September 10, 2002
Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
A few weeks ago I received an encouraging and insightful email that I will share it with you. It is very interesting and helpful to connect with people who have similar visions and ambitions, so I can bounce ideas and collaborate. Keys I need are held by others, and they too may fill in sections of my map, saving time and energy, providing a clearer path or a completely new direction I never imagined.
Dear Max/Cory,
You have reached out; now I am reaching back.
By now, you are used to getting mail from people you don't know. although
I'm sure it's still just as fun as it was in the beginning! I have been
following your story since July. I forget how I came upon your website
(you know how that goes, no doubt!), but I have a feeling I might have run
across it once before, a long time ago, and just forgot to follow up on it
(how did THAT happen?!) I am gladdened, and not in the least surprised,
that it has shown up on my path again.
I must let you know that I feel I have gained a friend in reading the
story-in-progress that is your life. The focus and vision you have put
into practice is a call to the world, providing yet another example of how
one person's commitment to living intentionally can catalyze a whole string
of related-yet-disparate events in the lives of people who may never even
meet each other. The thought of how many people you have spurred to action
invigorates me: like the sound waves produced by a tuning fork, your
message spreads. (well, THE message spreads, anyway! ;) ) Bless you,
thank you.
One reason I identify so much with your project is that I have a similar
project in the making: I have kept a series of journals for most of my life
(I am 26), which include all of my reading notes, thoughts, snippets of
overheard conversation, drawings, dream fragments, collages,
clippings.These journals have become an integral part of my life, and truly
are working tools for me. They are an external memory bank, helping me to
remember far more than I ever could without their help. They are
experimental spaces in which I try on ideas. They are investments in
history. They are the distilled form of everything that passes through my
life, a condensed version of all the wisdom I encounter, integrate, and
hope to preserve. They are storehouses from which I can glean nuggets to
pass on as needed. As it stands now, however, access to this information is
difficult because it is all mixed together: finding a specific quote, for
example, depends solely on my memory of when and where I wrote it down,
what color ink it was in, and what accompanied it on the page.
I would like to put the more recent journals online in the form of a
cross-referenced database, a huge project I began when I was attending
college (post-grad, for art) at the Sorbonne in Paris (1999-2000.) I have
since done some work organizing the material and getting it typed up, but I
must admit I have not worked on it in a while. Life has pulled me along
behind her.
I will tell you something about the turn my path has taken in the past
couple of years: I have been increasingly aware of the "cosmic saga"
aspect of our human lives, and I suppose that connecting with yours through
your website makes me want to connect you with mine through this letter.
("Divine economics", or something like that!) A major event has catalyzed
my entire family: we got thrown a curve ball! I left France two years ago
because my 19 year-old sister got in a very serious car accident
which left the 21(?) year-old driver dead. My sister was in a deep coma
for 8 months, and while she did experience sleep-wake cycles, she was
totally unresponsive to stimulus of any kind during most of that time.
Slowly, by layers, she began to emerge: first, her eyes moved; then came
her head.very slowly, very slowly. The rest of her body appeared totally
paralyzed, and her arms and legs were perpetually stiffened. After what
seemed like an eternity, and after much coaching by us, she could move her
finger on request (at first, the movements were so slight we weren't sure
if it wasn't just reflexes.) It was strange talking to her during this
time, because we had absolutely no indication that she understood us, or
could even hear us at all. It wasn't always easy coming up with things to
say, and at times the "conversation" was more of a conversation with
oneself than anything else. still, we kept on. Quite an experience.
The first big milestone came at the end of November 2000, eight months
after the accident: she smiled for the first time! It was the first
trace of any expression on her face since the accident. (Three people in
our family dreamed that she smiled the night before it happened.) After
that, everything seemed to speed up a little: to an outsider, progress
would still have seemed slow, but after what we had been through, she was
on a roll! She began to move her feet, legs, and arms, just barely at
first, but with ever-so-slight improvements in the degree of control as the
weeks and months went by. The paradigm shifter was when she started
shaking her head yes and no: WOW! We could actually communicate with her!
