The Gods Will Come.

“Go ahead, light your candles, burn your incense, ring your bells and call out to the Gods but watch out, because the Gods will come. And they will put you on the anvil and fire up the forge and beat you and beat you until they turn brass into pure gold.” ~ Author Unknown

This writing is for those whose intention is holy. Who are committed to service. Who are willing to turn their lives over to the powers beyond human – by whatever name, here called The Gods – and be used for whatever is most needed by The Whole. That probably means you. If you doubt yourself, it still probably means you. Only if it sounds silly should you exclude yourself from this.

Stories come to mind, of people who have made that commitment, but there are too many. Please share yours, here in the comments. I offer mine, for starters.

I grew up in love with the natural world, and mostly excluded by my peers. My parents were good people, religious, with no psychological or social understanding of how to help me. (Years later I realized how much they loved and treasured me – fortunately while they were still alive.) So the beginning of my commitment would be whenever I started to see myself as an actor in the world. That would be late high school. There’s a marker: in 12^th grade, applying for a summer research program at a college, I remember saying “I want to understand everything, and I want it to be useful.” I thought that meant physics, and I didn’t know its use. Later I saw that it meant Buddhism, and the use is evolving.

There were two markers after that. In 2004, not knowing how to respond to political evil, I went to sit zazen (meditation) in public outside both the conventions. It was hard, and I was tired. And, walking from Boston to New York with an anarchist group. I learned that walking is home. In August 2011 I went to Washington with 350.org and got arrested at the White House. I stayed for a week, and on the other days mostly I sat zazen facing each day’s protest. One day I did walking meditation at the protest site. One day, as the only visible Buddhist, I led the group in metta (lovingkindness) meditation, and found it well received.

That September, during formal monastic training, while sitting in the zendo, there were pictures in my mind, pictures of walking along the KXL pipeline with a group of people. The pictures wouldn’t go away. I checked it out with teachers and advisors, and gradually concluded that I should do it. My own teacher simply said “Wait until you have Dharma Transmission.” Another year. The Compassionate Earth Walk happened in 2013.

The Walk itself was very hard, and I was often angry. The walkers talked about why it was so hard, and concluded that our proposal to heal the culture had invoked its faults in our group life. This was some consolation but it was still terribly hard.

I asked myself, again and again, what I could have done differently, what could have made it better. Yet I have never felt so alive, before or since, as when I was fully engaged in that work.

That is the point of this post: the experience of responding to the call is difficult. It is painful. It is full of “what I did wrong” or “what should I have done differently?” or “what a failure I am.”

“the Gods will come. And they will put you on the anvil and fire up the forge and beat you and beat you until they turn brass into pure gold.”

The matter of feeling inadequate is part of the process. It would be nice if we could refrain from beating ourselves up over our inadequacies. But it goes like this: we commit to doing something that is larger than our capacity. We do it – well or badly – and in the process, because our intention is pure, every single flaw is pushed in our face.

That is how it works – becoming more able for the next part of the work.

Two closing thoughts:

If you can recall yourself as part of the whole rather than an independent actor, it helps with those thoughts. There is no such thing as an independent actor; every one of us is a product of the entire world, embedded in it and supported by it. As are our flaws.

The awareness of the flaws is an essential part of the process. Still, there is kindness. Be good to yourself. Take care of yourself. Seek support from friends, see a therapist, get enough sleep, good food, calm and joy in your life.

To be continued.

Challenging new reading – Paul Kingsnorth and Morris Berman

Paul Kingsnorth‘s essay Dark Ecology begins with a contemplation of the scythe so lovely that I want to run outside right now and grab the scythe. Of course I would have to sharpen it first, and it’s not exactly the season. But, he says, a weed whacker or brush hog isn’t really more efficient than a scythe on the human scale, we’re just conditioned to think it is because it’s noisy and complex. Ivan Illich wrote about what he called “tools for conviviality” – they make us human – the scythe is one of those. The beauty of his words reminded me of why I have those old-fashioned saws and pickaxes and really would rather not use the lawn tractor.

Kingsnorth moves on to reflections on Theodore Kaczynski, whose writings he’s reading, and observes how he became the Unabomber. It was interesting to read his thoughts. LIke him, I was very uncomfortable at the thought of sharing anything at all with the Unabomber. But I do. And perhaps it’s that discomfort that leads him to ask the question of what to do. I find his response very similar to my own, so I’m sharing it here.

I ask myself: what, at this moment in history, would not be a waste of my time? And I arrive at five tentative answers:

One: Withdrawing. If you do this, a lot of people will call you a “defeatist” or a “doomer,” or claim you are “burnt out.” They will tell you that you have an obligation to work for climate justice or world peace or the end of bad things everywhere, and that “fighting” is always better than “quitting.” Ignore them, and take part in a very ancient practical and spiritual tradition: withdrawing from the fray. Withdraw not with cynicism, but with a questing mind. Withdraw so that you can allow yourself to sit back quietly and feel, intuit, work out what is right for you and what nature might need from you. Withdraw because refusing to help the machine advance—refusing to tighten the ratchet further—is a deeply moral position. Withdraw because action is not always more effective than inaction. Withdraw to examine your worldview: the cosmology, the paradigm, the assumptions, the direction of travel. All real change starts with withdrawal.

Two: Preserving nonhuman life. The revisionists will continue to tell us that wildness is dead, nature is for people, and Progress is God, and they will continue to be wrong. There is still much remaining of the earth’s wild diversity, but it may not remain for much longer. The human empire is the greatest threat to what remains of life on earth, and you are part of it. What can you do—really do, at a practical level—about this? Maybe you can buy up some land and rewild it; maybe you can let your garden run free; maybe you can work for a conservation group or set one up yourself; maybe you can put your body in the way of a bulldozer; maybe you can use your skills to prevent the destruction of yet another wild place. How can you create or protect a space for nonhuman nature to breathe easier; how can you give something that isn’t us a chance to survive our appetites?

Three: Getting your hands dirty. Root yourself in something: some practical work, some place, some way of doing. Pick up your scythe or your equivalent and get out there and do physical work in clean air surrounded by things you cannot control. Get away from your laptop and throw away your smartphone, if you have one. Ground yourself in things and places, learn or practice human-scale convivial skills. Only by doing that, rather than just talking about it, do you learn what is real and what’s not, and what makes sense and what is so much hot air.

Four: Insisting that nature has a value beyond utility. And telling everyone. Remember that you are one life-form among many and understand that everything has intrinsic value. If you want to call this “ecocentrism” or “deep ecology,” do it. If you want to call it something else, do that. If you want to look to tribal societies for your inspiration, do it. If that seems too gooey, just look up into the sky. Sit on the grass, touch a tree trunk, walk into the hills, dig in the garden, look at what you find in the soil, marvel at what the hell this thing called life could possibly be. Value it for what it is, try to understand what it is, and have nothing but pity or contempt for people who tell you that its only value is in what they can extract from it.

Five: Building refuges. The coming decades are likely to challenge much of what we think we know about what progress is, and about who we are in relation to the rest of nature. Advanced technologies will challenge our sense of what it means to be human at the same time as the tide of extinction rolls on. The ongoing collapse of social and economic infrastructures, and of the web of life itself, will kill off much of what we value. In this context, ask yourself: what power do you have to preserve what is of value—creatures, skills, things, places? Can you work, with others or alone, to create places or networks that act as refuges from the unfolding storm? Can you think, or act, like the librarian of a monastery through the Dark Ages, guarding the old books as empires rise and fall outside?

 

Morris Berman:  Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline.

There are two difficult matters here. The first, obviously, is that he says America is already a failure. To me, that’s painful but admitting it is also a kind of relief. I’m more interested, though, in his point about how America had to fail.

America – the United States – was founded by people who defined themselves in opposition to something else. Pilgrims seeking freedom of religion. Etc. Americans rebelling against Britain. Berman says, when you define yourself negatively rather than positively, you need an enemy in order to have a sense of self. Let me repeat that: When you define yourself negatively (as what you are not), in order to have a sense of self you need an enemy.

Is that what we do, as a culture? Does this explain Trump, and the left-wing resistance, and feminism, and so forth and so on? (Distinguish this from movements based on “Do not kill my people” and you get a feeling.

Life must have its own meaning. We, as individuals and as a society, need an identity.

