Cairns of H.O.P.E. #30
End of the Long Days, 2002

The mission of H.O.P.E. is to turn the prow of our entropyship, the Earth, back upstream so that Earthís 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.

Introduction
Many people have asked to receive Cairns during the last two issues so I want to take a paragraph to welcome them and summarize what this newsletter is about. While writing my book, I kept a little notebook to keep track of ideas. When I finished my book, I stopped doing that and a year or so later, I noticed ideas were coming less often and not growing as much. I also know that deadlines help me stay on target. So I started this quarterly newsletter to maintain the mental discipline that I had known while writing my book. I try not to send out first draft thoughts or writing but some are second draft and not fully developed. The newsletter is mostly about what I call ìupward spiralsî, feedback loops that develop in ways that nourish life and the possibilities within life. Common topics are (1) upward spirals I come upon or seek to understand in nature,  (2) learnings that come my way as a teacher at Chrysalis, the nature-based charter school my wife and I helped found, (3) spiritual implications of personal experiences, and (4) searching for understanding and patterns by which we can help our society transform downward spirals into upward spirals. So for those of you who are new, welcome aboard. My writing might not always be smooth but may it, on the whole, nourish upward spirals.
 

My Dad died a few days ago
He was 84 years old. A fall in April broke his hip and elbow and started a downward spiral. My brother and sister and I (all being teachers) had the opportunity to spend many weeks this summer with him and our mother. Itís been an intimate time, a blessed time, and a mysterious time. I would like to share some of my experiences because our culture does not share much about dying and I now believe it should. Our society tends to regard death as a medical failure rather than the natural, inevitable end of life within this body. I tended to think in terms of ìdeathî, a state. But dying is a process. Violence can make the transition instantaneous but dying can also stretch for many months as it did for Dad. Dying is a sacramental, primal time. Iíve spent many hours simply holding his hand and that was richly sufficient. Several spiritual teachers talk about consulting our death to help us stay aware of what we should be doing with our lives. Being in the presence of someone elseís dying has a similar effect. Holding hands, saying ìI love youî and ìThank youî, whatís more important than that? For both of us. I learned to be comfortable with silence, not try forcing conversation. If Dad said something, I would respond to it. But often he would take a minute before he would reply. Conversations were slower but balanced, allowing them to move below the surface.

Dadís fall really accelerated a progressive dementia. The light of his mind started to sputter like a dying candle. This created some embarrassing situations but it also led to some very tender, open moments. It also led to a much deeper appreciation of my father because, as the dementia takes away the details, the core of his personality stands out more clearly. Maybe itís like a tree where all through the prime of life you see mostly green leaves but with the late autumn, you see clearly the central trunk. For example, one of Dadís wonderful traits was his voice. He gave all his children a love of language, alliteration, and rhyme. But I had never realized how dramatically he had used his voice (he was a salesman) until this year when I, paying more heed to the words coming more slowly, felt the roller coaster of his voice rising and falling, pausing, crescendoing, twisting with each new wordís meaning.

Another core trait is his taking command activeness. With him almost bedridden, this core trait caused all of us the most frustration but it is also very noble. I didnít realize how much it was a part of him until, like Boromir fighting to the very end, I watch my Dadís drive continuing, even when his body is no longer able to follow. One of the ways this driving activity expressed itself all through his life was with his logic. As the creator and operator of a one-man business, Dad had to make thousands of decisions and take hundreds of risks; his success depended on him being right most of the time. He was almost reflexively able to spot problems, assumptions, fallacies. ìThatís stinkiní thinkiníî was one of his aphorisms. It has been very tender watching that great mind working even when the dementia had taken many of the pieces away.

There is a final story I want to tell having to do with massage. Occasionally in Cairns I refer to massage. Let me give you the full background first so you understand my preoccupation with massage. Twenty five years ago, my soul hit a wall and found itself in a tiny, inescapable room within which it was doomed to spend the rest of its life. All perception and logic confirmed the inevitability of this existential trapped-ness. This dark depression dragged on for several months. On the outside, I made an effort to carry on as normal but on the inside was blackness and I was always aware of the gap, always aware of myself projecting to others an image that was false.

