"Occupy" [and] Oberlin

Art is good.  I miss touring the work of the masters and was happy to have the chance to stroll through Allen Museum on Oberlin's campus today.  I can feel parts of my soul moved and parts of my brain activated after years of deprivation.

Stephen (Director of First Year Experience at Oberlin College) was kind enough to give me a tour of Kahn Residence Hall (2008):

The hall features a student pledge regarding sustainability:

KAHN HALL SUSTAINABILITY PLEDGE

I embrace the concept of sustainable living and pledge to do my part to promote environmentally responsible practices as a member of the community that will reside in the LEED-Silver rated first-year residence hall.

I understand that central to this agreement is my commitment to engage actively and responsibly in practices that conserve energy, reduce pollution, and minimize the negative impact of daily life on the environment:

TRANSPORTATION

I will not bring a car to Oberlin during the year in which I live in this residence hall. I will seek alternative transportation options that have fewer negative impacts on the environment than the use of individual cars (e.g., biking, taking buses, carpooling, using college vans, etc.). Should a situation occur that requires me to request an exception to this policy based on an accommodation, I will petition the Office of Residential Education. If I choose to bring a car to campus, I understand that I may be removed from Kahn Hall.

ENERGY

I will engage in behaviors that will help to conserve energy by:

Turning off lights when I leave a room. Taking advantage of natural sunlight during the day by keeping lights off until I really need them. Unplugging appliances that do not rely on a steady stream of electricity (e.g., phone chargers, stereos, etc.) Turning off my computer when I am not using it and putting it to sleep whenever possible.

WATER

I will minimize unnecessary consumption of water and use resource responsibly by:

Limiting the time I take to shower Using organic and natural body care products (if possible) to minimize the environmental impact of cleaning products Conserving water in my everyday activities Using reusable water containers instead of purchasing bottled water

WASTE MANAGEMENT

I will minimize the amount of trash I create in an effort to reduce waste by reusing, recycling, or composting items I discard.

These commitments to which I hereby agree will inform my decisions at Oberlin this year and will be integral to my experience of living in this residence hall community, but will also lead me to adopt habits which I will exercise outside of my residence hall, in my future Oberlin residential experience, and throughout my life.

I think students could adopt all/some of this pledge at Kirkwood for individual change projects.  I am going to contact Stephen again, however, as I am curious whether the pledge could include reference to diet.  If meat and dairy consumption fuels more carbon emissions than all transportation combined (18 and 14%, respectively), perhaps a future redaction could mention diet?

As the theme for the community is sustainability, the hall features energy feedback monitors in each segment of each floor of the building:



Before heading to the "Occupy Spirituality" conference, I also arranged to tour the renown Lewis Environmental Studies Center on campus:



Catherine gave me a tour (along with Oberlin's Director of Development) beginning in the carbon sequestering foyer with fountain pump run by the outside solar array:



This building also includes an energy meter, but the readout includes the use of various community/City agencies in town under the stewardship of a Psychology Professor looking at the impact of feedback on individual behavior (if I am able, I will join her on the alumni kayaking trip in July to learn more!):

The Lewis Center uses solar arrays on all structures including parking:



The College is currently producing about 130% of needed energy and selling back to the grid.  Unfortunately battery size and cost are prohibitive.

Additionally, the Center features a movable (i.e., Joel Salatin) chicken coop:

The chickens, along with the orchard and gardens (see below) are part of the education of students regarding the cycle of food production through growing/composting all the way to waste.  I learned it's best to situate fruit trees buffered on the North side to prevent bark splitting with sun/temperature difference in winter.  I also appreciate that Catherine is also a fan of Polynesian/vertical style plantings (as opposed to row crops).



Speaking of waste, as soon as I sat down to use the facilities, I was greeted by the following reading materials:

All waste is treated by the 'living machine' in the building:

The 'living machine' uses plant filtration to turn waste products into water suitable for toilet flushing and watering.

Speaking of toilet flushing, there's also a toilet that doesn't flush; a composting toilet:



I have been a snob about smells my whole life and have to say this restroom has less odor than any I've been in.  All you need to do is 'do your deed' and scoop 1/4 cup of wood chips (the 'green' that breaks down the 'brown') in after you.  In the basement, there is a large composting machine and single fan.  Again, there is no odor and the machine has only been emptied once, which resulted in composted material safe to touch with your hands.  [I did not take a picture of the machine not due to odor, but because I was afraid of the spiders downstairs and wanted to leave quickly!]

