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.

Donella Meadows
In the last issue of Cairns, I lamented the passing of Donella Meadows. She is somebody whose mind and life I deeply admire. This last month, the spring issue of Whole Earth Review had ìDonella Meadows Last Book Review  for Whole Earthî and it was for my book, Seeing Nature. She talked of being sucked into the book and praising it as a book full of patterns and dynamics. I was so touched. Not that her last book review was of my book but that my book was her last review because perhaps some of the upward spiral aspirations I poured into my book entered her being and that maybe, as she was dying, they served as gifts to help lighten the load along her journey.

Turning the statue
We have a 3í, lightweight resin statue of St. Francis in our garden. For a year it has stood in the center of a flower bed. Each of my favorite sitting spots provides a different perspective on the statue and all these perspectives makes the statue more 3-D real. Meditating upon these different perspectives inspired me to the following practice. Iíve started rotating the statue so that it makes a complete 360° rotation in a yearís time. I donít turn it every day but every few weeks when Iím in the garden and remember, I turn it a bit more. Iíve decided that St. Francis will be facing east when the sun rises on Spring Equinox and he will be facing west to watch the sun set on Autumn Equinox. In the winter, he faces north towards the house and in summer, he faces south towards our outdoor sleeping room. He is set in a square garden bed that is aligned with these directions so orientation is easy. Plus the corners correspond to the cross holidays (when I try getting Cairns completed and mailed out) so right now St. Francis is facing the southeastern corner of the garden bed. The slight changes in perspective catches my eye each time I sit at the dining table. I canít take St. Francis for granted any more. He doesnít remain the same. Each time I realize that; I am reminded of where I am in the annual cycle of things. He is kind of like having a sundial in the garden except he is an annual dial, not a daily dial.

Dream Prayer
Iíve adopted a new spiritual practice in the last few months that have brought an interesting ìflavorî to the whole experience of being alive. Let me preface the practice before I describe it. An Eskimo story of someoneís vision quest has the person out in the middle of the Arctic winter nowhere. The person hears a quiet voice saying, ìThe Universe is not to be feared.î Iíve had several similar experiences including a couple of near death experiences where as the possibility of death approaches, the mind grows quiet and feels a beautiful rightness about all existence. Anyway, my faith in the benign nature of the universe is the foundation for this spiritual practice.

When I lay down to sleep for the night or take a nap during the day, I try to remember to say a prayer something like what follows. ìI lay down to flow into another state of consciousness. I release this current state of consciousness with which I am familiar to flow  into a state of consciousness much less known to me. But I know that the universe is good; that God is everywhere present in all its dimensions. So I welcome the unknown state of consciousness I am flowing towards. I know that it has the power to add zest to my life, to bring a healing energy into my mind, body, and spirit. I know that it contains perspectives that I canít even imagine so that this state of consciousness will give me new perspectives that will reveal new understanding of the challenges and opportunities I live within. Even though I may wake with no memory of this altered state, I know that I will have received a gift to nourish. And so with gratitude, I release this prayer and this state of consciousness.î

The prayer has changed my sleeping experience. I drift off even more easily and wake up with fresh energy vibrating through my spirit. Once I woke up from a dream that is still resonating within me. I was doing some sort of yoga type activity and a guru came up and gave me some advice about breathing. But the impression that has remained with me the most is not the advice but the way he gave it. Though the lesson might have been about breathing, on another level the lesson was about teaching. It is so easy for a teacher to ìcorrectî with an attitude of ìWhat you are doing right now is not right. You instead should do it this way.î But the dream guru came in a different direction; with an attitude of ìOh, are you playing with that. I love to play that too. Yes, this is fun. You know, one thing Iíve found that makes it even more fun is... Watch what happens when you try it. ... Isnít that fun? ì He didnít say it with those words but that was the energy with which he interacted with me. Many times since in my teaching, Iíve initiated some interaction and it feels ìcorrectingî in a way that reminds me of this dream and I shift the interaction in the direction of the guru.