I happened to participate in a dance workshop and in an 18 hour period, I suddenly found my spirit outside the confining room. Once outside, all the perception and logic that had seemed so overwhelmingly inevitable became instantly obviously false, dependent upon the limited point of view within the ìroomî.. Suddenly my spirit was alive again within a vast universe which, as I looked around in this disorienting profound shift in consciousness, felt very mysterious. More assumptions than just the ones I linked to the depression felt open to question. One of the things that changed was I could feel ìenergy fieldsî around my hand which, from several inches away, could often feel knots of ìenergyî within some peopleís bodies. This came as a weird shock because Iím a rational, scientific person who tended to hold New Age aura-type stuff at a distance. I sure hadnít been seeking such stuff; I still have little idea of what it is about. But I found that, without necessarily touching the person, the energy within my hands could dance with their energy knots and release them in a way that the other person experienced as relaxing/healing/awakening. This ability started going to my head and I started flirting with the idea of myself being someone special with miraculous powers. My relationship with the universe started growing unbalanced until, without any specific memories of it, I fell ... back closer to my normal relationship with the world and that strange period of my life was past. Life proceeded though with a larger space for spirit. Every now and then the energy in my hands would rise into consciousness. Energy massages opened up Alysiaís heart to me (and I to her) and she became my wife.

Anyway, in May, on my first visit with Dad after his fall, I felt him in a place of fear and pain, marked by a contraction/rigidity of the muscles and spirit. I could see and feel an intense knot of suffering in the area between his eyebrows that cried out in anguish. I gave Dad regular neck and shoulder massages. This was not easy for me because Dad has never been a touchy type of person. But, though he said nothing, he relaxed into the massages and I could feel some of the tension dissolving. But the knot of pain between the eyes remained and I felt called to somehow do a massage of that energy.

Now we come to the heart of why I am telling this story. Doing such an energy massage was outside my comfort zone because (1) I wasnít sure if the energy in my hands would be there and (2) if it was there, I was uncertain how to maintain the proper relationship with the universe while massaging partly because (3) as I shared in an earlier Cairns, I find during such massages that the dance of energy almost always makes me aware of something I need to ìmoveî within me if the massage is to progress and what might that be when dealing with oneís dying father? and (4) this was far outside the accepted bounds of the lifetime of experiences my father and I had shared and finally (5) I wasnít sure if the goal of the massage was to help Dad recover his life force or to help him release into dying. But that knot of pain, so visible, called to me to help release it and a part of me knew I could do it. I couldnít turn away. So I prayed. I prayed for the proper balance while I massaged. I relinquished any control over the outcome, praying simply for our dance of energies to nourish upward spirals of energy that would bring us both into greater resonance with the divinity of the universe. During the massage, I could feel the knot of pain moving, then easing. (In my experience, the knots of energy first move before they dissolve.) And to everybodyís assessment, Dad became a more relaxed and spiritually open man thereafter. It was very special being in his presence. My brother and I, talking about this whole special time for the family,  agreed that it called for us to step outside our comfort zone but when we did, blessings occurred greater than we could have anticipated.

Sleazy Hoís and Scientific Precision
The news is full of Enron, WorldCom and other scandals. CEOís are no longer viewed as money-generating geniuses. This got me wondering what could be a term that one could use to refer to certain CEOís in a way that voiced oneís lack of respect. I started playing with the sound of CEO and soon had ìsleazy hoî(ho is slang for whore). But the moment this phrase came to mind, another thought arose. I could imagine many people using it for all CEOís. And the phrase does not apply to all CEOís. This led to the following discourse.

