Voice In The Wilderness

FATHER'S DAY 2009

2009-06-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

by Christopher Nyerges

When my father’s 80th birthday coincided with Father’s Day some years ago, I wrote a pictorial booklet for my father which outlined key aspects of our life together. It was my way of thanking my father. My wife Dolores and I went to his home after the wild cacophonous family gathering had ended. We didn’t want an audience in an atmosphere of laugher, sarcasm, and possibly ridicule. I only wanted to share the thank you story with my father in a somewhat serious atmosphere.

Dolores and I brought some special foods, put on some music, and I began my short presentation beginning with my earliest significant memories. I shared with him my memories of how he told me I would be an artist when I grew up. He always told me to put my bike and toys away, so "the boogeyman" wouldn’t steal them. As I grew older, I learned that the world was indeed full of very real "boogeymen" and my father attempted to provide me with ways to protect myself against these unsavory elements of life.

I recalled to my father, while my mother and Dolores listened on, the birthday party adventures, getting hair cuts in the garage, and how my father tolerated my interest in mycology and wild edibles.

Everyone found the recounting amusing, even funny, but there were also tears mixed with the laughter. As with most memories, some things my father recalled quite differently from me, and some he didn’t recall at all. Some things that I saw as life-and-death serious, he saw as humorous, and vice versa.

But above it all, I felt I’d finally "connected" with him at age 80 in a way that I’d never managed to do before. My "fathers day card" wasn’t pre-made by a card company, but consisted of my own private and secret memories that I shared with him. I managed to thank him for doing all the things that I took for granted – a roof over my head, meals, an education, a relatively stable home.

Of course, all our family members – "insiders" – knew that my father was no saint. But I was at least acknowledging the good, and sincerely thanking him for it.

My mother died two years later, and we all knew my father would be lost without her. They’d been married over 50 years. His health and activities declined and he finally passed away on the Ides of March a few years later.

Though his death did not come as a surprise – I was nevertheless left feeling his absence. That early Saturday morning when I learned of his death, I even felt parent-less. My view of the world changed and I was forced to acknowledge the limits of life and the futility of pursuing solely a material existence.

After I learned of his death via a phone call, I walked out into the morning rain, in shock, crying, thinking, remembering. I was not feeling cold or wet, and somehow I was protected by that unique state of mind that enshrouded me.

During the next three days, I did as I had done with my mother when she died. I spent the next three days reviewing my life with my father.

At first I allowed the random memories and pain to wash over me. I talked to Frank constantly during those three days, inviting and allowing him to be with me as we did the life review together. I felt his pain, his frustration, his emptiness and loneliness in his last few years of life. I did nothing to stop the pain of this – I allowed myself to feel it all.

I spoke to Frank as I’d speak to anyone living. I felt his presence and even his responses. I did this for myself as much as for Frank and his on-going journey.

I began to see him as a young man, who met, fell in love, and married my mother. Somehow, this was a major revelation to me. I had never seen my own father in that light before. He had simply been "my father." Suddenly, he was a unique individual, with his own dreams, aspirations, and goals. Amazingly, I’d never viewed him in this way during our life together.

And then, after perhaps 12 hours of this, and miles of walking, I began a more chronological review of my life with my father, point by point by significant point. I saw his weaknesses and strengths, as well as my own. As I did this review, I looked for all the things that I’d done right with my father, all the things I’d done wrong, and all the things that I could have done better. I wrote these down, and the "wrong" list was shockingly long. The "right" list only contained a few items!

I asked my father to forgive me, and I resolved to do certain things differently in order to change and improve my character. I know I would not have imposed such a rigor upon myself had it not been for the death of my father.

A week later, when there was the funeral at the church, I felt that I’d come to know my father more than I ever was able to do in life. I briefly shared to the congregation my three days of "being with" my father, and learning what it was like to be Frank, in his shoes, and how we forgave one another.

More importantly, I shared to family and friends gathered that day the importance of constantly finding the time to tell your living loved ones that you indeed love them, not waiting until they die to say the things that you should be saying all along.

I remember Frank now on Father’s Day, and continue to express my heart-felt thanks for all that he – and my mother – gave to me.

CRISIS OR OPPORTUNITY?

2009-03-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

FINDING THE REAL WORLD BEYOND THE MONETARY WEBBERY

Money. Greed. Fear. The three horsemen of the new apocalypse. Everyone wants a scapegoat – the bankers, Bush, Obama, The Fed, the highly-paid CEOs. But in our zeal to find someone to crucify, we forget that all of us played a role in this economic crisis. Greed fueled the “housing boom” that had to inevitably crash.
An acquaintance told me during the height of the dizziness, “I can’t afford to NOT use all that equity in my home,” as he refinanced his way to debt. “That’s MY equity,” he assured me, not even realizing that “home equity” is a phantom asset. Where did we lose the notion that it is sound and wise to pay off our loans?
In our book “Extreme Simplicity: Homesteading in the City,” we shared in the last chapter some of the illusions of money that most of us carry around with us every day in our brains. We shared our perspective of something called “the four illusions of money,” which we originally read about in the 1979-80 Co-Evolution Quarterly.
One of these illusions is that if we have a lot of money, we will be free to do whatever it is that we feel we want to do. Of course, few people who are victims of this mental illusion ever define what they mean by “a lot” of money, and – amazingly – few take the time to specifically define those things that they “want to do.” I say amazingly, because how can one ever achieve any goal if you have not carefully and specifically defined the goal?
And the reason this idea is an illusion is because when we focus upon money – an abstraction – we tend to then lose sight of the fact that money is a tool to achieve some other goal. How and when did the acquisition of money become a goal in itself?
Of course, in a modern society, everyone has daily needs which are most readily met by money: paying rent or mortgages, buying food, medical needs for the family and children, insurance, gasoline for the car, clothes, etc. These are not the things I am speaking about.
I am referring to the need for us to define, personally, our short-term and long-term goals. Also, we should – perhaps even daily – continue to ask ourselves: What is the meaning of life? Why do I do what I do all day? Am I fulfilling whatever it is that I was born to do? If not, what can and should I do?
I strongly urge you all to read these details in the “Extreme Simplicity” book – and you can get the book from our store at www.ChristopherNyerges.com, or you can get it at Amazon, or any bookstore which can order it.
But here is one way to break free from this particular monetary illusion. List several of your important goals in life. You cannot list “making more money” as one of your goals. Yes, money may help you to achieve your goals more quickly, but you cannot list earning more money as a goal. List those things that you want to do, or achieve, or those skills that you want to master.
List each of these goals on a separate piece of paper. Next, write a simple series of steps that you can see yourself actually doing that leads you in the direction of achieving that goal. Do not list money on this list.
Your steps for achieving your goals should include some of the following: Asking others to work with you to achieve your goals. Asking others to give you things that you need to achieve the goal, or barter with you for objects you need. Consider ways to trade your time or labor so that someone else can give you things or trade consultation or labor so that you might achieve your goals. See?
Begin to see the real world, apart from the webbery of money, and see the people in your life who can work with you to achieve your goals.
Those of you who take these steps, and move forward towards your goals, will find that world seems like an entirely different place. You will discover your brother, and you will find that when two or more of you are working cooperatively towards a meaningful goal, your life will be richer, more meaningful, and your fulfillment will come in the journey.

DOING THE BIRTHDAY RUN

2009-01-20T09:02:00.000-08:00

How I reviewed my life one year at a time

By Christopher Nyerges

[Nyerges teaches classes in practical survival, is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine, and the author of "How to Survive Anywhere," and other books. He can be reached at www.ChristopherNyerges.com]

My new year came Sunday, January 11, my date of birth. So that’s my personal New Year. As has been my custom, I did a birthday run where I run one lap around a track for each year, and review that year as I run. In a sense, I run through my life, looking back at where I started, where I went, what’s happened in between, and seeking whatever lessons I can.

This year, I didn’t do laps around a track, but ran up and down a dirt driveway for each "lap," a distance of about a fifth of a mile.

For me, 2008 had been a year of pain – losing my dog of 17 years on Easter Sunday, and losing my wife of 22years in early December. Christmas and New Year’s burned by in the time warp I was in, not wanting another close person to be gone. I focused hard as I ran my birthday run, trying to re-live my life, trying to really feel, again, what I felt back then, and my pain came back.

