The Hollosphere

Articles on the “news” site The Onion usually inspire me to cringe, roll my eyes, shake my head in bemusement, gasp and cover my mouth with my hand in shock, or rotflmao.  Sometimes all of that at one go, which must be a sight.

And sometimes, The Onion calls it right on the money.  Twisting and mocking facts, they are capable of mercilessly aiming a light of razor-sharp clarity onto ourselves and our culture.  It can pretty much bring tears to your eyes.

Especially when viewed from the future.  Ouch.

From my perch on the steep slopes of Mt. Zion, as the Elliott family has named the peak above our home at Murray Creek, I have the luxury (so far) of watching the American economic fracas from a distance–literally and figuratively.

Our home is paid for. We live modestly, our freedom more than making up for any lack of shiny toys. We don’t own a car, sharing a fuel-efficient 2000 Honda Civic and the old ranch Blazer with Conal’s mom. We carry no debt, though we came within a whisker of borrowing money to do some major home improvements last year. Knowledgeable people advised us that using someone else’s money rather than our own was good financial sense. Thank heavens we got the willies about letting go of our debt-free status and went against that advice. We pulled money out of stocks to build our deck (now one of if not the best feature of our house). As Conal pointed out to me the other day, those stocks were worth a lot more then than they are now. We would have to fry up a much bigger hunk of nest egg to pull that off today.

My mom and I sold our big house in Seattle back in 2007 just as the market there was having a final peak of excitement. I don’t think we could have timed that sale much better if we had traveled into the future and then gone back, armed with the knowledge of what was to come. I still shake my head in amazement, wondering at our incredible good fortune. Ours was one of the very last bidding wars in our area, and a very merry, profitable war it was for us.

Though we value our life of freedom very highly, Conal and I are relatively young and can go back to work if we need to. Conal’s skills are highly marketable, and interest in his research is building around the world. His knowledge and expertise allow him to get paid well to pursue his passion. My professional skills are not nearly so unique or highly valued, but are broad-based and widely transferable. If it came down to it, I would not be worried about finding some sort of at least mildly enjoyable job. And that honestly would be the lazy way to go, ironically. We’re resourceful enough to figure out interesting, alternative ways to make a living, if we really put our minds to it.

My heart goes out to those who are losing their homes, or staging garage sales, taking on second jobs, cutting back on doing the things that give them joy, or all of the above in desperation to pay the mortgage on a house that may be worth less than they owe. I’m troubled and saddened to think also of those whose retirement plans have gone sideways, dreams evaporating along with the worth of their 401k’s. I can’t even imagine the stress and pain folks these situations must be going through. I have, however, had the experience of being laid off from a job that I depended on, and thus can viscerally relate to those many thousands who’ve lost their jobs. I wonder how bad it will get and how many people will sucked into calamity.

Even if things get a lot worse before they get better, Conal and I will be okay. If things were to get really weird, our property has an excellent well, tillable soil, and plenty of sunshine that could be harnessed to create electricity. With a big garden, some fruit trees (there are already a few growing down in the meadow) and perhaps some goats and chickens we could go “off the grid,” as the saying goes. Conal’s mom’s expertise in the area of animal husbandry and self-sufficiency would give us an invaluable resource of knowhow should the worst happen. Surviving and even thriving will be possible for us even if civilization as we know it ceases to function.

Here on my perch overlooking our private slice of paradise, you’d never know that anything was amiss. Conal is heading off into the cool of evening to gather kindling from the ample supply of downed wood that’s lying around, taking a break from working on his research projects. The evening sun is slanting streams of warm honey through the rich green boughs of the forest, while squirrels chatter and chase each other merrily about. The deep, gentle hiss of the breeze through the valley sounds like a far off, powerful river. Birds zip hither and thither among the craggy oaks doing their fall chores, and furry bees bumble about the rosemary hedge below the front porch. So much to enjoy and be thankful for.

I’m swept by a wave of gratitude for my life, my beloved cuddle buddy Conal, my family, the warm sun, clean water to drink, healthy food to eat, and a snug nest on a mountain to call home.

Following is an excerpt from an email I wrote to a friend in Seattle back on July 7th.

It is an overcast, on-and-off raining kind of day in Antwerp. My upstairs neighbor and I are going to have a coffee (tea for me) at the cafe across the street in a few minutes. Such a luxury to me! I’m enjoying the contrast in city living from our country mouse existence at home. There isn’t even a nice cafe in town, let alone across the street! At home, we don’t see anyone for days, unless we seek them out. Here, the sight and sound of humans are all around every minute. I think I like both ways of living, and notice that the experience of one deepens the appreciation of the other for me.

