This is The Thing

I live with someone who has MCS — Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (also referred to as “Chemically Injured” or “Environmental Injury”).

Strap in once more, because this may be a long post. I’m going to attempt to communicate some facts that may be of interest to you — but first, I’m going to tell you why I’m writing this, and what it means to live with MCS. I’m going to tell you my story, but I’m also going to tell you what my story may mean for you.

My Beloved has always been sensitive to certain chemicals — but in the past three years, that sensitivity increased.

Three years ago, exposure to certain chemicals would mean she experienced an accelerated heartbeat, skin flush, mental confusion, and an adrenal response that was like “fight or flight/I’ve-got-to-get-out-of-here!”

Then, as her sensitivity increased, it would mean having that suite of symptoms, followed by symptoms that were like a hangover (fatigue, body aches, general malaise, etc.) for a few hours or a day.

Then it became a few days.

Then, the effects of exposure would mean several days of headache, extreme fatigue, digestive complaints, and all-round OMG I FEEL CRAPPY.

Her exposure to things like paint fumes, pesticides, cleaning chemicals, and other known toxins was fairly easy to handle — we were already pretty “green” in terms of our household products, because that fit with our general values of sustainability and environmental awareness — but there is a particularly difficult scenario that has been much more challenging to control — exposure to synthetic fragrances.

As we changed our lifestyle to rid our home of the stuff that makes her sick (which meant looking carefully at shampoo, soaps, lotions, laundry and cleaning products, toilet paper, and yes, even the books we purchased used on Amazon — some sellers will package a book that’s been in a smoker’s home with a scented dryer sheet to mask the smell of smoke), I learned a lot — about chemicals, and about myself.

I’m not as sensitive to chemicals as is my Beloved. I tend to have that sort of physical unit that processes toxins fairly quickly, and even if I don’t like a particular fragrance or smell, it doesn’t usually give me any physical symptoms. Or so I thought.

As our home got de-toxed, and our air got clearer, I found that I actually did get physical reactions to certain chemicals. They weren’t as severe as hers, but they were there — I just hadn’t noticed them because they were subtle and so omnipresent.

Now, if I sit in a room with someone who is drenched in perfume for an hour or more, I’ll actually notice the results afterwards — a slight headache, reddened eyes, sinus congestion, and marginal fatigue.

The same exposure for my Beloved would result in much more extreme levels of the same, and for her, they can last from one to three days.

Recently, she’s found some things that have helped reduce her symptoms and reactions, but still, when she ventures out into the world, she always carries a small mask in her pocket, just in case.

When the doorbell rings, I’m the one who answers, because even our UPS guys and gals seem to be obsessed with making sure I know that they are Teh Sexy with their mad scentz. I usually step out quickly and close the door behind me, so that a chemical that could make my love sick doesn’t waft in through the door. And waft it does.

Getting on a airplane for a two-or-three hour flight would be a complete gamble at this point. We haven’t traveled by plane for over two years.

We’ve asked our friends not to visit the house wearing fragranced products. They have tried to comply, but still, if they used fragranced laundry products like dryer sheets or fabric softener in the past (which are not only designed to have a “lasting scent”, but often contain waxes that get inside your washer dryer so that the fragrance continues on for months after you stop using them), their clothes can have lingering fragrance that can make her sick.

Depending on how full her “toxin bucket” is on any given day, she may or may not be able to sit across the room from them for a chat, and she rarely gives hugs to them anymore, if there’s a whiff of chemical fragrance. She seems to do fine with all-natural essential oils — no synthetics (but please note: this is not true of all people with MCS).

Her primary response seems to be from synthetic fragrances — and synthetic fragrances are in stuff you would never imagine. Many people who have MCS have much worse reactions than my Beloved does.

We’ve posted signs and sent emails to people who attend our circles and classes, asking them not to wear fragrance to our events. Sometimes they forget. We generally allow them to stay, and my Beloved dons her breathing mask. We remind them. Sometimes they forget again. We remind them again.

Sometimes their perfume is so strong that the chairs or cushions that they sit on retain the smell for days. We’ve taken to covering furniture with washable throws, but sometimes we just have to drag the furniture outside and let the sun and air do its work.

Keep in mind that for someone with severe MCS, contamination of this type might mean that they have to get rid of that piece of furniture entirely.

Friday, we had someone attend our regular group meeting whose perfume was so strong that it gave me a headache, and we had the room airing out (and closed off) for an entire day — but there’s still a lingering scent.

This person has been here before, and has been asked not to come wearing fragrance. When my Beloved approached her to talk about it (these conversations are often a bit awkward), she said that she had remembered about the fragrance-free request, and had given herself a quick wash, but hadn’t taken a shower. (In some cases, even showering doesn’t do much good, because the person’s clothing is permeated with the scent, especially if it’s something they wear every day.) We didn’t want to send her away, so we chose to have her stay.

However, after the group met, my Beloved and I confabbed on this and we have come to the conclusion that we just can’t do that anymore. We’re going to maintain better boundaries about this, and do more education, and take care of ourselves.

Here are some non-scientific observations, and then I’ll get into some facts:

1) It seems like my Beloved has a “toxin-bucket” — when she hasn’t been exposed to something that triggers her symptoms for a while, she can go to the library and pass someone who is wearing perfume and her reaction will be slight.

Then something will happen like: A person wearing fragrance comes to a class — she’ll do OK — the next day, the neighbor’s dryer vent is blasting Downy all over our yard — she’ll do slightly OK — the next day, the wind shifts and the paper-mill steam blows over our way — she’ll do less OK — that afternoon, the sewer pipe backs up and three City guys (all Ax Body Sprayed to the -enth degree) and one plumber (Calvin-Klein-ified) have to be in our house to fix the sewer.

Then, her toxin-bucket gets full, and she has to lay down for a good long while.

At this point, answering the doorbell if I’m not home is a crap-shoot. Going into the yard to get some fresh air (which usually is helpful for her when her symptoms are active) is sometimes impossible, because it could mean a snoot-full of neurotoxins in the form of a breezy, fresh new scent. Being called for jury duty could mean sitting with a breathing mask on for days at a time.

2. The nose is a peculiar beast. Think of how it is when you come home from a long time away, and smell the smell of your own home. Usually, you can’t smell this, unless you’ve been away. You can smell other people’s houses the minute you walk in, but once you’ve been there a while, you don’t notice that smell.

