The Hooters Thief

Killer Cody: Tales from the farm

Home town Dallas, Texas was getting too hot and humid so I skipped and headed north to New England. I was twenty years old at the time and I was getting a little sick of going to gun shows with the old man, and besides my shorts just wern't cutting it these days.  I got on a plane and GPS'd several Hooters establishments in the Bay State.  I needed to figure out a way of getting into those girls shorts.  They were indeed no where to be found in any retail outlet.   On the plane I hatched the idea of throwing a fake birthday party at one of the restaurants and then tricking one of the girls out of her pants.  Sounds hard right?   

Farm Talk: Juice of the Cantelope

The cantelope ripens and it is bursting!
It bursted. 
Now it will be.
 For the bees and the crew. It is fantastically fruity.
The bees do so too.
The workers dismay.
They fight and duck and dodge to get out of stings way.

Safety and now the plunge. 
Teeth and jowls and lips and cheeks.
Your soul is happy.
Saturated sweetness, lollyed up into one.
It is natures gatorade and it is simple.
Delicious and sticky.

A smiling residue crests the cheeks.
As the flavor lingers sweetly.
But so do the bees.
As they wait to meet me.

The race is on to the water trough.
A fresh start awaits.
Until tomorrows dew.
The bee shall be tamed.
Awaiting the smiling crew.

Farm Cooler: Lance Lives On.

As the morning crew gets ready to part ways for the weekend we muse on the possibilities of fun that await our labor day crew party.  A BYOB extravaganza at the farm is one option, or we could shuttle our veggie loving butts up to Maine to white water raft 9,000 CF of freshly released damn water. I am hoping I end up with my paddle chin deep in white water.

Poor Lance Armstrong got his 7 Tour De France Titles stripped away from him this week after refusing to fight doping allegations.  His legacy may have taken a hit but it is good to hear his donations to his cancer research foundation, LiveStrong, have increased since his decision to stop fighting the courts ($78,000) donated in one day following the news of the controversy.  And I am glad, proof that the attributes of a publicly recognized hero are more important to the psychology of the public than his illegitimate championships.  We still love our heros even if we are reminded of them through bad press.

Z

A backdated post about Uluru

Greetings Family and Friends,

It has been a while since I last posted.  I enjoyed three days doing some rendering to a straw bale house in isolated Mongarlowe, NSW for a lovely woman named Alice.  She has 100 acres of beautiful bush land and is intending to develop two or three more straw bale houses on her property for her and her friends.  Her rambunctious German Shepard Toby provided the entertainment.  (Watch out for junk, see pic below.)  Two days of applying a lime-sand based render on three sides of the interior of the house and we ran into a moisture problem and spent day three putting up a rather ad-hoc temporary tarp roof.  Moody Mongarlowe tends to experience 4 seasons in one day.

(PICS: The Huff and Puff Crew, Quinn by the water barrel in morning, playing with Toby, Alice exposing moisture, Quinn constructing temporary roof, rendered wall - a days works, the roof going up)

After Mongarlowe I spent a lovely three nights back in Sydney staying with a builder friend on Manly Beach.  Manly is a 1km crescent shaped beach.  It is twenty minutes outside of the CBD and if your’re working in the city your commute either a 45 min drive in typcial city traffic or an amazing 30 min ferry ride across the harbor.  There was a definite beach vibe in Manly but it seemed to be more a more humble one.  I imagine the typical Manly resident saying; “I love to work out every morning on the beach and get ripped.  But I’ll put my shirt back on before I go to by my milk and bread.” 

