Sweaters for Penguins

Sweaters for Penguins

When I heard about this, I thought it was wonderful. I'm trying to pin down what it is about this -- aside from the ultra-cute-factor --  that I like so much.
I think what I like is that it is a successful grassroots effort. People from all over the world got in on it. It's a simple, creative solution to a problem. It was effective. And it allowed for originality.

Wilderness skills in Portland -- come one, come all; we're starting a course

There's an organization in Portland called Trackers PDX that teaches all sorts of wilderness skills - among them tracking, building shelters, archery, blacksmithing, spinning wool. (Those of us who lump certain of these skills together under a mental heading of Lord of the Rings ranger skills will be pleased to know that the site references ranger all over the place.)

They have agreed to offer a course on a weekday or Sunday (or several, depending on interest). There's a discount for groups of six or more; we have at least four people already (really great people) and we're looking for more.

Please drop a line at jewsintherain at gmail.com indicating what sort of things you'd like to learn and when you're available. Their prices are reasonable: friendly to a student budget. (It's not worth listing them here because they vary depending on course content.)

Thanks!

Living in the Drawing

PREFACE required to describe the Drawing, which I can't find:

During the 1930s, people who had things  -  houses, land, cars, savings, jobs, food - lost them.

During the 1940s, people endured the war.

In the 1950s, many things became available again to people who had lost or never had houses, land, cars, savings, jobs, food,  AND, thanks to wartime technological innovations and industrial capability, household appliances!

America and Western Europe went acquisitive  -  symbolized (to my way of thinking) by the "New Look" fashions with yards and yards and YARDS of fabric in long, full skirts.

Those of us who grew up in this abundance reacted against it in the 1960s and 70s.

We said –

In the future there will be no private ownership!  no waste of resources! no houses, cars, savings, jobs, or clothes particular to just one family or worse, just one person!

We will live in collectives!

We will have communal organic gardens!

We will work together, all races and creeds and sexual orientations side-by-side!

We will build our houses in hillsides using found materials!

We will raise our children in collectively-operated, innovative schools where they will learn useful work and crafts and never have to sit at a desk or even wear shoes!

We will stay healthy on work and whole food and peace of mind, but if we ever need health care, it will be free and holistic, and there will be no stigma attached to handicaps or mental illness. 

Internal combustion vehicles will be available only for emergency use  -  We will innovate a world of bicycle-like vehicles that are our transportation and our tractors. No more pollution!  No more traffic jams! 

With no religion, private property, or spouses-for-life, there will be nothing to fight over so we will eliminate war and weapons. (Famously, "Make Love Not War")

And if we ever lose track of our vision, we will take some hallucinogens and it will reappear.

I went online to see if I could find any of the millions of drawings depicting this future world seen from the 1960s.

Amazingly, the drawings seem to have been composted.

The closest I came was something much more recent -  indicating that the vision persists and the "future" is still ahead of us.

Living in the Drawing

I composed  the memoir above to get across that TODAY, 18 May 2012, here in Portland, Oregon, I was DROPPED INTO a drawing of the future as viewed from the 1960s.

It was downright eerie. 

First of all - it is an excitingly clear day, drawn by a child.

The temperature is a perfect 70 deg F with a light, cooling breeze.

The sun is shining.

Every plant and tree on the green earth is budding.

The mountains look at us with fierce beauty.

I put on my bike helmet and coasted down our neighborhood hill to downtown, then across the Hawthorne Bridge on the municipally-designated bike lane, then pedalled easily in a middle gear up into Northeast Portland again via municipally-designated bike lanes.

The bike lanes occur hard by many bicycle stores - which have handmade signs in rainbow colors and rammed-earth structures for resting and bike racks confected from found scrap metal and owners who are lean bearded guys in jeans- just like in the drawings of the 1960s.

I went to see my acupuncturist -  a mother of two who works part-time in an office she shares with other naturopathic doctors, Chinese Medicine doctors, massage therapists, and reflexologists  -  all of them women.

In the waiting room are picture books of out-of-the-way wild beauty in Oregon, hardwood toys to amuse children, and persons of intermediate genders.

Skirted men, bearded ladies, Orthodox seniors who fold up their bikes and park them under the furniture:  all this was envisioned in  the 60s.

After my treatment, I strolled past the shops featuring  toys handmade from recycled materials, vintage household goods, locally-grown produce, and cuisine made with NO meat, gluten, or dairy.

