Vote 'NO' Fascism in Canada

A vote for Stephen Harper's party is a vote for fascism. Mr. Harper has been found in contempt of Parliament and removed from office - the first time in the history of the Commonwealth - and he just shrugs it off as partisan "bickering" and comes back demanding a majority government so he doesn't have to deal with opposition. That was how he answered the question of how to work with other parties - give him a majority so he doesn't have to.

I've personally experienced his quashing of our freedoms as an international development professional, watching him remove funding from groups like Kairos who don't fit his ideology, and from groups like CCIC who dare to oppose his policies publicly. I've watched helplessly as people right beside me are beaten and abused by the police as we tried to peacefully express our views at the illegal G20 summit. I've signed petitions and sent letters and felt the national outrage at his withholding of information that members of a democratic society have the right to know, and need to know to ensure that our elected government is doing its job.

Just like when the police wall were moving forward beating their shields to intimidate us in Toronto, I've felt helpless much of the time in the face of this absolute power by a minority leader. Just imagine what he'll destroy with a majority rule. We have been given a chance to take back our power, to demand information and hold him accountable to his actions, not just his rhetoric. If we vote this man back into power now, he will have the mandate to further increase his stranglehold on us.

I'm not talking here about the Conservative Party, who have managed to rule democratically in the past - this is Mr. Harper, and any others who may share his approach or try to continue in his footsteps once we finally boot him out. I'm also not talking about his policies, with which I have plenty of disagreement. I am talking about one power-hungry, arrogant, disrespectful dictator. The type that people in the Middle East have fought and died to remove. We have the chance to do it in 3 weeks with a simple vote.

But to do that, we need information. He shrugged off direct accusations in the debates, whitewashing and greenwashing it all with rhetoric, manipulation of data, and outright lies. There is a petition to get specific information released before we make our electoral decision, about a leaked report alleging that the Harper Government illegally handed 50 million taxpayer dollars to a single Conservative riding – and then covered it up as G8 summit spending. If it's true, voters need to know it. If it's been found to be false, then we should know that too. Please take 30 seconds to sign this petition - it's by Avaaz, a trustworthy and effective organization.

I don't know if Ignatief or Layton or May will be better leaders. I just know that we cannot continue to endorse this man who has systematically eroded the democracy and freedom that make Canada special. We need to use our vote to send a message to all politicians, and to ourselves, that we will not accept anything less than true democracy and freedom. Vote on May 2, and vote for the Canada we want our children to inherit.

King of the Valley

Hey Mom, I'm in the paper today, lookin' kinda cute holding some baby trees (now planted) and giving witty off-the-cuff answers to the newspaper's questions. Of course later, you always think of the answers you should have given.

Like, words to live by: This too shall pass. That got me through long hours waiting for a hitch-hiking ride, nights in Guatemalan bed-bug hostels, many mid-terms and a few girlfriends. It equally applies to the high times, the top-of-the-world moments that are too good to last and can only be fully lived if they're not suffocated by trying to hold onto them. Good or bad, high or low, we take it all in stride because there's more to come.

If you get a chance, go see: anything live in the Cowichan Valley. We are so blessed with talent and enthusiasm (and sometimes both), we really can't miss when we go out. Which I too rarely do, so contented are we with this farm and family and life. But even just knowing it's out there enriches my life. Much more and more deeply than the pirated movies that just entertain and fill time.

Most people don't know I: love farming at sunrise and sunset. Got that answer right, though it doesn't have to be a big secret. We're just now moving into the season where I can wake up as soon as it's light, sneak out on my sleeping family, and spend an hour or two communing with the rising sun, the settling dew, the slowly opening flowers and waking birds. Feel the world warm up and wake up and shake itself to life. Then head inside to cook breakfast and be a full-on Dad with the beauty of the world shining through me. Then again at night, we put the kids to bed then have the best married-time together weeding and sampling and watering side by side.

If I was appointed king of the valley I would: make local sourcing and community impact be a mandatory part of government purchasing. Turns out it is legal, even under NAFTA and whatever else Harper is trying to shove down our throats. Worded properly, our local government still miraculously has the right to award contracts and funding in ways that maximizes community benefit. Hiring local businesses and non-profits to serve the community keeps the resources right here, vested in people who care. Globalization and free trade may open up the world, but it closes down relationships and commitment to place, and we don't have to live that way.

Given that the photo and interview were at the end of an exciting but tiring Seedy Saturday on a busy sidewalk, I guess I did OK. What seems like a trite exercise in giving one-sentence quips to rather generic questions can turn out to share a lot about what matters to us. Community, farming, family, consulting, writing all bubbled to the top. That's me - valley people.

Devil in Yogi's Clothing

This Superstore receipt tells it all. Even the fact that it's a Real Canadian Superstore receipt instead of the Duncan Garage says enough. But here's what's on it:
1/2 pound of bulk mini-chocolate eggs, two and a half pounds) of Doritos/Cheetos snack mix, tortillas, juice, 2 pounds of no-name-brand chocolate chips, and a dozen half-price hamburger buns.

