Ode to the Divine Mother

Keith Porteous sits in lotus pose at Swan River's yoga studio in the Marigny

Today I woke up in a state of bliss. The sun was shining as I walked to the Green Project to get some hardware for my Mardi Gras costume. I had the new Radiohead album playing on my iPod, Thom Yorke's sweet familiar voice soothing my soul. As I walked balanced on the railroad tracks alongside of Press Street I slowly waved my arms up and down as if they were wings, feeling the strong winds blowing on my bare skin from the Mississippi River.

This thought occurred to me; "I am exactly who I was meant to be." I felt goosebumps move across my skin. It was a feeling of pure love, of being held in the arms of the universe. One verse, one love, one me.

The second deep blessing of the day came during my thursday Jivamukti class, held at the Swan River studio in the Marigny and taught by my dear teacher Keith Porteous. Keith is 10 days from her pregnancy due date, and it was one of the last classes she will be teaching for a while. I asked to accompany her on ukulele for the kirtan (sacred chant) before class and she happily obliged me. I suggested we sing Bhajamana Ma, a chant for the Divine Mother, in honor of her pregnancy.

The chant in Sanskrit is "Bhajamana Ma Ma Ma Ma. Ananda mayi Ma Ma. Ananda rupa Ma Ma." ~ translated by Swan River co-owner Michele Baker, in English it means "I give all of my love to the Divine Mother. Take from me all that is not free, and allow me to experience eternal bliss, dearest Mother."

It is beautiful that the word "Ma" means the same in modern English as in ancient Sanskrit. A sound as simple and profound as Aum. In western religions the mother is downplayed and the father is the ultimate expression of divinity. I believe that this imbalance has led us down a destructive path. We all need the compassion and nurturing nature that comes from the feminine aspect of divinity to heal the toxicity and war that we have wreaked upon the Earth.

Keith Porteous in Swan River's Marigny studio

I have been blessed in my life to be surrounded by strong and beautiful women. They are all my teachers in their various roles in my life; Some as friends, some lovers, some strangers who share a moment, some mothers and grandmothers who have brought life through their bodies into the world. They are all manifestations of the divine.

As I practice yoga asanas I strengthen my connection to the Earth, the mother of all life as we experience it. Asana means "seat", and somehow these postures that we work on day after day connect us to the Earth. The illusion of separation from the source of life slowly fades as our hearts open and we learn to "sit" in alignment with the divine.

To see my beloved teacher Keith with her mamma's belly so big and round fills my heart with love. What a blessed child to be born with her as a mother. What a blessed soul I am to have her as a teacher. How blessed we all are to have each other. Share your gratitude with the mothers in your life, and you will find the blessings returning to you, the flowers of wisdom blossoming all around you, and your connection to the Earth becoming stronger.

Racing to beat the train

My New Orleans bike, and toes bedazzled with gold nail polish

This morning I woke up with a giant cat relaxing on my chest waiting for his breakfast. I looked at my phone and saw the time was 8 a.m., and decided I would try to make the 9:30 a.m. Jivamukti class uptown at Life Yoga with my dear teacher Libby. I fed my roommate’s cat (Puch) and my other roommate’s dog (Irie), made some almond milk and then a breakfast smoothie, got my shit together and was out the door by 8:40 a.m.

It was a beautiful foggy morning in New Orleans, the sun not yet burned through the clouds. I didn’t have any time to spare, as I was planning to take a bus from downtown to uptown, and would be right on time if I was lucky. As I approached Press Street on Chartres I heard the deep bellowing horn of a train coming, and raced towards the tracks to see if I could beat it. Once I got closer I saw that it was a block away and sped up and over the tracks.

As I breezed across Press street just on the other side of the tracks I saw a silver pickup truck flying towards the intersection on my right, trying to beat the train. The thought was crossing my mind that I should watch out for speeding cars while dodging trains when I heard the truck screeching to a stop. I slowed and looked back over my shoulder to see the truck half in the intersection with a woman and her bike down in the street in front of it.

For one brief moment the thought crossed my mind that I should keep going. The truck had stopped and two men were out talking to the woman. I could still make my class. That thought was quickly replaced by compassionate concern, and I turned around and went back.

Laney's bike after the collision

The woman was still tangled in her mangled bike, but sitting upright talking. I offered to call 911 and the driver of the car became agitated, saying he did not have insurance and offering to help her outside of the law. His friend was trying to keep the woman calm, telling her not to look at her bleeding ankles. It took me a few seconds to decide what to do, with the woman getting visibly more upset, and so I took out my phone and called 911.

While I was trying to speak to the operator over the noise of the train and the friend and a security guard who had come out of an adjacent building the driver quietly disappeared from the scene in his vehicle, leaving his friend behind to deal with the aftermath.

To his credit, the passenger stayed and helped the woman and the police, swearing and angry that his friend had put him in this predicament. It turned out that the area by the tracks was under surveillance and the security guard went in to retrieve the footage for the police.

I stayed as a witness, but also to be a friend to the woman. She was taking it all very well, speaking positively about her recent acquisition of health insurance and a car, and that these things would make her recovery more bearable.

