Integrated Blog

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Two Poems

Soulstices

We emerged from heat, two hydrogen atoms, attracting an other, sensing love across the flurry and joining forces to become more.

We swirled slowly slowly coalescing and coagulating into harbors of heavy elements, galaxies of gummy, godly glory.

We moved like molasses, gurgling in such thick dark I could only feel the thrumming of your tentacles. You persisted and I listened.

We burst forth, breaching Balugas, journeying between endless poles, pursuing lonely scrapes of shoreline with only our celestial compass and friendly tale flips for reassurance.

We laid low, tucked in turtle shells, proud of our patterned protections, our itty bitty claws scraping pebble'd sludge, and discovering delightful green shoots that burst with juice.

We stand! We dance! We sing! All are Mother Goddess Mother Goddess Mother Goddess!

We fight, so often for so long, falling under fury and ferocity and fear, over and over and it seems Hell is born alive among us.

We summon our wolves, Alpha's ahead of the pack, here we come - one last raid on human camp before the humans drive us from our home forever.

We nestle in our woven nest. Our parents, so broad and so keen, feed us seeds from their beaks. They nudge us out before we're ready and we tumble, flutter, soar on gusts.

We root and reach and drink and absorb and watch for ages and ages. You are down the hill a bit, by the arrow rock. I wave, many times. Creatures come and go.

We, the bride and child of a Nile scribe, encourage our father to meet Pharoah's deadlines.

We, Zazen friends, contemplate also moss and ponds and the bristling winds between the bamboo.

We succumb to coughs, hang our heads and cringe before our masters, we rend our tattered clothes in ruin. We lose each other too quickly.

We float along currents, lay on cushions under smoky domes, rise to sample figs and fruit. I splash you with warm water as you shuffle by.

We can hear the clop clop on cobblestones through the window. I am on the loom as you burst in the room with your scrolls and your excited eyes.

We command the waves, brisk, blistering, intrepid explorers, a lotta rope, a lotta fish. On my night shift I spot the new world. From then on we are nervous.

We cut fast through the cane, le Plaine du Nord au Saint Dominique. Come my brothers, to the big white house, then down the road - Port Au Prince - we'll take the town. Tonight will mark our holiday.

We stayed on the move, our band of mysterious eyelashes, Romas along the road, pausing only that time I was thrown in prison. But you rescued me, and never let me forget it.

We thought we had a good thing going. Onward and upward. But it was all gone by '29. You threatened to jump like our acquaintances, but I knew you didn't mean it.

We survived a jalopy crash. We regenerated limbs from stem cells. We assisted breakthroughs and then retired from public view.

We transformed again and again and again and during the Great Turning we supported transformation in everyone we met. During the Great Turning, we were great.

We peacefully strolled down to the river, drawing up the clean water. Then back up the hill to our earthen homes, pausing to enjoy a breath, sampling bright greens by our side, collecting eggs from warm cob, sharing smiles with passing loves. You nodded at me and I knew.

We are mother and child, our last winter in this old house. We are ready. We continue.


Rescue Our Rabbit

In our 9 years since you were a baby in Brooklyn,
You've explored many corners, hopped beneath many persons.

We've lived in some states and we've followed our fears.
From you I've learned calm, peaceful watching, cocked ears,
readiness for bounce, safety under things,
good scrubbing technique, and softening.

From me you've learned trust, touch, care, coughs and impatience,
freshness and sweetness, Aretha Franklin and raisins,
and at least the words poop, breakfast, love, hay and Bridget.

When we're apart, which we must be, I visit
such far away places and do things unsound
for a critter who likes to have paws on the ground.
I think of you often, tell all I adore
a person who looks like a shoe on the floor.

When I nuzzle your nose and know I'll be away
I trust that I'll see you some not distant day.
And on return there you are! Bouncing 'bout like a bee!
Pissed off at arrival, then so happy to see me.

This time, without a parent or partner to watch you,
I thought some substitute sitters I got you,
Some subletters set up, shook hands, but they sucked.
And I thought for a second we were totally fucked!

I thought agreeing to keep a rabbit okay
was the kind of commitment a person maintains.
But for the first time, my arrangements break down
away 'cross the country, and the snow's closing town!

I thought you were in trouble, thought I might have to catch flight
If I had one wish for Santa (after a long talk about capitalism) it'd be to get you some hay on this dark winter night.

But Ho! A Christmas miracle! 20 CIISers!
Offers of help! Arrangements! Reassurances!
A few "Why didn't you set this up better buddy?"s,
A tribe that rallies 'round it's community's bunnies!

We all can be sometimes the most needy of creatures.
It's the difficult times that are truly our teachers.
But you're such a tough queen, I know you'll be great, bun.
With such a smart papa to seek integration.

I'm so grateful for friends colleagues comrades and neighbors.
I hope they call me next time they need a favor.
Bridge, we've finally found a real web of support!
A home for myself and my sweet lagomorph.

Sacred Cycles Grateful Grounds

A tour of sacred sites around the world where communities have woven the cycles of life and death into the body of the land.