My first awareness of being born was that something was very wrong, that I came from some very holy sacred place and now I was back in a human body on this Dark Age planet. I cried uncontrollaby as I ran, just as I did in my first few years of incoherence and confusion. Yet, I slowly learned what it was to be human, and though I never grew out of my feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and forever out of the loop, I learned the ways of man, of deceit, of double-talk, lies, beguilement.

I’d forgotten – until I did my life-review run – that I once knew that I came from some level of purity and Innocence, then descended to human-ness, and then I worked to learn how to "fit in" to the ways of the grown up world. As I ran each lap, I tried hard to just feel it, and to find the lessons that I still needed to learn.

I remember visiting my grandfather in Ohio, and how he yelled at my mother for some petty thing. I was only a child, but I never forgot that puzzling scene. I somehow thought that getting older meant that people grew wiser, more respectful, more controlled – but this was merely one experience that taught me that was not so.

I remembered as a teen stealing cigarettes and other things at local stores, and eventually getting involved in marijuana for a short while. Both my parents were working and there was no one watching. I looked up to the neighborhood "bad boys" who smoked and swore and stole things, and were it not for getting caught and exposed, I could have stayed on that pointless, nowhere path of crime.

Fortunately, I went through some sort of internal renaissance at age 14, and began taking martial arts classes, learning music, and studying Buddhism and philosophy. I saw that I knew next to nothing, and still I looked positively to the future. At age 54 as I ran, I could see that the past is very much alive in all I we do now, and the future is already written by what I think, and do, and feel as I live each moment.

I found I could do my birthday run with mental eyes wide open, facing all my fears, and perceptions of inadequacy.

In high school, I entered into the world of ideas, and the vast potential good that was available for the world if people – if I – lived ecological lives, though I was too naieve at that time to see the vast overwhelming influence of the pursuit of money in most of us.

I constantly felt the frustration of never really learning anything in school, but I learned to play the game, and learned how to play at journalism so that I could write and share ideas. I didn’t learn how to think, nor did I receive any moral rudder of any sort while in school. I simply learned about the tools I needed in order to go forward.

As I ran, I reviewed my travels, seeking something, rarely finding it. I reviewed my search for "real community," and my various successes in this regard. I felt so happy reviewing the time Dolores and I drove all the way to Oklahoma to take part in the 150th commemoration of the Trail of Tears, and Dolores spoke to the gathered audience with a Shining Bear reading. The whole trip was a magical dream.

Amazingly, I came to the realization that I wasted a vast portion of my life in the pointless pursuit of sex, or whatever I thought that meant. I was too dumb most of the time, too driven by my own animal nature, to cognize the difference between Love and Sex. Even studying Eric Fromm’s classic "Art of Loving" – though a step in the right direction – only began to reveal to me that "love" is not what we are shown on TV shows. True love fulfills, yet only sex is fleeting, and a terrible waste of time, and often a destroyer of families and neighborhoods. It was sobering as I ran to see that dark side of sex all throughout my life, something that I have only slowly been able to deal with.

In the last 10 years, I felt both uplifted by my work, and depressed by my own weaknesses and deficiencies. My separation from Dolores was a source of great sadness, but that sadness was later replaced by the inner enlightened joy of two people, respecting each other, freely coming together for certain goals. We worked together for some of the public gatherings we conducted at our WTI non-profit, and many writings, and other projects. So when Dolores made her final transition in December of last year, I felt both devastated, and forced to review all that was good, all that would take me into the future with the world we created.

So many lessons flowed from this run that it would take a book to record them all –most very personal lessons. I remember thinking that Dolores had created a wonderful life for herself, and that I wanted to do the same, and still want that. I also took faith in a quote from Michael Savage, that "Work is the only salvation."

What Happened on the Massage Table

2009-01-14T12:43:00.000-08:00

Falling into inner space

It was already getting dark at the Highland Park farmers market, and my back was hurting me from all the running I’d done two days earlier. My birthday was two days earlier and I followed my two-decades long custom of doing a birthday run where I ran a lap for each year of my life, as I mentally reviewed that year. It had been an awesome run which took me two hours. Anyway, I told my assistant that I was going to get a massage at the shiatsu booth at the market. My back was killing me. Plus I was thinking about my wife Dolores – it had been over a month since she passed away, but I was still missing her very much.

Chiyoki had me lie down on her massage table, and I instantly felt some relief just by lying down. Then she went to work, first on my scalp and then working her way down my back. There’s something about pushing, squeezing, working the flesh and muscle – it was simultaneously painful and enlightening. Something about the pain I was experiencing, both mentally and physically, allowed me to enter into some other twilight-zonish space where time didn’t exist. Maybe the massaging released certain chemicals into my bloodstream and brain – I don’t know. But as Chiyoki continued to twist my arms and knead my back as if it were dough, my mind went into early childhood memories as vivid as yesterday’s breakfast.

I was sitting in the kitchen late at night with my mother, talking about all the things we used to talk about when everyone else was asleep. I would be trying to identify plants that I’d collected that day with my many books, while my mother would drink tea and read her newspapers and magazines. "How can God have had no beginning?" I would ask her. "How can the Pope be infallible?" I would ask her. We discussed these matters at length, and she would often say that I should ask the priest. But later, when word got back to her that I was debating the parish priest, she would yell at me and say "Who do you think you are, talking back to the priest?" It was a pleasant memory, whether we agreed or not, since we could sit there and talk, and she died about 10 years ago.

Time was non-existant as Chiyoki worked my back, and the incense from the next booth wafted over me, reminding me of being an altar boy at the Catholic church, and getting up early before school to practice and to help the priest say Mass. Why was I thinking of that? Was it merely the smell of incense triggering a memory? I thought long and hard about spiritual matters of that sort, and was once serious about going into the priesthood, but something along the way disillusioned me. The past was no less alive then as it was now, as the thoughts and ideas coursed through my consciousness, as the music of the Vera Cruz singers down the block rang out and reminded me of travels to Mexico.

Chiyoki began pulling each arm into the middle of my back and I was about to scream, but I just let her do it. I felt my body needed it. And as I relaxed into the pain, I was climbing the Pyramid of the Sun again, standing at the top as I did in 1974, wondering about the people who planned and built such majesty, and wondering what happened to it all. Past, present, future -- all aspects of the same reality. We think, we build, we live, we die. Our parents and families form our character, and then we make choices, and then we do whatever it is that we were genetically destined to do. What was I destined to do, I thought at the top of the pyramid? Does all life, and all culture, end? If so, what is the point of it all?

I was experiencing some sort of mental free-fall, an internal Fellini movie, highlights of memorable conversations, meetings, endings, as the incense flowed, and the singing rang through the street, while my muscles were being given a good beating.

"OK, all done," she finally told me. I got up, put on my hat, and walked back into the market, realizing once again the illusion of time, and the reality that nothing matters in and of itself, but only how we approach what we do, and whether or not we learn from life.

-- Christopher

Brother Can You Spare Some Change?

2008-10-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

A current social commentary
By Christopher Nyerges

They’re telling us on the radio
That change is coming soon
They seem to think that they’re talking to
People living on the moon.

O brother can you spare some change?
I ain’t eaten since noon
The police have made me change my tune
I’ve changed three times since noon.

They’re telling us on the TV
That change is coming soon
I saw the guy who was talking fast
He was born with a silver spoon.

Another bum hit me on the head
He sure looked like a goon
He took what little change that I did have
And he contributed to my ruin.

They’re telling us in the papers
That change is coming soon
They’re lying to us through their red-tie suit
they sound like the outcasts of Dune.

O brother can you spare a dime
I’ve missed a meal another time
I’ve moved my tent three times since full moon
And they’re saying change is coming soon.

They’re telling us on the internet
That change is coming soon
but with no change in my pocket
I can’t even buy a prune.

Please take me to your leader
My life is full of changing tune
I don’t know where I am anymore
I feel like I’m living on the moon.

My life is full of too much change
But I can’t even buy an apple core.
I see the men in their clean suits
But each looks like a whore.

I’m staring out the window
Of the blue bus going downtown
The world was changing around me
There’s just too much change goin’ round.