For me, there was a deep feeling of compassion for all the people involved. I once killed a pedestrian with my car, and this has of course stuck with me all of my life. I still today do not know how much I was to blame, but I remember waiting for the police to come, a white face in a completely black neighborhood in D.C., standing next to my pickup truck while the woman’s blood formed a pool around her head. It was dark out and she had been crossing a busy street outside of the crosswalk, a bottle of liquor in her purse. I had been messing with my radio and once I looked up there was no time to stop. The white cops didn’t issue me a ticket, and instead I have lived the intervening years wondering I was presumed innocent only because of racism. I am sure that the thought of fleeing the scene had crossed my mind as well, but that's not who I am.

I could feel the emotional turmoil inside the passenger’s heart, not knowing wether to be loyal to his friend “of ten years” or to do the right thing and stay until the police came. He was cursing his friend and pacing around angrily. I thought about how my yoga practice has helped me overcome extreme anger in most situations, yet still wondered if I could have done any better.

And then of course the biker, Laney. She took it all so well, not a trace of anger showing. Looking at the bright side, keeping it all in perspective. She was young and beautiful and I wanted to hug her but I kept my space, and instead just talked to her and tried to be good company until her friend showed up to take her to the hospital.

I found this bike crushed by a streetlight post it had been locked to, which had fallen over in the night.

We talked about our jobs and my NOLA Yoga Photography Project and found we had a mutual connection. We compared our toenail polish, mine gold and hers a lovely turquoise. I gave her my card and carried her to her friend’s car when the time came. “I should bake you a pie”, she said as I lowered her into the passenger seat. I said that it might be challenging since I am a vegan. “I’m vegan too!”, she said. What are the odds, in New Orleans? I told her to email me but don’t know if she ever will. The universe brings people in and out of our lives in strange ways.

We were all racing to beat the train. If I had not been a few yards in front of Laney the pickup may not have slowed down. The stop sign certainly didn’t make a difference. Perhaps my being there saved her life, perhaps not. The karma of four individuals played out into the event, and all of us left as different people.

The driver is now a fugitive, and will face the repercussions of dishonesty and self-interest. What good can possibly come for him? The passenger will have to re-evaluate his friendship. The fallout from being honest and doing what was right will undoubtedly move him towards the light. Laney has come through a difficult situation, as we all do, to repay past karma. She was such a wonderful example of keeping the mind balanced in hardship, I felt inspired standing near her radiance. I hope that as she recovers she will continue to shine.

As for me, well, I will probably still race against the train.

Cosmic Fire and Medicine

7/13/2007 Fire dance presented by COSM

I was already there before i took the mushroom. The soft hairs on my skin were bristling to the invisible pull of the future, there was a subtle energy running through me. I could not see the future but I could feel it; something was about to come over me, like watching a storm move across the ocean, perched on a column of stones being misted by waves that thrust against the shore.

I had always imagined that I would have to memorize thousands of pages of my own writings to understand myself. The universe whispers, it leaves signs and traces. I have known for some time that I am more than me. I have waited for the manifestation of my higher self. Thoughts flow through me like water, from a spring eternal. I have read and forgotten scriptures, buried them in me like dead sea scrolls. The god that can be remembered is not the true one. There is nothing we can hold on to.

I find the trouble with writing any miracle down is I. I is ego. Where to put I in the midst of the miraculous? I wants to be the miracle. I wants to say “I am the one who manifests this!” Yet the miracle dissolves as soon as it is described. I believe that last night I channeled the divine. I ingested a hearty dose of medicine and the universe poured into my being. Or perhaps i just imagined it did.

The COSM fire was beautiful, with mushroom sculptures burning inside of a perfect sheath of flames, beckoning the autumnul equinox. It was a fire that drew me to it before it was lit. When i was unable to find a ride I decided to rent a zipcar so that I could be beside it. I drove two and a half hours bristling with energy. Something deep was running through me.

For some time I just sat with the flame, a little closer than anyone else. Where normally I would have been extremely uncomfortable from the heat I instead felt nourished by it. Crossing my legs i moved closer to the flames.

Soon the asanas began to work through my body. Mudras shaped my hands and fingers. I began to sing. this sound that has come to me before. Deya. Deya. I found that I could stare into the intensity of the fire without blinking. I could feel my eyes healing themselves. My shoulders that had been aching and damaged for years began to heal. I twisted myself into shapes that helped me heal. I sang for everyone there, to heal them too.

There was a bottle of water next to me but felt no thirst. I found that I could breathe or not breathe for long moments as I chose. The circle of souls around the fire saw me, enraptured in whatever it was that was coming through me. I sat beside myself, feeling the divine. I closed my eyes and sang. I could feel the entire universe.

I feel the path has chosen me. The years of practicing hot yoga. The years of purification through veganism and whole foods. The fearlessness i have for ingesting quantities of medicine that most people don’t trust their consciousness to endure. The fire sign, aries, that i was born unto. The practice of ahimsa, so strong and deep.