All images © Joshua Halpern 1997-2010
Feeling Good by Nina Simone

Sacred places include: Varanasi, Manikarnika, Jodhpur, Jageshwar, Sagada, Kabayan, Chitina, Ka Lae, Papakolea, Esalen, Alcatraz, Petra, Giza, Karnak, Denali, Yosemite, Mesa Verde, Pai, and Princeton

Learning about Light

I'm learning so much!

I've been living in the Bay Area for about six weeks now. I'm pursuing a graduate degree in Integral Ecology. And I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing, though I do miss my loved ones back home.

So - what is this integral ecology?

Here's a description from the school.








Here's my attempt at a simple explanation: there will be many changes on the earth over the next several generations. We are collecting all the elements that led the Earth Community to this place and time, swimming the global wisdom currently arising, and integrating these amazing perspectives into a creative and helpful and hopefully peaceful way through the coming transformations.

Like how?

We draw from indigenous sacred knowledge and quantum physics. From deep ecology and ecopsychology, from permaculture and cosmology and astrology even. We go WAY back through time and WAY deep through consciousness. We move towards social activism and environmental justice, promote diversity and responsibility, celebrate the Universe every day and renew our compassion and solidarity with all expressions of Earth.

Right. What kind of job are going to get after school?

With a degree in Integral Ecology, I can help communities and individuals establish new relationships with the Earth. This could include building local systems which allow groups to perpetuate their sources of food and water and sustain their social and spiritual well-being, right in conjunction with the health of their bioregion.

I can help us deal with the emotional responses (remorse, fury, despair) toward what we've done to each other and Earth. I can help facilitate healing across disparate groups. At least I can try my best every day.

But these are just issues we're likely to recognize as Americans. Over the next decades there will also be hundreds of millions of climate refugees around the world with flooded or desertified homes. A degree in Integral Ecology should be able to inform relationships between all of us. Integral Ecology is a burgeoning field, and yes, a growth industry, though I'm not in it for the money.

So, ok, lemme share just a couple awesome things I've learned this month...


1. If you hold your pinky at arms length in front of the night sky, behind your pinky (by conservative estimates) are a million galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars like ours.

2. The universe is constantly moving, it moves towards creativity and complexity and diversity, and it is fueled by love.

3. The center of the universe is any point you measure it from. So, you.

4. Everything emits light constantly. Everything is permeated through and through with it. Light can travel across space and pop into existence. It exists outside of time. I don't know what this means. We barely know anything about these vast expanses. But what we do know totally blows your mind.

5. Questions that seem to be arising from the Integral Ecology field and which interest me in particular include, but are not limited to -

1. 
   How do we move from a competitive to a collaborative culture?
2. How do we embody new and ancient stories at the same time?
3. How do we teach non violence and responsibility?
4. How does the soul of the Earth communicate with her self-reflexive children?

6. Redwood's roots are interconnected, as are their canopies.

7. And, if you're looking for something that'll really blow up your perspective, here ya go, care of my professor Sean Kelly.

Eschatons - Eras That Are Ending Now (Times Are Approximate)

• 65 Million Years - The Cenezoic Era: We are currently in the middle of a mass extinction of animal and plant species. The last time a dying off of this magnitude occurred was when a meteor wiped out the dinosaurs. That 65 million years has marked the most beautifully biodiverse period in the planet's history, and it is ending right now. We are the cause.
• 200,000 Years - The Era of Homosapiens: There's an argument to be made that through a combination of changes - biologically through our exposure to toxins, biomechanically through the internet implants we're all about to want, on a level of consciousness with exponentially rising global awareness, and just because the label homosapien or "wise man" can't really be what we call ourselves anymore - we are mutating into a new human.
  
• 12,000 Years - The Holocene: The period of stable climate since the last ice age. Ending. This balance is what allows for agriculture. A rise of 2 degrees interferes with pollination. At 104 F photosynthesis ceases.
• 5,000 Years - The Historical Period: If you define history as narratives of warring men, which is what most of our early history consists of, then this is (thankfully) no longer the only script with which we work.
• 5,000 Years - The Mayan Great Count: On the morning of the Winter Solstice two years hence, the Sun (our first Father) will trace a direct elliptical path through the exact center of our galaxy, the Great Rift in the Milky Way (our first Mother.) There may also be aircraft carriers smashing into the White House. But I'm hoping that the unprecedented global recognition of 2012 as a date of change allows for the greater possibility of manifesting that change together.
  
• 2,000 Years - The Piscean/Christian Aeon: The astrological Age of Pisces coinciding with the arising of the great religions and religious wars, though it's associated most closely with Christianity and it's water and fish symbology. Somewhere in this current couple hundred years we're moving into the Age of Aquarius. This could signify a move away from monotheistic spirituality and towards lives experienced through freedom, equality, and awakening.
• 500 Years - The Modern/Western/Capitalist Era: This is the world we know. The one we think is so real, so solid. It's been defined by progress! individual autonomy! commodification of everything, mechanical reductionism, genocidal expansion, blind ambition, limitless growth, you know what I'm saying. At the moment these guys are entrenched and they ain't going down without a fight. But (and I believe this more and more) as we bare witness to each other in all our unique human incarnations and voices, as we finally recognize our interdependence with life on the planet, and as we begin to know ourselves as something unbelievably greater - a knowledge it's taken us exactly 13.7 billion years to discover - even those forms that seem most fundamental and foundational will begin to peel back.
• 100 Years - Cheap Oil: Oil is dead. Long live migratory birds.