At the moment, a group of school kids are trooping by in two neat lines behind their teacher, their giggles and squeals echoing up and down the square and in through the open windows of the apartment. Cars are swishing past on the wet pavement. Occasionally, and unseen pair of high heels lightly clip-clop-clip-clops down on the sidewalk below the windows, a feminine sounding gait. I wonder if she’s pretty, or what she might be wearing, but instead of checking to see I let her go past and remain a mystery. There are no shortage of opportunities for people-watching here, so I don’t have to be greedy.

Last night, Conal and I had dinner at a lovely Greek restaurant a couple of blocks away. The waiter was charming and chatted with us about America and his first love, who was from New York. There is a huge variety of experience here with people in service positions, everything from haughty to spacey-uncomprehending to absolute charm and graciousness. Our gentlemanly waiter last night certainly fell into the last category. We decided we’d like to go back there, since the food was also excellent. They were out of their vegetarian mousaka, a great reason to go back.

I like remembering life in Antwerp, which is beginning to take on the flavor of a dream. Here is a picture of Oever Street, with our apartment balcony just visible to the left of Jacob Jordaens. Jespers, the little grocery in the white building, and just beyond it the cafe with the red awning, are on the right:

It’s crazy quiet here at Murray Creek. The deers are cute and all, and I have my beloved Conal with me of course, but I guess I’m kind of missing the random company of strangers.

Okay, okay, I know I said I would start blogging again and then once more went virtually silent. Le sigh. In my defense, on top of my technical difficulties with WordPress, my HP laptop gave up the ghost the day we got home from our travels. A venerable machine, scraped and cracked and dented, with screen flopping and speakers crackling, my old lappy was originally purchased in 2004 and has gone through a memory upgrade, a couple hard drives, and I lost count of how many batteries. The poor thing finally did the laptop equivalent of the Blues Brothers car meltdown. Godspeed, my old, familiar-if-not-trusty companion.

So now comes the big question for me: Another Windows machine? Pfft. I’d like to support an alternative to the Behemoth of Redmond.

At the moment, I’m working on an old Acer laptop of Conal’s, which became his Linux experimentation toy after upgrading to a new Windows laptop awhile ago. Although Ubuntu is being pretty friendly with me so far, I suspect I’m not nearly technical enough to be really comfy in a Linux environment for the long term, even sitting next to a computer scientist as I do. If I caved in and bought a Windows machine, I could use all my hard-won knowledge, decades in the accumulation, of how to get anything at all done on a PC. I’d still bug Conal plenty, of course, but Windows is the devil I know best.

But wait. Here’s a thought: how about if I consider a computer that claims to help me spend more time getting things done, being creative, and enjoying myself, rather than investing a significant portion of my life attempting to prevent or recover from breaking, freezing, crashing, becoming overrun by malicious software, and just generally being a pain in the ass? Yes, I am truly considering a Mac. ::GASP:: Steve’s got me all in a froth about his new forged-from-one-piece-of-aluminum notebooks. This in spite of the fact that there is at least one piece of software I’m not sure I’m ready to do without (MS Money), although I understand that Boot Camp can solve that problem by allowing Windows software to run on a Mac.

Ooo, baby, my kingdom for a durable, reliable, robust, fun-to-use lappy. I entertain visions of making art, music, and even movies with ease and pleasure. I would even consider paying the much ouchier Apple prices to gain entrance to this life of joyful productivity. My eyes are tearing up just imagining such a life…

I dunno really, though. I’m vacillating. I could stick with my comfort zone and grab a great deal on a Windows laptop. Or, I could set off into a new, more expensive venture into the world of Mac, which I find tantalizing and also a bit scary. Meantime, I’m getting to learn a little about Linux, so who knows.

Any PC-to-Mac converts out there? How was it? Are you glad? Any regrets? How ’bout proud Linux geeks? Any words of encouragement for a newbie?

Sparkling dew in the trees + hushed forested hills + clear fall sunlight + deer, hawks and other critters + 80 degree weather in late October + Ann next door + my own bed + the smell of warm pine sap on the breeze + other sun-warmed forest scents + home cooked meals + slow satellite wifi (hey, it’s better than nothing!) + my sweetie Conal with me = Awesome.