7/13/2007 Fire dance presented by COSM

COSM is a sanctuary on a sacred ground. Nearby there are other sacred sites. The Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. Right down the road from there is the home and ashram of Jivamukti founders Sharon Gannon and David Life, who I was recently blessed to meet. This trinity of places and people, my heart and destiny belongs to all three.

There are really no words. Words just grasp at truth. I am often dissolving, feeling things I can not quite comprehend or describe. I feel a unity between all creation. Beyond all our fear there is something profound that binds us.

I cherish this divine in the other. This spark we all share. Felicia, who came to offer me water and suggest that perhaps i was too close to the flames. Another man came to draw me away, and I hugged him and told him it was ok. When i was ready to retreat from the fire the universe brought Jason to escort me. My face today is as red as if i was in the sun all night. My eyes today glow like embers. The spark is everything.

There is of course the possibility I dreamed the whole thing. In this dream I move a bit closer to believing some of those stories of the sages and gurus of India, pulling jewelry from thin air, infusing objects with fragrances, walking over coals. Yet I resonate more with Thic Nhat Hanh’s quote “the miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive.” That we are here, breathing and conscious, is so beautiful and strange.

Our consciousness and our biology are  rooted in the dream we dream. They evolve by the will of our whims. We can all find the way to dissolve the boundaries that limit our imaginations. There are sacred plants all around us. There is wisdom in the soil. We are woven into the fabric of an everything reacting to even the fluttering wings of a butterfly. How delicious the mango that we let ripen! How wonderful are the teachers all around us! With merely our minds we can turn particles to waves in an endless sea of possibility.

Just as the everyday is truly miraculous, so the miraculous is the everyday. There are those who doubt that the human race will ever lose our violence. There are those who doubt that the world can ever know ahimsa. They chant mantras of “free range” and “humane meat” to keep truth at bay. Deep in our hearts we know these words are illusions attempting to conceal violence. This is the time for us to evolve beyond the I and towards the us. We can share a vision of the future. Abhaya. Anicca. Ahimsa. Deya!

108 Sun Salutations for India

108 sun salutations beneath the Singing Oak, City Park New Orleans

At City Park in New Orleans there is a giant oak tree with oversize wind chimes hanging from its branches. The sun shone on the tree this morning, with strong winds blowing the chimes into a cacophony of sound. A group of yogis and yoginis gathered beneath the sun and the tree, their mats forming a loose circle facing inward. I rode my bike up to join them, feeling a reverence for the life so vibrant all around me.

In this circle we were joining a community of yoga practitioners all around the world who were taking a stand against human trafficking in India by offering up monetary donations and 108 sun salutations. The money will go to an Indian-based  organization called Odanadi, which means 'soul mate'. The Odanandi web site Yoga Stops Traffic claims that "over the past 20 years Odanadi Seva Trust has rescued and rehabilitated more than 1850 children, carried out 57 brothel raids and brought 137 traffickers to justice."

The New Orleans event was organized by Jessica Blanchard, who feels that India has given the west so much, and this is a way for us to give back. I came by way of my yoga school, Swan River. Several of my teachers were there, taking turns with teachers from other schools leading us in the sequence of asanas that make up the standard sun salutation.

The number 108 is sacred in many traditions and mythologies. For instance, the chakras are intersections of energy lines, and the heart chakra has 108 energy lines converging into it. I have been living from my heart lately, or at least striving to. This morning my heart was full, nourished by the sun, the wind, the beautiful people gathered around in the circle, and by the sound of the chimes mingling with the voices of the teachers.

I reached my hands up to the sky over and over again, and each time the sun had risen a little closer to being in my palms. There was a dog sitting in the grass behind me, and each time I bent down into downward dog and looked out between my legs I saw her sitting there enjoying the day. To my left was a new friend, who later went out to tea with me at Fair Grinds Coffeehouse, where we shared little pieces of our lives.

I am in love. In love with this city, with this life. I felt tears welling up inside me thinking about the people sold into slavery as I practiced my asanas. Are we all just manifestations of the same spiritual matter? Could I be them, could they be me, could any one of us be anyone else? What is the veil of ignorance that makes us forget such an obvious truth, exponentiating the suffering in the world? Every day I spend trying to understand and to weave the understanding into the fabric of my being so I won't forget.

Namaste. Ahimsa. May all be free from suffering. May all feel the sunshine of a perfect spring day in New Orleans, shining upon them as they raise their hands up in prayer, and lower their faces to the ground to honor the earth. We are one.

Michelle Baker leads 108 sun salutations

Stepping in Dukkha

Your fortune is not looking so good...

Dukkha - "the Buddhist concept of suffering, a Pali term roughly corresponding to a number of terms in English including suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration.”  ~Wikipedia

I got on a train to come to New Orleans on that same day that Haiti was devastated by a terrible earthquake. The news came to me in broken bits as I traveled, passing through the landscapes of small American towns, sleeping and awake, checking the Internet on my iPhone in those places where I could get reception. World events seem surreal while moving through time like this, ungrounded and alone. Still the death toll seemed unimaginable, and reminded me of the destruction that nature had inflicted on New Orleans five years ago.