This is what I’m thinking about right now.

 

Love,

Shodo

Voting, Fascism, and Resistance

We live in difficult times. I started to list the events of the week, and gave up – there were too many and it was too depressing. Environmental (loss of species), climate (extreme weather events around the world), politics (fascist president elected in Brazil), and here in the U.S. increasing violence stoked by a President who supports white supremacists and barely manages to express compassion for victims – while cutting away at legal protections of humans and destroying the natural world as fast as possible. But on the other hand, there are extraordinary acts of compassion and courage. Muslims raise thousands of dollars to support the survivors of 11 Jews killed by hate and white supremacy. People are forming a caravan of love to meet the desperate refugee caravan heading for our southern border. And small acts of kindness happen everywhere. While courts occasionally decide in favor of human beings and the living earth.

I wanted to write a beautiful essay that takes all this into account and offers deep inspiration for how to live in these times.

I don’t have it, yet. So meanwhile, because there’s a deadline, I offer one thing: voting as resistance. There’s a saying:

“If voting made any difference, it would be illegal.”

This saying, re-interpreted, tells us why it’s important to vote in this election in particular.

Usually voting is just routine – in this country. The choices are boring, two versions of the corporate-war party, no versions of the human-in-natural-community reality, and one wants to just skip it. With a certain cynicism about how power works, one might feel like a dupe for participating.

This year, the suppression of the vote is so vigorous and so widespread that, I say, it demonstrates that voting actually does matter.

Please vote.

Here is the most concise summary I found of the many ways that people are being prevented from voting – and they are many, and the numbers are enough to change the results, and the people losing their votes are mostly people who we expect to vote Democratic. A Governor in Georgia, a Senator in North Dakota, and many more – please take a look at the article. For the most complete information on voter suppression and fraud over the years, check out Www.blackboxvoting.org, a nonpartisan website founded in 2003 by Bev Harris.

So I’m claiming that the suppression of the vote is itself evidence that your vote matters. I also say this: Voting is not self-expression. It is an exercise of power. We are deciding whether right-wing extremists (now called Republicans) will continue to control all three branches of government, or whether Congress can become a moderating force. The threat of Fascism – as described by people who remember Hitler’s rise to power – is clear and imminent in the United States. Our President is becoming more openly fascist ever day, claiming the right to define truth and override the Constitution, and setting a course of hate and fear.

Thus I say that, regardless of what you think of either party, this year we’re not in a position to boycott the elections. And third party voting is a form of boycott. I’ve done it many times, when it was safe. But this year we really need to vote for the lesser of two evils, because the greater evil threatens to divide the country, encourage murder in the street with impunity, and rewrite toe Constitution. This year, for one week, consider that voting may create a stopgap measure, buying a little time to do the work that must be done.

Voting is an exercise of power. Please use it, and wisely.

For more – Chris Hedges persists in offering depressing but credible analysis. Here’s a recent, long talk.

Please vote, and take all possible actions, and also change the world through acts of kindness, love, and prayers. We are in hard times; may we be refined rather than destroyed.

Peace and love,

Shodo

Grief, loss, and tornadoes

Loss has my attention today. I was out walking the land with a dear friend that has never been here before. I came back to learn that the Senate confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court by two votes. If both Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin had voted “no”, we would be looking toward a less scary future.

Even then, it’s scary. The Amazon rainforest is no longer a carbon sink. https://e360.yale.edu/digest/study-finds-tropical-forests-are-no-longer-carbon-sinks. The Arctic is melting – https://physicsworld.com/a/arctic-thaw-imperils-climate-goals/. And hate, fear, partisanship rule the day in more countries than our own. 2400 children are now in that immigrant camp in Texas, and families are not being reunited. Within five or ten years we likely face a world far different from even the one we know now – let along the green and abundant world of my childhood.

My past week has mostly been about the tornado. My house was close to the path of the strongest of several tornadoes that came through Rice County. It missed the house and took down dozens of trees. I’m still shocked when I look at the fallen and twisted trees. But also now, with much clearing done, I’m looking forward to what might be possible. I have little trees looking for homes – they will tell me where to plant them.

I’d been planning for the land care retreat, just three weeks away, planning to work with some of Martín Prechtel’s teachings. I’d thought of making a sacred compost pile; Martín talks about composting as honoring death and decay. Now it’s more likely that we’ll work with wildness, making an offering to the wild beings (deer, gophers, quackgrass) that threaten the orchard, as we also nurture the trees and spaces that support them. The orchard is weak because of neglect, not the storm; its weakness is influenced by conventional agriculture, erratic weather (climate change), and all the rest – and it longs for human attention too.

The grief of that neglect, and the grief of climate change, of tornado losses, of everyone we’ve loved who has died, of creeping fascism in politics here and in so much of the world – we’ll allow our grief to nourish the orchard as we do weeding, mulching, planting, cutting. And wildness will be welcome in this time. Because the gardens will not be strong unless the wilderness is stronger, and our habit of trying to control it leads to an inevitable end. We’ll allow the grief of lost trees and loss of control, and move toward our natural place in the family of living beings. Which means receiving gifts and giving them, in the spirit of offering, giving back to the earth which gives us our lives.

I’ve been promising to write about my summer’s retreat, but that will wait for the moment. Life is moving, alive, growing. I will write about that later, and also about the conference two weeks ago that was so exciting.

I have one simple request, though. During a solo in the wilderness, I made a vow to support the pine trees of the world – trees that are being attacked by pine bark beetles and blister rust, that are going up in flames. The beetles attach when the trees are stressed by drought or fire. Their attacks make the trees more susceptible to wildfire, which both heats directly and adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. My vow was to strengthen the trees so they will not burn. At one moment, I could sense that the trees had already accomplished this; at another I knew they needed our help.

Please support your local pine trees. I can’t tell you how. Currently I’m offering chanting and prayers and healing energy; do whatever comes to you.

I’m joining a local group working on stopping Line 3, the tar sands pipeline through northern Minnesota – defending our shared home and confronting the state government that I know best. While my strongest draw is toward the plants and earth, I am compelled to join with other human beings as well.

I recommend this article, which as I was reading about the Kavanaugh hearing reminded me of balance.

Howard Zinn in 2005: https://progressive.org/op-eds/howard-zinn-despair-supreme-court/.

“Our culture – the media, the educational system – tries to crowd out of our political consciousness everything except who will be elected President and who will be on the Supreme Court, as if these are the most important decisions we make. They are not. They deflect us from the most important job citizens have, which is to bring democracy alive by organizing, protesting, engaging in acts of civil disobedience that shake up the system.”

Bless you all. I hope you’re voting, this year of all years – please make sure you’re registered. Please love your humans and your earth-beings, and please be well and happy.

Much love,

Shodo

Recommended reading

I have posted a number of links to articles or talks here for your reading or listening. What they have in common:

• They speak unflinchingly to the very serious challenges that we have in this time – whether climate change or collapse.
• They require attention.
• They do not compromise with the conventional; indeed, the Jensen-Hedges dialogue specifically addresses the function of conventional thinking in a time such as this. And the last essay  – part of its wildness is the discussion of connections with other beings – a discussion I’m offering as well.

Comments are encouraged – in great part because this is my first writing here and I’d like to see if it works.

Shodo

The End of the World as We Know It?

WE LIVE IN DIFFICULT TIMES. How shall we meet them?

Last week there was an onslaught of events that lead to feeling hopeless. I wrote a list, didn’t want to start with it, then knew it was necessary. Skip it if you need.