We become desensitized to smells over a fairly quick period, so if we wear perfume or scented products over a period of time, we usually can’t smell them. I think that this accounts for the times when I pass someone on the street and their perfume just about knocks me over from three feet away. They can’t smell their own perfume anymore. So they put on more perfume.

An old friend who was a grade-school science teacher was fond of telling her students: “If you can smell it, it’s in your nose.”

She would usually tie this saying to something like the smell of dog-poo, just to evoke the “Ewww! Gross!” response from her students, but her point was that the mechanism of smelling was a chemical process whereby chemicals from the object we smelled actually entered the incredibly permeable surfaces of our noses — that it had to go into us in order to be registered as an odor.

That entry into our body doesn’t stop at our noses, though — it continues into our mouths, and our lungs — all organs that are fabulously designed to absorb and assimilate chemicals from the outside world.

So, when you’re wearing perfume or smelling your Bounced clothing, you’re actually ingesting it, too — and so is everyone else in the room. Fragrance is designed to invade other people’s space — manufacturers actually put chemicals in it to help it disseminate further and faster, and to last longer.

3. We are permeable beings. It’s not just what we breath in through our mouths and noses that gets into our bodies — our skin and eyes are permeable for a reason.

Years ago, when I was sealing a very small, high-ceilinged closet with a shellac-based (alcohol) product, I wore my very expensive respirator the entire time I was working. I had to close the closet door to access all the surfaces, and the high ceiling concentrated the fumes intensely.

I had done what I needed to protect myself — or so I thought — but at the end of the day, I could detect the distinct flavor/smell of ketones on my breath — you’re probably familiar with it, even if you don’t know the word –it’s that particular smell on the breath of someone who has had way to much to drink.

I asked my MD about it, and he pointed out that we very efficiently absorb chemicals through our skin, but most especially through our eyes. Our entire body is “breathing”.

So, chemicals that we douse our clothing in (and then wear next to our skins) will get into us, even if we can’t smell them.

Now, some facts:

A) Fragrance: You don’t know what’s in there.

Anytime you see the word “fragrance” on a product, it contains an unknown amount and combination of chemicals that are not required to be individually listed as ingredients.

These combinations of chemicals are considered a “trade secret” for fragrance manufacturers. The FDA has only banned about 10 chemicals from use in perfumes and cosmetics. Legally, any other chemical can be used in a fragrance, and those chemicals do not have to be revealed to the consumer in the ingredient list — the word “Fragrance” is enough, even though that may be dozens, or hundreds, of chemicals.

The fragrance industry is essentially, self-regulating. (And looking at the current state of the world economy, we all know how well that self-regulation thing works.)

B) Fragrance: What’s in there might not be very good for you.

“The fragrance industry does come under the regulation of the FDA, but the regulation is extremely limited. Many of the ingredients used in fragrances have little to no safety testing done on them. Most of the safety testing that has been done has revolved around the dermatological effects of fragrance chemicals. The effects on the respiratory system, the brain, and other organs of the body have not been determined on individual chemicals - much less in the combinations in which they are used.” ~ http://www.ourlittleplace.com/fda.html

“95% of chemicals used in fragrances are synthetic compounds derived from petroleum. They include benzene derivatives, aldehydes and many other known toxics and sensitizers - capable of causing cancer, birth defects, central nervous system disorders and allergic reactions.” ~ ‘Neurotoxins: At Home and the Workplace’, Report by the Committee on Science & Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Sept. 16, 1986. (Report 99-827)

Oh, in that 1986 Report from Congress, Fragrances were listed among the six categories of chemicals that should be given high priority to be tested for neurotoxicity — along with insecticides, heavy metals, solvents, food additives and certain air pollutants. (Neurotoxins are chemicals that damage or destroy nerve tissues.)

So, you don’t really get to know what’s in your nose, and they don’t have to tell you.

The only way you would be able to find out is to take it to a chemist and have it analyzed — and honestly — if what was in there was actually good for you, don’t you think the manufacturers would be touting that as a selling point? — “Between Love and a Stronger Immune System Lies . . . . . Obsession.”

C) Fragrance: It’s Not Just Your Cologne

Perfume and cologne, scented lotions, and soaps and shampoos that you apply to your body is only one of the problems with synthetic fragrance.

Dryer sheets, fabric softener, and detergents can contain fragrance — even if they’re marked “unscented” or even “fragrance-free” — because if a fragrance is used as a “masker” (something to mask the smell of another chemical, but not intended to impart a “scent”) — it doesn’t even have to be listed using that one word: Fragrance.

You can be, literally, “cleaning” your clothes in a chemical bath that isn’t “clean” at all.

“Trouble is, you have no way of knowing it. Manufacturers of detergents, laundry sheets and air fresheners aren’t required to list all of their ingredients on their labels — or anywhere else. Laws protecting people from indoor air pollution from consumer products are limited.

When UW engineering professor Anne Steinemann analyzed of some of these popular items, she found 100 different volatile organic compounds measuring 300 parts per billion or more — some of which can be cancerous or cause harm to respiratory, reproductive, neurological and other organ systems.

Some of the chemicals are categorized as hazardous or toxic by federal regulatory agencies. But the labels tell a different story, naming only innocuous-sounding “perfume” or “biodegradable” contents. ~http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/371779_toxicfragrance23.html

D) Fragrance: Your Favorite Fragrance Has Gone Global

It isn’t just going onto, and into, you.

It’s going down the drain to the water table, and into the sea, so fish are swimming in it and breathing it, and you get to drink it later, and eat it at Chez Fins.

It’s blowing out of your dryer vent, so insects and birds are flying through and breathing it.

It’s being dumped into landfills. (The EPA cites discarded or waste consumer cosmetics as one of the leading contributors to PCPPs in the environment.)

So fragrance is a gift that will keep on giving (toxins) for generations to come, and to other species who really don’t care whether you smell like a Spring Day (but who might care that they get to live to see another Spring day).

Of course, fragrance isn’t the only culprit in MCS (many people are triggered by things like new plastic products that are off-gassing — carpeting, etc.), and the toxicity of our buildings has increased as more and more synthetics are used.

But even if we’re just talking about fragrances, and we really do have a “toxin bucket” that can “get full”, and once we get full, we get sick, then what does it mean that we are bathing in, slathering our skins with, inhaling, and washing our clothes in stuff that we have a hunch might not be so good for us?

“. . . . . .health effects from exposures are often difficult to detect. While some effects are immediate and noticeable, others are gradual, subtle, and sub-clinical. Of particular concern are chronic and often low-level exposures to mixtures of chemicals, which are the type of exposures that typify daily life.

