the great turning!

someone who i met at this accelerate 77 'share fair', a kind of sustainability conference for the chicago area, turned me on to the work of joanna macy. this has opened up to me a new part of this story of 'the shift', 'the awakening', which she calls 'the great turning'. and she's been talking about this for a LONG time! how did i not know about her?

after watching a video of her (in which she mentions the same epoch shift that Grace Boggs did when i saw her speak!) i came across this video of David Korten, another person who i was not aware of, who is speaking about everything i have been thinking about! he has also been speaking about this shift for a while... and i wonder why it took me so long to notice... there is this other video of him from more recently. i watched these while finishing the headband i am making for my superhero costume!

i've never read Derek Jensen's 'Endgame', but had been told i should and had intended to. now that i've seen this video i can skip the book. he is similar in attitude i think to Finisia Medrano, author of 'Growing Up in Occupied America'. it was through reading about 'the hoop' in that book that i eventually decided to go on this trip. yet, the anger in that book, which she continues to express, is not an energy i see is supporting the work of 'the great turning'. there is no doubt in me that we must align ourselves with love and non-violence in order to move into an age of holistic, harmonious life. it is by coming together radically with our neighbors in loving community that we will replace the culture of separation that is destroying us.

today i volunteered at patchwork farm. when i was about to leave, after accepting a bundle of rainbow chard from molly, a black man came up to the fence asking about produce for sale. i decided to go talk with him and share my joy about this farm. he told me his wife is sick and they are not able to make it out to farmer's markets, so it is great that he can more conveniently swing by this location during their farmstand hours. molly gave him an informational card and he went on his way. i caught up with him and gave him the swiss chard, which i really didn't need, telling him to cook it like collards, but not as long, because the chard leaf is not as tough. he was very grateful and i was happy. i hope this will help patchwork sell more chard, because they have a beautiful crop of it that nobody seems to be interested in except me.
after i grabbed some produce that the chickens didn't seem to want from the ground in their fenced yard i was on my way out... and i met another man who was walking by outside the gate. he commented that there had been a cat terrorizing the chickens. he wondered if any had been harmed, because the cat was really bothering them. i didn't know. i was in wonderful spirits and leaned into this neighborly interaction. he was curious about my story after i told him i was traveling around the country helping out at farms like this when i can. he proceeded to share about his work with youth in chicago. it was remarkable to him how he had made such a big difference in these people's lives by showing he cared for them when they were not getting that from other adults. this man, Richard, was a real local superhero i realized! this exchange left me feeling wonderful and i rode off with renewed strength to pick up some food supplies at the dill pickle food coop.

chicago holds the hoop

i'd really thought i was going to attend a permaculture course at the possibility alliance which began on september 24th. the way i thought i would get there was either by rideshare from craigslist or by hitch-biking. this had served me in the past. i didn't consider that it would be more difficult hitching out of chicago and the the train was actually my best bet. if i had thought of it or someone had told me this it could have changed everything... also i had seen one post for a free ride in a pickup going to springfield, IL that friday. i decided not to take it because i was not sure it would be okay to show up to the possibility alliance early and there was the song circle i'd organized on friday. i went through a lot of turmoil about whether to push for getting there or to make the most of more time in chicago. i really wanted to go, but i felt like it was not working and at some point my heart began telling me to stay.

the day i decided finally to stay was sunday, after one last attempt hitching at an onramp to a highway out of chicago. i went back to the apartment where i'd been staying to drop off some of my stuff and then went to a workparty organized by the dill pickle coop to help patchwork farms and foster direct community connection between the producer and consumer. the coop carries the produce of patchwork farms and some other local producers, and make a point of announcing that it is delivered by bicycle!
being at this event felt really good and it was the most beautiful fall day! after all the tension of departure, trying to hitch and wondering if i should try to make it some other way, i felt a great sense of relief at this point. if i could not be at the great possibility alliance, i felt i could find similar value in my continuing chicago experience. there i was, to serve my community by helping out with some of the farm work!
when we were just starting and getting a little tour some folks who were not part of the coop group came in to check out the farm. i encouraged them to come in and join us. they looked around a bit and then were about to take off, so i went to chat with them for a minute. i felt compelled... and it turned out they are from iowa. they would be heading back there after this visit with their daughter in chicago. it felt like an opportunity to maybe get a ride towards the possibility alliance! so i inquired, and we determined that it would not work out. oh well. then there was a second test of my decision to stay when someone suggested, as we stripped the remaining tomato crop, that i might get a ride with someone heading home to st. louis from the ball game that was being played at that moment in chicago. it sounded like a good possibility! i almost went for it, but decided it would not be a good idea because even if i did get a ride i would be arriving in springfield in the evening without a place to stay and then i would have to rise early after little, and low quality sleep, to make the rest of the way to the farm before the course started in the morning. i pictured myself falling asleep during the introduction. no good.
once again i felt a great relief at deciding to stay! i told my friend sharon that i could attend her chicken harvest that evening! that is something i had really wanted to be part of. she was glad.
so, then after the work party was over i stuck around a little longer to help out. just did a few things like watering and helping wash some recently harvested winter squash. CSA members and other customers came and went. one of these customers i struck up conversation with, feeling a really complementary vibration with, asked me, 'what are you doing this evening?' and i knew already that i would have to join her. 'there's this dream circle i'm going to...' and you can imagine how my face lit up. this meant i had to leave after only the first half hour of the chicken harvest, but that ended up being alright. they had all the experienced support necessary.