• “The End Of The World As We Know It” was the phrase used by the usually cautious NPR as they talked about the retirement of Justice Kennedy and the U.S. Supreme Court becoming a 6-3 conservative majority.
• Also Thursday, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved a Certificate of Need for Line 3, in disregard of the overwhelming public opinion, the unanimous opposition of the four tribes directly affected, and the Department of Commerce position that Minnesota does not need it.
  • Background: Line 3 is aging and should be taken out of service. Among those who support pipelines, there is debate about replacing it in place versus building a new route. Among those concerned about climate change, it is clear that we need to end fossil fuels. That topic was not allowed into the room. The main room was filled with high school students, paid $30/hour by Enbridge to arrive early, get tickets, and sit there wearing pro-pipeline shirts. I was there Wednesday for a short while.
• The policy of separating small children from their families at the border was replaced by a policy of indefinite detention of those children with their families. The children already separated are being lost; families are often not reunited unless the adults agree to deportation – and, rumor has it, often not then.
  • Background: This is actually not new or unAmerican at all. Residential schools for decades tore children from the arms of their families, seeking to “kill the Indian, save the man.” Children died, or were irrevocably harmed. In slavery, children were routinely sold away from their parents. The Japanese internment camps imprisoned families together. We do not have a virtuous history. We have a history of genocide.
• Turning immigrants into felons is new. Many of them are actually refugees, from countries destabilized by wars or economic policies of this government, but there is essentially no legal path for refugees now – according to numerous reports of people who tried to enter legally.
• The Supreme Court approved Trump’s immigration ban, finding a way to pretend it wasn’t a Muslim ban. (The latest version included two extra countries that aren’t Muslim, and claimed to focus on screening procedures.)
  • The Supreme Court supported a lawsuit against “fair share” union payments. In this practice, nonunion members are required to pay a fee reflecting the benefits they get because unions negotiate contracts – not including any lobbying. The claims made (that those fees supported union political work) are blatant lies.
  • The difference in average wages between anti-union and pro-union states is $6000/year.
  • Incidentally, the IWW never participated in those agreements.
• Massive droughts are happening in food-raising parts of the country. In addition, as farmworkers are deported (or leave before deportation), there is nobody to harvest crops. We’ll be facing massive food shortages – for some of us that just means higher prices, for others it means hunger – and there’s no reason to think things will get better.
• Black people are being shot by police so fast I can’t keep up. I think there were two last week, and one of the shooters is being charged with murder. As a white person from northern Europe, I try to imagine if my grandchildren were targets in that way – never knowing if they would come home.
• The list of changes making their way through Congress is horrifying. Again, I can’t keep track. Attempts to destroy food stamps, Medicare, Social Security. Selling off national parks and lands to fossil fuel companies. Defunding and censoring science, particularly about climate change but also about guns, violence, health, and more. (I don’t have the heart to look up any more.)
• Five people shot at the Capitol Gazette – just more violence.

WHAT MUST WE DO?

I don’t have an answer. So here is what I’m doing, day by day.

• Working for money. I’m fortunate to have work I like, though I’d rather be a full-time Zen activist.
• Being with the land, including gardening, working with nursery plants, and occasionally spending time on the hill or by the river. It’s nourishing and also a place for learning, watching the habits of my mind as I seek control over invasive plants and animals. Who is the invader? I keep forgetting.
• Daily meditation and chanting, offering the energy of this person back into the universe. And receiving.
• Ordinary life – the truck needs to be fixed, the berries picked, dishes washed, all the rest.
• Relationships, taking care to be with friends, family, and others in a nourishing way. Resisting the slide into depression.
• Following news, sometimes analysis, often too much, but enough to still be aware and to consider responses.
• Tending the deeper thing, the matter of relationship with the life around me. There may come a time when I choose to be on the streets, or to risk arrest, or some other direct action. I do my best to be slow, centered, connected. Not well and not enough, but this is crucial.

Imagine living in a culture in which there was enough for everyone. Enough safety. Enough food, of good quality. Enough access to the natural world. Enough love.

On Saturday I went into the streets about immigration, with a couple hundred people in Northfield. Not liking protests, I thought that sometimes you just have to visibly say no – and that this is such a time. I’m encouraged by the tenor of that conversation – people recognized there’s something bigger here – and by the hundreds of thousands of people across the country who showed up in the street. If Trump was testing the waters to see how far he could go, he didn’t get an “all clear.”

I’m encouraged by some other things too:

• States, cities, and churches suing over these practices and others.
• The occasional court victory, such as the dismissal of cases against another 30 Standing Rock water protectors. However, if you don’t know about SLAPP suits, lawsuits brought for the purpose of chilling public participation, please read this for help understanding the nature of our society: https://anti-slapp.org/what-is-a-slapp/ Also consider that it’s considered a victory merely to be allowed to bring a suit, or to be allowed to present certain evidence, or to use a defense based on avoiding greater harm (such as climate change).
• Individual humans are risking death, getting hurt, being uncomfortable, spending months away from whatever their ordinary life was, commuting hundreds of miles to court dates which then get rescheduled repeatedly, spending weeks and months in jail – to temporarily hold off a wave of repression and permanent environmental degradation. I’m reminded of the little Dutch boy putting his finger in the dike: so small, so personally expensive – may it succeed.
• Cultural changes: In the water and land protection battles going on currently, it’s become standard practice for the indigenous groups to lead, for white-led groups to follow. As they/we should:
• White American culture is toxic.
• The ranks of small, organic, permaculture, sustainable or regenerative farmers are growing and growing, and organizing. This is relevant to food security, and also a matter of the cultural change so needed. I exist within this network of small farmers, though not actually farming.
• Religious organizations – conventional ones – are increasingly on the side of the oppressed, the the humans in need, the planet – Consider https://isaiahmn.org/ as one of many examples. They are remembering their origins. May it be so.

Martin Prechtel, in The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive. His teacher, at dying, sent him to the United States to keep the sacred seeds alive. Finally he writes: “For ever after that, the seeds I was trying to keep viable were no longer “my” seeds of the Seeds of Tzutujil spirituality, but the seeds that every citizen of the Earth has somewhere tucked away inside themselves, or outside in their lives, or somewhere in the ground, or lurking around the family baggage, or hidden in their bodies. In dreams or inexplicable proclivities, but always somewhere they never look or know anything about. These seeds were the seeds of that very precious thing we all have that contains embryonic caches of possible understandings of how to live ritually and intactly with an indigenous mind, seeds that have been bequeathed to us all from our own more intactly earth-rooted ancestral origins from millennia previous.

… But, how can we find our seeds if they are hidden in a place we know nothing about, a place we cannot see or touch without the indigenous ancestral mind? The truth is, the seeds do not need to be found because they are already found. We are the ones who need to be found, for the seeds are wherever we go….We have been adrift for four thousand years, floating on people-centered rafts of provisional civilizations that have convinced themselves they are the real thing and the cutting edge of human evolution… the spirits…are effortlessly coursing right along with us….trying their best to get our attention and tow us home to our real selves…while we drift along figuring that the anxiety of civilizations’ never-ending feeling of emergency is normal.”

“figuring that the anxiety of civilizations’ never-ending feeling of emergency is normal.” If that makes no sense to you – if the whole quotation makes no sense – you are normal in this culture. But if it calls to you, whether clearly or faintly, that is the action of the spirits trying “to get our attention and tow us home to our real selves.”

It is our real selves that will find a way. Please listen deeply within for your real self. And please listen outside as well, to the you that is in other people, in lands, in animals, in plants – everything around you is also your Self.

We live in difficult times. It is harder to find the joy in life – and always more essential.

BERRY EVENT:

Still, life goes on. The plants don’t stop. I’m putting out an invitation for Saturday morning, July 7, 9-12 at the farm:

• We transplant lots of raspberry plants, and prune the ones that are left. We do this as friends of the berries, as spiritual practice.
• You can take as many plants as you want: black, red, and gold raspberries, and/or strawberries.
• Black raspberries are ripe and offered for your eating.

Temperature will be 70-77 degrees and sunny. RSVP for address, directions, and so I can expect you. Shodo.spring@gmail.com.  (“Maybe” is also helpful information.) Between Faribault and Northfield, MN.

MWA Newsletter June 10: Offering

OFFERING
The essential nature of life is offering. Some people, and some cultures, still know this. Modern Americans, not so much.

One of the first things that caught my attention in Zen practice was a meal chant which began, “Innumerable labors have brought us this food; we should know how it comes to us,” continued with “This food is for the Three Treasures”, for the four benefactors, and for all beings in the six worlds, and ended with “We eat this food with everyone. We eat to end all evil, to practice good, to save all sentient beings, and to accomplish the Buddha Way.”
I didn’t know anything about offering, but that chant included everything. And it told me I was in the right place, in a holy place, home. (The translation was changed decades ago, but these are the words that opened my heart.)
Martin Prechtel’s 2012 book The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The parallel lives of people as plants: keeping the seeds alive takes us into a world where the whole people know that way of offering, of responding to every single thing, every gift from the gods. He describes the offerings that must be made for something so simple as making a knife – the ore from the earth is just a beginning.
The American way of life sees everything around us as resources to be used for our own benefit. Martin refers to this way as hollow, stealing, empty, destructive – and observes that such a life results in destruction.
I wrote a little more here. And if you are nearby (southern Minnesota), I invite you to two occasions to study and practice the way of offering.
SUNDAY, JUNE 17, SUMMER SOLSTICE GATHERING
This happens in three parts; you may come to one or all, and friends are welcome. But please let me know…our address is 16922 Cabot Ave, Faribault, MN, and when you arrive you come to the house that looks like a barn (parking on the left).