Blame it on my yoga instructor. I was hungry, lonely, and totally wiped out from 90 minutes of doing things a body isn't really meant to anywhere, let alone in a very hot room. Then she not only offered me an easter egg, but told me where to get them in bulk. All noble thoughts of supporting our amazing local Community Farm Store were gone faster than you can say Cadbury Easter Cream Eggs.

What is it about my wife being away that makes these lapses in consciousness, integrity and basic good taste so tempting? I don't eat local and organic and fair trade to impress her - they really are my own rules. But somehow time alone equates to a glorious orgy of lack of accountability.

Unless I blog about it. Honestly, sharing this is more difficult and humiliating than my naked posts about bullying, sex, social insecurity, etc. I don't pretend to be perfect, and even deliberately publicize my chocolate addiction or bad movie choices just to make sure that no-one thinks I think I'm operating on a higher level. But late at night when I come to bed with cocoa-maplesyrup-yogurt-granola on my breath, I really hope Sarah doesn't notice. It's one thing to let myself down, but to betray our entire family's code is much bigger and harder to own up to.

Character is what you do when no-one's watching. Probably the scariest quote I ever saved, and one I do try to live up to. This first week on my own I've been incredibly disciplined, eating mostly healthy homemade food, balancing computer work with gardening bliss, enjoying just a few too many sitcom reruns but still getting through the ambitious task list that I deeply want to be done with. If this $22.60 investment in the Real Canadian Superstore is my one big flame-out, I reckon the world will keep turning.

Oh, the other thing I was too embarrassed to fess up to was the movie I watched last week. If you must know, it was Ten - put into my head by my numerology visitor, but once Bo Derek's cornrows (among other notable assets) are in a man's head they just have to be exorcised.

Enough about embarrassing myself by living down to my expectations. Tomorrow I'll return to Walden; tonight's all about me and a quarter pound of Frito's and Fight Club. Show starts in 10 minutes so come on over if you're bored - you know there's enough junk food to last the night.

When the cat's away, the mice don't cook

I made it one week on my own without cooking or washing one dish. Wonderful invites from friends, birthday leftovers, and a healthy milking of the pity-the-poor-man-with-no-wife-to-cook-for-him had me bathing in chocolate cake, chile, even a few moose-dogs. Re-using the same plate for each re-heated leftover meal made life even easier.

It all started to unravel on Monday. The last of the leftovers, atleast one week old, had me eating falaffel on sourdough pancakes, with the last can of rootbeer, watching "Community" on netflix. A true Jim Belushi moment. But with a B&B guest/friend on his way, it was time for dishes and some shopping. Next night we co-created a pizza and salad, washed down with icecream and homemade fudge sauce and homemade whipped cream.

This morning started with 6am Bikram yoga, then home to take care of 2 batches of chicks, 2 chicken coops and the cows. Plucked some kale & spinach from the garden, added it to the yogurt I'd made the night before to wake up my stomach with a green smoothie, along with a fried egg still warm from the coop. Two hour work call, indulgent late-morning nap, left-over pizza for lunch. Continuing the indulgence theme, I closed the computer and followed the command of Brother Sun to be outside all afternoon in the garden. Made a fresh greens salad with sauteed mushroom to share with Crystal for dinner, quick appearance and speech at the neighbourhood association AGM, Gord Neufeld parenting video workshop at the school, then a brisk beautiful dark bike ride home with a newish moon and galaxy of stars my only light. Another round of animals, and now this brief inside time before a nightcap of icecream sundae and hottub.

My family's still in Chicago for another couple of weeks, so please feel free to save me from more falaffel and pancake horrors, and the missing my family that's always on the edge like the sour behind the sweet. But overall, rest assured that there are days like this when I still remember how to indulge and enjoy this rare taste of freedom (and sometimes the taste of my own cooking).

Attachment

Attachment is a good thing. I'm deeply attached to this 5 acre piece of land, and it makes me a better steward of it. My attachment to my family lets me handle wet pajamas and snotty noses and snotty attitudes (mine and theirs). My attachment to my friends is what makes them trust me, and our mutual attachment creates this loving web we call community.

But I've also been exploring the drawbacks of attachment. It can make us clingy, dependent, resistant to change. The more deeply I become invested in this land, the harder it will be to ever leave it. Even the dream of living overseas for a year becomes harder (though still a plan) knowing that we have to leave all this behind. I've come to associate happiness with this particular land, routine, set of friends, way of life. They're all good, and they are all contributing to my happiness at this time. But surely there are other homes and people and professions that could bring a different but deep meaning to life.

All 3 Quaker meetings I've belonged to have owned a meeting house (church) for a long time, and all have questioned whether it would be best to move or renovate. In Austin, we had grown so much that people were literally sitting out in the hallway, up the stairs, and in the kitchen for a Sunday meeting, yet there was still a strong resistance to buying a bigger house. People had been raised there, married there, died there. It's so ironic that a religious movement founded on the rejection of idols and ritual and symbols would come to hold that particular set of concrete and wood as irreplaceable. The house had trumped the spirit.

