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.

A short issue of Cairns because my attention has been consumed by (1) finishing my DVD, (2) several rainy days calling me out to go walking in the wondrous fields, and (3) Chrysalis facilities issues.

My DVD is Finished!
Here is my DVD, The Upward Spiral. Because the ideas that are dear to me are both so visual and so removed from our urban culture, I’ve wanted to make this movie for a long time. I care so much about it that I know I will never finish it. I will keep adding better images and refining the narration. One of the great things about digital video,
however, is I can just keep updating it bit by bit as the opportunity and inspirations arise. So this is version 1.0. Because the vision is so dear to me, I am quite open to feedback on how to express it more clearly and beautifully.

When I wrote Shifting many years ago, I sent it out to about 40 people who I thought might like it. I asked them to help the book grow by passing copies on to a friend. Thanks to those original forty and those who followed, more than 3000 books (plus however many from an Italian edition) have been sold and been passed on to who knows how many other people. I am doing the same with this DVD. I am giving it to you with the request that if you like it, that you please pass it on to someone else you think will like it. (If you want to keep it, then please buy another copy to pass on. To help encourage this sharing, I will sell the DVDs to this current mailing list at half price: $7.50 for one, $30 for five, $50 for ten.) If you have the technology, you may make other copies to give (not sell) to others. May this DVD uplift your spirit. May it help nourish upward spirals within this wondrous world.

Steep Creep
We had many soaking rains during Christmas vacation and so I was out doing my erosion work a lot (and filming it for my DVD). I was traversing a steep slope in the fields. The soil had a high plasticky content. As I walked across, I could feel my weight pushing the clay down slope towards the stream. Creep - the word geologists gave to the process that moves more rock material than any other process. And I suddenly realized that creep is an interesting example of the Rules of Flow. (Inflow greater than outflow accumulates. Inflow less than outflow diminishes.) Creep is the movement of rock and soil down a slope under the constant pull of gravity. It’s not water-caused erosion. It’s not spectacular avalanches. It’s just the downward sagging of an inch or two a year, the giving way before the force of gravity. Creep pulls the plastic clay soil down the steep slope into the gully bottom. Runoff in the gullies then carries that soil down to the larger creeks and on towards the sea. But I am working at spreading the water out so that more soaks in and the remainder has less erosive energy. If successful, this would reduce the outflow of material from the gully bottom. However, my work might actually increase creep upslope of these drainages because the soil would grow more saturated and colloidal. If the soil creeps down the slope faster than it used to but then flows out of the drainage slower than it used to, this shifts the relative balance and creeping soil might accumulate in the drainages. The gullies would gradually fill in. This is a good example of “enemies becoming allies when relative balances shift.” Creep appears to be a strictly erosional force. But if it pinches the gullies shut as it imperceptibly flows down, it spreads the runoff over a broader area where it will flow slower. The pinching shut of the gullies will slow the flow of groundwater to the surface and the water table will rise. Eventually, creep will even slow down creep because as the bottom fills up, the angle of the supporting slopes will decrease, which lessens gravity’s downslope force component. 

(Perhaps this is the answer to the question I asked many years ago in Cairns as to why non-eroding drainages tend to have a lovely subtle curve across them. Perhaps it is because the slope to which soil creeping in from the sides eventually fills the drainage. A steeper slope would fill in faster and grow less steep. A less steep slope would flow too slowly to replace what little amount of soil was being carried away and so the slope would steepen. Or perhaps as the drainage fills in, the water table rises and the area grows more saturated and therefore less capable of holding a steep slope. It deforms more easily and takes on gentle rounded contours.) Anyway, this hypothesis will guide my future observations.

Chrysalis Update
We are moving into the complicated endgame for obtaining a facility for Chrysalis. We are working to be sponsored by the county as a county-wide science and nature charter school. That will allow us to locate anywhere within Shasta County. There is a vacant church/school we hope to buy. We will have to collateralize our home in order to buy it but my economic and mission-reaching projections convince me that Chrysalis will grow very strong if we can acquire our own adequate facilities. Please contact me if you would like to donate to the school’s nonprofit organization or if you would like to help/invest in the school by lending us a low-interest loan.  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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