The Pedagogy of the Short Tale

I'm often asked where i get all the short tales i tell and i'm always happy to refer people to my favourite sources (see below). But i always experience a bit of a twinge when asked. Looking at this twinge i can see that it is made up of a combination of curiosity and concern. I'm always curious about what people got/get from the stories i tell. I'm also curious to understand their desire behind asking for sources. I know that part of people's response is one of pleasure and delight and they want more of that, thinking that it can be found in the sources from which i draw inspiration. And that's cool. I also know that part of the response when it comes from educators, fellow storytellers and other professionals who present publicly is that they need some short pieces that they can use in the many situations that arise (segueing from item to item, opening comments, closing comments, etc.). And it is this latter circumstance that i want both to examine and to understand more.

I use the term "wisdom stories" to name the many short stories i tell. It's a common enough term that i see used more and more to categorize the many parables, fables and teaching stories used by the many faith traditions (buddhist, hindu, sufi, christian, jewish, etc.) around the world. "Wisdom stories" has both a secular and an ecumenical feel to it. And it's general enough to affirm the genealogical roots (and routes) that stories share. These wisdom tales have been swapped back and forth amongst earth's peoples for millennia. So does that make them all common property? In a sense it does. Apart from copyright (which legally protects the specific property of a creator - in this case a particular text and/or unique spin on an otherwise traditional story), there's no storytelling regulatory authority that can either assign permission to tell something or hold to account someone who is deemed inappropriate. We are left with the messy world of politics, culture and the very, very complicated relations of inequality, oppression, struggle and so on.

What is most true to me about telling stories is that there is always a context from which the stories came, in which they were learned and in which they are being told. And it's really that context that concerns me most. Nor is that context something i control. Though i do think we have influence over the contexts in which we act - even if it is merely the act of abstaining from certain contexts. I guess as much as i respect the very human need simply to laugh at a joke, i'm reluctant to facilitate people using wisdom stories as cosmetics. In these wisdom stories is condensed incredible lessons learned over the ages. And the story is a storage device, a medium to preserve and transport that learning across time, space and culture. But who am i to judge? We need our wisdom tales as much as we need our jokes and, while i'm pretty good at telling wisdom stories, i'm not such a great joke-teller (for that you should listen to my brother - he knows how to tell a joke).

My advice for people who ask me about the sources of the short stories that they see me tell is two-fold. First, from Eduardo Galeano i learned something i have not forgotten in since he told it to me over 15 years ago. My friends Clara and Ruby and i were having drinks with Galeano after a reading he'd done at Harbourfront in Toronto. And between his roguish flirting with my friends (which seemed harmless enough) i trotted out the most prosaic of questions (a tiny bit dressed up, at least) authors get asked: "How is that you find such magical things to write about?" Galeano looked me straight in the eye and with a well-practiced grin he said, "You don't understand. You see, two or three magical things happen to me every day." And i knew immediately the truth he was sharing. It was a moment of startling clarity and i knew all i had to do from then on was to keep my eyes open. Galeano's simple response is one of the great gifts in my life. I have honored every day since.

My second piece of advice regarding wisdom stories is this: once you've found a story that strikes you (whether with pleasure or with pain or, more likely, something between) sit with it, reflect on it, repeat it to yourself many times, meditate. Wisdom stories are like songs without apparent music. And as you come to know the story and some of its onion layers of meanings, you may begin to hear the secret music of that story. Some stories i have told dozens if not hundreds of times and every now and again i worry that the story will get stale if i carry on repeating it so. But if repeating is what i was doing then it probably would get stale. The challenge of telling is to tell it new every time. And the stories that i tell over and over again are always new to me, they always hold something new for me to learn, their music refreshes my soul. And i love to share that refreshment with others.

So, after all that preamble, here's a few of my favourite sources:

De Mello, Anthony
1988 Taking Flight: A Book of Story Meditations. NY: Image Books-Doubleday.
1989 The Heart of the Enlightened: A Book of Story Meditations. NY: Image Books-Doubleday.