Catherine and I also talked small-scale home building and discussed the merits of passive solar, highly insulated, radiant floor heating (plus wood burning, though there are emissions from that) with a composting toilet (state law allowing on the latter) for individual homes.  The tour was fabulous.

After my tour, I headed to Cleveland and the River's Edge Spirituality Center for the two day conference on "Occupy Spirituality" starting with a keynote address.  The book has already been the genesis for numerous assignment ideas in previous blogs.  Adam and Matthew are magnetic and Adam's presence transformative.  I was reminded of many things that will contribute to assignments, including:

• "The artist carries the wounds of the culture," which applies both to the instructor and to the sociological imagination.
• The importance of: letting go, not responding to chaos with fear, not taking anything (including the breath) for granted, and be true to yourself.
• Knowledge is not something static you can 'catch,' but rather a dialogue that erodes false categories of professor and student (as well as all other false dichotomies of status and identity).
• It is important to feed the creative side of the brain and not lose the soul in the intellect given that the intellect is the aspect rewarded within educational institutions.
• You must drop your mask and allow others to drop theirs in order to feel.
• Policies must FEEL acceptable and authentic and purposeful.
• Assignments are best when experiential and the result of questioning and curiosity in class discourse.
• New economies must protect the experienced nature rather than anthropocentric needs.
• Practice that 'calms the reptilian brain' must be done (e.g., Vipassana meditation).
• Assignments must be creative and experiential and could tap: 'Adbusters' mentality, art, music, growing, building, doing/service, COOKING,spending time with animals/nature, living on minimum wage, etc.  Assignments that are larger with documentaries or change projects and creative endeavors must be presented with question and answer.
• Students and I need to gather in small community, ask questions, learn how to be 'leaderless' (and hence leaderful) by allowing students to find true gifts and develop/present those.
• Assignments should be shared with a classmate for clarity and evaluation and then shared with larger groups/class.  By teaching, students will know that they understand.
• Mentors must listen and allow students to share their wisdom.  Students cannot be told, but rather taught to question in community.
• Missed assignments result in coming to talk to me?!  Same goes with missing class (it is what would happen with jobs as well).
• Assignments, large and small, will be approached one step at a time with help from all of us.  Obstacles will be identified and eliminated.
• Our class will not live in boredom and pessimism, but rather alive with students pursuing true calling/vocation in life.
• All of us will do and share assignments together, including creative endeavors (like my new 'art of exploitation' adventure).
• We will challenge ourselves to do the things of which we are most afraid.  Matthew Fox, after praising my heavy use of their book (Adam even  took a picture of this),

dedicated the book by saying 'dance.'

I typically do neither and yet I found our 'prayer circle' praising Native traditions through song and dance one of the best things I've done in recent history.  Mantra: Do precisely that which you think you do not want to do or of which you are most afraid.

• Along with 37 questions first week, share my 'what breaks your heart' (violence toward others and animals, early, air, water) and 'what makes feel alive' (doing things that are new and different).
• Allow questions to be organic.  Students are probably more in touch with the right side of their brains than I am and hence better equipped to ask some questions.
• Creativity can include personal change projects.  I used to love architecture and think it's now time to design our home based on repurposing and environmental principles.
• Rewire myself to be in touch with spiritual.
• Allow compassion in class to use the heart to assist others (and employ metta).
• Encourage students to build/create new institutions in addition to buy/boycotting and voting change (as all politicians are bought and paid for).
• Don't struggle in the 'small world' of ego.  Instead find fun, play, experiential, spontaneous that energizes with newness and learning.
• Ask: do we need a new world order?, is our culture mature?, etc.

I still lack a firm sense of more course policies, but I think if I follow the 'averse to means move forward' rule, I'll be getting somewhere.  I'm presently thinking students should call me if they can't make it to class.  It's what they'd have to do with work, right?!  :)  Peace out, B.

Acceptance is an expletive...

but sometimes it must happen.  And you have to let go of the fact that you are not living the life you intended (the latter phrase stolen from Matthew Fox).  Please just grant me the wisdom to not fight anymore, but rather to just accept what is.  The decision to go by 'B' in class (and often outside of class as well) also reflects 'just be [B.]'