There's no time frame or blueprint for how these eras will shift. But it's all going on in our and our children's generation. Some books I could recommend starting with: The Great Work by Thomas Berry, Cosmic Conversations by Stephan Martin, Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy, and The Universe is a Green Dragon by Brian Swimme

Anyway, it's a lot to grapple with. I intended to debut this blog during the Autumnal Equinox/Harvest Moon, cuz I've been on a quarter year writing thing, but here we are at the new moon already. I'm finding so much that's fueling my passions here, so many conversations, real blossoming communities - it's hard to alchemize these elements into blog posts. But - these are stories I'll devote my whole life to expressing. So, no worries about my little new begintegration blog.

Thank you for journeying with me. I'm grateful for any and all questions or comments, and I want to stay in touch, thank you. I'm making new friends in SF and Berkeley, but the movement includes all of us.

We all have this beautiful innate creativity that loves bursting forth when given the chance. It is, not coincidentally, very much like the supernova that created the earth and me and you. It will transform.

Begininintegration

Late summer weather in the Bay Area is chosen by the Pacific. How much of the region would we like to engulf in clouds today? I've found many beautiful places to wander already. I'm drawn to them. I will spend time in nature every day if I can. This morning I walked out onto the pier at the Berkeley Marina and strode directly into a new weather system.

The dense grey cloud engulfed the city, the golden gate, the highlands, but breezed past the east bay, just out of reach. As I moved into the cloud, the air becoming dark, the wind flapping my hoodie, the people more scary and scarce, it reminded me of our frightening future.

First week of school, a non-descript building downtown. Integral Ecology. We start with the state of the world and the story of the universe. The state of the world is depletion - watertables, topsoils, mass extinctions. The edge of the pier. The story of the universe, however, is glorious - vast and moving and creative and fueled by love. The song that comes to my head as I walk back towards shore.


This is our reckoning, holding both realities, every day, every night. Holding and giving away - it's in the sharing that we grow communities. We'll teach each other. I am at school with scholars and shamans, soothsayers and solastalgists.

I am going for new views.

I continue to trust my timing.

I seem ripe. I have found a converted garage in a 100 yr old farmhouse in Berkeley. Exposed pipe, industrial sink, weird skylights, loft. Perfect. Bridget's hopping. I put up my sacred objects and it feels like home.

I feel welcome here. I'm arriving as myself. And hoping to find my tribe.

As we move into the fall, which is supposed be the prettiest time of year here, I'll let you know any plans to save the earth. But for now, I'm just balancing everything.



Goal Statement for CIIS Admissions

We have brought forth a centuries-long shift in the planet’s life-sustaining systems. This changes our goals a bit. What choices are now opening to us? I’ve had the great gift of time to explore paths which resonated on a soul-level, and powerful experiences working my heart and hands the last ten years. I’m looking to add more minds to the mix. A primary artery of all my work has been orienting people to our Earth. Every day humans come into new, sacred relationships with the natural world. I would like to facilitate more of these engagements. An immediate goal for the summer is to begin editing my footage from sacred sites around the globe. But art is only one delivery system for a larger purpose - preserving and creating sacred space and relationship.

As we build new communities, I want to establish medicine wheels, gardens, parks and protected wild alongside the other essential sustainable systems. The river system where I was born is tattooed on my back - I hope to help neighborhoods engage with their genius loci. I continually find myself in conversations that sound like despair work. I accept these heartbreaks as part of my responsibility. I know firsthand how trauma can hold in the body, and am very interested in the somatic arts, not to mention rhythm and dance. I’m also compelled by the potentials of shamanism in the 21st century. And I imagine that while helping our transformations at home is necessary, I’ll also want a voice in the larger global discussions – maybe as a solastalgist for climate refugees, or something involving biodiversity, or water. The only place that can integrate all of these yearnings is CIIS.

An earth community is being born in each of us. CIIS is providing our first midwives. The integral ecology track, and the redwoods, pull me to San Fransisco. I leave my burgeoning community at home to apprentice at the hub of the environmental and global justice movements. And I continue to trust the universe that has brought me to you at this time.

Views

I am compelled by views.
I am captured still, connecting yet again to my position in the ebb and flow of earth.
The curling mountains, the frothing streams, we share backs.
But we have shared badly our sustenance and space.
I am sorry for this, and I am in your service.

I humbly ask for a new home, a place to be of help.
A community in conversation I could join.
And love.

My roots, grown strong in their twisted explorations,
drunk from a deep but dwindling aqueduct,
held on here for life for so long,
finally release.

I follow the skies, moon over the birds, climb to high places,
but though I can bounce,
my wings, stuffed between my shoulders,
have waited till now to unfurl,
and I have forgotten my methods of flight.