Clare Consultation, LLCTucson, 9/11 and a Publication Date (!)
It’s happening! The EX:Change project’s interviews from early 2009 are going into a book. The tentative title – You Say Change, We Say…. And Loud Mouth (http://www.loudmouthpress.org/) is the perfect publisher – a nonprofit in Brooklyn devoted to issues of social importance. Here’s one thing they say about themselves. “Our projects offer an innovative, creative and artistic perspective on important topics that concern the entire human family.” Cool, huh? Fortunately, the… Read More
Procrastination and a Nation’s Hostility Habit: When a Congresswoman has Been Shot in the Head
It is shortly after 1:00 in the afternoon in the Starbucks on 28th and E. Burnside in Portland, Oregon. It’s Adam’s last day as a barista here. He’s off for a full-time gig in a fusion restaurant downtown. My friend Doug just walked by and came in for a chat. He’s a bartender who, for the first time in two decades, didn’t have to work New Year’s Eve. “Nothing more renewing than… Read More
Just Listen
Yesterday I came home, grabbed the blue nylon bag I use for light trips to the grocery store, and took off in search of … well … Rice Dream. Really – borderline hippie; soy, dairy and gluten free. It’s my latest answer to the love song of my sweetest tooth. To walk to the grocery store, I take the back steps and follow the sidewalk around to the front of the house. … Read More
Gay Teen Suicide: Yes, Listening is a Matter of Life or Death
I’m from Texas. I haven’t lived there for 22 years, but I am from Texas. And I love very much about the State. There are also things – particularly things political, educational and environmental that get me a little crazy about my homeland. Then this week I found a you tube video that made me so very proud to be from Texas – proud of the elected member of the Fort Worth… Read More
What the Land Holds Up
Just home to Portland from a week in the Texas Hillcountry. I did lots of my growing up on the land that stretches out either side of the Guadalupe River. This week I returned to that river and those hills to see friends I hadn’t seen since all of us were 15 years old. That’s a long time. There’s a word used to describe this aspect of human systems – equifinality (thanks… Read More
The Day after Independence Day
Feelin’ it? The independence? Last night I sat under a sky that, after a day blanketed with marine clouds, cleared for this: The exquisite blues riffed from Curtis Salgado’s voice and Lloyd Jones’ fingers dancing the way they do on the neck of his guitar. But that’s not all. The music those guys sent into the air around the Willamette River bounced off the buildings of the city, soaked into the vast… Read More
Spirit & Faith
“We change up above, on our surfaces, but there’s that underlying constant that travels through all the changes. It’s something I don’t really have the words for. The only concrete thing I have, which isn’t concrete at all, is that deep soul feeling.” Lauren Kraakevik It’s an overcast but warm spring day in Portland, OR. I’m back down the street in the corner Starbuck’s where the staff have been so consistent in cheering… Read More
What’s in a Name?
“Know what that word, change, means. Know what this time means. Our getting together this morning to talk, what does it mean? Do you know what we are doing? What is in the journey? Where are we going?” Dr. Dapo Sobomehin This morning I had my annual dental appointment. You know, the one involving really sharp pointed hooks for scraping and poking, and the tiny rotary buffer dipped with clayish and vaguely peppermint tasting… Read More
Easter and Reaching Across the Aisle
Yesterday a friend sent a text. Charles is a Mandan-Hidatsa Indian from North Dakota who has for years been the lead public relations executive for a local non-profit. He was asking if I knew of Easter celebrations in town. Then there was Mike’s status update on Facebook. Mike is Jewish and he was wishing all his Christian friends “a wonderful and redemptive Easter.” This morning in a small gathering, Julie, a mom… Read More
American Connections
“It’s as old as humanity itself. Literature is filled with stories about the warriors who come face to face and discover that they’re actually destroying themselves.” Andy Walton This morning I had separate conversations with a sustainable energy professional, a poet, a Starbucks barista, a wildlife biologist and an ex-offender. All are Americans. All spoke of matters central to their lives. They were regular conversations, nothing special. The kind of chit chat… Read More