What do I do for the month of April?  I have the entire month to bide my time before the next building job starts.  What about Bali?  Too expensive.  What about a scuba diving trip to the G.B. Reef?  Too expensive.  Sailing?  Too expensive.  Eating, traveling, walking, breathing in Australia is too expensive.  Come on Zack be creative what’s your next move going to be?  Three options came to mind.  1.) More farm stay work (ideally on a horse farm)- I want to learn to ride and I like the cowboy image (yes I am vain), 2.) More building work, 3.) Go out to Uluru (the red centre ofAustralia) no plan see what happens, high financial risk.  Yep.  Took option three.  I flew out of Sydney to hot and humid Darwin.  A bit of a wild west town.  Full of well paid tradies, out door enthusiasts and loads of backpacker.  I met a lovely and amazing woman who bought me dinner.  She was on her way to be a field nurse for the Australian military base in very violent East Timor.  Machete attacks, shootings, kidnappings, and rape are all very serious realities for this young rock star.  I admired her.  She aspires to be a medical chief (like her father) a position I don’t doubt she will achieve in her lifetime.  She had her head on straight with the confident flare of what I would label as the educated red neck.  Strong willed, sure of herself, likes beer and sport, can ride a dirt bike.  Despite being partially in love I was not surprised when she told me she grew up on a farm.  My travels and life experiences have shown me many people.  Some of the strongest and best in character that I have come across were raised in rural or agricultural settings.   Perhaps it’s living closer to our mother earth or being forced to account for the weather, the price of fuel and other economic factors that makes country living “more real”  The people that can do this in good humor and with some success are usually first class humanoids.  Any-who, after a beefy dinner and a few drinks we parted ways and like many brief encounters of the traveler our relationship will probably go no further than facebook.  Ce la vie.

A slow but romantic two day train ride on “The Ghan” took me to Alice Springs, Australia’s most land locked city. Alice Springs is a small-isolated, ruff and ready place almost directly next to Australia’s geographic and magnetic center. The purpose of my three day adventure here was to experience Uluru (Ayers Rock)- the heart of Australia, the Red Center, a place of significant and almost unexplainable Aboriginal spirituality.  One of the easiest ways to get there is to book a three day adventure tour – a completely unspiritual and unsustainable way to experience the rock – but I accepted the cheesiness of the experience and actually had a good time, me and 23 other people.  In three sunny days and two full moon cloudless nights in the desert we saw Kings Canyon, Ayers Rock, and the Olga’s.  The pictures explain the experience best.  And now back at the youth hostel in Alice Springs I still have three weeks to kill before the next build. I may stay in Alice and find a bit of work or I may move on if something better turns up.  I’ll keep you blogged.

Uluru (expected to run 2-6km below the earth)

Uluru at Sunset

(The Olga's at sunset)

Currently struggling through “The Human Condition” by Hannah Arendt and in a bit of sappy juxtaposition with my most recent trip “The Hara – The Vital Centre of Man” by Karlfried Graf Von Durckheim. 

Just do it. 

Farm Talk: Live Long and Lobster and The Ipswich River

After three days in Maine I am back and reporting for duty.  I plan to still continue with the 21 day challenge of commenting on daily conversations both in personal life and work.  Maine was a fantastic weekend get away from the city with some of my oldest and best friends from growing up.   We spent a day on pontooning on Lake Thompson, two nights at the new and always over crowded Oxford Casino, and one epic night of bomb fire madness with oversize marshmellows and a fortress of wood.  We capped off the weekend with a dip into Portland, ME.  What started out as a quick trip to find food turned into a two hour wait for a lobster roll.  But with great summer weather in one of New England's finest port towns there is nothing to really complain about.  was great weather

That was the weekend.  Today at the farm we moved the harvest operation to the tot soi an Asian mustard green-spinach like plant.  One topic that came up was the Cicada Wasp.  Get this!  This parasitic wasp captures cicada's and can have a torso that grows over an inch long.  Major heads up if you are a squeamish bug person!  An even more startling factoid is that once the wasp catches a Cicada it implants eggs (which acts as a parasite) into the Cicada that proceed to hijack its bodily functions until the hatch.   It sounds gruesome but true to mother nature's form, balance is the key, with one death comes another birth.

After the day I took a fantastic river cruise in The Ipswich Wildlife Sanctuary in one of the canoes belonging to Green Meadow's Farm.  Next time I think I will push it to the Atlantic some 6 miles away!

More from the Farm Cooler tomorrow.

Z

Day 2: Talk from the Farm, Philosophy - Do bad people really exist?

What does it mean to understand human interactions?  Should you ever hate someone for who they are?  What if you are around someone who is always rude or manipulative?    An understanding person might say that this person probably has a reason for being this way.  Maybe it was circumstance or bad parents.  But does that make them bad? I think not.

This is a massive topic that was discussed after we were drinking some Honest Tea and discussing the benefits of Coconut Milk, even though the actual coconuts are from Thailand!   I believe scholars and philosophers from Hanna Arendt to Socrates have contemplated the human condition and why we are the way we are. So I am not going to analyze the topic too much. However, I personally think that no matter how much of an asshole someone is, there is no such thing as a bad ass hole.  A rough upbringing, an inferiority complex, a confused belief system, or maybe some people are just socially awkward.  But as humans we are very much "connected/social" beings.   Therefore I think we seek out the good in people more times than not.  Even if that means putting up with a jerk - though they aren't bad.  