They’re telling us on the street corner
That change is all the rage
I can’t live forever in the alley
I’m much too old for my age.

But these men in spotless suits and ties
From their open mouths do flow their lies
They speak with straight face and smile
That change will be here in a while

They’re telling us on the billboards
The world’s coming to an end
I don’t have enough change for a sandwich
But there’s plenty for the bailout to lend.

I long so much for the good old days
Back when no one even had a fridge
Back when Wall Street’s big bust hit
and bankers jumped from every bridge.

They’re telling us on the radio
That change is coming soon
They seem to think that they’re talking to
People living on the moon.

092508 – all the talk of change, while the homeless ask me for change, and banks are failing every day – change is certain…

THE SINKING SHIP

2008-10-06T13:12:00.001-07:00

Copyright Christopher Nyerges
Commentary on our current state of society

We’re whirly giggling very fast
Gotta hurry make these profits fast
No time for boring prophets past
Wear white robes, said first will be last
Today we seek the dollar profit
So from his pulpit throw him off it
We no longer need to rough it
Tell the preachers they should stuff it
We’re bright future moving fast
Hair that shines, polyester pants
Cut down more trees to build our plants
Try to ignore Ed Begley’s rants
Our great profit must be vast
Cuz we’re number one, future and past
What matters fresh? Let food be gassed
If dollars there, we’d mine Mt. Shast’
Wild land is a thing I hate
It’s non-performing real estate
Tree-hugging is a weakness trait
Save them a tree for go-away bait

O ye who control the fate
Of our vast land and of the state
Humbly look to what your action’s worth
Can’t you see beyond your wide girth
Don’t you see what your thoughts give birth
Your greed it makes a hell on earth

This greed it now is a pervasive thing
It causes us to no more sing
We hide inside our computer king
And no more does our mind take wing
We’re slaves indeed, our brain’s in sling
No more good fortune does tooth fairy bring

The mystery’s gone and no more awe
Our world is tightened by obey law
Mindlessly with spiritual flaw
Would choke us to death if we only saw
The ever-tightening order control
Little by little heads do roll
We pretend it won’t destroy our soul
But our lives become more grassy knolls
Computer chips, and credit cards
Cell phones, ipods, make us dullards
Our minds drained, no more chance for Bards
We open embrace our prison guards

We’ve met the enemy and he is us
We’re already locked inside blue bus
We justify and say "don’t fuss"
We’re already dead in New World crush

We’ve already made money our god
We’re all in body-snatchers pod
If we don’t like it, we’re called odd
We pretend OK with faceless nod
We’re already dead to spirit within
We’ve all committed too many sins
Maybe we hope for something that’s been
But all we see is grim reaper’s grin

God, there must be way out of here
But can’t be drugs and can’t be beer
Find a way to overcome fear
Can’t jump on comet when it is near

I don’t want to be forever podded
I one day want to say "I got it"
Don’t want life to be ‘bout what I’ve boughted
Want to know the point before I have death-nodded

O ye who control the fate
Of our vast land and of the state
Humbly look to what your action’s worth
Can’t you see beyond your wide girth
Don’t you see what your thoughts give birth
Your greed it makes a hell on earth

Thinking About My Father

2008-06-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

I never liked the manner in which some parents continue to treat their "children" long after they’ve grown up. I remember reading about a 90 year old father who still chided his 70 year old son as if he was still a boy.

As I grew older and lived apart from my parents, I wanted an enlightened relationship. Perhaps "friends" was too much to hope for, but I wanted to be treated as an equal, not spoken down to, but listened to. But how to slowly bring about such a change?My mother was always easier to converse with, and she was much more willing to relinquish her reins of parenthood on her 30-something, and then 40-something, child. My father had much greater difficulty. He grew up in the Depression and lived his life in that mindset. He never fully trusted banks, didn’t communicate much with his children but expected our obedience, and "taught" us what he could via yelling at us.

I have said, jokingly, that I learned everything from my father. His ideas were too often tinged with stubbornness and folklore, and I often took a contrary path to his advice. Mushrooms were messy and dangerous, so I took up mycology. Everything I needed to know about plants was in the grocery store, so I took up botany and ethnobotany. A computer was absolutely not needed, so I learned how to use a computer along with the rest of the world. Oil, high heat, and a teflon frying pan was all that you needed to know about cooking, so one of my brothers became a chef.

Still, he was my father. As the years rolled by in our separate adult existences, I made the effort to get to know my father as a person, to talk to him, to be a real friend. So I refused to go to the normal family holiday gatherings where there was too much food, a nonstop blaring TV, and loud simultaneous talking (and yelling) by everyone. Instead, I would visit the next day and sit and talk with my father and mother, sometimes with a pie or other home-made dish. He regarded it as odd that I’d rather do that holiday meeting the day after everyone else met, and he even once went so far as to call me a "bad son." But as time went on, I could tell he was touched by having us share a reading and small meal the day after. He no longer chided me for non-attendance at family events.

Once, when trying to dissolve the parent-child bonds, I called him and began a discussion.
"Can I call you Frank," I asked.
"Is something wrong?," he responded.
"No, nothing is wrong," I told him. "I’m just trying to have a better relation with you."
"Do you need money? Are you in trouble?" he asked with worry in his voice.
Needless to say, that conversation did not go as planned, but was still a step in the right direction.

When he died (after a long illness), I got the word via an early morning phone call. In a daze, I walked into the moderate rain, crying, talking to Frank. I walked for hours, and I felt that I "reached" him, and he seemed to appreciate our continuing conversation.

I’d learned to love and appreciate him in his final years. He was by no means an ideal father. He was full of strengths, and weaknesses, talents, and flaws. He knew quite a bit of stuff that was not so. But I grew to admire and attempt to emulate his positive attributes, while also attempting to learn from his mistakes and avoid those patterns in my life.

In this way, I can say that my father taught me. I chose to no longer hold him in the mental bondage of "flawed father," just as I had demanded that he no longer hold me in the mental bondage of "deferential son." Rather than see him as a "flawed father," I saw that he was just another individual with his own life’s challenges, trying to make sense of this life, flaws and all.

By trying to see his life through his experience, I found that I could simply accept who he was, my father, one-half of the formula for bringing me into this world. At long last, I felt at peace with my own father, and felt an unconditional love towards him, years after he died.

CASSIE'S GIFT

2008-04-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

"The Greatness of a Nation can be determined by how its animals are treated" – Ghandi

by Christopher Nyerges

[Nyerges is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine, and the author of "How to Survive Anywhere." He can be reached at Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041, or www.ChristopherNyerges.com]

In memory of Cassius Clay, Christopher’s canine pal of 16 years
I have many fond memories of Cassie, but I remember the end the most right now. I thought that I was taking care of Cassie and helping and saving Cassie – I had to carry him in and out, and was always concerned about his welfare. In the end, I realize that Cassie was helping and saving me. He instilled in me a sense of responsibility and caring that maybe I never had before.

When I walked today, I missed Cassie so much, and I thought about his role in my life. I thought about how I tried to see his dog pictures of the world, how he processes the many smells that he takes so long each day to smell. When I attempted to go into his mind, like Beatrice Lydecker described in her What the Animals Tell Me book, I "saw" a colorful, very dynamic image of flowing geometric shapes that all moved like the wind in varying patterns, in a three-dimensional complexity. To me, it was the complexity of odors that meant so much to Cassie, and very little to me.
Shortly after he died, I asked him to show me his picture, and I "saw" in front of my his big face licking mine. He was telling me that he was happy, in peace, no pain and that I was OK.

As I walked this morning, I thought about Easter Day when Cassie died. Though he had had trouble walking for weeks, he seemed OK in the morning. When I came home in the early evening, it was dark and Cassie was warm but I could not rouse him from his house, and when I pulled him out, I knew it was over, even though I tried to bring him back. There was no music, no singing of birds, just the quiet of the night and the final sounds of his dying body.

As I walked this morning, I realized that Cassie’s gift was his unconditional love. And now that he was gone, I tried to sort out the meaning of that love. I have heard it said that Eternal Life is synonymous with Eternal Love. That Eternal Love is also impersonal. It is universal loving without concern for prejudice or opinion or preferences. It is doing what is right, and not being concerned about my group, or my party, or my race, or my gender, or my family. It is finding those ways of thinking, and of living, that exemplify the Golden Rule, and Jesus’ command to "Love ye one another as ye love your self." Which means we must love our spiritual self, and see that every single one of us is the same.