Speaking of Matthew Fox, more soon from his book Creativity.  I love it so far.  I will blog about his words from the conference in a separate post, but his invigoration of the 'right brain' with creativity may be just what I need.  I was moved to tears by art at Oberlin's museum, now it's time to deal with the breaking of my heart by news headlines with making some art of my own.  I will call it the 'art of exploitation.'  I'm not certain of the medium, probably mixed, but I am excited to start.

I am also excited to start my creation of home design that is repurposed as much as possible and the nearest to low impact that it can be.

LOCAL (organic) vegan

In addition to growing some of our own food in the community garden (hopefully?!), the DVD Locavore
reinforces the imperative of eating locally and preserving abundance whenever possible.  I think the film will work well for students as it is full of step-by-step means of moving in a local direction as well as helpful resources like: localharvest.org and foodroutes.org, which further the idea of a "glocalized" (e.g., regional economies) society.  The above resources can be used to find farmer's markets, CSAs, and/or learn the routes foods travel.

Vipassana and professional development- Part 2

Just finished visiting the Pakasa Vipassana Center to serve (May 6-8) in Illinois.  It was interesting both to visit a new center and to have the opportunity to serve.  Serving really does blend the 'real world' with contemplation as you are both (stressfully) cooking and coordinating meals for 70 people at the same time you are sitting in meditation.

Formal meditation at the center helps prevent me from lapsing into 'thinking' about equanimity by forcing me instead to experience equanimity (balanced mind free from craving/aversion).  If I want to implement contemplative practice in the classroom, I will need to return, perhaps monthly, to a center to serve.  True selflessness and indefatigable compassion are fairly antithetical to the teachings of modern society.  In my opinion, they also must be experienced and not just contemplated.

• As such, future professional development will likely hinge on in-semester visits to serve at a center.

From the experience, I am reminded of the following for class:

• Students must be given an opportunity to heal themselves before caring about others.
• Curiosity and questions are always better than 'knowing' and 'telling.'
• Solutions come about more easily when shared goals have been identified and individual agendas loosened.
• Individual agendas do no good.  It is so much easier to question and listen without simultaneously fighting to prove your own point.
• Assignments in mindfulness can be as simple as looking for representations in society, pondering the origins of personal favorites, and returning to nature.

It doesn't look like much now...

...and it probably won't look like much later, but it's a start.  Another 'personal change' project is to increase the amount of local food consumed.  If we were eating as in the olden days, we'd be eating seasonally rather than mass produced, post harvest ripened, genetically engineered foods (e.g., Tomatoland).  Since disgust was registered last spring at my $2 orange pepper from Holland, here are my before:

and after:

pictures of plot 2 at the Coralville Community Garden.

Though I've never grown anything, "Cowspriracy" reminds that it's still important to pay attention to the organic and local elements of a vegan lifestyle.  The garden features beets on the far left, spinach on the far right (I think...I might have that reversed!), watermelon in the rear, peas in the middle, and winter squash (acorn like, I think) in the front.  I will have to place some Irish Spring soap around the perimeter as things begin to sprout.  I also have a small pot of basil (with green onion coming soon) at our condo.

Lessons learned so far from the garden:

• Slow is good.  I've always read, moved, processed, etc., with the end of getting things done as quickly as possible and then moving on to 'the good stuff.'  I'm working hard to go deeper and slower so that each task is, instead, part of the good stuff!  [Plus it's hot out there and I have to go slowly.]
• I like biking to the garden.  I don't need a lot of supplies as there are some tools on site and I'm old school (read: I don't buy extra things for this endeavor).  12th Avenue is a bit of a doozie for me, so I take shortcuts, but otherwise I didn't die on my first garden commute.  This is good.  I guess.
• I made friends.  Someone spared a bit of 'brawn' to open the water spigot for me, someone else asked a question about getting a plot, and a third gentleman came over to offer some advice.  The latter was greatly appreciated and confirmed my suspicion that fencing was not indicated (rabbits burrow under and deer scoff).
• Speaking of critters, I like them.  As I was digging in the mulch and dirt, I saw many (many!) spiders and lots of different types of ants.  Historically, I run screaming from spiders (or worse, commit spidercide).  Since adhering (mostly...) to the 5 precepts of Vipassana meditation, I haven't killed a critter.  I've tried to be curious about them, study them, and move toward the fear I have.  Spiders are the biggest challenge.  I like interacting with them outside the best as I believe that's their turf.  Inside, I am practicing spider relocation.