I am not a scientist but I like being around scientists because the precision of their thought teaches me the following pattern. On first contact with some aspect of the world, a person sees some things. Maybe it is human bodies or tide pools or rock strata. As one spends more time, one starts seeing differences within these things. One notices that the mussels in a tide pool hang out in different places than the sea urchins or that the body has arms and legs and eyes. The more one seeks to understand something, the more that interactions will be paid attention to that leads the eye/mind to mentally dissect something into smaller components. If one is trying to understand the eye, for example, one will soon be distinguishing the pupil from the iris. Each distinction requires more precise terms. The more distinctions one is aware of, the more interactions one can analyze. The search for understanding leads one to levels where the ìactionî is happening. What is usually  happening is thousands of tiny interactions rather than a few big actions.

Therefore scientists (or any specialist) spend most of their thinking time at a level that requires looking and speaking precisely. This trait leads to one of the great communication difficulties between lay people and specialists. Lay people, having only a limited vocabulary in that area, phrase questions with general terms that lie several levels above where the specialist sees the action happening. The specialist usually can not answer using the same phrases and remain true to his/her craft. The lay person interprets this difficulty either as jargon or as reluctance to take a stand.

(The opposite of this is demagoguery, which uses the most general terms to analyze problems. Get rid of Jews and Communists and our problems will be solved, according to Hitler. The power of the demagogue is that their use of language allows unequivocal, easily communicated stands.)

I guess the one area I specialize in is feedback loops. One consequence of seeing the world in terms of feedback loops is that virtually everything involved is both cause and effect. This removes the so-satisfying opportunity to blame some factor as The Cause for everything. (Like branding all CEOís as sleazy hos.) On the other hand, there is the danger that awareness of feedback loops can lead to passivity, excusing everything because every factor, if seen with the right perspective, is the effect of other factors. But each factor is both cause and effect in a vast swirl of loops.

For example, one factor contributing to the current corporate scandals is the development of mutual funds so that the stock market became more accessible to more Americans. This put more money into the pot, making it more tempting. No blame attached to mutual funds; just recognizing what a complex swirl of factors are at play. However, there is one major causative factor I believe at work which I have not heard much mention of in the last few months but it is one Korten highlights in his book, When Corporations Rule the World. That is the intense focus over the many past years on seeking the maximum rate of return.

Many pension funds are required by law to invest for maximum rate of return. (This exemplifies the challenge of writing laws. The legislative intent was to require pension funds be managed for the benefit of the pensioners and not allow fund managers to use the money in pursuit of personal objectives that would reduce the funds available for retirements. However, to require going for the highest rate of return is a very dangerous standard.) And though not all the money in the stock market was legally constrained to seek the highest rate of return, in practice most of it was managed that way. Publications popped up so anybody could compare the rate of return for any mutual fund. A fund that generated a higher rate of return than average would attract hundreds of millions of more dollars out of less-average funds. As corporate scandals unfold, Iím sure one of the recurring patterns will be stories of people who cut corners because doing so would increase income and not doing so was perceived as leading to losing business to someone else who was willing to do so. As these feedback loops repeated, the momentum grew stronger for now there was no doubt that there were indeed others out there willing to cut corners to capture the business you were competing for. And so more and more people were sucked into the chimera of maximum rate, no matter what the invisible cost. Maximum rate of return nurses at the dark underbelly of human nature because it leads one to either neglect or foist off onto others maintenance chores that the work morally requires. This brings us back yet again to the Prisonerís Dilemma and how do we as a society inspire each one of us to do the work, pay the cost, of doing the maintenance work of a culture and an ecosystem rather than trying to dodge it?
 

The Purpose of Debate
The following story seems to somehow fit in here.  Dr. Michael Butler was director of the Farm School, the lab school at UCI where Alysia and I taught and met. One afternoon, Michael and I were discussing the cause for tides. We had different explanations and I was zealously arguing for mine. I was sure I was right and I felt pride at anticipating ìbeatingî Michael in debate. In the midst of this fevered excitement, I glanced at Michael and realized he had no concern about ìwinningî or fears of ìlosingî the discussion. He was focused on deepening his understanding about the tides. He modeled something higher than ìwinningî. I remembered that lesson. Several years later during a faculty reunion, I shared that story. In response, Michael said something like: ìIf you are interested in the truth, then you have a duty to help your opponent present the strongest possible argument.î

I reflect on this as we move into the mid-term elections. Elections are too often waged like war. The objective is to destroy the opponent, rather than create a discussion of the body politic in pursuit of understanding. The media will amplify any slip of the tongue and so candidates restrict themselves to sound bites.
 