Cassie taught me to be a better person. He taught me to see that only through impersonal love can we ever find real meaning and harmony. Of course, I feel a personal love for Cassie, and for other close people in my life. But now again, Cassie has made me realize that death is inevitable, and personal love is full of pain and heartache and disappointment. Impersonal loving is not focused exclusively towards one person or animal but is a way of thinking about all life, including all animals. This was Cassie’s gift to me.

NOTE: We held a "fauneral" for Cassie a week after he died. We buried him in the lower orchard, planted a tree over him, and 30 people joined us to talk about our love of dogs and animals.

WHO IS SAINT PATRICK?

2008-03-09T12:11:00.000-07:00

IN SEARCH OF THE REAL SAINT PATRICK

by Christopher Nyerges

Who was Saint Patrick? Really, who was he? Not the mythological story we tell to our children each March 17 in sing-song voices: "Saint Patrick wore a green suit, talked to leprechans (he was probably drunk at the time), and while trying to convert the pagans with a shamrock, he marched all the snakes out of Ireland." Will the real Saint Patrick please stand up?

His real name was Maewyn Succat, born around 385 A.D., somewhere in Scotland, or possibly somewhere else, as there is conflicting historical data on his exact date and place of birth. His baptismal name was Patricius.

Around age 16, he was sold into slavery in Ireland and worked for the next 6 years as a shepherd. Keep in mind that human slavery, as well as human sacrifice, was considered normal for those times.

After his six years in slavery, an angel came to him in a dream, prompting him to escape and seek out his homeland. He actually walked about 200 miles to the coast, where his dream indicated a ship would also be waiting for him. He successfully escaped, and spent the next twenty years of his life as a monk in Marmoutier Abbey. There he again received a celestial visitation, this time calling him to return to the land where he’d been enslaved, though now with a mission as a priest and converter.

Patrick was called to Rome in 432, where Pope Celestine bequeathed the honour of Bishop upon him before he left on his mission.

Patrick returned to Ireland not alone, but with 24 supporters and followers. They arrived in Ireland in the winter of 432. In the Spring, Patrick decided to confront the high King of Tara, the most powerful King in Ireland. Patrick knew that if he had the King's support, he would be free to take his Christian message to the people of Ireland.

Patrick and his followers were invited to Tara by the King of Laoghaire. It was there that he was said to have plucked a shamrock from the ground as he tried to explain to the Druids and the King that the shamrock had three leaves just like the idea of God’s three aspects - The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost. This was called the Trinity.

Of course, triads and trinities were a common concept among the Druids. In fact, one could argue that the trinity (a term not found in the Bible) was a concept given to Christianity by the Druids, rather than the other way around. Nevertheless, King Laoghaire was very impressed and chose to accept Christianity. He also gave Patrick the freedom to spread Christianity throughout Ireland.

When Patrick returned to Ireland, he treated the "pagans" with the respect implicit in his dream. Part of this respect was attempting to communicate with the Druids on their terms, which is why he used the shamrock as a teaching tool. He also blended the Christian cross with the circle to create what is now known as the Celtic cross. He used bonfires to celebrate Easter, a Holy Day that Christianity supplanted with the already-existing spring equinox commemoration. In fact, he incorporated many of the existing symbols and beliefs into his Christian teachings.

He spent his last 30 years in Ireland, baptizing the non-Christian Irish, ordaining priests, and founding churches and monasteries. His persuasive powers must have been astounding, since Ireland fully converted to Christianity within 200 years and was the only country in Europe to Christianize peacefully. Patrick's Christian conversion ended slavery, human sacrifice, and most intertribal warfare in Ireland.

Patrick was also unique in that he equally valued the role of women in an age when the church ignored them. He always sided with the downtrodden and the excluded, whether they were slaves or the "pagan" Irish.

According to Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, Patrick's influence extended far beyond his adopted land. Cahill's book, which could just as well be titled How St. Patrick Saved Civilization, contends that Patrick's conversion of Ireland allowed Western learning to survive the Dark Ages. Ireland pacified and churchified as the rest of Europe crumbled. Patrick's monasteries copied and preserved classical texts. Later, Irish monks returned this knowledge to Europe by establishing monasteries in England, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy.

When the lights went out all over Europe, a candle still burned in Ireland. That candle was lit by Patrick.

Veneration of Patrick gradually assumed the status of a local cult. He was not simply remembered in Saul and Downpatrick, he was worshipped. Indeed, homage to Patrick as Ireland's saint was apparent in the eight century AD. At this time Patrick's status as a national apostle was made independently of Rome. He was claimed locally as a saint before the practice of canonization was introduced by the Vatican. The high regard in which the Irish have held St Patrick is evidenced by the salutation, still common today, of "May God, Mary, and Patrick bless you".

Patrick was not Irish, had nothing to do with leprechauns, almost certainly was not a drunkard, and didn't drive all the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, there were no native snakes in Ireland, though this story is believed to be an analogy for driving out the so-called "pagans," or, at least, the pagan religions.

Patrick was one of the "greats" of history who nearly single-handedly preserved the best of Western culture when much of Europe was devolving into chaos and ruin. He deserves far better than remembering him in the silly ways we do today, such as wearing green, pinching each other, and getting drunk. Rather, he deserves an accurate memory, and our emulation. Unfortunately, like all true Saviors of history, they are either killed off, or relegated to the closet of ridicule.
Perhaps it's time for all of us to re-think how we commemorate this special man, and his vast contribution to world culture.

Earth Day Every Day?

2008-02-27T19:07:00.000-08:00

CHANGE THE WORLD BY CHANGING YOURSELF

Seeking the Path of Practical Ecology

"Live light upon the Earth,
If you would not be earthbound."
-- Shining Bear

I was only a teenager, but I could never get it out of my mind: "How should we be living our lives? Is there not more to life than seeking money, possessions, and pleasure?" These questions, and their countless variations, were the driving force that led me on my path of botany, ecology, indigenous skills, and spiritual evolution.

Back in the early ‘70s, there was the beginning of a heightened ecological awareness, but you were still a "kook" if you expressed an interest in practical survival, and if you expressed concern about the growing ecological crisis.

A lot has happened in 30 years. Things have gotten worse. "Great interest" and "good intentions" of the 1970s did not succeed in materially improve our overall trends in the United States. Our rapid population growth, both from within and without, has only exacerbated the situation.

I spent the last 30 years attempting to learn and to apply the "little things" that I can do, and that anyone can do, to choose to be a part of the solution. It is the way that I maintain hope, and that I can find a way to mentally rise above what seems a hopeless situation.

Besides learning many of the elements of what anyone can do, even if you’re in the cities, I realized that there is no "enemy" out there. The "enemy" is always within. It is my own proclivity to laziness, to choosing the path of least resistance, to choosing something based solely on economics. Though I have not always succeeded, I have attempted to take the time to determine why we’ve even here on this earth for a few score years before we die. It certainly cannot be solely to accumulate a good portfolio.

My pursuit of "what to do?" initially led me to study botany. In botany, and specifically in discovering how indigenous peoples used their floral friends, I realized that food and medicine were richly abundant on this earth. While modern agriculture continues to travel down the high-tech path of genetically modified foods, the most nutritious plants on the earth are still wild plants, plants such as dandelion, purslane, curly dock and other so-called "weeds" that are found in urban areas throughout the world.

Dandelion – richer in beta-carotene than carrots. Purslane, the richest plant source of Omega-3 fatty acids. Curly dock, one of the richest sources of vitamin A. These wild plants, and hundreds more, I have used and taught to thousands of students over the past 3 decades. Acorns still abound, and it is a fascinating path of discovery to collect the acorns and process them in the traditions of the Old Ways. In our urban areas, we can find lambs quarter, a spinach relative that is arguably nature’s best mineral tablet. We find abundant carob trees planted as ornamentals, and these are edible right off the tree, with three times as much calcium as the same amount of milk. Chickweed is a common weed of lawns, rich in vitamin C and a delicious salad plant.
And get this – because chickweed has the audacity to grow on lawns, there is a poison you can buy in most nurseries that promises to kill all the chickweed on your lawn, as well as dozens of other so-called weeds, which are actually good foods and good herbs.