Other topics - good carrots, cantelope is awesome, garlic is good for soar throats!

See ya tomorrow. 

Zack

Lets see, where were we? Where am I?  How did I get here?

I left the east coast of Australia about three weeks ago to travel inland.  I had a hunch about Uluru. The big red rock in the desert.  I wanted to see it and get a feel for the Outback.  I thought it was time to get away from the cities and get in touch with my spiritual side. Little did I know that two weeks later I'd be feeding baby kangaroos three times a day....

I flew into Darwin from Sydney and was immediately cloaked in the tropical Northern Territory humidity.  After the briskness of New South Wales it was a welcomed heat.  I always enjoy the first impression of a place when leaving an airport.    Everything is new!  The air, the time of day, the people and even the cheesy tourist gimmicks are different.  For some reason I tend to smile when passing brochure gauntlets.  There are so many different fun ways to spend your money! Usually I object to such gimmicks but this time I was all in for a tourist bonanza.  Uluru sits behind the Great Barrier Reef and or the Opera House in Sydney on Australia's list of "must see things before you die."

The best/easiest way to get to Uluru or "The Centre" as it so affectionately called is to get your self to the small city of Alice Springs which is about 2000km from nowhere, smack-dab in the middle of Australia.  Alice has the charming label as being the "closest" to all of Australia's beaches.

So I took a brilliant train ride on the infamous Ghan Scenic Railway and 24 hours later ended up in Alice!  One day later still I was on a bus with 23 other travellers geared up and ready to see Kings Canyon, Uluru, and the slightly less known but equally impressive Olgas (Kata Tjuta).  Despite the cheesiness of the tour the guide was entertaining and the group got a long well especially after several boxes of beer and I had a great time.  We slept in swags under the stars, cooked camping meals together, and managed to get up in time to see a pretty bad ass sunrise!?

Uluru was amazing!  It took us two hours to walk around it.  It rests an estimated 6km underground and it has out of this world spiritual significance for the indigenous Aboriginal culture.  You must respect the significance of this rock. I do feel lucky to have seen it. To be connected to the earth in the way that the Aboriginal is culture is would be worthy of an entirely lifetime of study.

Flash forward a week and I visited a small horse/cattle property doing some more wwoofing helping a lovely family of five prepare their property as the family gets ready to move to 1 million acre cattle station 9hrs drive into the outback.  It is so far away that their children (Colton, Mia, and Savannah) will be getting their schooling through weekly airplane parcel drops delivered by the School of The Air.

I then spent a unique 5 days at a wildlife sanctuary helping with some home repairs and feeding baby kangaroos and wallabees (Joeys).

I am back in Darwin now and it is good to be surrounded by people again.   The last three weeks were very solitary ones.  A very dear friend of mine once said that at some point we should all be alone in our lives. And I agree. Maybe not Outback isolation but certainly to be on "ones" own is a great way to experience who you are and what things in your life are important.  I came for the Outback and while I may not have found my center I do feel a little closer to Australia's.  And now it is time to work.

21 Day Challenge: The Daily Farm Cooler.

OK so upon returning from Australia I have been having a tough time reconciling the fact that I am back home.  Narrowing my world to the Boston area has proven to be more difficult than I had anticipated.  So I have decided to challenge myself to make a daily blog post for the next 21 days.  I am currently working at an organic farm in Hamilton, Mass and we have a lot of time to shoot the shit.   So I am going to try and focus on the daily oddities that come up in our conversations.  Points of interest on agriculture, food or the economy,  or just plain funny stories/occurances.  The postings will be brief and they are mainly for me, but the blog is a way to help me keep up on it/stay accountable to my challenge.  If you don't care to read, don't read.

See you manana.

Zack

Today's topics:  What vegetable or plant species would you be,  Malcolm Gladwell and the controlling nature of media and first impressions in the book Blink, the dangers of sailing on a catamaran during a hurricane, what it is like to be a financial services provided in the non-for-profit center where personal budgeting is an issue.Among others...

Kicking Myself in Melbourne

I had a beach front apartment lined up. I had a  natural building internship line up. It was a perfect set up for the traveller.  But then I bailed!  O man! What happened...

