Digital Detox Reflections

Another recalibration so I can be more effective as a glitch in the matrix

The marine layer was present when I took this photo (it burnt off by midday). In the bottom of the photo, you can see the tomatoes growing full tilt in just a few inches of soil, savoring the warmth of pavers. Apples are plentiful on the five variety, grafted tree. Over 200 have been “socked” to keep the worms and other critters from tasting them before humans get a taste, although many have been left bare for hungry inhabitants as an offering. Six varieties of berries and many varieties of lettuce are passing their peak, but other greens are thriving, We’ll soon be getting prepared for an abundance of squash, beans, tomatoes, and cucumber, and our neighbors’ porches and bellies will receive the benefit of that abundance.

Sitting in my backyard, under the shade of the elder aunt Magnolia tree, listening to the almost incessant chirp of the house sparrows who love my neighbors’ roof, I’m surrounded by the lush greens of my summer garden bursting with abundance and buzzing with pollinators. I am letting myself take in the gratitude for this moment of calm, free of that anxious hyper-vigilance that my nervous system seems to gravitate towards, like so, so many of us in this time. I’m breathing deeply into this moment because who knows when the air quality and the energy may change.

I gave myself the immense blessing of going offline (without WiFi or cell reception) at the Breitenbush Hot Springs over the July 4th weekend. It’s now been five years since the devastating fires wiped out huge swathes of the forests in those mountains, including all the rustic cabin accommodations and other buildings dedicated to healing guests who come to Breitenbush. So much has been rebuilt in ways that both provoke delight at the dedication and commitment of the staff and the community surrounding them, but also present is an intense nostalgia, as well as grief, for what was lost in the fires.

It’s a long drive into the mountains east of Salem, Oregon, but definitely worth traveling the distance to be away from the intensity of the news feed and its potential to numb us out. I needed to sit with my grief about all that is collapsing and being harmed, surrounded by the lush, but fire-scarred space found on that land. Being far enough away from cell towers and WiFi, I could not doom scroll there (it’s a 10 mile drive away from Breitenbush to get any cell reception). This particular strategy to avoid the challenging emotions that keep arising is not sustainable. Instead, as I slowly walked the paths to the hot springs or to eat in the dining hall, I allowed my psyche to flow with the emotions that were stuck.

Burnt trees stand as sentries at the entrance to the parking area.

As a side note, the universe had tricked me into an excuse for slow walking. As I was packing up my car last Thursday, my left calf which had seemed mostly healed for over a week, sent signals of pain from a muscle adjacent to the one that had been torn on May 31st. When I stopped in Portland to have lunch with a friend who I had not seen for 30+ years, we walked to one of her favorite restaurants, run by a Palestinian man. The walk was not easy for me, but being in Sonia’s presence was a powerful tonic. Her work was with undocumented mothers from Latin American countries, and she spends a good part of her day crying for them. We talked about the possibilities that they may have found sanctuary somewhere, but the situation is dire for so many.

When we arrived at the Palestinian restaurant, the owner served us like queens (we were the only lunch customers). After a few bites of his wonderful baba ganoush, I took the risk to ask him how he’s coping with these times. His wife is from Gaza, so hearing that was enough to bring on some intense feelings. His stories opened us to a grief that diminished our appetites. We carried our leftovers back to Sonia’s place where she showed me what would be my bedroom when I visit Portland again. Sonia is the widow of Bob’s best friend, Joseph, when we all lived in LA. Knowing that she sees me as family warmed my heart in the deepest of ways. Love is the balm that helps us to navigate the grief.

The added tweak to my left calf did not go away for the whole trip, causing me to limp slowly towards the lodge and the soaking pools and tubs at Breitenbush. I became very efficient about what I was carrying and how often I traveled from place to place. If I wanted to eat and have privacy between meals, I had to manage the half mile round trip, three times per day. When I got frustrated by this disability, I reminded myself that I was walking at the pace of walking meditation with Thich Nhat Hanh; that thought made each slow journey feel a bit more nourishing. This back-step in my healing reminded me that it takes longer than a month to truly heal a torn muscle, and that there can be negative impacts to other parts of the body when one part gets injured. Now that I am walking more, I’m noticing various challenges emerging elsewhere in my body after over a month of little movement. Patience, self-compassion, and doing daily stretches are the only ways past this hurdle.