Imagine how amazed we were when we discovered she could actually read!!!
We rigged up a communication board on her wheelchair tray so she could be
more precise about her needs and feelings, but she didn't really use it
much: the essential, to her, was "to go outside": she would point to
herself, then to the door.
This February (2002), another huge milestone: she began to say words!!!
At first, it was basic: "yes," "no," "I hurt." Now, a few months later,
she is actively responding to her environment with spunk and imagination:
she is making jokes and saying things like "Gimme a break!" "Whatever!"
"Be quiet and listen to that guy on TV; he knows what he's talkin' about!"
Of course, understanding her requires what I call "listening in slow
motion" (a good skill to have!): her voice is still very drawn-out and
raspy, and often we must ask her to repeat herself many times before we
have the remotest clue what she is trying to say. But she never gets
impatient, and keeps smiling with every repetition.
In a sense, she has become a different person. as have all of us. This
is such a major event, so complex that I hesitate to even qualify it as
tragic. That might sound like a very strange thing to say, since my sister
lost nearly all of her former capacities, both mental (although we are not
even sure this is the case) and physical. But it is important for me to
mention that before the accident, she struggled with recurring
depression and other emotional troubles (she had been diagnosed with
bipolar disorder.) She had a very difficult life. Now, her life is even
more difficult in some ways-she is still being fed through a tube in her
stomach, since she cannot swallow food without some of it entering her
lungs, and at 21 she still has to have her diaper changed-but even so, she
is almost always happy. She has undergone a metamorphosis, and continues
to undergo it every day as she struggles to regain her speech, her
movement, and as much independence as she possibly can. Nobody knows how
much this might be: some doctors even predicted that she would remain in a
"persistent vegetative state"(ie: total lack of response to stimulus) for
the rest of her life, and recommended that we take her off food and water
after only a couple months! Those same doctors would now be amazed to see
her reading words, taking steps (with the aid of therapists), and asking
pertinent questions like, "Why did I have to get picked?" This is
certainly a difficult path, but seeing her laugh and cut up despite her
predicament is truly inspiring. My dad was right when he thought she
deserved a fighting chance.
When the accident first happened, I had to accept that she might die. She
was in ICU for months, in extremely critical condition the entire time.
She was literally hanging on by a thread. I felt that it was my human duty
to try to prepare myself for whatever outcome might be in the highest
cosmic interest. despite my love for her, or maybe because of it, I could
not in good faith will a specific outcome to occur. During this time, my
whole family was praying. I suppose I was "praying" in my own way.
The way I felt during those first months is difficult to describe: it was
like a beautiful cushion was there to soften the blow. Everything felt
somehow okay, despite the fact that our world was being turned upside down.
There has been an exponential increase in the intensity of my life since
this happened. I have even had other premonitory dreams since dreaming, the
night before the accident, a strangely allegorical scenario that was
clearly related to the accident itself.
I have videotaped footage of my sister's progress, which I may someday edit
into a film (I can visualize her looking back on the whole thing from some
point in the future, flabbergasted at her own journey.) Although I have
almost no experience editing, I did dabble in video while I was in
France-mostly shooting and experimental mixing, both with multiple video
sources and layers of slide and opaque projections. Most of these
experiments were done in "alternative" settings: art squats, warehouse
parties, week-long techno survival camps. I have a keen desire to continue
along this route, and feel that media work-video, as well as print and
web-based work-is a foremost tool for effecting change. Minds need
catalyzing out there!
This is why you are an inspiration to me: you are getting out there and
DOING! You are showing kids-and adults, for that matter-that they can
choose how they live their lives. Simple, yes, but how soon people forget!
(I have seen many people reminded of this as a result of my sister's
accident!) I share your passion for the outdoors, and every time I see
someone out there reminding people that therein lies supreme medicine for
society's ills, I am filled with solidarity and a renewed sense of purpose.
(When I was living at my dad's taking care of my sister, biking to the
river was a pure source of soul-renewal. ah, the woods! I was brought up
in the woods, and it has carved its impression into my being.)