Human exposure studies, over the past two decades, have revealed widespread U.S. population exposure to VOCs (Wallace et al., 1991b;Wallace, 2001). Paradoxically, the largest contributors of VOCs to human exposure (nearly 90%) are not the sources traditionally recognized and regulated, but rather sources that are small, close to us, largely unregulated, yet often within our control (Wallace, 2001; Wallace et al., 1987), such as consumer products and other indoor sources. In particular, fragrance compounds, used in a wide variety of consumer products, can be primary sources of human exposure to VOCs (EPA, 1989; Sack et al., 1992; Wallace et al., 1991a; Cooper et al., 1992, 1995).”

Source: Steinemann AC, Fragranced consumer products and undisclosed ingredients, Environ Impact Asses Rev (2008), doi:10.1016/j.eiar.2008.05.002

Two recent situations I’ve been in that I find ironic:

I live in a state where you cannot smoke, even outside, within 25 feet of any doorway, air vent, window, or opening to a public space (even privately owned businesses), yet my Beloved cannot risk going to the City Building to pay the water bill without wearing a filter-mask, because the clerk might be wearing perfume, or have a Downy addiction.

My Beloved went to the public library to pick up the book she had put on hold (How everyday products make people sick : toxins at home and in the workplace / Paul D. Blanc), but she couldn’t bring it home and read it because it reeked of perfume.

So, there is my story, and some facts.

Now, here’s what you can do:

What You Can Do For Yourself and Your Family:

• Get that stuff out of your home, off your skin, and out of your clothes (and off of your loved ones’ skin and clothes.)
• There is a great round-up here about becoming fragrance-free.
• Check the labels on your body and hair-care products — but first, get educated about tricky words like “unscented”, “natural”, and “perfume free”. If it says “fragrance”, it has chemicals in it that you have no idea about. Even some “fragrance free” products can be dicey, because of the masking chemicals, which do not have to be listed as fragrance. Most products sold at Natural Food stores that are listed as Fragrance Free are reliable — but I prefer items that have an entire list of ingredients, and say so. You may be able to find out more about your existing products at Skin Deep, which has a database of safe and unsafe cosmetics. (You can also research individual ingredients there, because even fragrance-free products can contain other chemicals you don’t want on you or in you.)
• Start using products that are environmentally safe and safe for you. Here’s a great start: http://www.peggymunson.com/mcs/products.html
• Get educated — all of the links in this post lead to real information, much of it peer-reviewed scientific study and official reports, the rest from people who deal with MCS.

Here’s what’s currently in use at my house:

• Seventh Generation Free & Clear Laundry and Household cleaning products
• Bon-Ami
• Citra-Solv
• White Vinegar (cleans windows, surfaces, and absorbs fragrances in rooms)
• Baking Soda (mix it with vinegar to clear drains, absorbs smells — you can even wash your hair with it — and yes, it does work — my Beloved has been using it, and her hair looks, and feels, great.)
• Shampoos and Hair Care Products vary, but I like Aubrey Organics (also, there are very inexpensive and effective ways to go fragrance-free that don’t involve buying expensive fragrance-free products — check the links above).
• We usually purchase locally-handmade soaps, but we always have Dr. Bronner’s on hand (sometimes, literally on hand).

What You Can Do For Your Chemically Sensitive Friends:

• Get educated. There’s a wealth of information out there. You might want to start with Peggy Munson, and MCS.org.
• Ask them what their sensitivities are. Take them seriously. This is real. It’s not in their heads, and if you choose to use fragrance and then hang around them, they can end up feeling lousy for hours, days, weeks, or months.
• Don’t be offended if they’re hesitant to hug you, or invite you to their house, or when they say that they can’t accompany you to a certain restaurant or concert or bar. It isn’t you — it’s your chemicals.
• Remember that when you choose to wear fragrance around your friend, even if you know it will trigger reactions in them, it’s kind of like blowing cigarette smoke in the face of someone with emphysema — your choice is trumping their health.
• Remember that some people are triggered by off-gassing from new plastic items, so consider this when choosing gifts and packaging.
• Speak up for them when other people scoff at their needs. Help people get educated.

Giving up fragranced products has been difficult for some people I know.

There seems to be a tendency to think that the person with the MCS is the one with the problem, rather than a willingness to look at the fact that maybe the level of toxicity we live in and around is the problem.

Last week, a student came to class wearing perfume. She is a nutritionist, and when my Beloved had a conversation with her about fragrance, the student cheerfully informed Beloved that she had been helping people with MCS improve through dietary changes — maybe she could help Beloved, too! My Beloved thanked her, told her that she is working with *therapies that were helping her, and then said:

“You know, even if I’m not having reactions to the chemicals, I still don’t want to live around that stuff.” The young woman looked honestly baffled at this.

But you see — I don’t actually think of MCS as a “disease” (the “canary in the coal mine” comes to mind) — instead, I think that, as we increasingly surround ourselves with more and more and more low-level toxins, all of us may be”getting our buckets filled” — and that those whose MCS reactions are more extreme may be our early-warning signal, giving us a glimpse of what’s to come if we don’t clean up our act.

============
*I’ve asked my Beloved to write a post at her own blog about the things that she’s doing that are helping her deal with her reactions to chemicals. It’s not ready yet, but when it is, I’ll update this post with a link.

Today is my Beloved’s 52nd birthday –  I wrote this exactly six years ago — about her:

And you.
Where do you fit here?

Coming in
like a low-flying hawk
to kiss me
with truth.

I have been
waiting a long
while.

You have
arrived
and I am
speechless.

(I’m returning to my old weekly poetry tradition.  I may go back to Fridays, but tonight, Saturday is just fine.)

Loveseat From An Old Love

It was serviceable
but never lovely.

Not really comfortable, even,
but serviceable, yes.

It would do in a pinch.

When we came together,
that wasn’t was I was thinking.

I thought us lovely, then,
and never wanted to be
just
serviceable
or
just
comfortable.

My wish was granted.

We were never serviceable.

And rarely comfortable.

But we would do in a pinch.

Like us, it would
fold out into a bed
if needed,
but that wasn’t
its primary function.

Like us, it had a big tear
that needed hiding.

It’s been nearly seven years
since you ceded this
uncomfortable
do-in-a-pinchy-y
furniture to me.

Time enough for my cells
to regenerate,
and for this piece
of stuffing and wood
to become
just another thing
I cart around.

Today, I sent it off
to someone who
desired its service,
and didn’t mind its discomfort –
someone who relished getting
“such a good deal”,
and who hauled it away to boot.