I have been in Australia for about 6 weeks and my experiences have been whimsical at best.  I came here to "cash-up" my traveling account or so I told myself but I think some distorted notion of self-pride combined with an apathetic attitude towards work has made me indecisive.   A trait that that is not helping the cash flow.  It stems from fear.  If you have ever related to Bob Dylan’s lyrics in the song “Like a Rolling Stone” then you may know how I feel.  Perhaps I am going through my girly-teenage years now.   I would like to tell you that I have a plan.  A scheme of sorts for enrichment, but frankly I have no idea.   While it is good to be on my own I think I let the last 6 weeks get to me and I haven't felt centered .   

Sydney was fantastic! I spent a total of two weeks there.  Uncle Michael and his wife showed me an awesome time.   I was fortunate to peek into their glamorous lifestyle which they have both earned and I sure felt like the country-hick in the room a couple of times. I guess it has been about 5 years since I really lived in an URBAN area.   It was a fortunate two weeks but I blew some cool opportunities because I couldn't roll with the flow.

Basically I did'nt know what I wanted to get out of my time there. To date I have been trying to "get something" out of each experience.  I have'nt let loose in the typical "traveller's ethos" in Australia and I thin this is inhibiting my Chi.  Sydney was a great chance to have some fun, do some casual work and be near the beach and be close to relatives.  But I hesitated and I let the seed of doubt grow.  So I lined up a back up plan doing an Internship with a Strawbale builder about 5 hours South West of Sydney, not quite the Outback but it would landed me back in the country.  For one month of working and learning with the builder and his wife I would be provided free accommodation and fed with free access to a workshop. 

The morning of my scheduled departure I got a call from the builder warning me that I was speeding towards record flooding in Ganmain (their home town) and that my sleeping quarters had been soaked with over 1 foot of water.   As a traveller, I have learned to keep my expectations low.  It helps to keep moral up and is  key to survival on the road.   So, the news of the flood did'nt bother me and once I arrived I was eager to help out.   I started cleaning some dirt off of my former sleeping quarters and before long we were eating a nice roast for dinner.  

The house the was flooded was an old converted Red Cross Hall that the builder's use to house their guests. Lots of eclectic recycled furniture a kitchen and two huge beds made from recycled wood.  It was a cool experience and I was even able to get into the local press (see below).  However, my choice to leave the city weighed on me. It felt like I was running away from something.

After two days of helping the builders’ Susan and John, who turned out to be amazing people btw worthy of an entire other blog post, I decided that building was not the experience that I needed at this time.  I politely told Susie and John what had been on my mind and two hours later Susan drove me back to the train station.  It felt good to finally make a decision  but I still had no idea what I would be doing next.  I had full intentions of going back to Sydney to give it another go but when I got back to the train station the next train that pulled in was headed for  Melbourne.  On a whim, I bought a ticket and got on-board.  I knew fully well that Melbourne is the 8^th most expensive city IN – THE- WORLD, that I didn't have a secure place to sleep line up, that  I had absolutely no contacts to go to and I would be getting in close to dark.  Yea! Another great decision Zack.  

5 Days later I am still in Melbourne and still looking for work.  I have found that it takes me about 3 days of aimless wandering and exploring to decode the public transportation system and to get a feel for the different areas in town.  Any system with digital notifications like Melbourne has at key train stops has my vote for a good network. 

I have cheap accommodation secured for the next week so if no affordable job drop I'll have to swing back to the country and start building! Or figure something else out.  

One quick thing on Melbourne if your still with me.  It is totally grunged-out and full of colorful characters.  It is a bit like Boston in size.  There's a big sports culture and the leaves are starting to turn (some New England nostalgia is kicking in hard).    There is a HUGE hipster population here and I get the fashion thing behind being a hipster but could someone please explain to me “why? Why be a HIPSTER?   Of course, I am the one blogging right now, true: a distinct HIPSTER characteristic but I still don’t get it!  For example, I have seen  plenty of attractive females walking around all perfectly attractive and they go and made themselves ugly by toting big square glasses, ratty old sweaters and ripped tights.  Why baby? Why? 

Huge and very unnatural Avacado's at the Victoria Market, Melbourne

The job hunt continues - I have a pulse on some hospitality work in two nice boutique beer joints,  but nothing full time until April.     