Every day at Breitenbush took me deeper into a solo slowness that I’d been craving. A languorous dip in the silent pond at the far end of the meadow gave me a front seat view of the mountains that had been ravaged by the fires of 2020. Nature’s healing process was tangible in the new growth. Looking at the meadows filled with wild flowers and listening to the rushing sounds of the river gorge while witnessing two red dragonflies dipping their tails in the hot pool as a kind of mating dance made me and my fellow soakers chuckle with delight.

When I wasn’t sleeping, eating, or soaking, I spent my time reading, writing, daydreaming, chatting with the cleaning staff (all sweet, tattooed young men who took time to point out amazing bugs and frogs hiding on top of mirrors in the bath house to me and each other). We witnessed the lupin plants release their seeds in multi-orgasmic ways, creating “messes” for them to sweep off the front porches of the cabins. This was my first time sleeping in “The Grove” - short rows of adjoining rooms, designed with a modified Japanese aesthetic and no storage space (unlike the old, funky, but comfy cabins that had burnt down, along with towering spruces, firs, and cedars on this same plot of ground). It was a short hike to the bath house building plumbed for toilets, showers, sinks, and drinking water. There was nothing more pleasant than hanging out in front of my room and witnessing the flora and fauna doing their things.

Some of The Grove buildings that my porch faced.

This aerial view of Breitenbush (courtesy of my map app) gives you a sense of the reconstructed landscape - the cleared area was a dense forest filled with small cabins before the fire. The Grove accommodations are the dark brown, rectangular buildings in the center directly below the row of white yurts (I stayed in one of those last year) that look over the river. On the top left is the lodge and the kitchen.

One of the staff referred to this magical bug as the “long horn beetle” but my research back home identified it as a “sawyer beetle.”

The lupin seed pods pre- and post-ejaculating.

I pulled out my inks, brushes, water color pencils and pads of paper one morning with the thought that I had packed them and carried them all the way here, so I might as well use them. I sat down on the porch with no agenda other than play and created two little works. This one above was gifted to one of the new and friendly cleaning staff, Oriah, who offered me warm conversation. I left it in my room after packing up my car on the last morning along with the blue stone that had been Bob’s worry stone (in the photo below).

On my last night, I took a tiny bit of Bob’s soil and said some words of gratitude, leaving it within a burnt stump with some items that had significance for him and me. I removed the stones. Bringing one of them home to my ancestor altar, and the other, as I mentioned above, I left as a gift to Oriah.

As is typical when I have gone to Breitenbush in the past, I was able to complete reading three amazing books during my time there. This first one is strongly recommended for activists who are struggling to find their ways through relationships. Dean Spade is a trans lawyer/author who is quite savvy about these issues and sees their importance as we build a strong resistance movement.

The book, Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, I actually listened to while driving. I was blown away by the authors’ skill at melding together the macro (inflammation in the ecosystems exacerbated by colonization, racism, and poverty caused by extraction and exploitation), and the micro (all the health issues that have origins in both the environmental crises and the inequities caused by systemic oppression).

https://bookshop.org/p/books/inflamed-deep-medicine-and-the-anatomy-of-injustice-rajeev-charles-patel/15041972?ean=9781250849298&next=t

My inner animist was delighted to spend time with Zoe Schlanger’s research into the intelligence of plants. Reading it was immensely soothing.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-light-eaters-how-the-unseen-world-of-plant-intelligence-offers-a-new-understanding-of-life-on-earth-zoe-schlanger/20890522?utm_source=google&utm_medium=pmax&utm_campaign=gift_cards&utm_content=6443417794&gad_source=5&gad_campaignid=16243514117&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI84uW_L21jgMVlgvvAh2b6zfOEAAYAiAAEgICLfD_BwE

I hope the readers of my Substack make more time to read than I do. This marathon read is not my norm - it only happens when I’m away from the internet. I started reading See No Stranger (below) by Valerie Kaur on my last day at Breitenbush. I gifted this book to Bob during the pandemic, and I’m not sure whether he ever cracked it open. I heard Valerie speak at a recent demonstration against the fascist regime’s policies, was deeply impressed by her words and intelligence, and then realized that her book was sitting on the shelf.