Looking back over this letter, I realize that the impulse I had to reach
out to you seems to have more to do with what I have recently been through
than with who I actually am. but are the two really clearly
distinguishable? There are so many layers of elements. This is a time for
me of shifting energy patterns in my life, a stirring-around of things... I
follow peace and intensity! When things start happening as if they
function according to a cosmic sense of humor, coupled with unseen
visionary planning and unbelievably poetic narrative details, I can tell I
am on "the faster path" (at least temporarily!) I am at a crossroads in my
life, one of those points where something is about to change: I just don't
know yet exactly what and how! But I do know; I feel it. I am even
actively preparing for it, while remaining receptive and ready for whatever
may develop (or burst upon the scene!) I'm tilling the garden.
Since my sister's accident, I have had an increasingly distinct sense of my
soul playing a role here on earth. Every encounter is of sacred
importance. I know there are many friends out there I have yet to meet. I
look forward to unraveling the mystery a little more each day. Thank you
for being a part of it.
-S
(Got this one last night)
Hi Cory, sorry it has taken me a while to write back. Get ready for
another long one: I am in the mood to write again!
You asked in your email where I live, what I'm doing. When I came back from
Paris, I went to live with my dad, my then-16-year-old brother, and
my sister(who was in the accident) in the woods of southwest
Louisiana. My dad's land is nestled between the Calcasieu ("Screaming
Eagle") River and a lazy loop of Bayou Serpent, which I find interesting in
light of various mythologies (Quetzalcoatl, for example!) Both bodies of
water, which are in fact connected, are within walking distance from the
house: I certainly made use of this fact to take frequent breathers from
full-time nursing. I especially enjoyed biking down to the river dock,
where I would sit for hours reading, writing, doing yoga, filming the
water, spiders, trees, whatever. Our bend of the river shows no signs of
human presence, save for a houseboat way off in the distance that can
hardly be seen. And there are small boats that pass every once in a while
(fishermen). On my dad's little "farm," which he named after an obscure
constellation, there are cows, ducks, guinea fowl and chickens, as well as
a couple of beautiful pairs of ornamental pheasants. My brother has a horse and
a small flock of Barbados sheep (which actually look more like goats), and
there is a small garden enclosed with a solar-powered electric fence to
keep out the deer. The frogs and crickets at night are AMAZING.
In March of this year, I moved in with my mom and her husband, who live
outside of Baton Rouge (which is more to the east, in the direction of New
Orleans-which is about an hour and a half away from her house.) They don't
live as far out as my dad, but the area is still pretty rural (it's rapidly
leaning toward suburbia nonetheless!) After settling in for a short three
months, it was back to southwest Louisiana where I was a live-in dorm
counselor at an academic(including art, music, drama) summer camp for
gifted teens at a local university (I will be returning next year as the
art teacher for the program.) I have been back at my mom's since August,
blessed to have a place to land while I investigate potential trajectories.
Since leaving Europe, my life has basically been... "on loan" to my
family. Most of my friends live far away, scattered across the globe, and
my daily interactions are only with people (my family) who are quite
different from me in many ways. Of course, I am not one to concentrate on
differences, so this is not really a problem. although my dad and I did
tend to clash, which is the main reason I moved in with my mom. (I must say
that my dad does tend to clash with everyone!) It is also fortunate that I
like my solitude: although I do sometimes miss interacting face-to-face
with "my people," spending time in "cultural exile" is not so bad
considering I can occupy myself just fine with books, music, the internet,
and my personal projects.