WHY A LAWN?
Why, why, why? It is apparently because "we" believe that there is some socially redeeming value in lawns. We have never cared for lawns, and have always used that space to create compost, and raise such plants as fruit trees, roses, lavender, and edible groundcovers such as nasturtiums, mints, and tradescantia. This is one of the "little ways" we choose to not contribute to the waste of water and fuel that goes into the care and maintenance of lawns. It is one of our little ways in which we can take charge and be a part of the solution.
And we have spoken up when other neighbors cut their "weeds" down to the bare soil. This is as foolhardy as a lawn, even worse, for it dries the soil, reduces the amount of moisture that that soil can release into the local atmosphere, and contributes to desertification.

Once you learn about the uses of plants, you become a confirmed ecologist. You will not want to pull "weeds" pointlessly, and you would not scrape plants down to the bare soil, as so many of the so-called "gardeners" do with their weed-whackers.

It is difficult enough to create a beautiful area where there was once a pointless lawn. It is more difficult to convince others, since most in today’s mindset will not only ridicule you, but will find ways to fight you, legally or otherwise.

It is wise to find ways to become a part of the solution, and it is also wise to go forward with eyes open, to avoid unnecessary battles. It is wiser to convince your neighbors to the vast practicality of what you do, rather than have to fight your neighbors when they suggest your "overgrown lawn" is lowering their property values.

One person may not be able to change the world, but each of us can change ourselves. By studying plants, and learning their value, I have begun to see how botany is related to the health of the soil, and how the health of the soil is related to the network of animal life on that land, and this has led me to see how the health of the wild animals directly affects my health and well-being. This is a science, not a "New Age" word game, and the application of practical urban ecology should be approached as a hard science, where you can observe positive results, and where you can repeat those results if you follow the same procedures.

SURVIVAL SKILLS
I pursue both wilderness and urban survival skills. On most weekends, I conduct field trips where our students learn about using wild plants. We collect woods, and we make fire without matches as people in the past have done for millennia. We teach our students to find natural fibres and make such things as twine, baskets, sandals. We build shelters from branches and leaves. It has become relatively easy to be safe and sound in the wilderness using what nature has provided. But most of us live in the city most of the time.

So we teach and practice urban skills too. Urban skills include such things as making compost, finding ways to recycle just about everything, growing fruits and vegetables, and having battery-operated or hand-powered devices where possible. We have solar heated water, and a small solar electrical system. We would never just toss kitchen scraps into the city trash container, nor would we mindless "pull weeds." Kitchen scraps make good soil, and any wild plants that must be pulled get eaten by us, or the animals.

A side benefit of practicing urban ecology is that you’re a little more prepared if there’s ever a major earthquake or a blackout. But that shouldn’t be your overriding impetus for pursuing practical survival. You should pursue it because it’s the right thing to do.

We have a friend who always carries a cloth napkin of his own when at restaurants. He doesn’t want to participate in the extra paper waste that goes into the napkins. He has even collected other people’s napkins (unused) and took them home to use in various recycling projects. I once told him that the trees still get cut, and that the restaurants still use and discard massive amounts of paper. He reminded me that he wasn’t trying to change the world. He was only trying to do the right thing in his little sphere of influence. "And at least the paper I take isn’t going into a landfill," he told me.

Yes, little things, but little things add up. We carry our used dish water outside and we pour it onto our plants. Of course, this means we must buy safe detergents. All things are related.
We are often confronted with the challenge that things are just too bad, "we don’t want to think about it, and besides, we’re not the problem. What we do is just a small insignificant part of the trash problem." But don’t millions of people make that same excuse?

I hold that view that even if I cannot change the world, I should still make the right choice in those cases where I have choice. To take the path of making wise use of resources is often difficult and often inconvenient. If "karma" has any meaning, then even if I cannot change the world, I do affect my own destiny by how I make my personal choices that pertain to all the resources that I come into contact in my daily life.

I urge us all to work together to find the little ways in which we can change the world by changing ourselves. It is the right thing to do.

"Indian Gaming" is not "self reliance"

2008-02-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

A commentary on Indian Gaming Propositions

A friend asked me, "So, are you voting in favor of Indian gaming?" He was referring to Propositions 94, 95, 96, 97, to be voted upon by the California voters on February 5, which would effectively expand so-called "Indian gaming." [Note: by the time you read this, Feb. 5 will likely have past. Still, the overall principles are important.]

"No," I said, "I’m voting against it."

"Really," my friend retorted. "Don’t you realize that the opposition is actually just other casinos and racing concerns who don’t want more competition?"

I signed. "That might be true," I responded, "but that’s not why I’m voting against it."
I explained to my friend that I vote against any and all gambling measures. It is not a good element for any society to promote get-rich-quick schemes which statistically will get very few people rich. I find it particularly perverse that the native Americans who are now so enriched by gambling profits choose to call this "self-reliance."

That’s an inappropriate use of the phrase, "self-reliance." Self-reliance refers to farming, food processing, manufacturing, creating energy (wind, solar, etc.), building stores, building schools, putting people to work in a self-sustaining way that benefits the society.

Creating and supporting the infrastructure of gambling certainly produces money, but it is not true self-reliance. Gambling fosters the notion that we might get something for nothing, or at least, get a lot for a very small investment. It relies on luck or chance, not skill, merit, or work. Gambling does not pay us! The hopeful gamblers pay to support the gambling institutions. That is, no one really "wins," and most "lose." It is this very fact that keeps "gaming" alive and able to generate so much money.

There are those who feel that native Americans deserve this chance to bring in the needed money to the tribe. This is understandable, given the history of broken promises, of extermination via warfare, and massive deaths brought by the white man’s various diseases. So
I don’t fault the desire, and the need, to grow in financial health. I am against the means to do so, which brings along with it all of the unintended consequences.

It is sad to me that after so long of being the "forgotten minority" in America, the native Americans have hit upon one of the least overall beneficial means to become "self-reliant." By the pursuit of gambling, such proprietors also take on the karma of all that the enterprises generate, and whether native Americans or other gambling operators, they become another soulless lemming in the pursuit of Mammon. So be it, since that has already happened to 95% of us. Let’s just not call this "self-reliance."

It is not spiritually uplifting to the individual or society to choose luck and chance as a means of making one’s living. It invites the underworld so long associated with Las Vegas – money laundering, drugs, prostitution, mafia. How well have our native brothers been holding up against such tremendous pressures which the avalanche of gambling money brings?

I vote against all such measures on principle. It is why I voted against the California state lottery, and why I encourage all thinking individuals to also vote against yet another Trojan horse in our midst.

CHANGE: The Candidates' Clamor

2008-01-18T10:27:00.001-08:00

CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT IN LIFE
CANDIDATES: Tell us who you are!

Ironically perhaps, change is the only constant in life. Seasons change. Our bodies change – sickness, health, growing older, losing hair, losing teeth. Economies change, usually fueled by fraud, fear, and greed – no shortages there. Fashions and tastes change, generally fueled by economic interests rather than interest in any immutable values.

We are surrounded by change.

It is thus amusing and childish that each presidential candidate now clamours for "change." I am
for change. I am the best candidate for change. I represent change. I am for the most change, and all its variants, ad nauseum.

Everyone is a distinct individual. Regardless who next sits in the White House, it will represent "change."

Obviously we cannot predict what will occur in the future with absolute certainty. The past provides a clue, of course. But how each individual deals with the unknowns of the moment is determined by their inner character. So rather than tell us the obvious – "I will bring change" – as if change, per se, represents some sort of universal panacea – tell us what you believe. Tell us your values. Tell us specifically how you regard each of the many problems we face, and tell us your vision of the implementation of solutions.

To tell us that you are the candidate of "change" tells us nothing, except that you’ve jumped on the bandwagon of an empty slogan.

There will be change, yes, we know that. Tell us why we should vote for you. What is your vision for the nation? What specific economic principles do you embrace, and why? How should we be, or not be, meddling all over the globe? What should we do short-term and long-term in Iraq? Should we or should we not secure our borders? Should we be addressing a great moral and spiritual crisis? Or not?