• 2-4 pm: We will make an offering of physical work, restoring the forest while also making a path to the future meditation hut. This act of healing and nourishing is our offering to the land, and creating a sacred space opens a door to more offerings.
• 5 pm is a ceremony offering human gifts to what is larger than human. In other words, we will make beauty. Please bring offerings of songs, poems, material objects, adorning yourself – whatever feels appropriate to you. We’ll gather in a safe, accessible place, dedicate the space with our words, and allow ourselves to enter the way of offering.
• 6 pm (approximately) is a potluck supper. Please bring a dish to share. If you can’t bring something this time, please come anyway. And feel free to come even if you’re not feeling spiritual!

WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 20, “ZEN AS RELIGION”

• 5:30-6 pm – sitting meditation with the Northfield Buddhist Meditation Center, 313 ½ Division Street (but enter off Washington from the parking lots)
• 6:10-8 pm – Talk and discussion:

This concludes the “Introduction to Zen” series, with a look at the chants and ceremonies, and a discussion of the classic question “Is Zen a religion? A philosophy? Or what?” (I promise there will not be an answer to the question.) We’ll particularly look at all of these things as the Zen style of making offerings.
And it concludes the Wednesday evening sittings. See below under Zen News.
FARM NEWS
We had a week-long volunteer, Celeste Pinheiro, who knows gardening and jumped right in. Thus we

have some photos of how the garden looks afterward. She’s also an artist, and started work on a logo for us.

Last week my housemate TR asked if I had some work, on behalf of a college student friend. Well, Harry Edstrom came Wednesday afternoon and kept coming back through Saturday. On Friday Cassidy Carlisle came with him, and on Saturday Essam Elkorgle joined them.

So we have lots of things planted, big areas mulched, strawberries moved, trees in protective cages, and three tiny Korean nut pines safely in the ground. We also have another guest room! Funny how that happened: it was raining on Friday, so I asked Harry and Cassidy to do a very small painting job in the guest room. They liked it. It kept raining. I really, really wanted to get that place cleaned up. So they kept painting, I kept moving furniture so they could keep painting, and we wound up turning the junk room into a very nice space (photos!). The next day, with Essam, we moved furniture to turn it into a bedroom. Today Laurel Carrington (Buddhist center friend) promised to bring a real bed! I know some visitors will be very happy.
The most fun thing, unless it was transforming the basement, was working with the hand-powered two-person saw. Here’s a picture of Cassidy and Harry cutting wood with it.
ZEN NEWS
For a few years I’ve hosted a Zen group in Northfield, meeting two or three times a month, while carrying on a daily practice here at the farm (morning sitting and chanting, monthly retreats) and sometimes having Zen-practice visitors.
The Wednesday night group will end with the June 20 discussion. I’m hoping that people who want some form of Zen practice will contact me, and we’ll talk about what we want to do. Northfield has a very solid Buddhist presence, with sittings 6 days a week and monthly speakers, so nobody will be left hanging.
With the new guest room, the option of coming for retreats or longer practice opportunities is much improved. We also have a tent space in the nearby pines, created by Celeste.
ALLIANCE NEWS
We’re working on a better website, date some time this summer.

In mid-July I begin travels to visit some people, some of the mountains/waters members of the Alliance, and to attend a 2-week retreat at the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. The first week will be just meditation together in the mountains, with a solo time outdoors; the second half will include conversation with other serious environmental activists and meditators. I’m really looking forward to this.
PERSONAL NEWS
I continue to offer psychotherapy services in Minneapolis, which is a lovely way to make a living and be able to support the Alliance. I am gradually shifting this work to an office in Northfield, which will be more convenient.
And that is all for now. Please be well and happy in every way.
Love,
Shodo Spring

Buddhist women's conference

Dear Friends,
The Sakyadhita Conference was over a month ago. Please forgive my silence. I’ve been sick, during and after the conference and also in a deep transition state. I will just write a little now.
The conference was an immersion in the varieties of Buddhist women – particularly the many kinds of nuns. Those of us in Japanese traditions, wearing black and having wide lifestyle choices, were very few. I made friends with a wide range of nuns who lived with full vows – celibacy, wearing robes all the time, living monastically, depending on gifts for food and shelter any day. Just one example: a woman from Australia, in the Tibetan lineage, who was raising money to support children in India – and wouldn’t think of taking any of the donations to support herself. She had lived at a homeless shelter, in a van, on a beach, and was currently on her mother’s couch. So she’s raising money to start a monastery so Western monastics in Australia will be able to live the full monastic life.
Meeting these women, it didn’t seem like the vows took anything from them at all – but liberated them to fully live out the Dharma, each in her own particular way. That’s probably an extreme oversimplification.
Just two women came to my workshop, titled “Asking all beings for help with climate change.” We had a lovely discussion, and after the conference was over we walked together to “the peak.” On our way up, Janet (a Hong Kong local) took us to a Buddha carved into the hillside – Amitabha. We spent an hour there, finding it difficult to leave.

At the top of the hill was an ordinary park, with a water fountain, exercise stations, grass, and a tree identification walk. Janet and Sophie returned, I continued – wanting to spend as much time as possible. My way has been to notice where I’m drawn, to have conversations with those, and to be present as fully as possible. What those conversations mean, I don’t know. I’ve said that humans are not the only conscious beings on the planet; this is how I try to work with that understanding.
I asked this tree to give fertility in my work. Thought she said yes, but I stopped again on the way back and she said let go, let go, let go; trying is the obstacle.
The tree with the great roots offered endurance.
The waterfall was full of light, life, youth. She did not give permission to share photos, except of this formation which seemed to me like the face of the spirit of the falls. I could have stayed forever.
Coming back down the hill, I went back toward the Buddha. This time I saw another figure in the rock wall: a carved dragon and phoenix. So I stopped for conversation. Something important happened here; I’m still trying to realize it. I asked if they had something to tell me; they said “We’ve been doing this forever.” (This is the dance of creation.) I asked if I could give them something, and they said no – they didn’t need a thing. And I asked if they would help me. The response felt like laughter: “You are just a speck on the waves of the universe. You are nothing.” I felt an incredible lightness, the weight of the world suddenly off my shoulders.
The Buddha was a little gentler, offering laughter. And – what is this?
I never thought I was singlehandedly trying to stop climate change, yet the words I’ve used about the Alliance have suggested that its purpose is to organize (beings of all kinds) for the healing of life on earth, including human consciousness. Suddenly I realized that I was engaged in trying to make things happen. Some of my friends immediately understood. Beth said that letting go makes one more effective.
So I got sick. It turns out it wasn’t just jet lag, it was shingles, and I’m just beginning to return to functioning while my body still hurts. During that time, I interviewed and got a position in a psychotherapy clinic – so I’ll be reactivating old skills, doing work I like, and spending about half my week doing that professional work. It feels like the right step at this time.
I’ll write a separate note about things happening on the farm, and a volunteer day this coming Saturday.
But next Sunday, August 6, I give a dharma talk at Clouds in Water Zen Center, in St. Paul. Here is information, if you’re in the area and would like to come. Look for “Sunday community service.” Address is at the bottom of the page.
Love,
Shodo