Hydraulic Mining and Takings
Iíve been reading about the end of hydraulic mining in California. It is historical precedent for much of what we deal with today. For those of you unfamiliar with this piece of our history, let me give a brief review. The gold rush of 1849 began with common folk finding gold with simple equipment. A positive feedback loop developed in which some of the miners used their gold to build/buy/invent more complex equipment that could process more pay dirt leading to more money, some of which was used to create still larger equipment. By the 1860ís, the time of the man with a gold pan was well over and most of the gold mining was done by well financed companies. Much of the gold was placer gold located within high and dry gravels of ancient, pre-Sierra river beds. Such mining depended on water to wash and separate the gold and so it led to an enormous development of dams, ditches, and flumes by water companies. (At that time, the water was free for the taking from the streams; however getting the water from the streambed to the mining sites could be expensive.) As the positive feedback loop progressed, miners created hydraulic mining in which giant, high pressure hoses melted mountains by blasting and crumbling the cliffs and washing the material into sluice boxes a thousand feet or longer. The more material that washed down the sluice boxes, the more money the company made. More and more. The book, Rush for Riches, says ìThe state mineralogist in 1882 emphasized the hydraulic industryís appetite for vast water resources by reporting the consumption figures for the North Bloomfield Gravel and Mining Company during a ten-month period: 18.5 billion gallons used to wash 4.77 million cubic yards of gravel, each yard yielding gold worth 5.6 cents. Thus the company used 69,250 gallons of water for each dollar of gold collected from its sluices.î

As is so often the case, the miners ìexternalizedî the outputs that didnít create a profit. In the above case, it would be the 4.77 million cubic yards of gravel created in a ten-month period. Once the gold was extracted, this gravel was no longer of interest except for the problem it created blocking up the tail end of the sluice boxes. So the miners created ways to wash hundreds of millions of cubic yards of sluiced gravel into the nearest stream where the storms of winter would wash most of it downstream.

Unfortunately, other people lived downstream. Farms and towns were developing downstream. These farms and towns came into existence to supply the miners so the downstream people went along with the gravels washing downstream. But as more people moved to the towns and more people started farms and as technology evolved to allow the miners to wash gravels at an ever greater rate,, the river beds filled up and overflowed and the winter storms would flood the towns and fields, burying them under several feet of ìslickensî, silty subsoils and gravels that destroyed the productivity of fields. The Sacramento River was becoming so clogged that steamboats had an increasingly harder time reaching the river towns.

Gold mining was a major influence in state government so legislative efforts to solve the problem led only to compromises that tried to hold the gravels behind debris dams. But the mining was creating gravels at a greater rate than dams could contain so finally the downstreamers went to the state court system to get an injunction against dumping gravel into the rivers. They won but the miners appealed and got the decision reversed. One of the reasons the decision was reversed was because the appeal court said that one could not trace the gravel that buried a field back upstream to any one specific mining operation so it was unfair to shut down one mine for discharge of material that might have come from another mine.

Local court case followed local court case. Finally, the State Attorney General tried to resolve the issue with one large, well focused lawsuit. The judge ruled for the downstreamers in 1882 but his ruling left a loophole that mining could continue if the mining companies built debris dams. He admitted in an interview that he had included this loophole because if he hadnít, he would be ruling to shut down a huge, very powerful industry and ìI confess I shrink from a consequence so far-reaching.î The miners kept mining, saying they would build the debris dams if the downstreamers stopped bringing injunctions against them and the downstreamers said they would keep bringing injunctions because debris dams had demonstrably failed to achieve their purpose many times before.

The frustrated downstreamers then switched to the federal court system. The trial took more than a year. It was presided over by Judge Sawyer, an original ë49er. On January 7, 1884, after a 16 month trial that generated 20,000 pages of testimony and several field trips to towns, fields, mines, and streambeds, the judge issued his 225 page decision. ìAfter an examination of the great questions involved, as careful and thorough as we are capable of giving them, with a painfully anxious appreciation of the responsibilities resting upon us, and of the disastrous consequences to the defendants, we can come to no other conclusion than that the complainant is entitled to a perpetual injunction.î

Hardrock mining and dredging continued but the main source of gold wealth, hydraulic mining, was shut down because the responsible management of the sluiced gravels would consume all the profits from the operation. The mining was profitable only because they could dump the gravels downstream.