carly and i arrived at the dream circle just as they were about to go around with introductions and sharing. i donned my nearly-finished rainbow warrior headband and announced myself as a rainbow warrior, hoop rider, and explained about the recent turmoil about where i should be. then the one to my left spoke... and he says, 'well, i know davis from orcas island years back, and i was just recently at the possibility alliance!' it was this guy taylor who i had known briefly years ago! what a crazy confirmation that i was supposed to be here. i was kind of blown away. taylor is the bright young fellow from chicago who speaks in this video about the possibility alliance.
throgh my experience at the dream circle, which maybe i will write about in more detail later, i was given a reminder through the example of the spider that i can be patient in awareness as i navigate the web of possibilities. when the web is destroyed the spider just builds a new one. i can also act this way. i can learn a lot from the spider. that is what i got mainly from the dream circle, besides a great joy of being with these people who were very much on the same page as me. i didn't need to convince them a shift is taking place.

the following tuesday i rode bikes with carly up to the going away party for taylor, which was held at the house where he had been staying with a sweet family and other young folks. it was a wonderful party. when i arrived lots of people were working on preparing food together. there was warm conversation throughout the evening and some excellent music got going for a while, before we were asked to quiet down. this really felt like my tribe! i saw in taylor the hope i have for humanity. he represents the way of the hoop. at the party i realized this was important for me to be there to recognize. many of the people there had a similar quality. one guy with great, joyful energy, named adam, performed some of his rapping poetry for us. it was about meditation and the dhamma. these are vipassana folks. he had also been at the dream circle and we had connected there. i taught he and a woman there the 'rainbow warrior' song and we played in song a little after the circle. so good!

i can't tell you all the details now...

on saturday i went to the evanston green living festival to see a performance of 'lake dance'. i'd met clare and danced with her at the contact improv jam almost two weeks before, and i'd been impressed by her. the performance was wonderful, reminding me of my family and also touching my heart with a story of humanity reconnecting to our surroundings, our wholeness.
i met an old man named earle who was seeking composting advice at the compost table. the woman there was not able to give him the help he needed, so i gave it a try. he said he has been growing his own vegetables at home for a long time now but might need to scale back because he can't do all that work himself now. i told him he could get a young assistant who wants to learn from him. sure hope that happens! there are opportunities like this all over!
at one stand i approached on a whim i got into a lively exchange with the young woman there named anna and ended up asking her if she would be interested in helping me out with a ride up to milwaukee. she had told me she commutes three hours a day from north of chicago to her job in wheaton, west of chicago. she told me she only lives about half way to milwaukee, but it was a possibility. she would check out my blog first to see if she could trust me, even though her intuition was already telling her she could.
another woman who is part of an organization that does residential food scraps and other compostables collection took interest in my story and advised me to check out a couple places: the bodhi center and the gan project.

that night i went to stay the rest of my time in chicago at the place where taylor had been staying, which is in roger's park, in the northern part of chicago.

the bodhi center has a celebration service on sundays, which i decided to attend. it was a beautiful, uplifting experience of community through song and prayer. i thought it was great how the service started with everyone jumping up and right into song! i think this is a great example of folks learning to come together for real unity.
that day after the service i rode over to jana's apartment one last time because i had forgotten my special wooden spoon that i carved. i took the opportunity to visit the logan square farmer's market one last time and pick up some pastured eggs for jana and i. it is one of the most lively and lush markets i have been to in the U.S.
after taking care of this i rode back up to rogers park and caught the end of the food not bombs meal serving. i'd really wanted to help out with this and was feeling shabby for being so late. molly and steven are people i really admire and i felt i was letting them down. i'd first met them at the sustainability share fair and then seen them again at taylor's party. he had been helping out with food not bombs. well, it turned out i got to be helpful for a little while at least, with the distribution of produce at the church next to the house molly and steven live in. they actually had too many volunteers there, so i left to check out the gan project before the volunteer hours were over, at 5:30.
when i got there nobody was around. i met a couple of people who were just there checking it out, looking at the chickens. one of the chickens had gotten out and i was able to team up with them on catching it and putting it back in. they offered me to use their phone but i declined. when i went to look at the information on their community board i noticed there was a number to call if nobody was there... should have used those people's phone. dang.
there were surely things i could find to do without a staff person there to direct me... i fed some greens to the chickens and checked out the compost bins. i was happy to see that there was at least a half-decent job done of covering the food scraps that had been recently added to the pile. there was a good amount of dried weedy material and it felt like there was some good activity there, but it needed water. i couldn't find how to water it...
an old man and i chatted for quite a while there. he was trying to convince me that this kind of project was pointless in the end because when shit hits the fan humans are going to be overcome by our animal nature, kill and steal when we are faced with starvation. in the end i just said to him, 'i've learned a lot from you. thanks.' i had really enjoyed the exchange in a way, even though i felt myself reacting and wanting to argue my hope in humanity.
on the bicycle ride back i met a cyclist who i had almost the opposite interaction with. he was full of hope like me and we share parts of our stories and ideas for how humanity can come together and pull through hard times. he said towards the end of our interaction, 'i feel really... proud that we had this exchange.' this is similar to when people say they feel 'honored' to have spent time with me. this sense that we have created value by demonstrating our humanity. i felt it too. so if this interaction represented a kind of pride, the other i thought could represent shame in a way. the other man was somehow limited by his personal shame.

