and with this practice I quench that thirst.

Sacrifices – are they necessary?

I’ve been thinking about sacrifices – things that I do that I would consider a sacrifice, but others might not see them as sacrifices at all. I guess each of us would have a different idea of what a sacrifice means.

My initial question is are sacrifices necessary? What are there purposes: spiritual edification, devotional expressions, practicality? I don’t have an answer. Just questioning the necessity, and their necessity for me. Do I do make them to better myself, the world, or is it a way in which I deprive myself of something I think I can’t or shouldn’t have? Is the latter a thinly disguised punishment?

Are sacrifices a form of deprivation? One wouldn’t look at an animal sacrifice that way; well, not a personal one – unless you considered that animal your property. But it’s the animal’s life you’re sacrificing ultimately. You gain from that animal’s death if you are of that mind that if you do, it will benefit you in that god’s eyes. I imagine that was the thinking of our ancestors (and for those who still practice…).

When Jesus made his sacrifice (I don’t know much about Christianity but from what I understand, isn’t that what Christians believe?) was that a turning point in human history? Taking it upon yourself to make your own sacrifice instead of choosing a victim – whether it be a human or an animal – did that set a new moral ground? I’ll leave the answer to theologians and sociologists. However, I wonder about it because I wonder how the notion of self-sacrifice, to live a good life, pervades our lives. And is it necessary?

Part of me says sacrifice is necessary when I unplug my coffee machine every day. What kind of sacrifice is that, one might ask? Well, it’s my programmable coffee maker. I initially bought it as a bribe to myself to get up early and exercise. Hearing the percolating, bubbly coffee brewing in the morning (I admit to being a coffee addict, that’s another story) as I tried to crawl out of bed actually got me out of bed. I love hearing it in the morning. I’m not a morning person, nor do I have anyone in house, besides me, to make the coffee so even though I set it up at night, there’s something about it brewing right on time that makes me feel like I’m being cared for. I don’t have to fumble in the morning to make it – it’s done for me. A coffee servant, if you will. But what do I love more – saving the environment or me? Like my VCR, I unplug my electrical appliances that I don’t need and I have compact fluorescent bulbs.

So, for now, saving electricity on things I really don’t need has won out. Not so much for coffee filters. For years I used the mesh filters – a good ten. But for some reason, in this apartment, something I cannot explain, the spray from the coffee filter when I dump the grounds in the trash gets everywhere. The coffee grounds get all over the entire cabinet underneath my sink and it’s pain to clean. I either ignored it when I lived in my Northern California home or didn’t notice it or it didn’t happen. Either way, I made the decision to go with paper filters. And I love it. I know, I’m wasting trees and adding to the landfill until whenever time the filters, if they do, biodegrade. However, I love the ease of throwing the filters in the trash without having to waste time washing them out – worrying about grinds going into my sink, backing it up (again, this didn’t happen up North – who knows why). I accept this level of wastefulness. I guess I could compromise and use the mesh filter again every once in awhile. But the mere fact I actually cut myself some slack in my rather strict eco-mindful living was something. So this is where I began to question sacrifice. Maybe it’s to ease my consciousness but there’s something about the scarcity mentality that makes me question it too. If I’m always sacrificing some kind of enjoyment because of lack of funds, it’s not good for the environment, etc., what does that mentality do overall to my psych?. This isn’t about going 4-wheeling in the forests with an SUV. That type of behavior I could never condone. It’s about what I won’t do for myself, like not buying anything new because I don’t want to be a materialist – or waste environmental resources – because all those “other” people are doing it and if we keep doing that, won’t we run out of everything?@!

I guess what I’m trying to reform is the thinking that I can’t do something because everyone else is doing it – because they’re fucking up the planet – and then get resentful because I don’t let myself do anything. When I first moved back to L.A., maybe I relented to societal pressure, or maybe I just wanted to put myself first, but I actually allowed myself to go shopping again – for new things. I bought sunglasses that were more than 20 dollars (meaning not on sale) and I bought trendy purses knowing that they would be out of style in a year. What happened? The sunglasses never stayed on my face properly and I ended up selling them at a garage sale for 5 dollars. I gave the purses away to Goodwill after also trying to sell them at that garage sale. Since then, I invested, after many of hours of search, in a classic purse that I love and will use for 5 years. I bought another pair of sunglasses, about the same price as the other, that stay on my face and I’ve worn them for 2 years. What I learned from that experience is that I don’t really care about current trends. I’d rather buy classic things that will last. But if now and again, I actually splurge on something ridiculous, it’s not going to end the world. And I hope that person who got my Ray Bans for 5 bucks is really enjoying them and they aren’t slipping off her face. I guess what I learned also is that I don’t always have to be the person recycling, initially.

What I’m trying to get away from is fear based thinking, that if I buy something I like, the world will suffer because I thought only of myself. Is this really true? Is the Universe really set up this way? That's another discussion for another time. For now, I think now I’ll subscribe to the god of have – of freedom and happiness, abundance and success. You won’t see me driving a hummer now, nor will I – ever. There’s a good reason Gore won a Noble Peace Prize. But I’m starting to be less judgmental, like assuming the worst of people in trendy clothes and expensive cars. I wonder why they let others (designers, magazine editors) tell them what to wear and when. But that’s their choice, isn’t it. I’d rather spend time on things that interest me more. And again who am I to judge? I’m the woman who’s throwing away coffee filters. Ah, the freedom!