Recently a President of an enormous corporation based in South Korea joined the Esalen Farm and Garden morning harvest as a volunteer. As I set him up to harvest kale, he said, “I know this is simple work but I imagine there must be more to it. How do you do this? How do you connect with this land and these plants?”
I picked up a handful of the garden soil and encouraged him to do the same. I gave him my rap: “After winter rain, our soil appears in high contrast between black humus resulting from forty years of tender stewardship, and glimmering shards of abalone, remnants of the native Essalen people who dwelled here up to 5,000 years ago. The Esalen land has a powerful ancestry, and farming is appropriately ancient work. We Farmers and Gardeners feel a deep sense of honor continuing this sacred practice of cultivating soil, plants and spirit.”
As a businessman in Seoul with a 4-hour daily commute, he could not remember having touched soil in decades. “This is very special for me,” he said, eyes twinkling.
I love facilitating a visitor’s reconnection of body, mind and spirit to the earth through this work. In our modern societies and cultures, we are “richer” and longer living than ever before — yet a feeling of emptiness or disconnection persists en masse. We meet our basic needs through the purchase of goods or services, curating rather than creating the material of our existence. Is it possible that the self-sufficient acts of our ancestors — growing food; weaving clothes; concocting soap; building houses — were fundamentally creative, expressive aspects of humanity, which we unknowingly ache and long for now?
As Brother David Steindl-Rast reminded me recently, “humus”, the dark decomposed material in soil, reveals its sacred power through its etymologic connection to “human”, “humor” and “humility”. This supports my belief that growing beautiful food humbly expresses my creativity, connects me to my body, the universe and the present moment, and reforms my conditioned conception of “richness”. My mentor and Farm and Garden Manager Shirley Ward regularly rejoices “We’re rich!” as hearty beets or neon pink chard emerge gloriously in the morning hours.
We plant the seeds of our wild ideas now, and as former Farm and Garden Manager Steve Beck once wrote, “look forward with the hope that arrives every spring” to see what germinates in the coming years.
Noël Vietor serves as Coordinator of the Esalen Farm and Garden – Esalen is an educational retreat center in Big Sur California
Long have I dwelt on the cosmic irony of our Fossil Fuel Culture. Our plant ancestors once lay at peace in their immeasurably old burial grounds, the most sacred grounds of our greatest grandparents; the ancient sustainers of the atmosphere, prodigium of consciousness.
We drag them up, wake them from their long deserved rest, and drive them like an endless zombie army. Enslave the plants of old, drink greedily of their untold power, and make them do great and menial things for our “advancement”.
We borrow from the dead, awaken our fossil family, but in our arrogance and drive, we did not take the time to learn the art of Necromancy. We disturb the spirits, but do not speak to them, and cannot listen either. It seems they may have offered some warning, perhaps a few choice words to throw our hubris into relief. The old mystics knew that you cannot live with the dead, and go on living; eventually the world of the dead becomes your world.
You were not honored Plant People, Great Ancestors, and this hard-handed lesson, is no less than we deserve. But I do ask for forgiveness, so that the Council of Beings might not all pay for our single species foolishness, and so we might have a chance to open a new age of reverence and love beyond “progress”.
I am currently hovering Lakitu style in non-citizen space above the current nonsense of Australian climate change politics and find myself understanding the grievous loss that occurs when inspirational acts become codified into profession. I'm not so dull to believe that this is anything but the natural progression of most human minds given the hoarding tendencies predisposed by the prominent economic/social structure currently popular with Earth's current dominant species.
It has been demonstrated time and time again that the movement from the spiritual to the secular is hallmarked by the centralized and exclusionary movement into the golden temple, from which authenticity is banished for fear of the light revealing the deep fissures hidden in the darkness. When existence is defined by competition inspired by fear of loss rather than inspired by cooperation inspired by faith in communal security, the natural tendency is to develop the professional niches that feed like remoras on the detritus of authenticity left over by the systematic sharks.
Leadership, in my mind, started out as a natural occurrence of (relatively) altruistic and (relatively) selfless behavior for the greater good of ones own people. Call it a modified version of survival of the fittest or whatnot - altruistic leadership was a service performed beyond the realm of personal gain.
However, we exist in an age where the competition-based systems for human existence have picked up considerable speed on the tracks and the once noble pre-mass-civilization act of leadership is now a survival/accumulation mechanism that utilizes the mires of democracy to ensure job security.
