The mission of H.O.P.E. is to turn the prow of our entropyship, the Earth, back upstream so that Earth's evolving consciousness may explore the headwaters of the Universe for billions of years to come. The work of H.O.P.E. is to make visible the larger relationships we live within - relationships that inspire visions of wonder and works of hope.

Winter rains lead me out to do my water-diverging work which awakens thoughts that have lain dormant through the summer drought. And so each winter I come to think once again about gophers.

In the summer, I can gloss over gophers as wonderful soil agents who mix the subsoil and topsoil and whose burrows help rain penetrate deeper. But when I am out in the rain, they become more complex than that. I am constantly encountering lots of the runoff flowing through gopher burrows. For example, I might be walking along when suddenly, spluugch, my foot sinks several inches into the ground and suddenly water is welling up out of the hole and flowing down the slope. (In that case I make a series of divergences right there and I spread the water out over the slope.) On the other hand, some times I am leading water away from a gully along a divergence when my divergence suddenly hits a gopher tunnel and the diverging water drops out of sight, usually resurfacing back in the gully from another gopher hole. Unfortunately, this resurfacing water usually emerges muddy; a pile of eroding sediment starts forming at the exit. Gopher tunnels can act like underground culverts shooting water straight down the slopes and eroding themselves into gullies. Such erosion is "invisible" until the top finally collapses, revealing the now-established gully.

So when I am out in the rain, I often find myself engaged (in a gently cursingly way) with the particulars of specific gopher burrows. In Shifting, I wrote about how enemies become allies as balances shift toward the upward direction. Unfortunately, it can also happen in the other direction; allies can become enemies. So I find myself wondering if, when a terrain becomes dissected with gullies, whether the ecological effect of gophers shifts from helping water penetrate deep into the soil to that of helping gullies expand. Gopher effects are definitely complex. They can have different effects in different areas.

There is the effect of gophers on level land, for example. We have a drainage problem around our home so over the years I have dug a couple of 4"-6" deep drainage ditches around our yard to help lead the surface water off of our yard faster. Digging ditches to speed up the flow of water off the land goes against my Gaia grain. But guess what happens to my ditches? Each year the gophers fill much of them in with their mounds. At first I thought this was just random potluck. If there are gopher mounds distributed at random, then a random few will happen to fall on part of my ditches. But there are places where series of mounds run the length of my ditch.

I think what's happening is that my ditches, by projecting down into the ground 4-6 inches, are experienced by gophers sort of like we experience speed bumps. A gopher burrowing along several inches below the surface suddenly hits a "thin" place and the ceiling caves in. So the gopher reinforces the tunnel in this thin-roofed place by dumping its excavated dirt onto this area. If this is so, gophers would, over time, tend to level the land by building up any low spots until water flows off very slowly.

And then there is the trickier effect of gophers on sloping terrain. I'm not sure but I'm beginning to think that one of the consequences of gophers is a plastic flowing of the soil that gently eliminates gullies. I used to think of soil erosion in terms of whether the land was moving or not moving. If the soil was moving, then it was eroding. But trying to make sense of what is slowly changing in gopher country has started me thinking that erosion (or its reverse) is not as simple as that.

Ground that is becoming saturated (thanks to divergences or gopher tunnels) can "flow". A sort of plastic deformation like silly putty that gradually bulges downslope and displaces small rills. This deformation is accelerated by the gophers churning up the land. As they burrow through it, they create zones for further "flowing", both by helping that area become saturated and by creating several inches of air space for the soil upslope to slump into. The upslope soil slumps down into the tunnel (that's a sideways and downward movement) but the soil from which the tunnel was excavated in the first place had been lifted up onto the top by the gophers. There is a small-scale cycling of soil happening throughout the slope. Little soil might actually flow away from the slope and yet all of the soil is "flowing" enough (within the cycle) to allow the shape of the land to move into more gentle contours. The steep sides of the channel slowly flow towards one another and squeeze away the incised channel.

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Trying to judge each gopher tunnel for its effect on soil erosion can be very disorienting. The same is true for trying to decide whether a particular stream is in an upward spiral or a downward spiral. One might be able to document deposition building up a rich floodplain over 50 years time and then along comes a 100 year flood and scours the channel deeper than before. Zones of erosion and deposition keep shifting within the channel. I can get so caught up in the daily specifics of particular sites that it all begins to feel relativistic. Maybe it doesn't make much difference at all which way things twitch back and forth. Both directions occur naturally so why sweat it?