I describe this case for three reasons.
1. There is legal precedent in our countryís history for stopping ìdumpingî behavior, even if it shuts down an entire industry.  One of the organized oppositions to environmental laws is that they are seen as a governmental ìtakingî, the regulatory restriction on what a property owner can do with their property.

From a certain perspective, Judge Sawyerís decision was a massive ìtakingî. The owners and investors in hydraulic mining had spent millions of dollars building dams, flumes, and sluice boxes in order to continue a use of the land they had pursued for many years. This decision rendered all of this development useless, prevented the owners from completing their wishes for the land, deprived them of millions of dollars that still remained in the unmined gravels. (One of the reasons the judge issued the injunction is because there was an estimated 700 million cubic yards of gold-bearing gravel still remaining to be mined, 700 million cubic yards that would be dumped into the rivers if the court allowed hydraulic mining to continue.)

The reason the judge ruled the way he did and the decision has remained is because, from a different perspective, the miners were ìtakingî from those downstream, creating a profit for themselves by dumping their waste product in a way that destroyed the land downstream. The same question applies today: who is actually doing the taking? The question gets tricky because, like the gold mining, the ìtakingî in its early history seems acceptable to everyone. A momentum and a set of assumptions develops. The momentum carries the situation to a point where some people start looking around and saying, ìWait a minute. What is happening here? Is this right?î

2. The Taoist look to water as a master teacher of how one should live oneís life. Iíve absorbed some of that. The way erosion and deposition summon one another into existence. The hydraulickers summoned forth such a massive yang of erosion which brought into existence such a massive yin of deposition downstream that the whole thing was shut down.

3. I think this case is a precedent for a lot of what we perceive as environmental problems. That what we view as a political or legal struggle can also be seen as the cultural spin-off of the biology of population increase. We are all interconnected so that our actions have effects beyond our immediate selves. Thanks to the complexity of the earth, most such effects are diffused and neutralized within a limited distance. However, as population increases, people are situated closer together so that people are more likely to experience the downstream effect of someone elseís activities. As our population grows more dense, certain behaviors are experienced as more annoying. (Itís like having a snorer in the house next door vs. the room next door vs. in bed beside you.) Who would have ever thought forty years ago that mowing your lawn with a gas mower would be seen as a nuisance someday?

I was born and raised in the West and there is something truly wonderful in the ìrugged individualismî that is part of the Western heritage. Part of that heritage is horrible rape and pillage of native people and natural resources but part of it is also wonderful. How can we dissect out the rape and pillage and maintain the wonderful risk taking, can-do, self initiative? Part of the answer is reducing population.  If we can shift population dynamics from increasing to decreasing, I envision a golden age in which increasing space between people combines with a species/cultural lesson/awareness that actions have influences far beyond themselves and that for the sake of the world, we need to bring mindfulness to all of our actions. What a wonderful era of responsible freedom that combination could create.

But we are not there yet. The New York Times had an article on a horrible downward spiral beginning in West Texas in which ranchers are pumping groundwater to sell to cities. Itís a horrible spiral because they all share the same aquifer and the law allows water to be pumped out out a per acre rate faster than the aquifer recharges. Therefore, if one person starts pumping water at the maximum rate to generate the maximum profit, he lowers the aquifer for his neighbors. This makes ranching more expensive for them and/or reduces the profit they can make by pumping groundwater and selling it. So it is in everyoneís self-interest (and in no oneís long-term interest) to pump the groundwater as fast as one can. (See Cairns #3 for more on the Prisonerís Dilemma which this is an example of.)