Feldman, Christina & Jack Kornfield (eds.)
1996 Soul Food: Stories to Nourish the Spirit and the Heart. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Fumoleau, René
2004 Here I Sit. Ottawa: Novalis.

Galeano, Eduardo
1991 The Book of Embraces. New York: W.W.Norton & Co.
1993 Walking Words. New York: W.W.Norton & Co.

It's the Season of Conferences

Or, at least, it feels like a season, there are so many in the next couple of months - and i'd like to go to all of 'em. Conferences are where we get to do some important collective thinking, some community building, some celebrating. It is always my hope and ideal that conferences committed to social justice, popular education, resisting oppression and so on will also imagine-embody-enact the very worlds we are trying to bringing into existence - walk the talk, as it were. Alas. Ideal's are, as ever, hard to realize. As Carl Schurz said: "Ideals are like the stars. We never reach them, but we chart our course by them."

• Apr. 13-14 - Toronto
  Building Power: Social and Political Transformations in Latin America
  
• Apr. 20-22 - Toronto
  Spirit Matters 2007: One Earth Community - Sharing Our Stories
  
• May 2 - Toronto
  Remembering Freire - Reinventing Freire (you gotta scr0ll down a bit)
  
• May 31 - June 3 - Minneapolis
  Pedagogy & Theatre of the Oppressed
  
• May 24-28 - Hollyhock, BC
  Social Change Institute
• May 25-27 - Calgary
  Puppet Power 2007: Puppets as Agents of Social Change

My "fifteen minutes" are counting down

I had three calls from family today and a few e-mails from friends all pleased to see the article in today's Toronto Star that quotes me about the storytelling show The Spadina Expressway Affair that i'm doing this Saturday. There's a lovely photo of me in the print edition as well.

I Met the Walrus

I Met the Walrus is a fun thing from the annals of rock 'n roll history. I love the animation and can't wait to see the whole thing. The trailer alone is outstanding.

Joyce Little's designs are a hit

Well, as some of you know, my sweety J'net was in Toronto last week representing the work of her friend, Tseshaht designer Joyce Little. It was a very successful event and some big name buyers have expressed interest in Joyce's work. I know little about the world of fashion, as many of you can guess. And it's probably hard for you to imagine me sitting along a fashion runway watching models strut and pose. But that's what i was doing last week as J'net and Fashion Nation introduced Joyce's stuff to the wide world of fashion during L'Oreal's International Fashion Week. You can see the pieces that were featured on Fashion Nation's website here. And J'net was in the news as well and did a very good interview with Fashion Television and you can watch that video here. The piece on Fashion Nation starts at about one minute twelve seconds into the piece and includes a number of Joyce's pieces as well as the interview with J'net. The image with this blog post is J'net modelling one of Joyce's pieces.

Public Space

Once two neighbours fell to arguing over which owned a particular piece of land. Their argument threatened to grow into a bitter quarrel as each was convinced that he owned the land over which they fought. Another neighbour suggested that they go and ask their rabbi for advice. This they did and each man presented to the rabbi his case and his proof for ownership of the land. The rabbi listened to each man and said, “you both have good cases, good proof and you are both correct. I cannot decide. Let us go to the land you are arguing over.” Once they arrived on the disputed land the rabbi got down on his hands and knees and put his ear to the ground. He stayed in this position for some time and then he stood up. “Gentlemen, I have listened to the land. And the land says that it belongs to neither of you. Rather it says that you belong to the land.”

I’m doing a show this Saturday as part of Fabled City (part of the 29th Annual Toronto Festival of Storytelling) about the Stop the Spadina Expressway struggle of the 1960s. I was an odd beneficiary of this struggle as I lived in wonderful house on Spadina Rd. in the early 90s that would have been destroyed by the grandiose dreams of those techno-besotted urban planners of the 1950s and 60s who seemed to take the Jetsons a little too literally. And this has me thinking about public and private space and some of the contemporary activism in Toronto and around the world that is advocating for the common good and against the corporatization/privatization of the whole bloody world.