It is then I need to go to one of two places. A walk to the head of the drainage reveals whether erosion is creeping headward or healing is moving downstream. It is much easier to get a feel for the watershed's direction up there than it is down along the main stream corridor. The other place to go is the wilderness in order to be surrounded by drainages that are full of upward spirals. Their beauty is testament enough of why it makes a difference which direction a drainage is developing. And food for thought lies in why the vast majority of undisturbed drainages develop in the upward direction.

In a similar way, trying to make sense of the day-to-day dealings with our culture can grow disorienting. I need metaphorical or not-so-metaphorical walks to the heads of the drainages and into the wilderness to help me see the bigger picture to which the daily interactions contribute.

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The shape and dynamics of a converging drainage feels deeply metaphorical for me; I try applying it to virtually everything. In Seeing Nature, I write about the invisible power rain contains to raise the surface of the earth if the rain can sink into the soil. And how, if the rain runs off instead, this power becomes the power to carry the soil away to the ocean.

If the land can absorb the rain, the invisible power will be expressed in different ways in different places. The invisible power will bring forth grass on the ridges, willows along the streams, and great riparian forests along the rivers. Each expression is appropriate to that particular place within the watershed.

I found myself contemplating a cultural analogy as I listened to our local symphony. Some people demeaningly compare our symphony with one of the great metropolitan symphonies. That is like demeaningly comparing the grass on the ridge to the great valley oaks along the river floodplain. Just as water converges into rivers, so too does cultural capital converge upon cities. It is natural that the greatest symphonies in the world occur in the large cities. They have a larger population to draw upon and have a great enough concentration of wealth to hire the best conductors that attract great musicians and fund them to practice many hours a week. So if one wants to hear the best performances in the world, one should go to a metropolitan symphony or buy one of their CDs.

The Redding Symphony won't sound as good as the New York Philharmonic. And if one comes to our local symphony ready to critique them against the sound of the very best in the world, then one could have an active but not spiritually uplifting evening. And one would miss the real point of performances. The invisible power that expresses itself in great orchestras in the large cities expresses itself differently high in the drainages of neighborhoods and smaller towns. The invisible cultural power is that of sharing a performance. Part of the magic lies in the presence of the audience helping focus and inspire performers (both throughout the rehearsals and the show itself) to achieve more than they otherwise could. The other part of the magic lies in the audience being in the presence of performers reaching beyond themselves. This is true for a church choir or a school play or my daughters dancing for us in our living room. The invisible power lies in the relationship between the performers and the audience; a time of sharing our ability to nourish one another's upward spirals.

To come to such a performance and experience it as a deficient imitation of a great orchestra is a form of cultural soil erosion. It removes one from the active participation in the performance. The performers can feel this pulling back which can lead them in turn to pull back and a downward spiral begins. I think about this because I often hear people around me apologize about living in Redding. Some people have a limp about living here, an assumption that anyone who had a free choice would be living in the Bay Area where there is so much more to "do" or at least to buy.

Just recently I have begun speaking up whenever I hear such talk. This "limp" frustrates me because I've seen it drain millions of dollars from our local economy over the last few years. The museum I work for is part of a collaboration that is trying to create a "world-class" museum centered on the rivers and forests of Northern California. The local agency people know what the focus of the museum should be. The fishery people say, "A river is an incredible dynamic system, from the headwaters to the ocean." The foresters say, "A forest is an incredible, dynamic system." Teach people about systems, their beauty, wonder, and complexity. But the people in charge don't have faith in this local knowledge so they have wasted millions bringing in outside, nationally-recognized, urban exhibit designers who design standard exhibits that have none of the song of this place.

Frustration with this is one of the reasons I will be resigning my job in June. I would have resigned earlier but I had a moral obligation to successfully complete a 5 year grant which I had obtained for the museum. Anyway, the museum and I are coming to a fork in the road. They are going the path of merging into a very hierarchical, top-heavy organization with a vague sense of purpose and I am going the path of ....