My journey to this strange city I now inhabit was brought on by a personal disaster, one that rocked my inner world and has caused me to feel the deaths of many of my hopes and dreams. I had spent the previous nine months or so of my life in a state of bliss, in love with a woman who I thought I would grow much older with, who embodied so much of what I had been seeking in a relationship. Then one morning I woke up and she had torn herself from my life, for reasons that did not make sense to me. I pleaded and begged her to change her mind but she would not even respond to me at all, leaving my heart devastated and all the plans I had made of moving to New Orleans to be with her in ruins. In the absence of her ability to communicate with me I decided to come here anyway, because I felt the city calling, because I needed an adventure, because I had some small hope she would change her mind.

Swan River Yoga on Chartres St in New Orleans

Upon arriving here I bought an unlimited month of yoga at the Swan River Yoga Studio in order to keep my practice going and to ground myself. New Orleans is where she lives and where we spent some of the best moments of our relationship, so I knew that I would have memories haunting me that I would have to deal with. I knew the yoga would help. In the first class I attended the teacher began by speaking of Haiti, and how disasters of such magnitude are humbling to us. How they make our own troubles seem smaller, and how they give us pause to be thankful for what we have. I had thought of this myself of course, but the mind is so adept at keeping our own drama in the forefront and the greater dramas at bay that it was good to be reminded by someone else.

It is difficult to internalize the suffering of people in other countries who we have little physical connection to. The news is constantly full of stories of death and tragedy, and we necessarily numb ourselves to them in order to be present in our own lives. Yet in our own suffering we can understand the suffering of others. If I did not feel the loss of this relationship so poignantly it would be harder for me to imagine any loss.

One of the reasons I decided to come to New Orleans was because of the loss suffered here. I knew there were many people still recovering from Katrina, and that there was lots of volunteer work to be done still. I had a realization that by helping with this rebuilding I could also help rebuild my own heart. We are all connected in this way, through our ability to hurt so deeply and to long for transcendence.

As I planned my move I connected with Burners Without Borders, an organization related to the Burning Man festival and its concept of a gift economy. At Burning Man there is no exchange of money, people survive in the harsh desert climate by giving and sharing. This opens people’s hearts and builds community. In the aftermath of Katrina the Burners Without Borders formed to help out along the Gulf Coast, applying lessons learned at the festival to devastated communities in need. Since then the organization has spread throughout the world and is involved in many projects. There is still one woman here, an amazing soul named Summer, who is organizing volunteers to help in the Lower Ninth Ward. She is working with a community organization called Lower Ninth Ward Village. I have connected with them and will be volunteering as much as I can while I am here. While I have barely begun, I already feel a sense of being part of something larger than myself. I can already see that this will help to heal me.

We all wish to stem the flow of suffering in our own lives. Some of us deal with it by trying to shut the world out with anger, drugs, television, or feigned indifference. Some turn to organized religion, hoping that there is an afterlife reward for humbling oneself to the proper deity. I believe the true spiritual path calls us to be present in this moment, to experience the sadness of life and to transform it into action. Human civilization’s greatest flaw is our hoarding tendency, our inability to share resources and compassion. We walk around daily looking for compliments or understanding from others, yet are reluctant to give it. We need to overcome our fears of others and the cultural baggage that gives us excuses to turn away from those in need, in order to make ourselves whole and fully human.

If our greatest flaw is greed, then our greatest evolvement is compassion. With the tragedies in Haiti still being revealed, there are fund raising efforts going on everywhere.  It is helpful to give money, it makes us feel good about ourselves. Money is very impersonal though, it builds no connection between the giver and receiver. It is easily redirected into the pockets of the greedy. Since most of us can not go to Haiti to volunteer it is still better than doing nothing. If you want to donate I would recommend researching the organizations you are giving to, and trying to ensure your money goes to an honorable organization. Two that I recommend are Food For Life Global (A vegetarian/vegan food relief program) and Doctors Without Borders.

Beyond that I encourage you to help Haiti from within your own community. The beauty of practicing compassion is that it is a renewable energy source. Helping others plants seeds of gratitude that grow compassion in the hearts we have helped. You can start by reaching out to your friends and neighbors, and once you have the strength of community you can organize people into action. Collect clothing or other goods to send to Haiti instead of money. Use your creative energy to imagine ways to help that middlemen will not be able to diminish. Or join with others who have already begun.

We need to move away from the crumbling paradigm of governments and corporations and towards reliance on the people around us. It all starts with each of us, learning to be giving. All the accumulation of material goods and wealth is just building walls around us. It is freeing to take all the things you don’t use and give them away. To give whenever you can, as much as you can. Wether it be time or service, art or love, food or hugs. Build your community, support your neighbors. When the empires fall we will need our communities in order to survive.

The next time you step in dukkha, realize that it is the same dukkha we are all stepping in. Honor your heart and spend a moment with your own sadness. Then breathe in the air that we all share, the air that has been cycled through the lungs of all of the animals and the plants and the oceans. Take a vow to find a way to make the world a better place, to reduce the suffering around you. You are a stone cast into the pond of being, and your actions will ripple out into the world around you. As we build empathy and compassion our own sorrows will diminish, because our lives will serve a greater purpose. It is the true path to liberation.