Update from Sakyadhita Conference

I’m at the Sakyadhita Conference, just checking in after the first two days.
We began the conference with a series of sacred chants, from nuns in different traditions. It was beautiful. I would like to send more photos, but I’ll post them on the blog; this one is from Theravadin nuns of India, Burma, Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. Then we had brief welcome speeches, a ceremony of lighting the altar.
Most of the conference will consist of panels of speakers, on a variety of topics related to Buddhism and to women.The first day panels were mostly stories of Buddhist women across cultures, and specifically in Hong Kong where we are meeting. The second day was “Mindfulness across cultures” and “Building healthy families and communities.” Tomorrow will be sessions on Social Action and on Buddhist Education. Nearly everyone is speaking in English, though it’s a second language for most of them.
My roommate, a scholar, gave a talk yesterday. She was researching feminism in monastics in the area where she does research. After a nun said “I’m not a feminist” Linda began investigating. Her current thought, after four interviews and some study, is that they reject the conflict associated with feminism; nuns and monks cooperate; but they accept women’s strength. I really liked her process of inquiry.
I’ll write more as we go through the conference. And I’ll send pictures.
It’s very hot, and there’s a long walk from my residence hall to the meeting space, but once I’m there I can stay all day. I’ve met some Zen women that I know, and we’ve sort of bonded with the other monastics wearing black robes – mostly Nichiren tradition. (It’s okay if that means nothing to you.) The variety of styles and colors of robes is beautiful and amazing. I didn’t know where the pink robes come from (Vietnam), or the all-white ones (Nepal). Gray are China and Korea, maroon are Mongolian or Tibetan Buddhism, black are from Japan, and there are lots of brown or gold ones. The Theravadins (classical Buddhists) come in a wide variety – you can see them in the first photo of chanting. (A Nepali nun with minimal English helped me identify where the various robes were from.)
A moving thing has happened twice now: a lay person walks up to me, bows, and hands me a small red envelope. I bow in return and accept the envelope. Each time, 20 Hong Kong dollars – worth maybe $2.50 or so – but it’s amazing to me. There are hundreds of monastics here; I don’t know how many of them have received this gift, but I know it is to be accepted warmly and with gratitude. Receiving a gift (whether asked or not) compels a certain quality of life – to live wholeheartedly, to be worthy of the gift.
It is amazing to be here. Also exhausting, but that’s okay. My workshop is two days from now.
 

Mountains and Waters Alliance newsletter: "The mind of war"

The mind of war

I noticed, suddenly, that I am at war with the way things are.
Last summer, I noticed being at war with buckthorn, grasses, and pocket gophers – beings of nature that act like civilized humans, taking all the space, destroying what gets in their way – and interfering with my food supply. This was a disturbing realization, and I’ve been studying it.
Now it’s clear that my war is bigger. I’m at war with the whole way things are, particularly the human world. I’ve made a noble cause of it, called “healing the mind of separation,” and “releasing human arrogance,” but truth is I really really want the civilization around me to change or perhaps self-destruct before it destroys life on earth.
Suddenly I saw my own war, saw how I am just like the system that shaped me – not free – and still part of the problem.
Actually, it’s a relief. As I wrote beautiful words about what the problem is and how we need to change, there was a little uneasiness. Now I know why. Something inside me had to move. I had to fall down, had to lose my hubris. So I’m glad to be present with this uncomfortable awareness.
So I write today from the middle of uncertainty and unraveling. If I waited for the answers to become clear, that would be waiting to return to hubris. But I can meet you here in the empty space; we’ll see what offers itself. Meanwhile, life continues.
Requests and practical things
Housesitter wanted June 11-July 1, while I’m at the Sakyadhita Conference. A little work, a wonderful space, and garden vegies or foraging. Otherwise, someone to do a little work (house plants and mowing) during that time – volunteer, barter, or paid.
Donations: If you would like to support my travel to Sakyadhita, anything will help. Seriously – from a $20 donation we get $19.12; from $5 we get $4.55. Here’s the link for donating, and much more information.
A ride to the plane (for Sakyadhita) June 11 morning, and back July 1 about 9 pm.
Residents and/or farm managers – Possibilities are still open. Please contact me if tempted.
Strawberry plants, raspberry plants, and various other things are available for purchase – or freely given to volunteers. Just ask.
 
Farming and volunteering.
These are dates for group volunteering. You can arrange to come at other times. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU PLAN TO COME.
May 27-28 Planting garden, pulling buckthorn, maybe weeding. Take home healthy berry plants for your own garden.
June 10 A short day, 9-2 or so. More of the same.
July 8-9 We’ll start at 10 am with a 2-hour presentation on permaculture. Then get to work – after lunch.
July 17 & 26 A student group will be working here 9-5. Your company is welcome.
August 5-6 Early harvest? Stockade fence? More orchard work?
Sept 9-10 same as August.
Oct 14-15 Definitely harvest.
Nov 11-12 Late harvest and closing down for the season.
How it works:

• You can arrive at 9 or 1 any day, stay for a half day, a whole day, or stick around for potluck, community time, even overnight. Any time except June 10.
• Lunch is offered if you are here. Snacks and water during work time.
• Potluck is flexible – there’s always pizza in the freezer, and the magic nettle soup – but your contributions are also welcome. Same for breakfast in the morning.
• Community time could be: walks, woods and river time; foot rubs; music; making ice cream; Q&A on Zen, permaculture, world events, or whatever.
• Sunday morning zazen is at 6 am, if you’d like to join. Ask for instruction if you need.

The projects named may change. If you have a particular skill or crave a particular kind of work (chain saw, building, digging, planting….) let me know. Ask if you need carpool help. There’s a serious possibility you might go home with berry starts, herbs, or something else, if you want. AND LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU PLAN TO COME.
Retreats and teaching activities
June: No retreats because I’m traveling.
July: retreat at the farm July 15-19 (ends at noon). Please note: when alone, I just sit zazen all day. When people join me, I can offer zazen instruction, introduction to Zen, dialogue, and mindful work opportunities.
August: retreat at the farm August 19-23.
September: retreat at the farm September 16-20
October: retreat at the farm, October 21-26.
November-December: to be arranged.
 
Teaching elsewhere
June 7, July 5 & 19, August 2, 16, & 30: The Northfield group will meet less formally during the summer, open to questions, discussion, and topics. We’ll still meet 6:25-8:30, with sitting meditation at beginning and end. Please bring your questions. Located at Northfield Buddhist Center, 313½ Division St, Northfield (park in rear).
June 24 or 25: At Sakyadhita International Conference of Buddhist Women, I’ll be offering a workshop. It’s in Hong Kong, so you probably don’t want to come.

Sept 1-4: I will offer at least one workshop at Gathering of the Guilds, a Midwest permaculture gathering held just three miles from here.
January 13, 2018: One-day retreat with Red Clay Sangha in Atlanta, Georgia.
January 14, 2018: Dharma talk, Red Clay Sangha.
I’ll post other scheduled talks on the calendar here. If your group would like to arrange a talk, workshop, or retreat, please get in touch.

Appropriate Response – and an event

We are in a new world. We don’t yet know what will come out of it. At first I watched the news in horror. Then I noticed the uprising of resistance, of compassion in ordinary people, of more news from the news media. I also listened to the people – indigenous, Black, and others – who said “You didn’t know that America was racist? Really?” There’s a long view to be had here, and it’s a good time to listen.
What shall we do? This is more like a marathon than a sprint. Carolyn Baker writes about the need for resistance, and inner work, and community, and cultivating beauty and joy. Even though it’s an emergency for every refugee turned away and every immigrant deported, even though it’s an emergency with climate change and the poisoning of the planet, we still need to take the long view. And decide where our proper place is, each one of us. How did Norway successfully resist the Nazis? Reading George Lakey’s narrative, I was encouraged. What would I have done, could have done, in any of the genocides of history, and what will I do now?
The advice to me personally has been increasingly clear and intense: take the time to go deep, to strengthen myself. Take a leadership role later. Do not get distracted by every petition, every issue – and back away from the news. The emergencies call out to me, and people ask me to help. And I’m tending to my own rest, nutrition, meditation time, and prayer time. So this is my primary activism right now, as I allow myself to go deeper and have more to offer. The Advisory Council is a treasure.
The vision of Mountains and Waters Alliance is going beyond the human realm to gather the strength of all the beings of earth. It is too late for human ingenuity alone to stop climate change – let alone reverse it as we need to do. But we keep forgetting that we are not alone, and that we don’t have to do this task alone.
Rather, we need to abandon our position at the top of the heap, where everyone and everything else on the planet is just here for us to exploit. We need to join the community of life. It’s now an emergency.
Religious people have known we are not alone. But among religions of the world, the sense of ourselves as part of the community of life belongs to Buddhists, many indigenous religions, and I’m not sure who else. Many forms of most religions place humans right below God, above the rest of living beings. And that is the problem that causes us to exploit, use, and abuse others for our own convenience. I can’t tell you why the concept of stewardship has failed so badly, but look around and see.
There is so much I do not know – I’m following a thread through a maze.
I ask your help:
Join me in prayer and in communicating with nonhuman beings
Reflect and consider what your particular work is in this time. We might have a conversation about that, in comments on the website. (If you’re getting this as an email, you could go here and “follow” in the lower right corner. Then you will be able to comment and to read comments.)
Donations are always helpful. I’m not actively campaigning for them right now – working on finding paying work and co-farmers.
Prayer again. Whatever form that takes for you.
EVENT: April 1, noon to 4, Morel Slurry Workshop. See the Facebook notice, or email me for more information and registration. ($10, bring a jar if you want to take some slurry home for growing your own.)
 