The morning view from the front porch:

Sparkling sapphire water + emerald hills + clear fall sunlight + Mt. Rainier + seaplanes + sailboats + family + friends + the smell of fresh and salt water on the breeze + other real mountains + fast wifi everywhere + my sweetie Conal with me = Awesome.

The view from lunch:

Oh hai.  Were you holding your breath, in trembling anticipation of a blog post?  For, like, evar????  I sorry.  Blog was broke, but will blog now (also pleez pardon lolcat silleez.  Iz adikshun!!).

But srsly, as many of you know, one of my grand adventures this summer was traveling to Switzerland to record with Michael Stillwater.  The recording was done at a big pro studio called PowerPlay, located in a charming little town outside Zurich called Maur.  That was back in July, and I’ve just gotten word from Michael that the CD, which is called “The Honoring,” has been released online.

The entire album or individual songs can be downloaded from the site.  Song clips are also available for your sampling pleasure.  If you click on individual song titles, you can find out which ones include my vocal tracks.

“The Honoring” is a collection of spontaneous songs created by Michael in his Honoring Ceremony sessions, in some cases embellished with additional instrumentation and/or my vocals.  The original live recordings used as the base tracks for the album were chosen from the hundreds of songs Michael has collected over the years.  In each, Michael is doing his lovely work of improvising a song at the request of a session participant.  Based on what the person asks for and Michael’s intuition and connection to Source, a song is born on the spot, crafted with loving care in the moment for that person.

If you’d like to hear more of my vocals with Michael, check out Feels Like Home, a very cool chant-style song we recorded in 2006.  My vocals are also heard on Michael’s live CD O Great Spirit, which is a recording of a Chantwave concert at The Center for Spiritual Living a couple years ago.

Hope u enjoyz da musik!

My wanderings amongst the twisting lanes and streets of Antwerp yesterday took me once again to the Hendrik Conscienceplein, one of the loveliest squares in Antwerp.  I find myself visiting this lovely spot again and again.  Surrounded entirely by charming facades, including the fabulously ornate Saint Carolus Borromeus Church, and ornamented by one large, lovely shade tree, the square is amazingly insulated from car traffic and the noise of the city.  I imagine the quiet and the startling acoustics, with sound powerfully enclosed in the stone confines of the square and magically free of echoes, thanks perhaps to the softening characteristics of the tree, are why I am so often delighted to find musicians performing there.

This picture is of the tree, which stands in the northwestern corner of the square.  Yesterday’s performer, a lone clarinet player, can be seen on the bench that surrounds its trunk.  He played slow, haunting melodies in rich tones, darkly creamy and sinfully smooth as the chocolate truffles sold nearby.  The collection of jazz ballads, some familiar and some not, suited the overcast day and my mood.  I’ll remember his “Stormy Weather” as one of the saddest and loveliest renditions I’ve ever heard.

Shortly after this photo was taken, three small children came  toddling into the square, darting about and chasing each other.  The two older kids can be seen in this larger photo.  They weren’t rowdy or noisy, just curiously checking out the statues and the fountain together.  It wasn’t long before the sound of the clarinet caught their full attention.  Drawn closer and closer to the player, their paths converged slowly towards him, as though they weren’t sure if it was okay to get near him but unable to resist the shrinking of their orbits, with him as the magnetic force in the center.  Eventually, they all stood a just few feet in front of him and froze there, rapt.  He played and played, swaying and twinkling his smiling eyes at them, encouraging their interest.  When at last the song came gently to an end, the children shook off the spell of their stillness and wiggled and jumped with delight.  Their father (I presumed) beckoned them over to him and gave them each a coin, instructing them to go back and place it in the basket at the player’s feet, which they did shyly before running away to resume their adventures.

I took it as my cue, as well, adding a few coins to the basket as I left to resume adventures of my own under the leaden sky, my ears still haunted by the beautiful, sad notes: “Stormy weather… it’s rainin’ all the time.”

This photo shows a group of bronze 19th century statues at the base of the southern spire of The Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp.  The sculpture celebrates the architects who were in charge of construction.  Or some of them, anyway.  The cathedral was built between 1352 and 1551, requiring herds of architects and workers.

Oops, but one of these guys is not like the others.  One of these guys is just not the same… One of these guys is not like the others—Sing it with me!  Okay, you don’t have to sing, but can you tell which statue is not actually made of bronze?