Check out these cool video links from my trip to the Moving Images Museum Exhibit:

http://www.acmi.net.au/timeslice/Timeslice.htm?file=ts-20120304-2e8876e702ff77c1653c7dca5cf806c7.flv

http://www.acmi.net.au/timeslice/Timeslice.htm?file=ts-20120304-e098254def004183ef281e6c7f44cc1e.flv

Bondi Beach, Sydney

February 17, 2012 (Sydney Date)

Three straight days of sunshine has made my orientation to Bondi Beach, well, sunny! My head was reeling after spending three weeks in a tent in the rain forest then abruptly landing in Bondi, the Hollywood of Australia. To ease the transition I spent three nights in Byron Bay swimming and walking the city.

The roller coaster switch from rural to urban landscape provide's a fantastic study of two very different lifestyles.  The Channon; has one bar, one general store (also the post office), one art gallery, and a city hall.   By gargantuan contrast, Bondi Beach (a suburb of Sydney) and the surrounding area holds over 4 million people or about 4% of Australia's population.  Residents of Sydney come from all over the globe and I haven't even been to the Opera house yet, yikes!  Sydney also ranks as the seventh most expensive city in the world, Melbourne is number eight and Zurich is number one.  A fun place to live and visit but it is a tough place for the unemployed backpacker (that's me) to stretch an Australian dollar!  To change this I could either get a job, move to Uluru in the outback, or spring to South East Asia and live lavishly on $10 a day.     All serious considerations for me at the moment.

I have been thinking a lot about Natural Building lately.  I would like to try some out soon - particularly straw bale or timber framing.  Not sure if this will be a career move or something that will turn into a hobby.

Currently I am reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, By Michael Chabon. And, Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway

NOTICE:  I deleted my Facebook account (too many followers). I will be making an alias account soon. Until then, keep following the BLOG!


Love.
Zack

Protests and Permaculture. Comments and my Wwoofing experience

January 29th, 2012

It seemed to be a busy world this weekend with the Oakland protests causing what I hope to be a reinvigorated protest burst.

Occupy Oakland  - 300 arrests, now they say 400. American citizens burning the United States flag,WOW.  Why hasn't Barrak Obama said anything abouth this? Maybe he has. Does anyone know?

Innnn other news....

My weekend  was much more subdued. After one week at the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia (in the Channon) where 111mm of rain fell in 5 days it was a huge relief to have half a day of no rain. During the weekend 2 permaculture interns and myself decided to hitch hike to a local village to check out the sites and get some food for the weekend.  We were picked up in no time on the way out and easily made it into town with two hitches.  The town of Nimbin - $70,000 (AUS) changes hands there everyday - and the population is not large.  Magic this, tasty-herbs that, Jim Morrison and tie die its all still happening  in blessed little Nimbin.  We chatted with the locals, I think Jerry Garcia was there, ate some good food from an organic shop and then got out of dodge before anything too interesting happened.

Geoff Lawton with his daughter Latifa

Home Sweet Home - My lovely and spacious tent at PRI Australia. Photo taken in the morning mist, my tent is on the left. 

January 30th, 2012

first day of full sunshine and people are feeling good.  Very humid.  Saw a few interesting movies this past week - The first one is called 'The Real Dirt on Farmer John' about an eccentric farmer from the Midwest  who goes organic despite much social scrutiny.  The next was a film by Geoff Lawton about Urban Permaculture - inspiring and creative approach to solving some of our economic and food security issues through intelligently designed gardens aka permaculture.  The Earth Works course just started.  Off to Sydney in two weeks.

Australia and the Patriots

Hello All.

January 23, 2012 (Sydney Airport)

Time is flying and holy small world I am in Australia!

Firstly, congratulations to the New England Patriots. Sounds like I missed an amazing game over the Raven's. I am currently drooling over the highlights. There is not much NFL news in this hemisphere but it would be interesting to see a Giants vs. Patriots rematch in February.  Though I would much rather see my childhood favorite 49-ers up against the Brady-Bunch.