Love,
Shodo

A Ceremony for Inauguration Day

I’m sharing a ceremony, written by Zen teacher Ed Brown, meant to be performed before or during the inauguration itself. Please feel free to add, subtract, or change anything. It begins with an explanation.

On the occasion of the Inauguration of Mr. Donald Trump—

An Introduction:

Where our attention goes, energy flows. So let us give careful thought to where we place our attention—and possibly choose
to place it on the highest principles and values of our country.
I invite any of you who feel inspired to join me and others on inauguration day to attend to Donald Trump’s vow in a prayerful ceremonial context. Our attention will be on the duties of the president’s office, not the person holding it. The presidency is about serving all people of this nation in the highest alignment to our nation’s established bright guiding principles.

For those who want to contribute in a positive way to what may be a challenging day emotionally, the text below is offered as one possible way of enlisting ceremony to invoke heartfelt prayer.
On the inauguration day, Mr. Trump will be taking the oath of office, speaking a Vow, the intention of which is that he be in alignment with the founding principles of this country and those who have labored to make it so.
Words are powerful, and the spoken word can be even more so. A Vow spoken during ceremony, is meant to hold the person saying it to the intended meaning of those words. There is great power in that, whether the person saying it knows this or not.
Should you feel so inspired on inauguration day to attend to Trump’s vow in this ceremonial context, the words below are intended to provide a profound and sacred framework to what is happening. Depending on those participating, please utilize the appropriate portions of the ceremony.

A possible Buddhist Ceremony for the Inauguration. (Use what you choose to use.)

Incense Offering
Three Bows
Officiant:
Invoking the presence and compassion of our ancestors
In faith that we are Buddha
We walk Buddha’s Path
Homage to all Buddhas in the ten directions
Homage to the complete Dharma in ten directions
Homage to every Sangha in ten directions
Homage to our first teacher Shakyamuni Buddha
Homage to the succession of Bodhisattvas and Ancestors
Homage to Eihei Dogen Zenji
Homage to Shogaku Shunryu Daiosho
May their presence and compassion help to sustain us.
Let us recite the names of Buddha:
Everyone:
Homage to the Dharmakaya Vairochana Buddha
Homage to the Sambhogakaya Lochana Buddha
Homage to the Nirmanakaya Shakyamuni Buddha
Gassho Homage to the future Maitreya Buddha
Chokei Homage to all Buddhas in the ten directions, past, present, and future
Homage to the Mahayana Saddharma Pundarika Sutra
Homage to Manjusri, the Perfect Wisdom Bodhisattva
Homage to Samantabhadra, the Shining Practice Bodhisattva
Homage to Avalokitesvara, the Infinite Compassion Bodhisattva
Homage to the many Bodhisattva Mahasattvas
Homage to the Maha Prajna Paramita
Officiant:
Having invoked the presence of the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Ancestors
to join with us, we offer our shared prayers for the safety and well-being of our
country and all its people and creatures.
To do this we focus our attention on the following listed Principles and
Alignment with them, through all the dimensions, no matter what situation we are in.
Specifically, as we visualize our next President on Inauguration Day, with his hand upon the Bible, swearing his Oath of Office, we call in these Highest Principles of our Democracy, to witness his vow, that he, as our new President, may be aligned by and to these Principles, for the good of all in the execution of his duties.
In support of our prayers, we call on these witnesses, who hold this truth to be self-evident—that all people are created equal—
Everyone:
* The U.S. Constitution
* The Masons
* The Bill of Rights
* The Supreme Court
* The Iroquois Confederation
* “We the People”
* Congress
* The Bible
* Lady Liberty
* The Office of the Presidency
* The Liberty Bell
* Suffragettes
* Those who hold aloft a light, in a time of human ignorance.
* The Land, America the beautiful
* “Of the people, by the people, for the people”
* We Shall Overcome
* Black Mesa
* Source

* The Mind of Liberation
Chanting of the Sho Sai Myo Kichijo Darani (auspicious darani for averting calamity)
No Mo San Man Da Moto Nan Oha Ra Chi Koto Sha Sono Nan To Ji To En Gya Gya Gya Ki Gya Ki Un Nun Shifu Ra Shifu Ra Hara Shifu Ra Hara Shifu Ra Chishu Sa Chishu Sa Chishu Ri Chishu Ri Sowa Ja Sowa Ja Sen Chi Gya Shiri E Somo Ko x3 with drum
Dedication: May the merit of this ceremony and our chanting permeate throughout space and time holding our country, its peoples, and all beings in blessedness
All Buddhas, ten directions, three times.
All beings, Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas,
Wisdom beyond wisdom, Maha prajña paramita.
Three Bows

Mni Wiconi – Water is Life! (report from Standing Rock)

Five days at Standing Rock were like five days in another world. I arrived after the first blizzard, survived the second and left before the third. Trying to find words: ordinary life seems unimportant – and lonely. I went because I had to be part of it. This is the most important thing happening in my lifetime. A friend said “Really? You lived through the Civil Rights era and women’s liberation.” I said, “Yes.” But why? There have been lots of pipelines before, and lots of battles.
Most Important:  This is the place where the forces of life stood up to the forces of death for profit. Death for profit: pipelines spill eventually, causing sickness and death nearby and downstream. Fossil fuels create climate change. It’s all about destroying life for profit, made from our addiction to temporary conveniences like cars. The forces of life: we can’t live without water.“Water is Life” or “Mni Wiconi” is the slogan. Also, this movement is in the hands of a people who live by the earth, who lived thousands of years in this place without ruining it, who honor and respect every living thing as relatives. Here they stand up for their way of life, resisting a culture that is exactly the opposite: natural things and living beings including people are seen as resources for exploitation for profit.
This is deeper than any of the other issues of my lifetime – even though the others bleed more vigorously. It is the battle between industrial civilization and the Earth herself. Camp was the place where people understood this – where the community understood it.
Morning Prayers:  Mornings, I woke (cold) to the voice of a singer. He sang for over an hour, without faltering. I crawled out of my sleeping bag into winter clothes and went to the sacred fire. There were lots of people. There was smudging, more than once, and prayers by leaders, and songs – most but not all by men. Chanting sometimes. Memory already fails me.
Then the Anishinaabe women took over. Copper vessels with sacred water came around, and we were given little white paper cups for the water. Drinking it heals you. Offer it to the river. Hundreds of us walking to the river, led by those women. Stopping sometimes, I assume for the four directions; you live with not knowing everything. Beautiful songs and chants, in English and Lakota. Then a stop, and “men come to the front.”
Walking again, when I approach the hill down to the river there are lines of men, holding out their hands so we don’t fall on the slippery rough steps. The first time I thought “I can do it myself.” After, I felt the gift of community. Men help women. (Later we took our turn in helping them walk down to the river.) The lines split in two, and each led to the river. One at a time we offered tobacco and said whatever prayers we had – then stepped away from the river and waited. When all were done, there were songs, prayers, and chanting. Mni Wiconi, Water Is Life, Agua Vita, every language that someone knew. Call and response. I only had sign language to offer, but a leader saw my offering and led the group, raising her hands high to be seen so we could all say “water – life” in American Sign Language.
It was a very long ceremony. I wrapped up as well as I could, and came away chilled. The men – most had bare faces, some bare heads, and more than imaginable, bare hands. The sacrifice! Learning something about sacrifice, heart opening. I looked into every face, looked into the eyes, grasped every hand as long as possible, taking them in. When hand were bare I cupped them, as long as I could, until it was time to move on. Just remembering, my heart opens again. The eyes, the hands, the community, the support. This is how we are together.
The thought came up: This is why I am here – to pray by the river in community.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday – Four times I was there. On Tuesday we were still in the blizzard, I could not bring myself out of the tent, and I hear that almost nobody made it to the sacred fire for prayers. On Wednesday I had gone up to the casino, to be ready for my ride.