2010 Sacred Reminders

Steps on the Path from my Night Visions series

I spent New Year's Eve at a ceremony of letting go and welcoming in. Just where I needed to be. Burned a pile of old old letters in the bonfire at midnight. Howled at the beautiful blue moon, shrouded in fog. Two lunar months since my heart got broken. 12 days before my journey into the south begins. Oh-one oh-one one-oh. Numbers are sometimes poetry.

Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Make room for the new by exhaling the old. Let go of judgement. Be in the moment. Community. Emptiness. Endless cats and one-armed beavers.

I cannot fathom what it is that speaks to me. Grandfather spirits, ancestors, drumming, singing, togetherness in our aloneness. Shedding possessions feels like stretching my wings. Ready to fly. Passion into obsession, compassion into love. Flowing with the water, burning in the fire, reflecting in the moon. A collision sends my spirit into orbit, shifts my magnetic north, humbles me completely. Suddenly it is a new decade. Suddenly it is just the present moment over and over again.

I would like to share with you the list of spiritual goals we were given at the ceremony. They are well conceived and relevant. This is the time to evolve again. 

2010 Sacred Reminders

• Work together to make a better world
• Honor the light in all beings
• Take turns leading
• Be grateful for the wisdom you receive
• Celebrate the wonders of nature
• Take care of the children
• Laugh, sing and have fun
• Have faith in the higher plan
• Bring in the magic
• Revitalize your life with healthy food
• Rejoice in the passion of love
• Dance with all of creation
• Remember our celestial home

May you all have a meaningful new year, centered in the now, with your hearts open. This is a strange and important time to be alive. Make it count.

The Newest and Oldest Pedal Person

Back in 2002 my good friends Alex Jarrett and Ruthy Woodring had a crazy idea to start a business that uses bicycles with trailers to haul things around Northampton, Massachusetts. They are both very dedicated to a car-free lifestyle and bicycle activism, among other things. One of the other things that interested the young entrepreneurs was that the business be run ethically, and so they formed a workers collective called Pedal People. They bought some bike trailers that can hold loads up to 300 pounds from a company called Bikes at Work, and started offering their quirky service to our community.

I am not sure if it was the original plan, but the business quickly became centered around picking up residential trash and recycling and taking it to the Northampton Department of Public Works Transfer Center. Because Northampton doesn't have a municipal trash and recycling pick up we have competing garbage truck companies. This is a particularly wasteful way to gather garbage. Each company travels down the same streets with giant trucks burning fossil fuel and belching toxic crap into the air as they continually stop and go picking up individual customer's waste. The genius of Pedal People is that the same service is offered on bike, reducing the carbon footprint of residential waste removal drastically. Because Northampton is a Liberal enclave the idea really appealed to the townsfolk, and the business took off.

alex and ruthy with bike trailer

Since I was friends with Alex and Ruthy I somehow got involved as a sub early on, meaning I would occasionally cover a route for one of the actual collective members when no one from within the collective could do it. I pretty much did it once or twice a year for about five years, and only in nicer weather because I didn't have any fancy gear to ride in the winter. Over this time I watched Pedal People grow and become hugely popular and always thought about what it would be like to do it full time. When thoughts like this came into my mind I considered the reality of New England winters and quickly ushered them out of my head.

Yet as I grew older and my vicissitudinous lifestyle etched lines of character into my personality I started to romanticize the idea of working out in the elements and becoming a bicycle activist. As fate would have it one of the Pedal People got hurt (off the job) and called me to sub. He left the collective shortly after that and offered me his routes, which he wasn't actually allowed to do according to the collective's procedures. This chain of events did, however, allow me to wedge my foot in the door, and since I was technically the sub with the most seniority I got to audition for the part, and somehow they allowed me to join.

Joining the collective entails nine months of apprenticeship that must include one winter. I started in August of 2008 and gradually accumulated the gear I needed as well as the muscles and endurance so that by winter I was ready to face the snow, slush, sleet and frozen diapers. People are always amazed that we do this every day no matter what the weather is like. During the winter of 2008 I think there was only one day when we called customers to postpone our pick ups. Most of us have studded snow tires on our bikes as well as all kinds of crazy clothing to deal with different situations. For me the hardest part is making sure I don't sweat too much. With a loaded trailer and a 3 mile uphill ride to the transfer center it is easy to start sweating even on the coldest of days, and once your shit gets wet its all over as far as being comfortable is concerned.

Pedaling fast

At 42 years old, I am currently the oldest Pedal Person. I am also the newest Pedal Person because I was voted into the collective in September. I made the cut! I contribute it all to my amazing vegan diet. All you silly people who ask vegans where we get our protein can bite me, and then you will get yours. I haul some crazy heavy shit up hills and all over town. I have been vegan 14 years and I am still as strong and fit as I was when I started, and twice as good looking. I honestly don't know how I keep so humble and modest with my multitude of qualities.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly...