We have fully accepted the human-production model so fully that altruistic acts have become akin to the once numerous American bison. Professional politicians no longer represent the good of the tribe and this is so readily accepted that it is admitted openly without public shock. Something intended to be a mechanism of inclusiveness has become bastardized to the point that the inspiration source is indistinguishable and, if stumbled upon it is often shot or disemboweled by the media/social blades that be.
It seems to me that the systems so vulnerable to destruction by their origin authenticity are often the best at convincing those it interacts with that they must pass through its systems to reach such authenticity – our own country, with its revolutionary Constitution and politico-media soma-induced social comas, serves as an excellent example. I take great interest in the events of Egypt and Libya as they dismantle the democracy-via-garbage-disposal systems in place of self-determination. Let’s hope that revolution-back-to-the-source cannot be trademarked and marketed by Coke.
So what of it all? It isn’t just politicians. Our mother culture is so connected that the loss of the spiritual in the secular is common, with efforts to shake up the system (art, music, environmental activism, etc) are quickly co-opted by competitive structures that they ironically turned into Borg without awareness. And in that transition, the flame burns lower and recognition of the authentic is more difficult. We have become a ghost culture that has eaten its soul to fill its belly. The taboos have been destroyed, the rituals have been marginalized, and the peace has become packaged.
But I believe the recognition of the authentic and the ancestral is undeniable. This story of existence is just that – a veil that holds no power beyond its ability to obscure and sow doubt. The power of an individual expressing authentically without hope for gain beyond personal fulfillment is bewildering to the system. The response comes in the form of ignoring the act in hope that its walls will withstand any losses. This quickly moves to the acquirement-model that attempts to trade such an individual shiny things for the power of their expression. If no ground is gained, social ostracism or annihilation assumes priority, as the survival of the system is paramount in light of penetrating authenticity.
It is the realization of what has been all along: a hollow dream induced by those who are so inextricably dependent upon a consumptive system. Power lies in the realization of the individual and the expression of the pure without hope for hoarder gain. Those shaking off the mantle and rejecting the need to pass through the system to reach the enlightenment, a fundamentally pure act, are mocked by those within the system. Such is the case with all that live outside of a system in which mockery and ostracism are the best ways for any individual in the system to avoid the pangs of introspection that come when an alternative sheds light on ones own choices. It is a lofty goal to slough-off and I hope that one day I can touch its edges.
(written & submitted by Pete Huff, 28/II/2011)
For me there is no greater repository of collective deception than the resumé. Of course there is the obvious embellishment of “accomplishments”, the stretching of employment times to fill in gaps, and often there is outright lying about employment, skills, and education. But there is another level of deception too. The simple act of submitting to this formulaic evaluation of self, displaying data about oneself that fits someone else’s standards, rather than your own… this is the greater deception.
To get hyperbolic about it just for a second… creating a resumé can diminish the truth of the dynamic and exceptional nature of your existence and experience. These documents need a thorough cleansing, and it’s gonna take a lot of sage!
So I have made my own “soul resume” my “native-self resume” which is, after all, limited, but infinitely more expansive than the humdrum. Truth be told, thinking about things, events, and abilities I feel joyfully connected to actually made me feel great! So I recommend you give it a try. Make a resumé for “things” you are really proud of, stuff that feels real, meaningful, and wonderful. We can shuck the husk of a severely stunted goal/production oriented world-view. Burn your old resumé and let this phoenix rise from the ashes.
My new resume is here (as a PDF) and reconstructed in text below. Anyone hiring?
[Follow up assignment: Send your new resumé to an organization/person/company you’ve always wanted to work for but don’t feel qualified to. OR send it to the CEO of a terrible company, just for fun.]
_____________________________________
FLETCHER TUM TUCKER
address: Dodge Mini Van, Big Sur, CA ||| phone: limited ||| email: fletcher@birdbysnow.com
SPIRIT ANIMAL(S): Sea Otter / Pine Martin / Bobcat /
California Condor / Red-tailed Hawk / Brown Pelican
MINERAL: Petrified Wood / Amber / Obsidian
SHELL: Abalone
ALLY: Mushroom / Ayahuasca
NONCORPOREAL FAMILIAR: Gnome
MYTHIC HERO: Robin Hood / Merlin
SUN SIGN: Aires
MOON SIGN: Gemini
RISING SIGN: Leo
NATIVE GREETING: Hug / High-five
EDUCATION
27 years drawing breath – 22 years wilderness contemplation – 10 years serious consciousness contemplation – 8 years traditional Japanese Jujitsu practice/training – 9 years mature art practice – 6 years of musical engagement & song questing – 6 years of tutelage with my Allies – 6 years of world travel
APPLICABLE SKILLS