In other words, beyond your smile, your hair, the color of your suit, who are you?

But – and now I speak to the voters – are we easily taken in by the smile, the hair, the color of the tie? Are we too "busy" to investigate in-depth those who would be leader? I hope and pray that such is not the case. If we allow the surface appearances of the candidates to determine our votes, than we have once again become our own worst enemy, and it will

Another Year -- Doing the Birthday Run

2008-01-13T13:33:00.000-08:00

Since 1976, I have commemorated my personal New Year, my birth-day, by running a lap for every year at a local track. I mentally divide the lap into the months, and review what I was doing each season as I run through my life and review it all.

This year, my throat was rough and breathing was difficult, so I chose to run around the casting pool in the lower Arroyo Seco. It’s certainly not as big as a typical ¼ or 1/5 of a mile lap at a school, but it still took me about two and a half hours to run the 53 laps of my life.

When I got there last Friday morning, it was a bit overcast, and I thought it wouldn’t work to run around this artificial body of water. But it was actually a remarkably pleasant and uplifting experience. There was a bit of mist in the air from the water, and leaves were everywhere. It was quiet, and birds were in the trees. It was very much like running in a forest around a lake, though I was not far from downtown Pasadena.

In the early years, up to about age 11, I was struck by how great an impact "older people" had on me. I don’t think most adults realize how much influence we actually have on very young people, but I knew that I was strongly influenced, for better and worse, by parents, older brothers, other parents in the neighborhood, friends of older brothers, and even unknown people who would tell me something, or command me to do something.

I didn’t feel closely supervised or mentored in any specific way, and I realized that allowed way too much time for trouble to occur—which often did. While I ran, I was feeling how I wished I had been firmly guided into a very strict environment. Of course, I know I would have initially rebelled but would have reaped the rewards today of such a youthful discipline. But I wasn’t doing too much analyzing as I was running – I was simply trying to see it all again, to live it all again and to see what I should learn.

It was clear that many of my life patterns and habits were established in these first ten years, a point probably well-established to psychologists, but one that I hadn’t felt personally.

Interesting, I ran though my school years, moving to the farm, my interest in plants, writing, and various jobs as an objective observer. I saw my mind come up with great plans and great ideas, some achieved, some not. I saw how life just goes on. You make a goal, achieve it or not, and if you do achieve it, that plateau is never as interesting as the struggle to get there. So you go on. I ran through marriage, and divorce, and various places of residence, and I cried at my own lack of understanding of others in my life.

When I was done running, I felt that the major insights this year were that I should continue to work with young children, who are so impressionable, and I should do my best to provide good guidance in a truly insane world. I also felt that, beyond such goals as money and work and career and homes and all that stuff, what really matters is how I deal with the people around me. It was all very humbling, because I have vast room for improvement.

Run done, I went home, added herbs to my bathtub along with bath salts, and soaked and reviewed personal goals for the next hour.

Even though my body was a bit on the sick side, and I was nearly in a dream-state much of the time, it was a wonderful and uplifting day because the run enabled me to look at myself, and to look for ways to improve.

I thought you’d enjoy hearing about my experience. There are other details about how to do the Birthday Run – let me know if you’re nterested

SURVIVAL EDUCATION

2007-10-16T10:55:00.001-07:00

ON LEARNING ABOUT WILD FOODS
Christopher Nyerges

[Nyerges is the editor of Wilderness Way, and the author of Guide to Wild Foods, How to Survive Anywhere, and other books. He has conducted wild food seminars and field trips since 1974. For information on his books and classes, contact Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041, or www.ChristopherNyerges.com]

Back in high school, my friend Rocky and I ran together on our school’s cross country team. Often, when doing a longer practice run, we’d run back to our school in the Arroyo Seco wash just north of the famous Rose Bowl. Though the wash was once a wild stream bed where the local Native Americans lived, it was now a paved irrigation channel. But in spite of the cement, there were still spots where you could find cattails, watercress, and other water plants. Rocky and I learned about watercress during our running days.

Watercress was by far the most prolific low-growing plant in the wash. We both shared an interest in edible wild foods, but there were not as many resources 35 years ago for identifying plants as there are today. When we first began wondering about the plant we thought could be watercress, we each took a sample home and compared it to the pictures in the various books that we each had. We also showed samples to the school’s botany teacher, who confirmed it was watercress.

After that, we would pinch a little of the watercress plant each time we ran through the channel, and take it home to cook. We never ate that watercress raw in salads because the purity of the water was very questionable.

Learning about wild foods was an adventure, and it required a bit of a Sherlock Holmes persistence. There simply weren’t very many people around who could answer our questions about wild plants, and there were just a handful of books that we could use. Today, there are books, videos, on-line sources, and many more people who are able to answer questions about wild food identification.

Back then, I worked after school at the Altadena Public Library and would always check out every book they had on wild foods and botany. I regularly used Euell Gibbons’ "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" and Bradford Angier’s "Free for the Eating."

After I thought I’d identified the wild mustard plant, a friend in my math class, John Ball, showed me a line drawing of the wild mustard from one of Bradford Angier’s books. It looked nothing like the plant that I had assumed was wild mustard. It took us a few weeks to learn that we were both correct. I was looking at the young lyrate mustard leaves, and John was showing me a picture of the older mustard plant that had grown tall and gone to seed.

But it took us several weeks to ask other people, and go collect plants, and to all the footwork required to learn one plant! And this is why you can never wholly depend on books and videos alone in order to positively identify wild foods. You must see the actual plant in the field and you must have an expert point it out to you.

This means you must seek out classes and field trips wherever they may be offered, and be the best student.

During high school, I went on an all-day desert field trip to learn about desert plants. I was told that I was privileged to be in the presence of the botanist, since he knew more than anyone about the desert plants. OK, good, I was hyped up. So Mr. Botanist shows a plant and tells us about it. He goes to the next plant, shows it to us and talks about it. I break his stride and ask him to tell me again the name of a plant, and I try to test myself by asking about similar plants I saw along the trail. I was apparently upsetting Mr. Botanist’s program, and it was made clear to me very quickly that I should listen and take notes, but to not ask him to repeat things. Wow! What a non-education! I came away from that desert outing learning nothing. So, yes, you to find real teachers-in-the-flesh, but keep in mind that some may be less dynamic and engaging than others.

Some very distinctive plants can actually be positively identified by a picture in a book alone. John Ball and I studied pictures of miner’s lettuce during a break in our math class, and we both felt that it would be an easy matter to identify such a very distinctive looking plant. The miner’s lettuce has a round saucer or cup-shaped leaf with a flower stalk that grows right through the middle.

On a following weekend, John had been hiking up in the local mountains and he told me discovered a patch of the miner’s lettuce, and he ate some. He told me about the patch the following Monday. After school, I bicycled over to the base of the mountains and hiked up a steep incline about a half-mile in the chaparral-covered hillside. Sure enough, near the top, I found the delicate miner'’ lettuce plants, looking just like it does in the pictures. I carefully studied it, pinched some leaves, and slowly savored the delicate flavor. I pinched off enough leaves to fill a small bag, and headed back down the hillside and bicycled home.

That night, I had my first watercress salad and cooked watercress greens. To me, it was the culmination of a long adventure and mystery, all mixed up with the tales of the California 49ers, and California Indians. I let my brother and father taste a little, and I expected them to share my excitement. "It’s OK," was all they blandly responded after their cautious taste.

Oh, well, I was still thrilled to have learned and tried a new wild plant. I experimented with different miner’s lettuce recipes for the next two weeks before going on to learn another new plant.

SOME GOOD WILD FOOD REFERENCES:
"Wild Edible Plants" by Donald Kirk, Naturegraph Publishers [Box 1047, 3543 Indian Creek Road, Happy Camp, CA 96039], 1975. Though largely focused on western plants, this includes more plants than most books. The pictures are generally not sufficient for positive identification.

"The Forager’s Harvest" by Sam Thayer [W5066 Hwy 86, Ogema, WI 54459]. Clearly, this books leads the pack of the many wild food books available. Though focused on eastern plants, there are clear photos of the sequences required for identifying, harvesting, and processing wild foods. A must!

"Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants" by Christopher Nyerges [Chicago Review Press]. Though written in the west, most of the plants can be found throughout the U.S. Each plant is described in detail, along with edible, medicinal, and other uses. Photos are too small. Excellent appendix on edible plant families. [available from www.ChristopherNyerges.com]

"Stalking the Wild Asparagus" by Euell Gibbons. A classic read, though you may need another source to positively identify the plants. Commonly available new or used.

WILL THERE EVER BE "WORLD PEACE"?

2007-10-12T08:52:00.000-07:00

Finding Lessons in The Lord of the Flies

Christopher Nyerges

[Nyerges is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine, and author of "How to Survive Anywhere," and other books. For more information about classes and books, go to www.ChristopherNyerges.com or Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041]

Several of us were sitting around a table at Swork in Eagle Rock, drinking coffee, and discussing the problems of today’s world. We were discussing the challenges that parents have with out-of-control children, the Iraq war, terrorism, and other issues.

We began our discussion by analyzing two somewhat misleading questions often asked by Sunday morning pundits: One, why does God allow all the trouble and evil in the world? And Two, will we ever experience a world in harmony, in peace?

The first question is easy to deal with. God has nothing to do with the trouble in the world.
Period. Why do we blame God (or Universal Consciousness, or whatever we call God) for the results of our own ignorance and hypocrisy and preferences? We are agents of free will, are we not? We are the architects of our future, though most of us create our future in a willy-nilly, accidental way, not realizing that every inner secret choice and desire, and every word spoken, and every action, is creating destiny and the "future." But we choose to pretend that this is not so, and when we experience the worst nightmares of our own making, we blame God. As Fred Renich wrote, "We must become increasingly aware of our ever present tendency to use the mercy of a loving God, and his readiness to forgive, as an excuse for careless living."

Question Two is a little harder. Will there ever be peace on earth? Not just cessation of hostilities, but actual harmony among nations and people, and mutual respect that creates an environment of growth (inner and outer), real prosperity, and upliftment.

To answer this question, we have to ask ourselves, What is the obstacle to this harmony? Perhaps the best way to get a handle on this question is to look at all the ways in our own personal lives where disharmony exists. In our relationships, among our work peers, among our family members, among neighbors, among the differing members of our community.

All too often, we find that our problems are caused because we choose to think limbically, we make choices subjectively, based on who we like, and preferences to my family, my people, my religion. We have not been taught or trained to focus upon universal principles or objective reality. If we make decisions in familial or group disputes simply by choosing my side, my group, my religion, rather than upon what is objectively right, then we foster disharmony.

It is nearly always wrong to have a blind adherence to defending "my group." I strongly recommend you read and study Eric Hoffer’s classic book "True Believer."

And this is where the way we train our children to think comes in. If we have been trained to "take sides," and "defend my family" and to filter all our judgements through subjective ideas, we become inept as community and national leaders. If we rise to national leadership with all our preconceptions about other people, we become part of the problem. We become Democrats or Republicans, believing our side is right and the other is wrong. We become Sunni or Shia, knowing we are right and the other is wrong. We think as black or white or brown or red, and we believe that the others are wrong. We think as Catholic or Protestant and consider the other beliefs wrong. Etc.

It is our very belief that keeps us in our limbic brain, thinking primitively, mentally residing in a Dark Age.

It is not as if "answers" are not abundant. But we filter the answers through our subjective minds, and the typical human response is to kill off, imprison, marginalize, or ridicule to obscurity all the world’s great answer-givers.

Perhaps the greatest "answer" to the many problems of human existence is the command to Love your neighbor as yourself. Or, the command to do unto others as you’d have them do to you.

Will there ever be harmony on earth? Must the human condition continue to worsen? Perhaps it is time to think about saving and improving our self, and being less concerned about "saving the world."

As his sipped the last of his coffee, and looked out the window at the cars racing by on Eagle Rock Blvd., one member of our group, Gary, said that each and every one of us is like the boys stranded on the island in Lord of the Flies. In each moment of our daily life, we make choices. We can choose to be uplifted and civilized, or we can choose animalistic anarchistic choices. Each choice, and the consequences of those choices, creates the reality we live in. And in that sense, we are each the architects of our future. Once we find harmony within, there will be hope that there can be harmony in the world.

ON BEING I-PODDED

2007-10-10T17:21:00.000-07:00

The Technological Invasion of the Body Snatchers

[Nyerges is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine, the author of How To Survive Anywhere and other books, and an outdoor field guide. He can be reached at Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041, or www.ChristopherNyerges.com.]

It was hot – beastly hot – so I went to a local coffee shop to drink iced tea. Maybe I would meet someone and engage them in good old-fashioned conversation. I purchased my iced tea from the new and shiny counter of the new and shiny coffee house. I sat in a comfortable chair and read my newspaper. I hadn’t paid attention to the other patrons in the coffee shop but I noted it was very quiet.

Looking up from my cool beverage, I saw that there was only one person per table, each wholly engaged in their laptop world. There was some light jazz playing in the room, but I seemed to be the only one tapping my foot to the music of Dave Brubeck. Everyone had wires in their ears extending to some hidden source. Everyone was tuned into something else, somewhere else, and no one was tuned into the here and now. A full room of lonely, separated, non-communicating people. No conversation would be possible.

I went outside to enjoy the cool evening breeze and maybe make conversation with fellow sojourners. One man sat alone outside but spoke in hushed tones as he waved his arms. No, not a crazy man, but a man who was elsewhere on his cell phone. The other person outside was a woman, also alone and yelling into the abyss of her phone. I would be making no conversation out here, I realized. Everyone was somewhere else.

I felt disoriented, like a stranger in strange land of techno-toys. I got in my vehicle and drove away.

I went to Trader Joes, did my shopping, and noted that nearly half the shoppers were not here now, but chatted away on their cell phones to people somewhere else. Some had wires extending from their ears.

One man entered with a silver device wrapped around his ear, Star Trek-like, and he was obviously elsewhere as he talked to unseen recipients. I hailed him with my hand, and inquired about the object.

"It’s my I-pod," he said enthusiastically. "I couldn’t live without it."

A friend told me a story about his cousin who plays on a sports team at a local college. The team takes a school bus to the other school, plays the game, and then all the students sit in their own private I-podded musical worlds as they bus home.

"Don’t you all talk?" the student was asked.
"We don’t do that," was the reply.

What a depressing world we’ve devolved into. I can recall bussing home from high school track meets, listening to "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" and all us boys sang along in comraderie, whether we lost or won. How have we descended to the point where it is regarded as better to reside in a safe little podded world.

It would be instructive for today’s over-teched youth to go watch the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and replace "pod" with "I-pod." We are all being podded, and without a fight.
During our recent blackout, I sat outside in the cool darkness of the evening with no cell phone, no lights, no TV, no telephone, no e-mail, no electronic gadget which would pod my mind and rob my time. It was a deep pleasure to be alone with myself, to think about life, and life’s important questions, with no chance for google or wickipedia to presume to know my inner answers.

Though I marvel at our technological advances, I cringe with sadness to realize what we have all lost.

2007-10-10T17:16:00.000-07:00

THE LORD OF THE FLIES

by Christopher Nyerges (with commentary from Castaway)