There are some very conscientious customers, and there are some customers who make our jobs less enjoyable.  So much recyclable stuff ends up in the trash it is sickening. On the flip side some people will try to recycle everything, and then we are stuck picking garbage out of recycling bins. We have a contract to do the downtown trash in Northampton and it is particularly bad there. There are recycling receptacles next to almost every trash can, and inevitably people still throw their cans and bottles into the trash. That along with thousands of disposable coffee cups. At this point the Northampton landfill is almost a landfull, and we need to stop producing so much trash. At Pedal People meetings we often talk about ways to encourage people to be more conscientious about their waste, and in the near future we will be doing trash audits to help people learn ways to recycle more and produce less.

Another thing, meat stinks! It attracts maggots that completely cover some peoples trash bags by the time we get to them. We offer a composting service for vegetable waste, meat goes into a landfill. As a human and vegan activist I believe it is definitely time for us to evolve from our carnivorous ape phase and become more spiritually enlightened beings. The planet can't sustain us all the way we are living. It takes lots of vegetation to make food out of animal flesh. The existence of factory farms calls into question the very notion that we are civilized. We are all complicit in allowing atrocity as long as they lurk in giant shadowy sheds around the country hidden from sight with their manure lagoons and animals gone completely insane from being constantly and relentlessly tortured. All to save a few dollars and for brief moments of pleasure on our tongues. The free range-organic -grass-fed-happy-meat ideal is faulty in that there isn't enough land to support all of our billions at our current level of flesh consumption. Furthermore there are no real regulations on the use of humane labels so it boils down to being  a marketing ploy that encourages us to pay more so that we can relieve our consciences, even though many of the same inhumane practices are employed. Capitalism breeds inhumanity, same as it ever was. As far as seafood is concerned the oceans are nearly depleted of sea life, and many of the fish we like to eat take several years to reach maturity, so it is hard for them to make a comeback. We are pretty close to going over the cliff, and most of us still have our foot on the gas. Time to get off the meat-mobile and ride a bike!

Bicycle Acrobatics

In spite of these gripes I really love being a Pedal Person. Working in a cooperative has been an amazing life lesson on how a group of people with common goals can work together and achieve far more than any of us could as individuals. I encourage anyone who is starting a business and wants to contribute to a better world to consider the collective model. It ensures that workers all get treated equally and are valued. It keeps everyone honest and teaches us how to respect each other.

I love biking in the rain. I love biking in the snow. I love my big overshoes that make me look like a superhero. I love the big mass of muscles I have grown around my leg bones. It makes me feel so good that nearly every time I work some stranger will tell me how great they think the Pedal People are. I love that my job is also a form of activism, that it inspires people to think about the waste they produce and the way they commute to work. I took my own car off the road after about 5 months of being a Pedal Person. I love biking, feeling the wind around my face, flying by cars stuck in traffic, jumping curves, ringing my bike bell. It is real freedom. It keeps me in shape and makes me smile. I am one lucky bastard.

Thanks to Selena Dittberner for taking the awesome photos of me. I still owe you dinner!

sometimes the trailers get full of trash

Jackie in the Flood

ben and myke meet up in the snow

Dumping cardboard into the recycling dumpster.

Bringing compost to Montview Farm. Photo by Sarah Peters

Group photo of all of us, circa spring 2009. I took this with my fancy remote.

View more photos at PedalPeople.com

Turning Towards My Spiritual Center

Spiritual Twine from my Night Vision series

It is usually in times of crisis that one reaches for their spiritual grounding, as is true for me now. Because my life is so full of amazing people and meaningful work up until recently I have felt that I was aligned with the universe and on a good path. I had found a woman who was everything I wanted; beautiful, talented, artistic, vegan, tattooed, a healthy eater who is athletic, runs, plays roller derby and dances with fire. She lives in New Orleans, and I was preparing to move to be with her early in December. Meanwhile we spent countless hours on the phone and emailing, and had visited each other several times.

Aya-preparation

Back in January as we were falling for each other over the wires I saw a shaman who did medicine work with Ayahuasca, a medicinal brew created from plants that grow in the Amazon rain forest. It is often referred to as the "spirit vine" because it is made partly from a vine that blocks the body's natural DMT inhibitors and lets the DMT from other plant sources have a psychoactive effect on our consciousness. On another level the brew puts one in touch with the spirit world and reveals to us buried parts of our personalities as well as otherworldly mysteries and visions. I was told to ask the brew a question in the ritual leading up to its ingestion, and because this new relationship seemed so special I asked how I should proceed.

While the others I was with were struggling with their demons I "took to the medicine" in the words of the shaman. I received a download of jungle visions and heard the drumbeats of an ancient civilization mingling with the Gregorian chants drifting from the shamans stereo. I got an intensely strong good feeling about the relationship I was about to get into. But there was one warning, and that was "work on your honesty".

We fell deeply in love over the next few months, with little stumbles here and there, but overall the relationship was wonderful and I felt truly blessed. This was what I had been waiting for in my life, this goddess of a woman with all her mysteries, tenderness and sweet love.