Legislation
One of the unexpected consequences of operating a public chartered school is it has turned me into an ìinterest groupî, Certain pieces of legislation effect me very directly and so I have an interest in knowing what is happening and usually a preference as to how this issue should be resolved. I read the specific language of a bill and see how the wording of a specific sentence might only make the matter worse. I think that is one of the differences between interest groups and citizens. Citizens will express their opinion in favor or opposition of legislation. Interest groups will express their opinion on specific wording within the legislation.

This new position has deepened my understanding of the legislative process and so I want to share it. First, it has made me aware that the job of a law is to draw a specific line through our society. One side of the line is legal or eligible; the other side is illegal or ineligible. What makes this very hard is there are at least two groups very interested in having that line drawn as far away from them as possible. One group is the entrepreneurs, people who want the chance to create wonderful things, people who are guided by a moral compass that will guide them through complex terrain better than any law. The second group is the scoundrels, people who want the most territory available for ripping off the culture without getting caught, who lack a compass and whose motivations need external constraints to prevent harm. It is very hard to draw the line to rein in the scoundrels without also burdening the entrepreneurs. This has taught me compassion for the job of a legislator.

Iíve also learned is that it is almost impossible to actually draw that line. To use the metaphor of a mountain ridge, it is easy to look at the ridge and see the ridge line and know which slope is on which side of the line. But if one were to walk the ridge line, trying to paint the precise line, the line would drop down between rocks and become fractally long. Drawing such a line would bog the legislative process in minutiae; very few laws could ever be completed. And so the legislature creates a bureaucracy whose job is to create the final regulations and adjust the line to fit the legislativeís intent as new experiences arise. The bureaucracy is much maligned but its reason for being is absolutely essential if the legislative process is to move forward.

Iíve also learned that lobbyists have an important and legitimate job to play in the legislative process. There are so many details to be considered when trying to draw the line as precisely as possible. If you need to vote on hundreds of bills and help draft 10 or 20 bills, you just donít have the time to master all the implications of the law. The people who understand the implications of a proposed law better than anyone else are the people its going to effect. And a legislator has a legitimate desire to hear from those people to help make sure the legislation has the intended effect and not some unanticipated consequences.

Part of me resists this awareness. It is easier to simply condemn lobbyists en masse. But this relates back to scientific precision and demagoguery. Political problems donít lie with the existence of lobbyists per se. One must look more precisely at a deeper level than that.
 

Steep Redwood Slopes
The slopes can be wonderfully steep in the upper drainages of a redwood forest. Massive redwoods block the wind and break the plummet of every raindrop. Beneath them, ferns  protect the ground even further from the dripping rain. Every drop of moisture probably reaches the ground by bouncing off ferns or sliding down their stems. What is interesting is that the steepness of the slope might initially be interpreted as extreme erosion but I think it probably represents incredible resistance to erosion. It probably represents powerful life forms holding the soil at an incredibly high angle of repose.
 

The Challenge
The great challenge of life is posed by the gap between the way the world really is and the way the world really is. By this I mean that without a doubt, the world is full of problems and greed and fear and takings which leads others to take, justifying themselves as trying to get theirs before it is too late and so a downward spiral develops. And without a doubt the world is far more spiritually magic than we imagine (and hence usually experience), far more full of love and miracles than we comprehend The world is both and we live within both and our thoughts and actions help shape the nature of the world. What a challenge!
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Business Stuff
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 Krafel, P.O. Box 609, Cottonwood, CA  96022-0609

Cairns is free for anyone receiving it by e-mail. My e-mail address: paul@krafel.net

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© 2002, 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.