The Gardens of Poblenou

I’ll tell you how I discovered them.

In September of last year, when Catalina was making her tour of European research groups, I was similarly engaged, researching the cities surrounding those research groups on foot, by bus, by tram and by train. The focus of her search started large and ended in pinpoints on the map; my search began in the pinpoint where we landed and slept, and spread out from there, a personal Big Bang, encompassing as much and as varied a landscape as possible.

A couple of years back, Amherst architect Tullio Inglese spoke to our ecovillage group about ways to build greenly: these materials, that insulation, this heating source, those solar panels.“But,” he said, “pouring money into a system that gobbles energy doesn’t solve a thing. You have to begin by USING LESS.”

Not a new idea, and wonderful to hear it again and again. One reason we are protagonists in war is our hyper dependence on oil. One reason we are leaning over an economic precipice, and our poor human non-heroic legislators are hog-tied and unable to affect change, is because We the People are arguably (and measurably) the most materialistic and consumptive culture the world has yet produced.

The following re-post is a piece I wrote for our intentional community’s web journal. With a few years of painstaking research and trial-and-error, we assembled egalitarian tools for decision-making, legal forms for sharing land as partners instead of landlords, and some open-hearted yet strong ways of maintaining harmony within our Circle – even with a variety of personalities bumping into one another as we worked to sort this all out.

As I stood under the shower’s spray this evening, allowing the warm water to wash away the day’s dust and travel, I found that as the dirt left me, so did peace and security.

I looked at my hands, and as I passed them along my arms, I suddenly felt an urgency, emergency, imagined I was rushing to remove an invisible poison – radioactive decay – that had collected on my skin and sifted through my clothing, as I sat cowering inside my home, whose chinks and gaps would never be airtight, whose doors and windows were designed to breathe as a human breathes, to move air in and around me so that I might have fresh oxygen to light my blood and to quicken my pulse.

Lessons can be learned by watching.

A system is only as strong as its weakest link; make a nuclear containment structure (theoretically?) plane-proof and bomb-proof, still the generator sits outside, its water source exposed, and a shut-down reactor cannot power itself; powered by fission, not fusion, its “steady state” is detonation, not stasis.

A viable solution to the nation’s energy crisis (finite fossil fuels, unsustainable sources of electricity) and a response to a near-universal consensus that global warming is a dire reality (universal to everyone without vested financial interests) must not rely on building more, but on learning to live with and use less.

I was thinking this weekend of the metaphor of the trees: those that cover the lower peaks of the White Mountains, their roots knitted together like fingers knotted in prayer, interwoven with matted grasses and weeds, and held in place by the understory of bushes and brambles. All of that green life exposed to the winds of winter and summer’s storms, in little more than a foot of soil: beneath that veneer, granite ledge.

I returned late last night from the annual Dance New England summer camp near Lake Ossipee in New Hampshire, and woke this morning with dancing tape still on a couple of toes, the echo of taut and trained muscle still in the sinews, and the ache of separation from that vibrant and affectionate community of dancers already wringing out some sighs.

A beautiful family event that has been going on for some 30 years, DNE Camp attracts top-quality teachers and chefs and musicians from all over, offering the best of what they have to upwards of 800 participants. The cost of classes, food and lodging is all part of the modest fee. This year, like most years, there were community elders in attendance, and adults who at one time were babies born to this once-a-year village; there were newly-inspired youth from all over the States and abroad; and toddlers to teens who arrived with their parents for this summertime camp.

The heart is torn by wind. When the heart-wind rises, true words are taken and replaced with falsehoods. That is the way of the wind. It is harder for the one afflicted, even, than it is for those he or she accosts: the heart is torn by wind, and the words and deeds which proceed from that turbulence further nothing.

Some words that helped me tonight…

“Being in harmony does not mean that we do not disagree or make mistakes and miss opportunities to understand one another. It means that we are doing our best and there is no division or split within the Sangha. We are sincerely practicing the way of liberation and peace for ourselves and for each other. We never forget our commitment to each other, our commitment to ourselves to practice mindfulness night and day, dwelling happily in the present moment. That is the teaching of the Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone. Harmony is our daily practice; it is our most essential practice.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Joyfully Together

Além do tecido da noite, meus queridos, brilha a luz. Sei, pois a noite está furada que nem com agulha, e as faíscas azuladas que vejo… ah será que são únicos estes Sols, desconectados um do outro?

Que nada, atrás daquele tecido escuro persiste a verdadeira Luz… bem como, atrás dos corpos e as mentes que nós vestimos (para ter algo tangível que podemos tocar, com orgulho ou com vergonha, dizendo: Ô! Oi! Olhe só: Eu!…), atrás destes véus superficias, sim, há algo tão grande, maior até do que podemos permitir existir… ou minimizar, meu colega, ou expandir, explodir como um sol.

A lot of good energy was directed to other pursuits for a few days. Our intentional Community, Odonata, offered it’s first evening in the Sacred Music Series, concerts with musicians whose art is devoted to the spirit through music. Sitartist David Pontbriand and tabla player Amos Libby entertained some sixty people at the Yoga Center of Newburyport, an inspired evening which took all in and sent them home with good grace.