In early August I went to the Farm Sanctuary Hoe Down and I really wanted her to go with me but because of financial struggles she couldn't. On the way home I was riding in the back of a friend's car and started going chronologically backwards through the hundreds of pictures on my phone to pass the time. First were all the pictures on my girlfriend and I, and I felt a longing for her well up inside of me. I sent her a text message telling her I was thinking of her. As I continued into the past on the phone I got into the photos from my last relationship and there were two naked ones of my ex from when we were together. I had forgotten they were there and realized I had to get rid of them. The only reason they were there at all was that there was no way to offload them except to send them to myself and/or delete them one at a time. Unfortunately I am not good at destroying mementos of old relationships and I decided to send them to my email address so as to save them on my computer. I then deleted them from my phone. Once I got home I filed them into a folder and forgot about them.

As time progressed the incident faded from my mind and my thoughts revolved around my girlfriend and my imminent move to New Orleans. In late October she had broken her phone so I offered to send her my old one. I had gotten a new iPhone and didn't need it anymore I had deleted all the pictures from the phone I didn't feel I had anything to hide. I had a care package all set for her and I wanted to send it as quickly as possible so she could have a phone. I put the phone in the box without checking it. As fate would have it he texts I had sent to myself were still on the phone, along with the embedded photos. When she found them she called me up all enraged, broke up with me, and hasn't spoken to me since.

For all we had together and against the backdrop of all the heart and soul we poured into the relationship the fact that I had naked pictures of an ex girlfriend on my cellphone does not seem to me a worthwhile reason for her to break up with me. But there were other small things I hid from her. My dishonesty typically takes the form of omission. I knew she did not feel comfortable with me having a friendship with my ex and so I did not tell her if I went in to have coffee where she worked or about the time I photographed her in costume at a hair salon.

In these weeks since I lost her I have had to face myself and the dark side of my psyche. I did not believe in her enough to tell her all the details of my life. I did not give her fully of myself, and that was a form of dishonesty I did not recognize as such in myself. The laws of karma are what the Ayahuasca spirits had warned me of. What is in our hearts manifests in our reality. My love was true and deep, but what I could not share became the karmic brick tied to my soul that dragged me downwards.

Yet this is not a tale of total loss. Out of a sadness as deep as any I have ever known, the losing of this woman who I love so much, I have found my spiritual bearing. The day after the breakup I immediately quit smoking pot. I was stoned when I sent the phone. If I wasn't I would have surely checked it. While that is going to constantly haunt me, I see it now as a great lesson. I cannot live like my actions will not have consequences. They do.

Brandon giving bow pose assist at Shiva Shakti

In January after the Ayahuasca ritual I also did an intense 30 day yoga "challenge", taking 30 classes in 30 days at Shiva Shakti Yoga in Northampton, which is a hot Vinyasa style of yoga that is tremendously challenging. Because of the pain in my spirit and the need to return to the true path I have gotten heavily into this practice again, and am currently taking about four classes a week. I consider my teacher Brandon to be one of my spiritual guides in this life. He waxes poetic in every class while we sweat and suffer, relating lifetimes of spiritual wisdom filtered through a heavy Boston accent into every class. The breakup has reduced my appetite but what I do eat is mainly whole foods that nourish me. I feel the need to respect my body. I feel it transforming, giving me a sense of spiritual and physical well-being that helps me cope with the pain I feel.

In spite of the hard lessons being taught the spirit world is looking out for me. Last weekend I was invited to another sacred ceremony led by  shamans from the Native American Church. This time the sacrament was Peyote and the ritual was held to help a couple having relationship troubles. I did not know about that part until I arrived. That is how the spirit world works, if you are open to it, it gives you what you need. I struggled through the first half of the ceremony with stomach cramps and sleepiness and a voice in my head being upset because the medicine was not giving me visions or voices like the Ayahuasca. At a certain point after the drumming and singing and the thoughtful words of participants the couple broke down and love poured into the teepee. I heard the fire crackling as if on que to the loving words that were being uttered. Like a miracle we watched as their relationship and love was restored. It was then that I too felt the spirits return to me.

Peyote button

The next morning after the ritual had ended I was in the teepee talking to some of the people there, and as they asked me about my experience my story came out. One of the fire tenders hugged me and gave me some tobacco to offer to the fire. He said "The spirits are still here and they will hear your prayers. Pray for your partner and don't be afraid to ask for what you need or to be selfish." I immediately thought of a quote I had just read in the Tao Te Ching. In my sadness I had been reaching for spiritual guidance and looked up the verse that coincided with the day in February that she had been born.

13.

Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure? Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky. When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear? Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear?

See the world as your self. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your self; then you can care for all things.

To nourish myself is to care for the world. My yoga teacher says the same, "When you come to yoga you start to be more caring for those around you. Doing yoga is a gift for everyone you love". In this context my soul began to light up. I started to pray for my girlfriend and her healing, for her fogiveness, for her heart to open up again. I prayed that we would be together again and that I would never again betray her trust. I began to cry and the tears flowed out of me, pouring into the earth around the fire. It was the first time I had really cried since the breakup, I had been too distraught to allow myself tears. I felt arms around me and the universe move inside of me, and in that moment I was reborn. I cast the tobacco into the fire and watched the flames carry it up into the sky, out into the winds that blow down towards the bayou.