Superb organization:  Although everything was confusing and difficult, the organization was magnificent. You just had to keep asking for help or directions, and accept not knowing everything. My first morning I went to the mandatory orientation, about 2 hours, and was informed and encouraged by three women of different backgrounds teaching us how to be here. The volunteer tent was a constant source of information and help. The medic tent, besides healing teas and hand warmers, offered conventional and herbal healing, counseling, and a warming tent – where I finally fled one day. I thought I would volunteer with the medics, but newcomers don’t do that – which completely makes sense. I did a few hours of useful work, but mostly just managed not to be a burden. I ate at two different kitchens, both with incredible food and generosity.
There were a lot of yurts, some donated or loaned, and construction crews were building more, and tipis with wood stoves. All the group spaces – kitchens, meeting tents, and the like – were warm sleeping spaces during the blizzard and after. During the blizzard, medics checked every tent and checked for needs – hypothermia, propane, whatever. 32 people were evacuated for hypothermia – none died, no permanent injuries. The emergency backup place was the casino, and the Cannonball Rec Center offered showers as well. A lot of people went to the casino in the cold; camp kitchens brought food and served meals up there. Without central organization, somehow things worked.
There were propane deliveries. When I asked for a second sleeping bag, they handed me one, and a stranger got me two little propane bottles on hearing our worries of running out. Handwarmers and hot tea were available everywhere. Hats, gloves, coats, and more – tents were full of warm clothing for anyone in need.
There were countless meetings and trainings: orientation, action meeting, action training, decolonization (in various configurations), women, and then emotional wellness meetings in the medic area. Not to mention task meetings that didn’t even make the public lists. Plans changed often.
Veterans and December 4:  Four thousand veterans gathered for a nonviolent action on Sunday, December 4. The energy was strong. They mobilized, built barracks and other spaces, set up a command post – without seeing much, I could sense their confidence and experience. In individual conversations, I repeatedly heard a strong commitment – this was just their duty in defense of their country. Many were indigenous, many not.
The faith leaders were there as well, I have no idea how many. And chaplains, housed in a church space and with their own mission. I was grateful to be living in camp even though those groups had warmth and hot water. There was a very long interfaith prayer service, with prayers or songs offered by every tribe and every denomination present. Then we were told to make a big prayer circle, surrounding the camp – while the veterans went to the bridge, the place where our people met the police.
But word came around that the Army Corps had rejected the permit and we had won. There was a lot of disbelief, concern this was a distraction to prevent anything interesting from happening with the veterans. The elders called the veterans back from the bridge; they returned Monday and stood guard while indigenous groups did ceremony – the opposite of their role in past wars. For some veterans, it was a healing of what they had done before. There was a forgiveness ceremony about that. And at the end, Tuesday, a long ceremony involving giving an eagle feather to each one of them.
They were expected to leave after four days, but some committed to staying until the drill pad is gone.
Culture:  As an elder, I was regularly pushed to the front of the food line, sat down and brought a plate of food. The time I tried to offer my fireside seat to the head cook who must have been exhausted, she refused, saying “You’ve been working all your life.” It makes me weep. I’m also in awe of the middle-aged and young people who go on and on, working long hours in the cold and then working more. Their stamina and their dedication. And I came to appreciate men – the whole time, the men showed up to do heavy lifting, work in the cold, use their skills as mechanics or carpenters or whatever – and then be last in the food line. There’s a dim memory of that from my early life, but nothing so physical. What must life be like when men take that responsibility WHILE cross-gender and Two-Spirit roles are also honored? What kind of home is this? Kindness!

My story, and Buddhists:  I came to be part of a Zen Peacemaker Order retreat. After a day of searching I found some of the people in it, and was offered a bed in an RV which I gladly accepted. (This might tell you what it’s like to be in a camp of 10,000 people.) By the time the leader came, I had made connection with Buddhist Mylo Burn, who was living in a large dome tent, hosting zazen three times a day, and sharing the space with Buddhist Peace Fellowship (gone now), small meetings, and several people who slept there. I moved into the dome tent. I also agreed to lead half-day retreats on two days, meaning I would miss community events but it was a joy to sit together. And a result was that my connection with the Zen Peacemaker group was minimal – and then they left December 5 before the blizzard. Then we were there in the tent, trying not to use up the propane in case there wouldn’t be any more deliveries.
On Sunday, when they were creating the giant circle of prayer, I got separated from the group. I went down to pray by the river, which I’d wanted to do again. When I was ready, I found the group and joined the circle. That was a wonderful mistake.
A few regrets: being there such a short time, and being confused so much. A regular volunteer job would have helped, and then I would have been of use as well. If I come back, I’ll stay longer and be better prepared. I don’t yet know whether my best work is here or there.

The sacred fire at Oceti Sakowin was put out Saturday afternoon, by order of the elders council. I learned that night, and was distraught. It felt like an abandonment of the thriving beautiful community where I lived for five days, and of the core of dedicated people who kept camp running through the blizzard, who checked every tent to see who needed help, who gave out hats, sleeping bags, blankets and propane with more than joy. They re-lit it a few days later, renamed the camp Oceti Oyate or The People’s Camp. Things are evolving.
I re-united with Jenny, who I came with; we helped take down the camper where she’d been staying (with help from men again), and then drove out through blowing snow and bad visibility, staying on the road and checking visually to make sure nobody was in the vehicles in the ditches. We got to her house at midnight, moved my things into my car, and I drove home, grateful that my driveway was clear. I turned up the heat and water heater and waited to take a very long hot bath – wanted for a week – before going to bed. Like everyone, I was sick for a few days – just a cold – and am still chilled a week later. Slowly returning to everyday life – with new responsibilities, details to be clarified, local allies to work with.