She got the floral cover
that you made, too –
the one that covered
the awful tear.

Tonight, I’ll sleep
comfortable
in a bed
that is a bed
all the time
with my love
who rises to service
with me every day
and never ceases
to be lovely.

copyright 2008 Carol L. Steinel

I’m about to embark on a new experiment — an exploration into something I’ve always dreamed of, but never dared.

On Tuesday, Carruch gave the members of our weekly spiritual upliftment class (Doing the Do) an assignment.  First, he asked each of us what system or situation in the world bugged us the most — which societal or world-wide condition did we angst about the hardest?  Was it violence?  War?  Injustice?  Prejudice? The Destruction of the Environment?  Dishonesty?  He asked us to think especially about systems or situations that we thought we didn’t really have much power to change.

Around the room we went, as each person stated what particular thing “got in their craw” most regularly.  As I was channeling, I knew instantaneously, inside my head, what I would pick:

An economic structure that privileges the few as it ravages the many — a system that allows — NO!  — encourages! –  individuals to “get theirs”, no matter the cost to other humans, animals, the earth, or to their own souls.

It’s always been problematic for me.

I see the economic philosophy of “Personal Prosperity at Any Cost!” as the root of many ills in our world.

At the physical level, I believe that it contributes to war, and famine, and oppression, and the destruction of our environment — but perhaps more importantly, at the spiritual level, I believe it is a direct contributor to the abandonment of soul-path/soul-purpose for many, many people, as they are seemingly forced to choose between physical survival for themselves and their families, or doing the work that they came to do on this planet.

That, to me, is tragic — and a great loss to all of us.

I’ve never been comfortable with the economic system I was born into.  I’ve generally chosen to do work that at least in some way reflected my deeply-ingrained service ethic — social worker, social-commentary comedienne, teacher, helper, psychic, counselor, etc..

I’ve tried out all kinds of “alternative” arrangements for equal exchange for the work I do — from offering everything by “love offering”, to barter, to sliding scale fees, to rigid policy/fee-structures — and various mixes of all of the above.  None of them has ever truly brought me to a sense of peace.

Doing my work strictly by love offering often attracted people who wanted “something for nothing” as they continued to participate in the “Personal Prosperity at Any Cost” game.

Barter was often problematic because my barter base wasn’t wide enough, and the person I was bartering with didn’t always have something that I truly needed or wanted.

Sliding scales were difficult for people who wanted a fixed fee, and riddled with the weirdness of some people who actually had a lot of money (but thought they didn’t) and some people who didn’t have a lot of (or any) money (but thought they ought to pay more than they actually could afford).

Rigid policies/fees meant that some people took one look at my pricing structure and said:  “Nope.  That’s not something that’s within my reach right now” — even though they might really have benefited from my work.

So, the past ten years of my life have been a funny hodge-podge –  a weird admixture of completely donating a lot of work (I’ve consistently provided two weekly teachings with no fee attached, which are sometimes well attended, and sometimes poorly attended), having some work which I provided at a fairly high fixed fee, and some work which I provided on sliding scale.  I’ve been open to barter and waived or reduced fees for many people.  Still, I’ve never had the sense of “This is IT!  This system feels completely aligned to me!”

And all that doesn’t even touch the fact that I have a deep-seated philosophical dilemma about charging money for spiritual work at all – an entire internal conflict about “charging” for something that comes through me, not from me — to me, it’s sometimes seemed like charging people for air or something.

Which brings me to the second part of Carruch’s assignment:  Once everyone had stated their “that really bugs me” system/situation, he asked us to literally, personally, become the solution to the problem we were complaining about — if only for one week, in some small area of our lives.

Did we mourn the trashing of the environment?  Then in one part of our lives (our office or our home or our yard, etc.), we were to become pristinely environmentally aware — to waste nothing, and recycle everything, and find new ways to be absolutely sustainable.  In that one area, we were to be absolutely, completely dedicated to being a living example of the solution to the “problem” we complained about in the world.

Now remember, I’m channeling while this assignment is being given.  I’m hearing everything that’s being said, but “I”/Carol is not a part of this conversation externally.

However –  I’m thinking, inside:  “Oh shit.  I’m going to have to change my own economy.”

I have a rather peculiar view on the whole “economic crash” situation I’ve been reading about and experiencing recently.  I actually see it as an important healing crisis for our species.

I think that, deep down, we’ve all secretly despised our economic system, and that we have believed/understood that it doesn’t really work.  From a purely “financial” view, there have been times in my life that I did “better” and times that I did “worse” in this system, but even when I was closer to the top of the heap, I still knew, deep in my gut, that the whole system was screwed up.

It was screwed up because, while money was completely necessary to the system, it couldn’t actually buy the stuff we really wanted — connection and fulfillment.

I’d seen too many miserable people with lots of money and too many blissful people with no money to believe the hype that somehow, if you could only make enough money, everything would be fine — that money would make you “safe”, or “powerful”, or “happy”.

In truth, I have never wanted to participate in system that thinks its fine for me to wheel out of the grocery store with a basketful of groceries while passing a man who’s sitting outside, begging spare change for a sandwich.

I have always wanted — ever since I was a child — to participate in a system where everyone’s basic needs were attended to — where everyone had a warm shelter and clothing, a bath when they wanted it, clean water to drink, enough food to eat, and the health care they needed — after which, they could decide what else they might want to do with their time if they wanted to amass a bunch of additional wealth or do whatever else they wanted to do.  That, to me, is the basic seed from which Utopia can grow.

So, in accordance with Carruch’s assignment, I’m entering an Evolutionary Economy that I call “The QuadE“.  It’s an experiment that I’ll be carrying out for the next month — from now until December 5th, 2008.  I’m going to see how it works for me and for everyone who chooses to participate with me in it.

Here’s what I’m planning to do to become the solution I want to see:

For the next month, I’m going to offer my private reading/channeling work to the world under the idea of “Quad-E“  (Evolutionary Equal Exchange Economy) — that means:

• You can schedule a reading with me and make an equal exchange with me that you determine.
• I request that you offer me exchange to the greatest level that you can, as long as that exchange doesn’t a) detriment/detract-from you, or b) exceed what you think my return exchange is actually worth to you.
• I request that you value and respect what you receive from me in our exchange, and I agree to value and respect what I receive from you in our exchange.
• The exchange can be monetary (at any level), or in the form of things on my “Stuff I Need and Want” list, or it might be a combination of those.  The exchange can involve an agreement over time (payments or barter in installments), as long as it is easeful and uplifting for both of us to do that.
• The exchange can be in “pay it forward” mode.  I can offer something to you, and you can agree with me to offer a like exchange to someone else, with the agreement that they will pay it forward again.
• If you want a recording of a phone session, you exchange with me at least the money to cover the tape, and the shipping for the tape (at least $6 — the cost of the tape, the packaging, and the shipping inside the US).  If you want a recording of an onsite session, at least $2 (to cover the cost of the tape).