I am ready, however, and feel that it is time, to step up my life a bit and
get back up to full speed. I have to tone everything down around here:
nobody in my family can relate to the things (feelings, ideas, theories,
inquiries, etc.) that impassion me the most, so our conversations don't
usually stray too far from the beaten track. I do enjoy being able to slip
in little things when I can, things they have never heard of: tidbits about
nutrition, potential dangers of genetically modified foods, lack of
biodiversity, the hazards of household chemicals, policies of the IMF/World
Bank and how they impact third world countries. I get to tell them about
art and artists and how Tibet invaded China in the fifties, about the dirty
deeds perpetrated by certain companies and governments. I am amazed
sometimes at what they aren't aware of, but the fact is that we live in
different worlds! Of course, there is only so far I can go sometimes, and
I must constantly discern the level of interest and receptivity of the
listener. I don't want to steamroll them! I tend to be ever-so-careful
on the subject of religion: when faced on surveys with the question "What
is your religion?", my favorite answer is "All and none." My family knows
my stance, more or less, but since my mother is very Christian (and a
loving, sincere one at that) I don't want to disturb her world beyond a few
gentle, healthy ripples... which do, of course, occur. (Thank god!) It
works out fine, because we are both receptive to each other. Live and let
live.
Since I have been back from my summer job, my days have been spent mostly
in reading, reading, reading. I tend to stay up late and sleep late
(although this morning I woke up early and surprised myself. having only
gotten about 5 hours of sleep!) I like staying up at night, often all
night and welcoming the morning, because the quiet is so deep and profound.
I get a lot done at night. I write, make things, organize my papers,
meditate, chill with the cat: it's either one or the other, never both of
them at once! There are two: my cat is Space, a grey and white,
medium-pile young male whom I've had since he was a kitten. He used to be
very hissy and stand-offish, always in the corner when the others were
curious and forthcoming, but he has since grown into a loving feline who
spontaneously snuggles and loves to flop onto his back, right at my feet,
for a good belly rub. His name comes from "He needs his space!" He's the
only survivor out of his litter. My mom's cat, Jabez, is a silky, black,
longhaired beauty with yellow eyes that glow out of her face. She'll stand
at my door watching me(waiting to see if Space is in the room, no doubt,
before she dares come in!), and all you can see are her eyes: no nose, no
mouth, just eyes in a black field. She is gorgeous, and also very loving
and chill. She doesn't like Space too much, though. They are civil, but
that's about it!
Since you asked me what I've been doing and I answered "reading," here are
some of the books I've had my nose in lately:
--Sacred Lands of Indian America (ed. Jake Page, photos by David Muench),
which describes recent land struggles between various tribes, private
companies and the federal government-gorgeous photos;
--Huxley and God, a series of essays by Aldous Huxley on-you guessed
it-God, religion and spirituality;
--The Soul of Rumi, translations of the Sufi mystic poet by Coleman Barks;
--Redesigning Humans by Gregory Stock, in which he looks at how the
not-so-distant future of our species could be impacted through DNA
manipulation;
--On Becoming A Person by Carl Rogers, a transpersonal psychologist who
(along with other pioneers like Maslow and Laing) believed that therapy
should put an emphasis on wholeness, individuality and creative growth
instead of on the suppression of symptoms and obsession with attaining
unilateral "norms";
--The Diary of Anne Frank, which I had never before read and which should
certainly be read by every teenager (and every adult!);
--Information Anxiety by Richard Saul Wurman (deals with "the black hole
between data and knowledge"; describes how we are "inundated with facts but
starved for understanding");
--Power Shift by Alvin Toffler, a sociological overview detailing the
shifting balances of power in the world;
--Mind and Nature by Gregory Bateson ("ranges beyond the "facts" of Western
science to discover the "Metapattern" that connects every living thing on
this planet.") He also wrote Steps to An Ecology of Mind, which is
excellent so far.
--Chronicles from the Environmental Justice Frontline (ed. J. Timmons
Roberts and Melissa Toffolon-Weiss) which describes recent environmental
battles in Louisiana, the "pollution haven" of America;
--The Thanatos Syndrome, a novel by Walker Percy set in Louisiana (in
Feliciana Parish, not far from where I live!) which tells of a
psychologist, recently out of prison for prescribing drugs a little too
easily, who goes back to his hometown and sees that people are acting kind
of weird. He ends up discovering that there has been a local conspiracy to
contaminate the water supply in order to "improve" citizen behavior and cut
down on crime, a plan which, of course, backfires. I borrowed that one from
my grandmother, and just finished it yesterday. (I also just read the first
chapter of another novel by Percy, The Moviegoer, which looks excellent so
far.) I don't usually read novels, so I am always glad when I find a
novelist that I like.