another place i wanted to volunteer in chicago was iron street farm. i went there on tuesday, making the long bicycle ride down the lakefront trail, mostly in the company of a woman who was out 'training for pleasure'. i missed my turn actually and had to wind my way back up through the deep south end to the industrial area where the farm is. it was no big deal that i was late, which i had feared. the place was much more laid back than i had imagined. a real family farm vibe you might say. i got the tail end of the tour. then the other two first-time volunteers and i joined in the work of sifting worm castings and then filling plastic pots with this nutrient dense compost.
you can see some of what i saw in the video on this page about erika allen, the daughter of will allen, who started growing power in milwaukee.

staying with rashana and her family, along with the other fine folks who live in this apartment, was a blessing of community for me. we shared many meals and i had the plaesure of baking a batch of sourdough bread in my style there. one of the guys made this composite image of all of our faces saying, 'we're all one'. funny and kind of creepy.

i cherished the mornings i shared with tzippy, eating breakfast together and doing yoga one morning. i also got to pick lice eggs out of her hair and give her a simple hair cut. really felt like family.

on my last day in chicago rashana, the mother took me to the bahai temple. i had been unaware of this place until just a few days before. it is the only bahai temple in north america. and i almost missed it. bahai is all about unity which has been more and more of a theme in this hoop tour. we must come together in all our diversity if we want healing to occur.

positive change in chicago

John Sacelli, who hosts the 'dream circle' that i attended in chicago, wrote this article about chicago being the spiritual capitol of the world. http://johnsacelli.org/messages/cross.shtml

is it significant that my first day in chicago i attended sadhana at spirit rising?
"We call the time we spend on our maintenance sadhana. It is an essential part of life. If you do your sadhana, your mind can take the pressure. It will guide you and groom you properly." ~ Yogi Bhajan
that day i asked the man who led the practice if we could organize a song circle in the space. he was the directer of spirit rising foundation and he felt like it could happen. it was arranged for friday of that same week. that wasn't much time to spread the word, but i told quite a few people i thought would be interested. even so, it was only the woman who opened the space and i who were in attendance. i embraced it as an opportunity to share one-on-one with this wonderful woman. we shared conversation and sang together a little, sitting across the circle from each other. i had placed the bundle of fresh-baked sourdough bread in the middle, and when the time came i unwrapped it and we broke bread together. i had forgotten it was shabbat! perfect. it was also the U.N. international day of peace. i was glad this intimate and peaceful celebration had come together as it did.
one woman who i thought for sure was going to be there did not show up. she had been impressed by my presence at sadhana and we connected through e-mail after. we got together once mid-week for tea and shared some potent conversation. she began to really awaken a couple years ago, just about the time i did. she became a yoga instructor and traveled to india before moving to chicago. she had been very influenced spiritually by the people of mexico, who she knew while growing up in Aguascalientes. she feels strongly the shift taking place.

Sunday, my second day in chicago, i chose to attend a contact improv jam. i'd also met some folks who do a Food Not Bombs service on Sunday. since i wanted to go help out with that too i felt very conflicted. but when i arrived at the dance jam i felt so happy, i knew i was in the right place. it was a spiritual practice of moving meditation that requires a great deal of awareness, love, and surrendering of the rational mind to intuition. the hoop was played with in fun ways i have never seen! while sitting out, resting, we sometimes would improvise music for the dancers. this is a wonderful way to express ourselves through touch and experience deep healing of emotional/spiritual wounds. the jam begins and ends in a circle...


some other great things going on in chicago that came to my awareness:

academy for global citizenship

accelerate 77

iron street farm

patchwork farms

stone soup cooperative

dill pickle coop

the plant

co-prosperity sphere