Here’s some of the theory behind the Quad-E philosophy I’m working on:

1. No being’s life-force is worth more (or less) than any other being’s life force, and all life-forces are deeply intertwined.
2. All dynamic and sustainable systems in the physical universe are based on ongoing, and ultimately-equalized exchange.
3. All sustainable “economies” in the natural world are creative and evolutionary in how they approach systems of exchange, while recognizing the fact that destroying something upon which you rely is kind of — well — stupid.

I’ll tell you honestly that this feels scary to me — jumping off this diving board.  I have all sorts of fears and anxieties that arise as I enter this experiment — here are just a few I’ve become conscious of (I’m not saying they’re reasonable, or aligned — but I’m admitting that they are present):

• People will just see me as stupid for “giving stuff away”.
• People won’t really value the work if they don’t pay for it.
• Some people will just want to get something from me, and won’t really make an honest exchange.  They’ll stay in that old economic framework and laugh at me for being a chump who gives stuff away while they get rich.
• People will think I’m just a dreamy-eyed Utopian, and won’t want to experiment with me like this.
• People don’t want my work anyway, and that will become apparent during this experiment, and I’ll just have to get really up close and take and look at that, and then maybe I’ll need to question the worth of the last ten years of my life.  Yikes!

Yes, these fears arise.  These voices in my head give their opinions.

But the truth is, I’ll never know if I don’t try this.

I want to change the world.  This is how I am being the solution that I want to see — if only for a month.

Who knows?  Maybe I’ll never want to go back, once I’ve tried it this way.

=========

Want a session under the Quad-E format?  Go to my scheduler, and book using the QuadE selections.  If you want to book under my old format, that’s fine too.  Let’s create something new.

=========

I’ll be blogging about this more in a few days, but in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve just “come out” at my other blog:  “Teh Portly Dyke“, where I’ve been blogging for the past year and a half — click over to read why I’ve kept them separate, and why I’m coming out now.  Thought I’d give you a heads-up from this end.

My Beloved and I have been deeply in the knowing that it’s time to move.

Physically move, spiritually move, energetically move, mentally move, etc., etc., etc..

We’ve known since last Spring that we probably wouldn’t be at our current address much past this Fall — in that kind of bone-deep knowing that defies the brain, and all the intellectual arguments about how it would be “prudent” or “wise” or whatever to remain in this comfy little house that we’ve loved so well.

This is the thing — we don’t really seem to have an idea about what’s “next”.

We’ve sat in council together on it, and discussed it, and channeled about it, and thought about it, both individually and collectively.

So far, a couple of things seem clear:

1) It’s time to “Lighten Up” — we’ve been culling our possessions and getting rid of stuff that we have kept but don’t use regularly, and both of us have a clear sense that we want to get rid of a whole lot of “stuff”.   That process is underway.  It’s been incredibly liberating for me, as I’m letting go of things that were attached to a previous identity as a construction contractor/house-painter/carpenter (I mean, really, do I actually NEED to have painting equipment for a crew of 12, and dry-walling equipment for 10?).

2) We both ultimately want to be living in intentional community — a community that fits our vision of what that means — living in alignment with Cosmic Law, living with the intention of using exponential energy to uphold the welfare of the group, and every individual within the group, and living in a way that is sustainable for Earth and all her subsidiary beings.

Yesterday, we walked, and talked, and sat in counsel together again, to determine what the “next step” for us might be (beyond the already clear process of clearing out the “stuff”) — and it became very clear for both of us that sending out the word about our desire to move was important.

Now, I’m a Cancer sun-sign by natal chart, and I’m normally pretty focused on where “home” is — but interestingly, I’m finding that at this time, I’m feeling truly flexible about where I make my home.  I’d be happy with a small wood-heated cabin for a few months as we move toward community life, or a direct move into the community that fits for me, or something completely different.   We’ve tossed around the idea of moving the temple space into the main house here, and renting out the back space to someone, as one of the things that hasn’t felt “right” to us is the lack of use of that space, but we’re not stuck on that option, or any other at this point.  My Beloved has expressed the same flexibility.

We’ve talked about this a lot in the past four months — how we recognize that this place was perfect for us at the time we moved here, but that it just doesn’t feel “right” for us at this point.  It’s more space than we need or want, for starters, and it is also not as rural as we’d like to be in our ultimate vision of the perfect life.  In addition, the idea of sustainability and “green” living is very important to both of us, and although this house is sweet and pretty, it’s not very green.

So, we’re doing what we’ve been guided to do:  Sending out the word to others that we’re on the lookout for something new.

In our discussions, we’ve gotten clear that, while we ultimately want to live in community, we’re also open to the idea of taking a small, simple place for the Winter, and using that time to regroup and vision further about our dream of community.  We aren’t stuck on the “where” of that, really — it may be in Port Townsend, or it may not — we’re staying open to the concept that we’ll go where we feel guided to go, and the most important thing is that it “feel right”.  That’s a big change for me — if you’d asked me three years ago, I would have said that PT was where I’d be for the rest of my life.

I thought I’d share a bit about my vision of community.

We’ve been dreaming and visioning about community for years — and we’ve constructed what we think is a good model for creating and sustaining it.

The interesting thing is that I have a very clear picture of that community — down to the physical place — in my head, and it’s been there for a long time, that picture.  Here’s a description that I wrote this Summer, when Kumatriel and I were doing some intensive work on visioning:

I live in my hobbit hole, just down the hill from Kumatriel - just outside of hearing distance if we are making music or singing loudly or what-not. She has her perfect place.

In between, connected by a tunnel from my hobbit hole, and by a fairy-walk from her place, there is our mate-hut. It’s simple: A room with a bed, a furo, perhaps a connector that can be turned completely off that links to netflix (but I’m not sure about that one).

The room is shoji-like, with two wide sliding doors that give onto a deck with a retractable awning. The bed rolls easily out onto the deck so that we can sleep outside if we wish.