A plane crashes on some remote island, and only the British school children survive. They learn to hunt, to make fire (using Piggy’s specs), to enjoy themselves. Then the battle for power begins. One side is for rules and laws, and the other side wants to live by rule of might.
"Lord of the Flies" has been widely viewed and widely discussed. What does it mean? What does it tell us about our basic human nature? Is our desire to do good and cooperate with others a skill that must be learned and maintained?
The movie (and book) begins with the boys experiencing a sort of innocent paradise, as they swim and cavort and learn about foods in their adult-free world. The obvious need for leadership results in a vote between Ralph, who represents order and the rule of law, and Jack, who represents immediate fulfilment of desires, power, and even savagery. Ralph wins the election.
In the beginning, Ralph and Jack are not depicted as being all that different. Indeed, they are friends. Ralph is set on doing the best for all, helping the weak, making sure that everyone is fed. Jack seems more intent on his own power ambitions.
A conch shell is chosen as a sign of leadership, and an indication of who has the "floor" during meetings. But Jack forms his own band and moves away from Ralph. Jack chooses to disregard the blowing of the conch. That choice leads to further division and animosity. Eventually, the conch is destroyed when a boulder rolls onto it, symbolizing the loss of one of the symbols of their chosen civility.
Jack’s group steals Piggy’s specs to make fire, another strike at cooperation and civility. Jack’s group also lets the signal fire go out, showing that Jack has lost his focus of trying to get off the island.
In analyzing The Lord of the Flies, countless analogies have been used to describe the social dichotomy that it shows, such as users vs. takers, or producers vs. consumers, or urban vs. rural, or primitive vs. civilized, etc. Perhaps it is the same old story of Cain vs. Abel, or the farmers vs. the ranchers. But is it that simplistic?
Jack and his group finally devolved to the point where murder was justified. Jack and his group started to hunt Ralph. Jack’s desire for total power would be solidified with the elimination of Ralph (the last opposing force). As Jack’s group chases Ralph along the beach, they all confront a force they all have to reckon with – the rescuing sailors. A group of men landed on the island and watch in amazement at the behavior of the "children". The look on the children’s faces express their thoughts. Jack realizes his reign is over; Ralph is relieved his life is saved.
We see something in the childrens’ faces: now they have to account for their actions to a higher power. The choices we make in life have ramification that ripple through our lives. "Ralph" and "Jack" are choices we make every day of our life. What legacy will we leave? What actions will we ultimately be accountable for? The amateur film-makers who created the original Lord of the Flies did so during the boys’ summer vacation. They tracked the lives of the boys who acted in this movie, and the boy-actors were all high achievers in their personal lives. They said that making the movie deeply affected them. Even though it was "just a movie," they realized that it was far better to work hard to choose the way of Ralph, rather than to ever find oneself descending into Jack-ness.

DISAPOINTMENT WITH APOCALYPTO

2007-10-10T17:13:00.000-07:00

VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
Christopher Nyerges
DISAPPOINTMENT WITH APOCALYPTO

I finally saw the much-discussed Apocalypto movie, directed by Mel Gibson. It was a terrible movie, disappointing in just about every way. Sure, there were great costumes and lots of tatoos and bones sticking out of people’s faces. And the scenery was beautiful. But I watch a movie for some lesson, some point, some redeeming value. I look for a principle of life that I can recognize and hopefully apply the positive aspects to my life. I detected not a bit of that in Apocalypto. The movie consisted of the daily banter among one tribal group, their capture and imprisonment by a more brutal group, and then an unlikely and pointless chase scene.
Mel’s savage leader from the capturing tribe was just the reincarnation of one of the brutal Roman soldiers in the Passion of the Christ.
Apocalypto was a pointless movie and after feeling so disappointed that I wasted two hours, I wondered why Mel took the time to make a movie with no redeeming value, no real insight into human nature, and no particular historical authenticity.
I thought that Mel could have uses the scenario of two factions in a society and the disappearances of societies to make a good point about the human condition. There was the possibility for insight into the Jonestown massacre, and various disappeared societies such as the Moche, and so many others. But there was no such insight provided.
It would be worth while to compare and contrast Mel’s spectacular pointless movie with the original Lord of the Flies, filmed in three months by rookie film-makers with non-actor children. There we saw a classic depiction of the degeneration that occurs when individuals choose to not remain civil, and the two factions that developed as the children followed their respective leaders. The Lord of the Flies not only provided a valuable sociological lesson for generations to come, but it wholly changed the lives of the children actors.
But somehow Mel Gibson missed all the possible lessons that he could have conveyed in Apocalypto. It was simply two hours of great costumes, great scenery, and bodies with exotic tatoos and scars and faces with numerous nose, chin, and ear inserts, all with questionable historical value.
So why should we see Apocalypto? No reason that I can think of.
As an actor, Mel Gibson really has provided us with some valuable lessons in his movies such as The Year of Living Dangerously, the Mad Max series, Signs, and others. He has failed to live up to a high standard in Apocalypto.
A movie should be an open book, a vehicle for upliftment, inspiration, and useful lessons of life. If not, why should we devote our time to seeing it?

POPE BENEDICT AND LOVE

2006-03-10T18:18:00.000-08:00

POPE BENEDICT AND THE MEANING OF LOVE

Perhaps you read the news about Pope Benedict’s first major writing since he became pope? The subject of former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s first encyclical was Love: the meaning of God’s love, erotic love between humans, and the relationship between the two. According to Msgr. Paul Josef Cordes (president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Vatican’s charities division), the pope’s choice for his first topic was "astonishing." The 71-page document was titled "God is Love" (Deus Caritas Est). Benedict attempted to define at least 3 aspects of the term "love," which he describes as "one of the most frequently used and misused of words."
Consider how freely the term is used. "I love you." "Let’s make love." "The boy really loves his dog." "If you loved me you’d give me what I ask for." "God so loved that world that he gave his only begotten son." Etc. Obviously, not all of these "loves" are the same thing.
Benedict spoke of erotic love (eros, or physical love) as something that is debasing if it is reduced to just sex, especially when it is sold. He writes that eros must be enhanced by spiritual love in order to "achieve a higher and full meaning." He used the term "agape" to refer to spiritual love. He also referred to acts of selfless loving – assisting others, loving your neighbor – as "caritas."
Interestingly, this encyclical was signed by the pope on Christmas day of 2005, but was not released until a month later due to problems in preparing the different translations. Also, according to Vatican analyst Sandro Magister, numerous Vatican documents has languished untranslated as part of a subtle campaign of protest against Pope Benedict (L.A. Times article by Tracy Wilkinson, 01/26/06 A3). Passive aggressiveness in the Vatican?
Perhaps Benedict should have read the classic book on Love, Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving. Fromm defines Love as an art, that is, something that must be practiced in order to master. He states that in order to master this art it must be of the greatest concern to the individual to learn the theory and to apply it in his or her life.
Fromm says that Love is the answer to the problem of human existence. He then defines the different aspects of love, such as brotherly love, motherly love, erotic love, self-love, and love of God. He explains how the practice of love has disintegrated in modern society.
Lastly, Fromm delineates the practice of this most important of arts. As an art, it requires discipline, concentration, patience, and making it a matter of supreme concern.
I have read Fromm’s book several times, and made many annotations. And though I have only read what others had to say about Benedict’s encyclical (I’ve not actually read it), it still seems as if Benedict is thinking down the same line as Fromm, that they both want us to understand the great necessity of Real Love, and they both want us to eliminate the Counterfeit Love from our own personal lives.
Fromm’s book is readily available from used book stores, and I highly recommend it. What are your thoughts on this subject?

THE TRUE BELIEVER

2006-02-22T08:31:00.000-08:00

The True Believer.
More and more I am drawn back to the wisdom in Eric Hoffer's classic work, "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements."
For example, he write in Chapter 2, "People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement. The prospect of an individual career cannot stir them to a mighty effort, nor can it evoke in them faith and a single-minded dedication. They look on self-interest as on something tainted and evil; something unclean and unlucky. Anything undertaken under the auspices of the self seems to them foredoomed. Nothing that has its roots and reasons in the self can be good and noble. Their innermost craving is for a new life -- a rebirth -- or, failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause. An active mass movement offers them opportunities for both....
"To the frustrated, a mass movement offers substitutes either for the whole self or for the elements which make life bearable and which they cannot evoke out of thier individual resources."

Hoffer wrote his book in 1951, and commented upon Stalin, Hitler, labor movements, and more. It is "must" reading for anyone wanting to grasp world events currently unfolding. For example, rioting and killing due to a cartoon. Are we to belief that the cartoon is what caused that behavior?

I am not a big follower of marching in the streets, though I have done it -- back when we urban areas were being sprayed with malathion, it was a bit too much to remain silent. Still, it is too easy to get swept up in mob mentality.
I was strongly influenced by the wisdom of the early Noah Seminars and the folks that conducted them. They believed that it was important to focus on personal change and growth, and do it within the system. I am also reminded of the words of Barton Boehm, who was quoting his martial arts master Kiyoshi Suzuki: "Be extremely hard on yourself, but be extremely kind to others."

NOTE: My hope is to add new posts at least once a week to stimulate discussion among like-minded individuals. But I will delete any inappropriate language or personal attacks. I hope that that you find this forum for sharing and discussion useful. Christopher Nyerges