One of the figures is a performance artist with an uncanny costume and hilarious way of holding very still–almost.  Every inch of his clothing, skin, and hair is covered with paint to match the sculpture.  He waits until just the right moment to startle the poop out of someone with a small movement of head or tap with his hammer.  Doh!  There, I gave you a clue.

To view a larger version of this photo, click here.

If you are like me, you don’t particularly enjoy dealing with all the snail mail — much of it crap you didn’t ask for and don’t want — that comes flying your way via the US Postal Service. Perhaps, also like me, you figured dealing with the stuff to be an inevitable and inescapable chore of modern life. Perhaps you, like me, would jump at the chance to significantly reduce the hassle of dealing with your mail.

I don’t mean just rerouting or reducing the amount of mail you get, although that’s great, too. I’ve taken advantage of every “opt-out” and “do not ever mail crap to me on pain of death” option I could lay my hands on, and still I am deluged with crap. There’s no sense getting mad at the USPS, though, they’re just the messenger. What are we, the poor tired masses, to do?

Well, who knew that radical alternatives were being cooked up by some mad geniuses in Seattle. I probably would not have found out about the company at all if it weren’t for our European Romance. Since we’ll be away for the entire summer, I had to find a way to deal with the darn snail mail. As per usual, I started with a Google search, and wonder of wonders, there was Earth Class Mail.

Earth Class Mail proposes to make dealing with snail mail as simple, portable, and easy as dealing with email, while aspiring to make a significant dent in the waste stream by recycling a huge percentage of the crap mail that tends to end up in landfills. From the company’s “about” page:

Earth Class Mail is changing how postal mail is delivered, for the betterment of individuals, businesses, national post offices, and most importantly – the planet. Instead of making physical postal deliveries which are so dependent on fuel for planes and trucks, we deliver postal mail online - where people can deal with it instantly, anywhere in the world.

No matter where our customers are, they simply log-in to view pictures of their mail and decide what they want to do with each piece. For example, they can choose which pieces to have opened and scanned so they can read them online, and which to recycle, archive, or have sent to them in “snail mail” form wherever they are located – all with the click of a mouse.

Wow, this sounded great to me! I love my computer and am happy handling my business tasks online as much as possible. I’ve even been noodling on going paperless entirely. In contrast to many activities in our ever more digitally-enhanced lives, standard mail has remained hooked on physical paper. Even worse, since we moved to a private road in the country, we must get in the car and drive to the post office to retrieve our mail, since the USPS does not deliver to our home. Talk about old tech!

Annoyance factor aside, I dislike the waste of my and everybody else’s time and other resources, both monetary (those advertisers’ dollars are going straight into the trash) and environmental (I have to drive my trash to the collection site in order to dump all that useless paper I never wanted in the first place).

I read as much as I could find online about the company, which was not a whole lot, and not all of it was flattering. I decided to sign up anyway, since if the service actually delivered on its promises it would be the perfect set up for Conal and me. I created an account for both of us, chose a mailing address in Seattle (for no other reason than because it’s my hometown), and went about obtaining and mailing notarized authorization forms to ECM, which are required by USPS in order for the company to receive mail on your behalf. I was all set to receive mail via ECM.

I asked my mom to mail me something as a test. Shortly thereafter, I received an email notification that I had received a piece of mail and voy-oh-lay, there it was in my online inbox, including a scanned image of the front and back of the envelope. Cool! I proceded then to instruct the USPS to forward all our mail to our ECM address.

Now, after about two months of using the service, I can wholeheartedly recommend it.  Automated email notices are sent to alert me of activity on the account.  I can log in to the system anytime and review JPG images of the front and back of new mail, decide what I’d like to have opened and scanned, recycled, shredded, forwarded to another address, or archived.  Conal reviews his mail on the same account, and we can transfer items back and forth, with notes as to what sort of action might be needed.  So far, I’ve not needed to have anything forwarded to me in Europe.  Items that I want to have frequent access to, I download onto my hard drive (the scanned files are in PDF format) for reference as needed.  Even that is usually overkill, as archived mail is always available in the system.

When we get home this fall, I’ll stop the USPS forwarding and our regular service will resume.  However, I will very likely be switching a good deal of our mail to our ECM permanently.

This is technology that reminds me of Skype, which changed how many people (including me) perceive and execute voice communication.  I’m enjoying a similarly seismic shift in how I relate to postal mail.

An appreciative tip of the hat to Earth Class Mail.