I don't know what will follow but I have absolute certainty that leaving the job is the right thing to do. Sometimes one has to stop what one is doing before one knows what one will start. I am reminded of my hitchhiking, birdwatching days after college. Each winter I would visit home and help Dad with the business but come March it was time to head south to the desert to pick up the migration north to Alaska. The days before I left, I would have an attack of "Why don't I just stay a little longer here where it is safe and comfortable. Why don't I wait until next week?" It was scary to not have any idea where I would be spending the next night. And it felt so uncomfortable walking up to my first hitchhiking vigil of the year and sticking out my thumb. But a week later, after meeting many neat people, I would be sitting by some desert spring or hiking on some new trail and everything would be alright.

I have a similar feeling about the impending future. It is scarier this time because I'm not hitchhiking alone. I have two daughters depending on their Daddy and we don't have a lot of financial reserves. Their daddy will try teaching them about the rewards of following a lifepath with heart. Part of that path will involve Chrysalis in some form but part is wide open.

Part of my faith also lies in you. You are a hundred eyes, scouting paths and points of view I would never otherwise know of. For example, I was deeply moved by the level of responses I received to my last Cairns. Many of you disagreed or preferred certain shifts in emphasis. But the most important thing was the quality of your thoughts. You obviously took time to gather your thoughts and chose your words carefully. I felt myself existing within a network of wisdom. I received other things from you also. One of you sent me a wonderful article about Dee Hock and his vision of chaordic organizational structures. (Chaordic is a hybrid of "chaos" and "order" and is the man's more effective word for the "complex, adaptive behavior" mouthful I've been saying ever since reading Complexity). Dee Hock is definitely a kindred soul in terms of organizational structure. He believes in pushing as much of an organization's power as possible to the periphery--what I would call "the top of the drainage". His words helped express some of the frustration I've felt with the merging museums' emphasis on hierarchy. I know his ideas are relevant to Chrysalis; we just have to figure out how to apply them. What gives weight to his words is the fact that he helped found VISA using these ideas. I'm sure "chaordic" will be a word you will read again in future Cairns. *

*You can access two versions of basically the same speech at http://www.newhorizons.org/ofc_21clidhock.html

or http://www.cascadepolicy.org/dee_hock.htm

You can find the article (which is by Waldrop, the same guy who wrote the book, Complexity) at http://www.fastcompany.com/fastco/5/well/deehock.htm

The article in print can be accessed in the magazine, Fast Company.)

I made links to these sites on my chaordic organization page.

So one of you brought this man's ideas to my attention. Another of you offered to help bring Shifting to the attention of two publishers. These are examples of how you all help nourish me as I hope I help nourish you. Any suggestions and references you can pass on to help me in this next searching phase of my life will be appreciated.

"Should we strive to teach values appropriate to sustainability, or should we present these as only one possible orientation to the world?... Is value-free education possible? Is it desirable? If neither, how can values be integrated into the learning process without jeopardizing objectivitiy and a fair treatment of facts, data, and logic?

"As difficult as these issues may be, there are good precedents for the integration of objectivity with a strong value orientation. Medical education, for example, has a clear bias toward human health, not disease. The overriding concern of reputable international relations scholars...is the promotion of peace, not war. Likewise, economics is intended to expand our understanding of the conditions for prosperity. Except by pedants, knowledge has never been regarded as an end in itself, but rather as a means to human well-being. By the same logic, environmental studies ought to have a clear direction favoring harmony between human and natural systems while preserving objectivity in the handling of facts, data, and logic."

This quote is from Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World by David Orr, 1992, State University of New York Press. The book is an articulate analysis of our culture's unsustainable relationship with our environment and a discussion of how a different kind of education can help move our culture toward a sustainable relationship. I liked the book so much I bought a box of them. I have far more copies than I will ever be able to sell so if you would like a copy, please send at least $2 to cover the envelope and postage. The book normally sells for somewhere between $16 and $20. If you want to buy multiple copies or even a classroom set, you are welcome to.

If you are reading Cairns for the first time and wish to continue receiving it by e-mail, just e-mail me at  paul@krafel.net

© 1997, Paul Krafel, P.O. Box 609, Cottonwood, CA 96022-0609
Permission is granted to copy and distribute (for free) this material as long as you attach this copyright notice and my addresses so that a future reader can track down the source.

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