You asked me about ITVS. but this email is already pretty long! How about
I send you to their website so yuo can see for yourself: www.itvs.org.
ITVS is the Independent Television Service, a bridge of sorts between
independent producers and public television. They encourage programming
which tells stories that aren't otherwise covered in mainstream media, and
also provide funding for independent productions-something which could be
of potential interest to you. I recently applied for the staff writer
opening, and am waiting to hear from them. They are located in San
Francisco. A lot of people probably applied, but who knows?
I hear you about having a need for community, creating spaces for planting
seeds. Amen to that! Me too. Must be an epidemic! :)
I would not trade this generation for any other.
Oh, you may know of this, but I must pass it along anyway, just in case:
EarthSea, an intentional community in Nova Scotia, has an island for sale!
Cheap, too! Here is the URL:
http://home.tallships.ca/earthsea/IslandSale.html I told my dad in the
event he might like to make a crazy-dreamer investment, and he did express
mild interest (I sent him the printouts, which he hasn't seen yet) but the
reality is that you and yours are probably more likely candidates for such
an opportunity. Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to name your own island,
to have a permanent getaway? Man oh man. Anyway, have a look.. I couldn't
NOT tell you about it.
Hope this email did not inundate you.
I enjoyed writing it!
-S
(My reply)
Wow.. again... You put great images in my head--- of sitting on the dock reading and filming spiders. Sounds just like me. There's lots of spiders around here this time of year and I'm always looking at them.
So... I got up this mornin', grabbed a plum, crossed the lane into the forest and started swinging an axe, hanging from a harness, cutting dead limbs 30 feet up in huge fir trees where I'm building a tree house. I loved it... the sun beams pouring in through the canopy. I just love being outside working by myself. I already got one 20 foot log up and lashed to three trees as one beam of the platform, and the another 30ft log is ready to be lifted and lashed. I'm making an Ewok village with zip-lines connecting the main treehouse to my cargo net hammock on the other side of the valley(that you've likely seen on the site).
Got back a bunch of slides today from the latest adventures climbing in Clifton Maine and Hiking down the Salmon River. I love slides cuz the colors are true... not like prints that are manipulated at the lab. I have tons of amazing images in slides; gotta start making calendars and sending them to magazines. I don't want to send originals cuz I don't want to lose them, so I gotta find a way to make good copies.
I attended a Intro to Psychology class today with Tom. The prof talked and showed a video about different forms of intelligence and the ways they can be tested(IQ / SAT) ...and the purpose of testing... which I found interesting. I envision the FAR OUT School without standardized tests, but that each student must test themselves by creating a mission, a task, a trip, and completing it, and what they have to show for it afterward, which would be the equivalent of a grade, is the art they created along the way-- being a film, slide show, journal, paintings, music... whatever. So much of testing is about putting people in boxes to sort out the "smart" kids from the average and stupid. I was always the last to finish tests in school. I just think things over way too much. I read slow, and really wasn't motivated to learn what they tried to teach. Teachers never spent anytime with me nurturing my interests. Since I was 10 years old it's been my mission to find a better way to educate people like myself who don't want anything to do with being put in boxes.
Anyway... I'm getting tired and I want to update the journal. I'll add your letter to my journal cuz I think it's great. I think you are great! So please write again whenever you want, and ramble on however long you want.
You have a friend in me.
(Her reply shortly after)
Whoa, THAT was quick!!!!
I don't mind if you put the letter on your site, but I do have one request:
if you do, could you please leave our names out? Data
hygiene, ya know... I like to be discreet! Although I must admit that in
real life, I toe the line between discretion and healthy provocation...
everything in just measure. Generally speaking, I only stir things up if I
think it has a good chance of doing more good than harm. Many honest
mistakes are made when people forget to consider such things!