There are solar lights, but the entire electric system can be shut off with the flip of a switch, and none of the wiring runs through the walls around us. The small solar panels sit just outside of each light on the exterior wall, and feed energy to its own individual light. The furo is ultra-insulated and set into the floor. The heat comes from recirculated passive solar pipe laid out on the hill, which is disguised as a fantastic sculpture.

From our hut and our houses, we can look down into the valley where the temple space is - to the North is the Common House, on a rise, and the temple is surrounded by the gardens, and the pond is down there in the valley. Other community members live in houses of their own choosing that are up on the rising slopes that make a semi-circle around the gardens and temple space.

There are three guest cottages near the Common House. My friends come and stay when they want. In the Common House are rooms for residents who want to live close to one another, the main kitchen, and rooms for visitors. There is also a large dormitory with five rooms that will sleep four people each. This is used for students during retreats, but it is also possible to move the walls and turn it into an open dance house/yoga studio.

The pond is deep enough to swim in, and the bath house is nearby, again, heated by a solar-pipe sculpture.

The wind-mills behind the Common House spin silently. They are arranged so that, from the garden, you see only their arms over the top of the CH. I love sitting there.

In my hobbit hole, there is a desk/computer area with two large screen monitors, internet, sound studio, etc.. There is a small comfy bed and a chair by the window. I can see the garden from there. One window has the nearby heat-source and the chair, and the other has a drawing table in front of it. The tunnel to the mate-hut is rock-lined, arched, just tall enough for Kumatriel. Elvis is situated so that I can see out the window as I play. The acoustics are fantastic. There is a small kitchenette and outside, a composting toilet.

I have enough resources that I can perform small miracles anonymously for those who need assistance with unlimiting their thinking. For these people, I am the miracle that I’ve always prayed for, but they will never know who the miracle came from.

We teach once a month through the year, hold Friday circle and Do the Do (or something like it, a spiritual gathering/support group) and do a 3-month residential workshop each year that begins on Spring Equinox and ends on Summer Solstice. The focus of this workshop is helping people to shake loose of limitation and learning to live organically, and try out community.

Most years, from Winter Solstice to near Spring Equinox, Kumatriel and I travel. We go to Hawaii, India, Greece, Alsace Lorraine, Egypt, the Yucatan, Israel, England. Sometimes we teach when we travel, sometimes not.

I never even think about money. I don’t manage the arrangements for teaching or the travel - all this is done by other people, who do it because they love it, and who also have no resource lack in any way.

If someone wants something, I can simply give it to them if I want to.

All our books have been catalogued into the community library - all possessions that we are done with have been moved along to someone who will love them. The Common House has a big music room with music books and shared instruments. My favorite personal instruments are in my hobbit hole. Old clothes that are precious and costume-like are in the community closet at the Common House - the kids love to go there and play dress-up.

In the dormitory/studio space, there is a small stage where performances, plays, and presentations are made. Comfortable foam-benches double as wall-liners when not in use.

Any bills owed to outside the community are paid once a year by our accounting angel from the community’s collective fund. The community comes together in the Autumn and for one month, we concentrate on our exchanges with the outside world. We discuss what aspects of exchange we want to make with those who do not share our community. The year’s teaching and travel is discussed. Sometimes people travel with Kumatriel and I to places they are interested in.

From Summer Solstice through Autumn Equinox, I generally concentrate on my writing and art. I’ve completed two plays, and we’ve filmed the Hesperides at Fort Worden. Most of the actors were community members. Among our group we have writers, artists, actors, musicians, architects, master gardeners - everyone is an artist. Everyone has been searching their whole life for a community like this - this dedicated, this committed - a place where they can focus entirely on honing their blissful practice of their particular art-form. They are all out there in the world (and at home) doing their own teaching and performing and writing and blissful activity, whatever it is. Our master/mistress gardener plans and sets out our gorgeous garden, which produces the bulk of our food. We trade with local organic farmers for what we don’t have.

Kumatriel and I teach in the Spring primarily, and during the rest of the year, other community members do their teaching - there is an easeful flow around scheduling and time. Each member is confident in their own work, and the various bits of work mesh together perfectly.

Circle is usually Carruch, but not always. Maybe every other week I channel. We have two other people who sit East and West consistently - they are equals in terms of the quality of their knowledge and teaching, and maybe the channeling/presentation/leadership shifts around the circle every week (East, South, West, and North). Some years, we determine to have the East teacher teach in the Spring, the South teacher in the Summer, the West teacher in the Fall, the North teacher in the Winter.

The temple of identity has been built - it’s up between the windmills at the top of the hill above the Common House, one of the first things that you see as you enter the property, as you wend your way between the swinging arms of the wind generators. It’s open to anyone and people come just to walk and choose, like a public labyrinth.

This picture is so clear in my mind that I’ve even made a 3-d computer model of the land.

I’m holding that vision in my heart, mind, and body, and also remaining open to the “what next” of this time.

I feel flexible and ready to go with the flow, and strangely, knowing that I don’t know exactly what will change, but that the change will be big, doesn’t stimulate “scared” or fear in me.  I actually feel rather excited, as if I’m about to go on a big adventure.

If you feel guided to send us a suggestion or let us know about an opportunity or option that we might not yet be aware of, please leave a comment here or email me at ruccha@carruch.com and let me know.  If you feel drawn to creating community, or if renting our back space sounds appealing to you, or just anything at all — get in touch with us.  Even if you think your idea is wacky, please send it on!

Big changes ahead!  I wonder what’s next?

When we moved in here, one of the extra-added bonus bits was this crow who showed up and hung out with us.

He was a peculiar and spectacular crow — big, bold, and smart (as crows are wont to be). Peculiar enough for me to be able to identify him easily by his behavior, even when he showed up with other crows (more on this later).

I can’t remember if it was me or my Beloved who dubbed him “Jacob”. It was one of those things where that was just his name, you know? As if it came out of thin air.

Jacob visited us nearly every day for the last two and a half years. He (and later, his various families) would arrive on the wire outside the kitchen window each morning, and my Beloved or I would take the previous day’s leftovers out to the big stump where we had placed a big water platter for his bathing and drinking pleasure. We took out the things that couldn’t go into the garden compost — bits of fish from last night’s dinner, leftover bits of squishy cat food that Her Majesty couldn’t be arsed to eat, slimy cheese (his favorite), etc..

My Beloved and Jacob were especially close.  Ms. Nature-Girl has a way with critters and plants. She would sit out, writing in her journal, and always had a pocket with a few cat-kibbles in it, which she would periodically fling out to Jacob, who would venture amazingly close to her (although he always remained very much a “wild” bird). His relationship with her was not a simple habituation to humans in general. He would be near (but not that near) to me. He would be less near other humans, even those who were at our house frequently.