Doubts about mitigation
There is something in environmental laws about mitigation. I am familiar with two examples locally where riparian habitat was being developed so that the developer did a 2 for 1 mitigation. For every acre of riparian woodland ìdevelopedî,  two acres of riparian woodland were ìcreatedî. It sounds good on the surface. However, in fact, several acres of Earth which really wanted to be valley oak riparian woodland were cut down and an area of Earth twice as large that really wanted to be blue oak savanna had holes dug, trees planted and fenced, mulch added, waterlines laid. It looks awful and the majority of trees have already died. My point is that  mitigation feels like a triple bad thing. Not only do we (1) lose the riparian habitat, (2) another habitat is degraded into a high input but low output quasi-habitat and (3) we feel like it was all right. Maybe some groups do mitigation right but from now on, whenever I hear the word, warning flags go up.

Churches
When I was younger, I tended to see people through our differences. I cut myself off with doctrines and predilections. But increasingly  lots and lots of activities that I formerly would have judged and held myself ìaboveî I now see as a great unity of us all pursuing and encouraging one another in their passions, striving to be a better person, striving to try making the world around us a better place. I am moved to tears by a high school football game or kids marching in a parade. Today, we took our daughter to dance with her dance group at the service of a church we never knew existed. I was moved to tears again by the beautiful wonder of people coming together to worship in a way that nourishes them. What an amazing thing our species is.

Our visit to Great Britain two years ago gave me a fresh perspective on churches in America. British (and apparently European participation in church) has declined. Most of the churches are Church of England and most of the small country churches have been converted to homes. We went to one church service in England and it felt so lifeless. The clergy up there. Congregation passive except for taking communion. And given the religious history of Europe, I can imagine Europeans would experience churches as political, potentially oppressive, institutions rather than as institutions of spiritual development. Entanglement of church and state became a spiritual disaster.

America amazes me with its diversity of churches. Tiny churches tucked off on tiny streets. And when you go in them, the congregations are vibrant. The clergy are much more like shepherds than leaders. Churches are places where people come together to generate a group strength that assists everyone to try to make more of an upward spiral of their life. One of the things I love about going into a church is that it is a living model of how life could be. There is a shared intent to be the best we can be in relation to the people around us that quickly creates a deep sense of trust. Some of us in America forget what a large percentage of us go to church. It makes America a very distinctive society.

I am an environmentalist. I am an evolutionist. In that position, I often hear other environmentalists and evolutionists talk deprecatingly of people whose beliefs are associated with a church. Such attitudes tragically create a rift where there should be great brotherhood. This is one of the things I have learned from my experience at Chrysalis. We created a natural science school and I went into it with a stereotype of fundamental Christians as people who would ask ìdo you teach evolution?î Fundamental Christians have become a large segment of Chrysalis (mostly through word of mouth) and Iíve learned that there is such a major foundation of similar aspirations that it easily accommodates whatever doctrinal areas in which we differ. So I would caution those whoíve read articles that draw patronizing distinctions between ìcultural creativesî and others to look beyond labels and realize there is much to receive from others.

Living in a small house
We live in a small house - about 1300 square feet. A couple of times a year, the house feels so crammed with stuff that I regret the advantages of small size (such as low energy bills) and wish we had a larger house so the house wouldnít feel as crowded. After a few weeks of regrets, we finally summon the mental effort to do deep cleaning. Every time we do the deep cleaning, the rooms end up with plenty of space. It is amazing how much volume disorganization can expand into and how organization can shrink the volume of needed things. The space becomes livable again. And so I wonder, if we lived in a larger house, would it mean that we would coast longer between the times of deep cleaning? Might it mean that disorganization could grow so massive before it became a problem that it might be too daunting to face? Or maybe the larger space makes organization easier so things stay better organized in a larger house? I donít know.
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My book, Seeing Nature: Deliberate Encounters with the Visible World, may be ordered from me. Prices are $16 for one book, $29 for two books, $64 for 5 books, or $112 for 10 copies. All prices are postpaid and include any sales tax. Mail orders to Paul Krapfel, P.O. Box 609, Cottonwood, CA 96022-0609.

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© 2001, Paul Krafel, P.O. Box 609, Cottonwood, CA 96022-0609
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