I’m trying hard not purchase more books. When I’m more mobile, I will continue taking walks to the local sidewalk libraries and leave a handful behind. The bookshelves upstairs are packed with many unread volumes and there are over a dozen cartons of books in the basement that came from my office shelves. I’m still looking for an appropriate library to offer them to because they focus on the curriculum I taught in art for social change. I’m not ready to separate them.

I started to work with this dear and beloved teacher 42 years ago. This photo was probably taken when she was in her late 70s. She is 96 now. As I wrote in my previous post, our beloved teacher, Joanna Macy, has been doing hospice for the past week. I say “our” because she is being held in spirit and beloved by thousands all over the world. I can feel their energy when I go to the “Caring Bridge” site honoring her transition. Right now she is being cared for by family and friends at home in Berkeley, California. To learn more about her work in the world, please go to https://www.shambhala.com/joanna-macy/

Here’s a quote of hers that I posted on Facebook today. "Maybe the song that is to be sung through us is the most beautiful requiem for an irreplaceable planet or maybe it's a song of joyous rebirth as we create a new culture that doesn't destroy its world."

Her teachings have been so resonant for the times we’re moving through. Here’s more:

THE SHAMBHALA WARRIOR PROPHECY

This prophecy was explained to Joanna Macy by Drugu Choegyal Rinpoche some years ago.

''The Shambhala Warrior Prophecy.

Joanna Macy shares this twelve centuries old Shambhala Warrior Prophecy from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which some predict will to come true in our time. She invites you to listen to it as if it were about you….

“There comes a time when all life on Earth is in danger. At that time great powers have arisen, barbarian powers, and although they waste their wealth in preparations to annihilate each other, they have much in common. Among the things these barbarians have in common are weapons of unfathomable devastation and death and technologies that lay wast to the world. And it is just at this point in our history, when the future of all beings seems to hang by the frailest of threads, that the kingdom of shambhala emerges. Now, you can’t go there because it is not a place. It exists in the hearts and minds of the shambhala warriors….

“Now the time is coming when great courage is required of the shambhala warriors: moral courage and physical courage, and that’s because they are going to go right into the heart of the barbarian powers to dismantle their weapons. They are going to go into the pits and citadels where the weapons are made and deployed. They are going to go into the corridors of power where the decisions are made, to dismantle the weapons in every sense of the word. The shambahla warriors know that these weapons can be dismantled because they are made by the human mind. They can be unmade by the human mind. The dangers that face us are not brought upon us by some satanic deity, or some evil extraterrestial force or some unchangeable preordained fate. They arise out of our relationships and habits, out of our priorities. They are made by the human mind; they can be unmade by the human mind.

“Now is the time the shambhala warriors go into training. They train in the use of two implements. One is compassion and the other is insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena. You need both. You need the compassion because that provides the fuel to move you out where you need to be to do what you need to do. That means not being afraid of the suffering of your world. When you’re not afraid to be with that pain, then nothing can stop you. You can be and do what you’re meant to.

“But by itself that implement is very hot – it can burn you out. So you need that other tool – you need the insight into the radical interconnectivity at the heart of existence, the web of life, our deep ecology. When you have that, then you know that this is not a battle between good guys and bad guys. You know that the line between good and evil runs through the landscape of every human heart. And you know that we are so interwoven in the web of life that even the smallest act, with clear intention, has repercussions through the whole web beyond your capacity to see. But that’s a little cool; maybe even a little abstract. You need the heat of the compassion – the interplay between compassion and wisdom.”