A young woman came over and offered me some sawdust from an Amazonian tree that smelled sweet and ancient. She hugged me and gave me comfort. I walked out and stood by the rushing stream outside the teepee and cried some more. A feeling of well-being flowed through my entire body. My spiritual compass reset itself and I now felt truly aligned with the universe. I knew in my heart I would not stray from the path again. All of this terrible loss and suffering had led me to this moment, had taught me to live with sobriety and integrity.

I find it interesting that these two visionary journeys, as well as the yoga, bookended my relationship. It gives me a real sense of meaning. I still have work to do. In my heart I know that things will get better but I must keep my promise to myself and to the universe. I have to live with honesty.  I post this story as the first step of my practice. I want to be the highest expression of my personal beliefs, of the good in me, of the infinite love I have in my heart for life and friends and for the incredible woman i let down. I will accept what comes next with grace and understanding. I will go forward on this spiritual path that combines the ancient practices of yoga, meditation, self-reflection and shamanistic journeying. I will honor and cherish the gifts that the universe offers me. I will care for myself and my loved ones to improve the world around me. And so today, right here and now, the journey towards wholeness begins.

My 15 Minutes of Fame in Northampton

Today I am featured in the Hampshire Gazette's Hampshire Life I.D. Column. Somebody referred me to them as a good candidate, and I suppose my life is rather interesting. The only mis-quote is about me photographing farm animals for VegNews. I am actually the "Digital Photography Advisor" for that magazine, which hasn't really gotten many of my photographs published in there (I helped them out when they were getting started and it is kind of an honorary position). I photograph the animals for the sanctuaries where they reside, and for the furtherance of the vegan message. But that is all fine, I am happy to have gotten a chance to plug veganism in a mainstream newspaper. It will be something nice to send my mom and dad, too.

The links below are added by me, to make it more interesting for you...

Used with permission from the Daily Hampshire Gazette

For Derek Goodwin, being a vegan isn't just about deciding what to eat - it's a lifestyle choice. Goodwin, a photographer from Northampton, became a vegan 13 years ago and since then has gone on to photograph sanctuary farm animals for a magazine known as VegNews, bake and cook vegan foods for the Evolution Cafe in Florence, and co-host a vegan show on ValleyFree Radio, 103.3 FM in Florence, that's available worldwide as a podcast.

Goodwin, who also works as a wedding photographer and for the bike-based trash and recycling collaborative Pedal People in Florence, has a background in Web design as well. But one of his more recent projects, undertaken with friends, was to buy an old school bus and convert it to burn used vegetable oil. The "Vegan Bus" took its maiden voyage - about 6,000 miles round trip - to Nevada for the 2007 Burning Man art festival, where the crew joined with an organization called Vegcamp to do outreach and education.

These days Goodwin's working on creating a nonprofit organization to fund the Vegan Bus and his radio show so that he can dedicate more time to animal activism. He says there's much to learn about animals simply by watching and photographing them: "They are so different from what we are taught they are. They are individuals with personalities."

Full name: Derek Goodwin

People know you as: Deralique (Zoolander reference)

Date and place of birth: March 26, 1967, St. Louis, Mo.

Address: Northampton

Jobs: Photographer, vegan baker, cyclist with Pedal People

Who lives under the same roof as you?: A giant dog named Harpuah and his owner, Gina

Children: Nope

Education: Rochester Institute of Technology, B.F.A. in fine art/photography, 1995

Pets: Worms in a compost bin

Book you'd recommend to a friend: "The Tao Te Ching" by Lao Tzu

Favorite movie: "The Matrix"

Favorite television show: Don't have a TV

Favorite singer or group: Radiohead

What do you waste your money on?: Vegan food, camera and computer equipment

Guilty pleasure: Soy mocha lattes

Life-changing experience: Photographing farm animals at sanctuaries is humbling. ... They love to play, they form complex social arrangements, and they are wise in ways which humans don't often recognize

Funniest memory: My humor is probably not safe for this publication

Strangest job you ever held: I spent most of the '90s as a stagehand, saw some crazy stuff

Bumper-sticker statement?: Support your right to arm bears

A little-known fact about you: I started to grow a tail and had to have it surgically removed. Oh, and I like to climb trees

Dumbest thing you ever did: Once when I was photographing a wedding, I tripped and fell into the baptismal font. For some reason it was in the middle of the aisle. I lost a couple of lenses and it was pretty embarrassing. Luckily God forgave me

One product, trend or fashion you'd like to see return: G.I. Joe with Kung Fu Grip

What really sets you off? Getting charged extra money for soy milk in my coffee

Celebrity encounters? Anne Rice once told me I was cuter than Brad Pitt

Favorite Web site: http://humanemyth.org

One thing you would change about yourself: I would like to become a Buddha, but not in this lifetime

People who knew you in high school thought you were: A crazy headbanger

Whom do you most admire? I admire my girlfriend, Monica, because she lives creatively, ethically and compassionately, she is sweet and amazingly beautiful, and she inspires me to be my best self

Parting shot: My favorite quote is from Thich Nhat Hanh, the Zen Buddhist monk, writer and peace activist - "People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth"

- Compiled by Steve Pfarrer