Sounds like you had a very satisfying day... hanging in the trees all days
making the reality outside conform to the reality inside... very cool, very
cool! I LOVE being up in trees, wow, magical in the most natural way. I
want to read that book by Julia Butterfly Hill, The Legacy of Luna, where
she tells of her two-year tree sit to protect a thousand-year-old
redwood... surely you know about it. I just looked her up on the web, and
looking at all of the photos has tweaked my tearducts... Bless her
soul!!!!!!!
When I was living in Paris, my boyfriend and I made a lot of slides. Some
were photographs (straight and abstract and everywhere in between), but
others we made by cutting things out here and there and laser-copying them
onto transparencies. We also made some by scratching and painting directly
onto the film. We would layer a bunch of projections on walls, floor,
ceiling....nice effects. Know what, you could throw projections onto that
cargo net and it would look really cool (we tried a similar effect in a
festival once.) You can't necessarily discern the picture itself, but it
doesn't matter because your brain does all the fill-in work: the 3-D
surfaces, textures, and patterns are often more interesting distorted than
straight. (What a fine piece of work is the brain and all of its attendant
data-gathering devices: eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin! ) Projectors might
take a lot of solar power, but you could maybe hook up to a car battery or
something... I don't know enough about electricity yet. One more thing to
add to the ever-growing list of things I want to learn!
Speaking of learning... yeah, tell me about the box-in-the-kids systems...
or is it the kids-in-the-box systems? Now, to boot, we(here in the States)
have the new "accountability" rules put forth by Bush, which are pushing
standardized testing even more than before. When I was in school, we had
what they call "tracking": special classes for the "gifted," which were a
mixed blessing. Good for me, because I was in them, but what about all of
the kids who felt like shit because they weren't? And who didn't get to do
the cool things we did (independent projects on subjects of our choosing,
raising crawfish, letting bugs walk through paint to study the pattern of
their footprints, going to the Space Center in Houston and seeing Hopi
Kachina dolls in the Starks Museum, using computers when they were still a
rarity, watching the news and discussing it "like grown-ups", planting a
garden, etc... A GARDEN! EVERY school kid should be able to participate
in the miracle that is a garden! Isn't it crazy that growing a simple
garden has become an exotic frill rather than the most basic of basic?! )
We would actually LEAVE regular class in the middle of the day and go to
our "special" class.
I am sure that that shortsighted policy left scars on many of my friends
and classmates who "missed by 2 points" or some similar such. Like you
said, not every kid is cut out for standardized tests (thank GOD for that!)
and many amazing little creatures get dropped through the holes--sometimes
the more brilliant ones. Those classes were not beyond the reach of
"ordinary" kids... but this is something else which bothers me: what IS an
"ordinary" kid? Who decides the norm? And how? I think what it usually
boils down to is BUDGET, VISION, and EFFORT. There is no budget for extra
teachers, training and equipment, and there is no VISION to work toward
obtaining it, because for most people (teachers, administration) it is too
much EFFORT. Or else they see no reason to even change at all, because
"everything is already okay as it is: why change?" My "gifted" teacher,
who is still a friend after having taught me from elementary through high
school, has repeatedly told me how much resistance even SHE encountered
from various institutional administrators. You know, the crazy thing is,
innovative teaching programs don't even NEED extra budget, really. At
least not much. What they need are PEOPLE WITH VISION WILLING TO GO THE
DISTANCE.
And that's where people like me and you come in!
Your grading system sounds head-on. How is planning for the school coming?
(You know, you could look into getting a grant(s) to BUY THE ISLAND for
your school... now wouldn't THAT be a true "Far Out" project!? I'm
serious!! And you KNOW I am! And I KNOW you know!) Thinking cap time....
good luck and godspeed to you(even though I don't believe in luck! ;) )
Anything is possible. Your life is showing kids that all the time!
You have a friend in me too,
-S
PS.
It's funny, when you said you went to psychology class with Tom, I had the
total picture in my head, having seen pics of him on the site: kayaking,
hiking, etc.... Hi, Tom! :)