Where am I currently?  After a whirlwind 2 days of travel which included a scenic train ride, a night at random house with some very gracious Kiwi's, and two plane rides into Australia I am still making my way to Ballina  where I have a three week Wwoof lined up at the Australian Permaculture Research Institute.  I have a basic understanding of permaculture but this is where the concept all started. I am excited to learn from some of the best and I am hoping to glean some insights into the application of permaculture design and local farming into more urban settings.  Healthy food, produced locally and on a big scale for high density areas will be an important aspect in the development of modern cities/communities. Roof top gardens, urban farms and yada-yada.   I am new to these musings but I am excited to see what the next three weeks have in store. There are some pretty passionate local conscience people at this farm (known by some as hippies) but I think they make some pretty valid points about the future of our Earth's eco-system, food supply, and our costs of living.  A lot of which can be made for the better by smarter, more local based initiatives.

Some tales from the journey......I was hosted by an awesome Bellingham, WA couple two nights ago, Dawn and Hudson Dobb.  They just immigrated to New Zealand and are making a new life for themselves in Nelson.  Among the many good conversations we had ranging from Activism to Bonaroo, the evolution of slang came up as well.   We noted the linguistic change of the phrase "I am UP for it" to the more contemporary version of "I am down for that" or "I am down" for short.   Hudson seemed to think the switch happened somewhere in the mid 80's.  What do you think reader?  And, why?
 
The phrase was probably used by people who associated themselves with Boy Scout troop leader enthusiasm - What do you think Scotty my boy! Are you UP for a hike today?  And was subsequently phased out by the way too cool Disco-tech goers -who changed it to the more dead pan; I am down version we know today.  People were too informed during the 80's to be "UP" for anything, the world was getting smaller and being "UP" for anything seems to imply sUPrise. We may not be UP anymore but are we really down?  Down to Earth?  I think not.

Lastly, I must say that I did not feel too nostalgic leaving New Zealand It would have been nice to have a bit more time there as there is so much to explore.   I would love to get back some day - motorbike trip anyone?

Signing off.  Thanks for reading.

Scott the Wwoofer host and Natalie the German Wwoofer  enjoying some travel pictures. 

Spent one night here with my Canadian friends.  A Rainbow Valley house in a settlement outside of Takaka - stunning!

Dominique the German Wwoofer making some brick fired pizza - yum!

Nelson - Final days of New Zealand

I have been residing with a Wwoof host just outside of Nelson, New Zealand at home/business called Solid Earth.  (Picture of their home is below, adobe finish with natural paints) Last week I had the pleasure of assisting in the build of a small partition wall using a recycled rug.  We plan on putting two recycled windows in the wall with some natural plaster to give it a nice natural finish.  It was great building with recycled materials!

As I wind down my days in New Zealand I am figuring out ways to make the most of time. Two days ago was spent in a community called Rainbow Valley - essential an almost self sustaininbg community of about 12 families, they have been their 35 years in one of the most pictureseque and well preserved natural vallies I have ever been in.  The forest surrounding them is tropic. I will make my own knife next week as a souviener.

Ironically a lot of of my time down time has been spent preparing for my Australian experience- I leave for the big down under in 7 days time.  After much begrugging of the Wwoof experience I think I will continue to participate in the program for another couple of weeks and hopefully begin to learn more about permaculture at the Permaculture Research Institute.  I am eager to learn about this concept as I think it will become an increasingly vital part of our communites in the next couple of decades. 

How am I doing?  I am continuing to strive to be in the present, focusing my energy and I am beginning to establish a heatlhty relationship with my ego.  I am excited to read a book that just came out titled - Ego: The Fall of the Twin Towers and the Rise of an Enlightened Humanity.  It speaks to a lot of what I have been feeling about our communities and the menatality of our current/future generation.  I do have hope in the future and in mankinds' ability to have compasion and empathy towards each other.  I think IT and Web 2.0 will help us get to a more sustainable place by helping us become more efficienct - utilizing resources/wastes better and by collaborating on more localcentric ideas).  Speaking of local centric I our food supply is going to be a big part of this change (it is more economic and of course healthy and sustainable for us humans and our dear Mother). My current determination is to see how I can make a living and to fit into this changing world by doing something I am passionate about (still working on this).   I think everyone should follow the Occupy Wall Street movement and if you get a chance think deeply about what it means for our society and how we each (within our own spheres of influence) can work to diminish electronic money, outsourcing, and over sized corporations, as well as an over abundance of credit.  This is not an effort to resign our current responsibilities but to act towards a vision of a better future.  If not to act then at least this movement is getting people to talk about it.   I think it is a very historic moment.

(Pondering passion and the present above Nelson Lakes National Park - day 2/3 hiking trip, January 2012)