The love affair between them progressed to the point where I started calling Jacob her boyfriend. Each morning, if she was up early (common), he would sit on the kitchen wire, right where he could watch her making her morning tea (and no doubt inspect any leftovers she might be preparing for him). If she wasn’t up early, he would actually come to the skylight that looked in on our bed in a completely different part of the house (never at the other skylight), and tap at the frame, then peer in to see if a sleepy head would lift from the pillow.

He would greet her with a ritual that crow-experts say is usually reserved between family-members in the crow clan — he would sort of bow his head, clack his beak, and coo — we called it his “Bowuh-Bowuh” sound.

The first Summer it was mostly just Jacob — and his mate, which Beloved named Cee. When they brought their two fledglings (baby crows are big, but you can ID them as babies because of their bright pink mouths, blue eyes, and constant clamoring to have food rammed down their throats), we were delighted and honored. The four crows (later three — one of the fledglings was lost) came daily, and the babies entertained us endlessly as they played with anything they came across. Tuft of grass? Play with it! Pebble? Play with it! Water platter? Attempt to balance on the edge of it and fall off!

The family hung around for the summer, Cee and the baby (Ink) left, but Jacob stayed on through the Winter, and appeared alone most of the time. The next Summer, he seemingly “fostered” another fledgling (crows do this, apparently — uncles helping out families even when they don’t have a brood of their own), who we called Farley.

Farley stuck with Jacob through the season, and this Summer, Jacob took on another fosterling who Beloved named Yi. Yi was a strange bird, still begging from Jacob long after s/he was bigger and had learned to eat for itself, and generally seemed a bit slow on the uptake. We could hear him/her begging from any available adult crow all through the neighborhood — and if you’ve never heard a baby crow begging and being fed by an adult, it’s sorta like this:

“Aaack. Aackkk. Aacck. aack-aack-aack-gargle-gargle-gargle-aack-gargle-aack.”

All the while, flapping their wings in a rather comical fashion.

If he and his various clans did not show up immediately after sunrise, we would say: “Have you seen the crows today?” or “Jacob hasn’t showed up today.” If he arrived while I was sitting on the stoop in my PJs, having a first smoke of the day, I would call into Beloved: “Your crow-friends are here!” or “You have a/two/three/four crows.”

Occasionally, he would be joined by a host of six or seven others. Inviting friends in for brunch, I suppose. They would be properly cautious of us (as Cee, Ink, Farley, and Yi always were) — which meant that Jacob always got the pick of the leftovers, as he was always the first one to venture down as we walked away from the stump. He buzzed Beloved’s head a couple of times, coming nearly close enough for a wing-brush.

Anyway — Jacob has been part of our daily existence for nearly three turns of the year. My beloved and I are now considering a move, and Jacob was one of our shared concerns — if we moved across town, would he find and follow us? If not, would the new residents of this house honor him, or shoo him away (or worse).

This last Tuesday, Jacob was acting very strangely. He perched at the edge of a bird-bath under the Magnolia tree for an hour or so, very still, peering down at his own reflection in the water. We were concerned, because the neighbors have a new black kitty who is young and a voracious hunter (he catches hummingbirds, and makes it look very, very easy), and we worried that the cat might attack Jacob, who appeared ill or, at the very least, not his usual self. However, Black Kitty snoozed away nearby under the hardy fuschia, and left Jacob unmolested as he scried the bird-bath.

The next day, Jacob showed up for his morning meal, but he was on the ground most of the morning (a dangerous place in terms of our local feline population, and unusual for the usually cagey Jacob). He then flew to a low branch of our huge Rhodedendron bush and stayed there, mostly still, throughout the day. We kept the neighbor kitty inside (neighbors are gone on vacation, and Black Kitty is fending for himself with a cat-door and someone dropping in to feed him), and watched over Jacob off and on during the day, wondering if he’d been poisoned or was ill.

Then, around evening time, he fell from his perch, and as my Beloved sat nearby, he died. After he fell, he lifted his head a few times, stretched his wings in his death-throes, and then quietly folded himself up small and passed out of his body.

We cried together and buried him in the garden. We considered letting him return to the earth on his own, but on the off-chance that he had been poisoned or ill rather than possibly old, we didn’t want to take the chance that a local animal would consume his carcass.

His body, though looking much smaller in death, was sleek and beautiful. He had left us some of these magnificent feathers in his annual molts, but seeing them in place, how they interlaced and overlaid one another, and finally getting to look at his talons up close was sad and amazing.

Next morning, Yi and Farley showed up as usual. It was odd that they hadn’t been with him here during the two days of his illness — although perhaps that’s not odd for crows — but we were glad to see them (both have always been far less engaged with us than Jacob was, but they still seem to know where to get a good breakfast).

The other thing that we thought odd was that Jacob seemed to come here deliberately to let us know he was departing. We struggled somewhat with whether he was asking for help, or just letting us know, but we both seemed to have the sense that it was best to let the wild thing be wild.

I’m glad that I knew him. I’m honored that he came so close.

I loved a crow. He’s not a crow anymore.

Well, here it is — the promised post when my project was completed.

Today, I mailed out 32 of these:

A 6 DVD set that I’ve been working on since January 2008.

It didn’t really occur to me until today that it had taken a full nine months, even though I’ve been saying to my Beloved for the last month that I felt like a pregnant mother — a pregnant mother at eight months — at that point where she is fully and completely convinced that the baby will NEVER be born, and that she will be pregnant for the rest of her life.

I was like that a month ago.  Seriously.

I was even more like that a week ago.

And I was completely like that this last Sunday.

So, I thought I would blog a bit about the process.

First of all, “process” is such a quaint word, don’t you think?

We use it for so many things, and so often, I find myself tossing this poor, defenseless word out when what I’m talking about is something so all-consuming that seven letters is just not going to cut it.

So I’ll stop using the word “process” for this process — because it’s just not fair to that pitiful little word — instead, I’ll use the phrase “Oh My God What Was I Thinking When I Had Even a Momentary Twinkle Of An Idea That I Could Write Direct Shoot Engineer Animate Edit And Produce a 6 Fucking DVD SET?!?!?!?!??!  In Less Than A Year No Less!!?!??!?!?!  What The Bloody Hell Made Me Think I Could Do That?!?!?!?!?!?!”

For short, I’ll just refer to that as:  “OMFG!!” as this post progresses.