Last month as I was balancing "out on a limb" to finish pruning the apple trees, I reflected that the day will come that i can no longer do that. That many of the tasks needed to make this farm function will be beyond my capabilities. Will I have become so entrenched that I'm unable to move on and let someone else steward and love this particular piece of earth?

I cherish my current set of friends and community, just as I had done in Texas and Zambia and Vancouver and high school. But each time I've had to take a deep breath when it was time to leave, trusting that some of those friendships would live on in an active form and some would be honoured with the occasional sweet memory smile or facebook update. And trust that new community would arise in the new home. And to let that new community take its new natural form, not try to carry what we had before and impose it on a new situation.

Come to think of it, this may be the secret to aging gracefully. Accepting that each age brings its own thrills and opportunities and challenges that must be lived and learned from with our whole being, then let go to make room for what the next stage has to offer. I loved being an active teen and exploring 20-year-old, a striving 30-something. Sometimes I long to still be that person, but now in my 40's I've got new doors opening (farm gates, it turns out). I'll resist labelling this decade for now, but do understand that to fully live this time in my life I have to relinquish attachment to earlier times.

Attachment, I reckon, needs to be deep and real and whole-hearted. We need to be fully devoted to the life and people and path we're currently on. But it also needs to be temporal and flexible, ready to let some pieces naturally fall away as we grow and move. I'm deeply invested and committed to my current friends, school, land, profession, Quaker meeting, community and way of life. But they are not happiness or the meaning of life; they are the means and the expression of it.

Morning-after regrets

Dear NF: Last night was a mistake. I was tired and lonely and stupid. I didn't really want you, didn't really enjoy you. It's not your fault - you opened yourself up and gave me everything I said I wanted. But now I have to confess to my wife and my world my weakness, my betrayal, my wasted energy.

Last night I didn't write, play piano, practise guitar, learn to paint. Didn't read any of the gardening, spirituality, classic literature or current smut books on the shelves. Didn't bake some bread or create a baked alaska. Didn't create anything.

Last night I didn't knock off any of the work items that block up my headspace. Didn't deal with income tax or 124 inbox emails or any of the little niggling admin tasks I'm determined to clear off the list. Didn't build the new shelves or hang the fancy under-sink garbage cans or fix the rattling doorknob or any of the 20-minute DIY jobs that would make this place happier. Didn't do anything.

Last night I didn't call an old friend, a new friend, my wife. Didn't write a thank-you note to any of the dear people who have invited me over for dinner or dropped by to visit or made sure my birthday was beautiful. Didn't go to El Centro coffee shop or walk to a neighbour's or any of the places I could have found a friend. Didn't touch anyone.

Last night I watched a movie on NetFlix. Not even a good one. The whole time I knew I could be doing something that would nurture me or serve my family or connect with the world. Or enjoyed a hot tub under the stars, gone to bed at a reasonable hour and woken up fresh instead of with this self-incriminating Damn-my-lack-of-discipline hangover. This is why we got rid of our TV 5 years ago, and I hate this breach in our armour that lets it insiduously creep back in on my computer screen.

So dear NetFlix, please don't call tonight. Nothing personal (in fact, that's the problem.) Don't expect me to come back to you, cause today's all about me and my responsibilities and my community and my garden and my Joys. And none of that can be found in re-runs; it has to be created live.

Who invented Urban Homesteading (TM)?

As I've said before, not everyone should (or can) move to the country in order to live a conscientious, sustainable life. Many city friends intensively garden, shop local, reduce their carbon footprint, share resources, carpool, barter, make preserves, raise bees and chickens... some even more than we do out here on WildSide Farm.

But whoops, I'm evidently not allowed to talk about it. If I have the gall to celebrate them as "urban homesteaders"(TM), this little blog might get shut down. Seems some family down in California thinks they invented the idea, and believe they can trademark the term. Like my grandpa or my friend Steve never thought of that kind of urban life before the Devreas thought it up in the 1980's.

Funny thing is, even if "Urban Homesteading" (TM)could belong to anyone, it wouldn't be that family. They didn't invent the concept, and didn't even invent the term. It was addressed in the 1976 Article on the Integral House and a 1980 article on Modern Homesteading by Mother Earth News.

But they've not only trademarked "Urban Homestead" (TM)and "Urban Homesteading" (TM), but evidently they beat Nelson Mandela and countless other inspirational folks with the idea of a "Path to Freedom" (TM). They are so brilliant that they invented the idea "Grow the Future" (TM), and have sparked their very own "Homegrown Revolution" (TM).

Until tonight I've facebook "liked" what they do and stand for. I thought they were fellow journeymen on this brilliant and brightly-varied path we're all trying to take. Now it turns out they own it.

Come on folks, there's enough room on this path for all of us. In fact, it's not only a lonely path but it's ultimately unsustainable unless we walk it as equals.