After:  We were told to evacuate. There were several meanings: First, children, elders, and others not able to handle the weather need to go, so the camp can continue. Second, we won so we can go home now. (This is not a common opinion.) Third, leave now and come back when needed again.
There’s a question what the “victory” of no permit actually means. Is it a real victory, or a distraction? On January 1 DAPL’s contracts become void – will this destroy the pipeline, or will new contracts be signed? Obama kept talking of a new route, which protects the tribe but not the climate or the river. DAPL insists on the present route, is continuing to drill, and says they will drill anyway in spite of fines. Whether weather might delay the drilling, we don’t know.
This is my newsletter for Mountains and Waters Alliance, and I end my own writing with my response to LaDonna Allard, who  asked, “What will history say about 2016 and North Dakota?”
Of many responses I share these: Wallace Chase: “They will say: This is where it started….the saving of humanity.” Margo L Kellar: “People got woke and will stay woke now. This is just the beginning.” My response: They will say that the people of the earth stood up to the industrial greed-machine, to the black snake. They will say that millions of people around the world came forward to help in every way they could. They will say that this was the beginning of the end of the greed-machine and the beginning of the return to harmony with the earth, with the spirits, with our own humanity. They will say that prayer and love were more powerful than violence. They will remember that indigenous people took the lead, made the sacrifices, and that others followed. Our great-grandchildren will thank us for this time.
I close with some words from indigenous people, our leaders in this time of healing and change.
First my friend Susana Dee, up north: “People ask me what has changed in my lifetime of activism and I answer many things are worse but we now have allies. We didn’t for the very longest time.”
From Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney and a Congressional candidate, now actively involved in the camps: (Dec 10 after the fire was put out)
“500-1000 people are still at what was formerly known as Oceti Sakowin Camp, even though this particular sacred fire has been extinguished today by those individuals who created it. Stay if you feel in your heart that freedom is here. We may never get this opportunity for another generation.
It’s time to move on and create a new ceremonial fire of strength. As Native Nations we are holding strong here. Sacred Stone Camp is 1000 strong and they are NOT leaving. Rosebud Camp is 300 strong, they are NOT leaving. We are not leaving. The fun, selfies & launching of your org’s brand is over. The warriors of all nations are here. Until the pipeline that’s in the ground is gone, until the Law Enforcement militarized blockade is gone, until DAPL is gone. Send a voice to Creation, relatives.”
From LaDonna Tamakawastewin Allard, here from the beginning and still leading:
When I first saw people coming in to stand against Dakota Access pipeline on the April 1st at Grand River Casino I was overwhelmed with thankfulness, the youth runners, women and children walkers, horse riders, Biker riders and the Seven Council fires. They came to stand with us and what is seen in July made me cry for days as the people of the world came to stand with us.
As we stood with people of the world I felt a healing of the land and then… we were attacked. I was shocked at the behavior of the state against peaceful people. The people still stood against the violence in prayer, song and dance. We stood with our many cultures united we stood is laughter and story telling, in the morning you can hear the songs across the camps.
As some people get ready to leave the camp because of the weather we know that they carry us in our hearts. I pray they carry the lesson of the camps to where ever they live. It is time to change the world thought. We can live with our earth in respect and honor by learning to stop fossil fuels and start using green energy. Let’s change the world by protecting the water everywhere.
Good evening everyone Chase group and Sacred Stone group spent the day gathering supplies for the camp from SRST [Standing Rock Sioux Tribe] building I found all our generators which make me happy so bring them down to camp. The solar panel and batteries were there too. So happy. I found the army tents too. Getting all these to the camp and give them out to people tomorrow.
Our lives have changed so much since April 1st. It has been eight months and 12 days since the camp opened.
I remember those who stood that first day was Joye Braun, Joseph White Eyes, Wiyaka Eagleman, Happy, Jocelyn Charger, Allen Flying By, Antoine American Horse, Alfred and Swans, Faith Spotted Eagle, Virgil Taken Alive, Prairie, Elizabeth from Cheyenne River and her daughter who carried the water to bless the ground and all the Oceti horse riders on that cold day. It was those who stayed that first cold week when everything started at Sacred Stone. I am honored by them who show us how to build a camp which was Joye Braun, Paula Antoine, Cheryl Angel, Wiyaka Eagleman, Joseph White Eyes, and Antoine American Horse and family.
These was no one that started this movement it was a coalition of people, there was the Chairman who informed the community of the Pipeline, there was a group in South Dakota Honorata Defender, Virgil Taken Alive, Jon Edwards, Dustin Thomspson, Josephine Thunder Shield, and other in their group just to name few, then there was the Wakpala group Bobby Jean Three Leggs, Waniya Locke, and many of the youth who stood up to run for the water. The horse riders, the bike rider, the walkers and runners. The movement for the water really started with the youth who first put the words out though video and live stream and Facebook, twitter, and other social media, as the chairman understood it was their words the world would hear. In my own opinion this movement was a collection of people who understood that we must make a stand we had all those who fought XL Pipeline to show us the way and help with advice, then so honored to have Honor The Earth people and Winona Laduke to support and help us, they did fund rising for us, then EIN who came in to help too both with grants and training, then Moccasins on the Ground Deb White Plume to help with training, Tanya Warriors Women, Jim Northrup, Bill from Portland, Wild Bill Left Hand and so many others who were on the ground before July, so many more names that were there but my point is this movement was by any people that everyone should be given credit.
This is a world movement so this includes every walk of life, it is not about which race, color or religious belief you are, it is about changing the world to save the water. Plain and simple stand up for water. We stand up for life.
Most of all everyone continue to put down tobacco for the water and prayer ceremonies for the water. Remember why we are here to stand up for the water, to stand up for our people, to stand up for the healing of the people.

Standing Rock, pipelines, water protectors

Supporting Land and Water Protectors Everywhere
I have just added a page with information on the movement to protect water and earth, everywhere. Focus right now is the Standing Rock Tribe and thousands of allies camped in North Dakota, protecting Missouri and Mississippi Rivers from the Dakota Access Pipeline. This is an amazing event with potentially profound impacts. Words fail me. I encourage you to follow the links, and take action if and how you are moved. Click above to go to the page
 
 

Embracing Reality

The deep vow is to free all beings: the first of Zen’s four vows.
The manifestation, in this particular body, is to become intimate with the un-freedom of my personal mind and of my culture, and working to release the internal while addressing the external. That is how the vow of the Mountains and Waters Alliance looks right now.
My writing “Right Action: The World is My Body” is a chapter in The Eightfold Path, edited by Jikyo Wolfer, published just now by Temple Ground Press. Re-reading what I wrote, I find my thoughts well expressed. The most difficult part was writing about political action, of course.

If you buy this book, please get it from your local bookstore and not from Amazon. Or get your local public library to buy it. Your actions matter. Local bookstores matter. I am asking you to join me in avoiding businesses that use slave labor; Amazon is one of the big ones. (If you have no local bookstore, you can buy online from someone else.) This is a small step of independence that costs perhaps a few dollars, perhaps not, and supports a healthy economic community. If you don’t understand this, ask me and I’ll write more about it.

As the vow becomes stronger in my life (particularly as a result of the 10-day wilderness retreat in July, and life following), it becomes harder to carry on with ordinary life. I am determined to remove excess baggage and stay with the center.
Since returning home, I’ve been attempting to clarify that center and to make practical decisions. The most important activities include

• studying, practicing, and teaching Zen,
• undoing the cultural habits of civilization – which in this case means learning to listen and talk with trees, mountains, and other nonhuman beings;
• supporting others who are undoing those cultural habits; at this time the key group is the growing resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline (based in spiritual and cultural traditions that are rooted in human connection with the whole natural world); there are individuals and organizations around the world doing work of this kind.

In morning service, I offer blessings to individuals – sick or in need, but also those doing large projects – and to groups protecting and sustaining the earth, and to those teaching and leading the healing of spirit. The list is long. I send healing to the beings of earth itself. I include those who are disconnected and doing great harm, but rarely say names here because it feels like a judgment.
The other parts of the Alliance – creating a residential spiritual community, and a farm which grows food to be ready for when the collapse comes – seem less central. Thus I look at what I can release.
The land grounds me, heals me, and is my place of learning. Farming and caring for it takes more energy and focus than I have. I’m trying to protect the work already done (orchard etc), harvest crops planted this spring, and do the minimum needed. Also, I’m working to make it a space where more people can live, if those people appear. An extra bedroom is almost ready, and I’m being helped greatly by a Vipassana practitioner who is an excellent carpenter.
It would be easiest if some people came to live here with me, to practice with me, and to live with this vow. The invitation is out – and here I remind you of it. But I’m preparing for the backup plan: find my own financial support, take minimal care of the land, and plunge myself into the deep work – I’ve been saying hermit work, but it will include engagement – for as long as needed.
Coaching: The financial support plan is a coaching business focusing on wisdom, empowerment, and love. I’ve dropped my clinical social work license, but offer my services to individuals, couples, or groups, by phone, Skype, or in an office in Northfield, MN. There’s a set fee, and I can’t accept health insurance; everything else I do is for free or by donation. Information here. Feel free to make a referral.
The big world: In North Dakota, the Standing Rock Tribe is saying no to a pipeline that would invade sacred burial grounds (legally protected) and endanger the Missouri River (and all downstream). It feels to me like the encounter of the deep energies of our time: one based in community, connection with the land, and tradition; the other based in profit, denying responsibility, and willing to destroy both climate and waters for what is called “our way of life” – also known as self-indulgence at the expense of our own children and everyone else on the planet. If you don’t have access to reliable information, let me suggest Censored News, Democracy Now, or Yes Magazine.
I imagine going to Standing Rock to sit sesshin, in honor of all life. The practical details are overwhelming, and I may just get there for a weekend, do some labor, and get acquainted. Only because it seems so important – traveling is not generally part of my practice, but there are frequent carpools from near here.
If you would, join in the October 10 day of prayer and action. Divest from the banks that invest in pipelines, listed here. If I organize a prayer action, I will let you know. Local events will be on the website.

Meanwhile Black men are being killed by police at an incredible rate, white people are making a fuss about Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful and respectful protest, and one Black community has finally erupted into violence after intense provocation. That eruption is a victory for racism. I have only sadness to offer. There have been poems, heartbreaking. Here is one:

Leslé Honoré            July 14 · Chicago, IL ·

 
Very local: Finally some work is getting done on the house. The photos are not impressive unless you’ve been here – but here is the tiled floor, ready for the wood cookstove.

With love,
Shodo