In the beginning, it all seemed so simple, really.

Sure, there would be “learning curves” as I took on new software and new technologies, but hey, I’m a software-savvy type-o-gal! — I could handle that.

Just whip out some computer animations (more on this as the days progress), shoot a bit of film of a class I’ve taught more than 60 times in the last ten years (conservatively speaking), and send those babies out there!

Yeah. Right.

Not so much.

First of all, my experiences over the last nine months have given me a profound and humbling respect for the people who make movies — especially animated movies, but really, all types of motion pictures.  Unless you’ve done it, even in the small way that I have done it, you really can not imagine the level of detail and attention required.

I’m putting up this post tonight, and will probably follow with more details in the near future, as I have a desire to chronicle it for myself, but I’ll skip right to last week and give you a hint of what kind of experience has been consuming me up till the moment I walked into the Post Office today with a big fat box of  packaged DVDs:

A week ago Tuesday, I was all wrapped.  The project was edited and mastered and ready to duplicate.  I had purchased a handy-dandy (code for “expensive”) machine to burn and print the disks for me in preparation for sending them out.

Which machine turned out not so handy-dandy right then.  Which machine, in fact, decided to morph into a rather expensive paper-weight on my desk right then, and crash my computer again and again and again and again to boot.

I remained fairly calm through this part (which amazes me).  However, after I spent the weekend (while tech support was completely unavailable) reloading my entire hard-drive, repairing Windows XP, and hand-burning over 400 DVDs . . . . . well, let’s just say that my “labor” was progressing.

On Monday night, after days of struggle with the computer, and the machine, and the disks, and the OMFG!!!, I received an email from the computer tech at the company that makes the incredibly expensive paper-weight telling me that “Ooops!  Maybe it wasn’t a software problem after all!  Maybe I had a dysfunctioning unit.”

That was the moment that I lost it.  At 2-ish am on Monday, after 5 days of constant, patient trying and retrying something that I probably didn’t need to be doing anyway — cause the thing just wasn’t going to work.

I boo-hooed like a baby at my desk.  I ranted and raved internally.  (Good thing tech support wasn’t open, or the tech would have gotten an email that would have blown the eyeballs straight out of his head).

But it was good that I had that tantrum, I think — when a woman’s in labor, they call this the “transition tantrum” — it’s the point where she looks at anyone around her who is trying to help her (often/usually the father) and says something really rational like “YOU BASTARD!!!! YOU DID THIS TO ME!!!!”

Doctors and midwives often take this to be a very good sign.  It means that everything is progressing perfectly.

At the moment, I was not able to perceive this.  Had I been asked at this moment, I would have been, like:  What is this progression of which you speak?

However, progress I did, and out it came, and my “baby” has now become a teen (in just under 48 hours), flying out into the world as a teenager, ready to be greeted by others.

That part feels very abrupt to me right now (the infant-to-teen in 24 hours bit).

One of the pregnancy-metaphor moments that I had last Friday was the moment when I was reviewing some material on one of the disks and suddenly thought:  “OMFG!!! It’s crap.  It’s totally awful, crappy, crap!”  This can happen when you’re “too close” to a project.  It’s a moment as normal and important as the moment when you think that what you’ve just made is the most perfect and incredible thing ever made by any human being in all of recorded and unrecorded history (and yes, I had that moment, too).

At any rate, it’s done, and it’s out in the world, which feels simultaneously hugely relieving, and incredibly scary.  It is what it is, and I hope that others will see it and be helped by it and will enjoy watching it — but even if they don’t, this phase of it is done.

I’ll go and rest quietly now.

According to those in the know (my beloved, who does incredibly thorough astronomical/astrological research), tonight is the official Lunar Beltane.

Beltane is a “cross-quarter” day — the day between the Solstice and the Equinox (or the Equinox and the Solstice).  These days aren’t celebrated much anymore, more’s the pity.

When I was a kid, “May Day” (5/1) was a big deal.  We would make little paper cones and staple on little paper handles, and fill them with lilacs and spirea, and leave them hanging on neighbor’s door-handles.  Nowadays, I’m not sure that people would even recognize the “May Basket” tradition.

There was no candy involved, as with Halloween and Valentine’s Day, but for me, this was still a very sweet holiday.

The recipients of our May Baskets were friends in child-form, adult-form, and elder-form.   It wasn’t one of those holidays where you stuck around to find out if they had opened their door and seen your offering.  You hung the basket and ske-daddled.

There were, however, usually lacey dresses involved — often the “Easter Dress” from some weeks before.  You can imagine how that sat with me, Ms. Butchy of 1965.

Thinking back, I can imagine those lilacs poking up from the paper cones.  We didn’t deliver them with water-vials attached to their stems — these were wonders to come as we approached our brave new future — so they must have faded pretty quickly.

But at the time, I was young and hopeful, and probably never gave a thought as to whether the cuttings would be wilted by the time that resident discovered them.

Happy really May Day, everyone.

Just ignore the terminology.

My beloved brought home (from the library) a two-disk set of Jeeves and Wooster the other day, and we’ve been partaking of that in steady doses during the evenings that we haven’t been teaching.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve each said: “We need one of those.” (A “Jeeves”)

I’ve been kind of fascinated in watching Jeeves’ style, though — it’s a wonderful study in “roles”. Jeeves is absolutely, willingly a subservient to Wooster. He accepts his role as a sovereign act, capitalizes on its advantages, and takes its disadvantages with good grace.

There’s never a moment of feeling that Jeeves is somehow “less than” his “master” (quite the opposite, in fact), and although his role prevents him from speaking freely in some instances, it also relieves him of the responsibility of doing so.

I think there is a longer post in this for me, but I haven’t sorted it all out yet.

My beloved once told me about a Native American tribe which had a very strong tabu against telling anyone else what to do. Even if someone was driving and was about to drive the entire car full of people over the edge of a steep embankment, the respect for the driver’s sovereignty was such that, rather than screaming and attempting to get him/her to do something different, the passenger would only say something like “There’s the edge”, affording the driver the opportunity to make a choice, but putting no pressure on them to choose one way or the other.

As I ruminate more on the captivating conundrums of Jeeves and Bernie, I will try out Jeeve’s favorite phrase: “Indeed, sir”.

The Bee

I left the garage door open.
I did that.

It confused the inside with the outside.
It did that.

The humming was immense
bouncing off concrete,
and I was going in
for the day.

It banged its body
against the panes
trying to turn inside outside,
forgetting where it came from. 5/2/08