I whizzed back along the bike path, through the peaceful settlement of homeless families dwelling in shelters confected from tarps and large cardboard boxes. My skirt tracing a wake, I joined the flow of cyclists in jeans, suits, shorts; ears only or whole faces pierced or unpierced; skins and bikes alike of many colors.

We stood in lawful, harlequin array waiting for the bridge to open and close to permit a white-sailed boat to sail placidly by  -  children waving from the edge of the hull. (The marine navigation bit of the curriculum at the Free School?)

Back up the hill toiled I in my lowest gear  -  unhurried and untroubled -  enjoying the fragrance of the municipally-maintained lilac garden  -  breathing somewhat easier thanks to the ministrations of my non-allopathic healer.

The Twilight Zone

I went to replace a light bulb.
"There are no light bulbs," said the clerk.
"Do you usually carry them?"
"Maybe you can find someone who still does. I doubt it. Everyone now uses these spirals instead."

I bought a spiral. I tried it. It's so efficiently small, it doesn't screw into our socket.

I feel like Rip Van Winkle. My light sockets and I went to sleep in a 60-watt age. We have awakened to find ourselves in a new and better age, an age of efficient, eco-friendly, 13-watt spirals.

How bizarre. How inspiring.

The Lyre Bird

Amazing clip from a nature film:
David Attenborough introduces the Lyre Bird

I saw this years ago and never forgot it.
Thanks to JP for the link.

Get Out

"I almost believe that all you homebodies would one day have to atone for your staying indoors, and when you would desire entrance to see the marvels of heaven, they would ask you, 'Did you see the marvels of God on earth?' Then, ashamed, you would mumble, 'We missed that opportunity.'"

Vol. VIII of Rav Hirsch's Collected Writings, p. 259, in 'From the Notebook of a Wandering Jew'. Cited with the kind permission of Feldheim Publishers.

Book Review: Last Child in the Woods

When I am in Israel, I imagine America to be a green place full of music, art, and forest.
Then I get there and remember that America is a paved place full of billboards, factoids, and vast shopping malls. I think Jerusalem is actually greener than pretty much any part of America.
Oh, well.
America does have nice public libraries. I checked out a book of which I had heard much: Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv.


I expected Last Child in the Woods to read like a New Yorker article, a thought-provoking treatise on why children no longer spend much time knocking about in the wilderness, and how to fix that. It turned out to contain more worry (campers in such-and-such a camp are not permitted to climb trees, can you believe it) and less analysis than I expected. The author does hint to some of the underlying questions --  What defines interacting with nature? what is the philosophical difference between building a treehouse and building a house? -- but instead of identifying and answering such questions, he gets stuck in dilemmas - e.g., he takes it as a given that treehouse-building is good for us; but he worries along with the government that in certain areas treehouses pose a fire hazard.

He also cites many statistics which may demonstrate correlation, but if they do demonstrate causation, he does not explain how. (Does using the Internet make people depressed, as he says? I could hear that. Or do depressed and lonely people turn to the Internet? Or is the culture responsible for Internet also responsible for depression?) I wound up skimming a lot of the book.

I did find fascinating his account of the planning of nature-saturated towns - in Scandinavia, naturally - in which nature is the given and the houses are arranged to fit into it, rather than the other way round. Why are the Swedes so much better at this sort of thing?

Film: time-lapse photography

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHkq1edcbk4

Time-lapse photography of hummingbirds, bees, flowers, a strawberry.

What to Do with a Landfill - part 3

It's DIY time here at A Jew in the Rain!
Today I'll show you, in twenty-seven professional-quality photographs, interspersed with gratingly chirpy prose, how to craftily transform a landfill into cotton by the yard.

I wish.
The film in question is here:
The Story of the Hiriya Recycling Park

...
This serves nicely to illustrate another point about teshuva:
Teshuva done out of love turns a misdeed into a mitzvah.
The analogy I usually hear for this idea is that when a rope connecting two parties has been severed, tying it back together shortens the distance between them.
That analogy goes only so far. The idea (someone correct me if I'm wrong) is that what once served as a means of disconnection has become a means of connection. I made a mistake; now, through recognizing that and doing teshuva, I use it to connect. 'Hashem created teshuva before He created the world' -- that's part of how the world works.
(This is what that sign in shul meant. A person who has fallen and used that fall to ascend, can 'stand in a place' where someone who has never fallen could not.)
You can see something similar in certain human relationships -- or in the Hiriya Recycling Park.

And this is how you remind me of what I really am.