Four of the newest institutions in this ancient struggle include:

• Planning Action
• The Toronto Public Space Committee (TPSC)
• Spacing Magazine and
• Newmindspace
  
• These are only a few of many that deserve mention – see TPSC’s links page for more.

The current issue of The Eye Weekly poses the question Is The Movement For Sale? featuring Newmindspace’s playgroundification of urban spaces (you may remember something about the pillow fight in Yonge-Dundas Square). While the Eye Weekly piece skirts too quickly over what the "public space movement" is and just what it is that might be "up for sale" (as well as some misrepresenting some things - see their letters column sometime this week), it does foreground the relationship between public space activism and capitalist culture.

I am ambivalent about things like public pillow fights, urban capture the flag, flash mobs, raves and even le parkour (though this last one is pretty bloody cool - ahhh, the adolescent in me still lives a bit). I am simultaneously appreciative and skeptical about the carnivalesque nature of such things. On the plus side they disrupt our unquestioned common sense about how to use both public and private space; and insurgent, performative, playful occupying of the physical and imagined landscapes just might lead to a richer citizen participation in the daily life of a city. However, my skeptical, malcontent self knows that carnivalesque tactics - or call 'em trickster strategies - are, by their nature (or is it design) hard to control. There is no way to guarantee that the spaces (or political moments) that they open up will be used for good and not for evil (okay... sometimes i talk like a comic book - blame it on my mis-spent, if geeky, youth).

The Eye Weekly article sets up some volatile, and ultimately unhelpful, dichotomies: public space activism as principled and pure (i.e. free from the taint of crass commercialism) vs selling out to the ubiquitous marketing machine; and political activism vs having fun. But, while there's always a bit of truth in such simplistic contrasts, the world is way messier than these common equations. Focusing on one institution's choices (and, in this case, it's actually the individuals who co-founded the institution who are being singled out) Whether Newmindspace co-founders Lori Kufner and Kevin Bracken are "selling out"is hardly an indicator of movement trends. With capitalism as the dominant economy, it's inevitable that the experience that individuals accrue in social movement work will eventually be bank-able. And what are individuals to do in an economy that is so unforgiving (i just got word of the demise of another non-profit IMPACS, who are declaring bankruptcy).

Planning Action members Deb Cowen and Sue Bunce name the issues well in a response letter that should be printed in Eye Weekly by now:

But more important than a moral debate about what kind of fun we engage in and how ?diverse? that sense of fun isn?t, public space activists might revisit their own assumptions about what constitutes a ?public space? problem to begin with. Public space has never been about comfort and joy except for the chosen few. Tightly tethered to social norms, public space has historically been a site of exclusion as much as inclusion. If we think city space through the experiences of different social subjects, we might see efforts to fight racialized police violence, to provide sanctuary for undocumented people, or to fund daycare spaces as struggles for public space par excellence. It is not surprising that many of these efforts emerge out of communities of colour, organized by working people. This is not a critique of fun.

The Eye Weekly article ends on a quote from Newmindspace co-founder Lori Kufner who says, "Our events aren't about anything except for having fun and reclaiming public space and meeting new people." And it is this that i have the hardest time with. Not to read too much into Lori's understanding from one quote, but it is this type of sentiment, common enough, that gives me the most grief. For in a world of such vast inequalities (even in our relatively gentler welfare economy country) i don't think that such fun can be had except based on privilege and oftentimes at someone's (with less privilege) expense.

Nor is it the case that i don't believe in fun. But, for the sake of argument, i would contrast fun with pleasure. If , for a moment, we say that "fun" names the adolescent, naive characteristic of life (something we are all entitled to live through for a time), then "pleasure" could name something more, the kind of fun that can be had when one's experience of life, depth/breadth of character and one's increased mindfullness of one's inter-relation with all things has expanded one's capacity for containing joy. I am clumsily referring to what Barbara Ehrenreich calls a "politics of pleasure" in an article she wrote titled Was it Good For You (The Progressive, 1999) and in which she writes:

Oppression is not the sole factor pushing people into activism, and even the most egregiously oppressed people have often expressed their rebellion in a way that looked, to their oppressors, like mindless hedonism. European peasants looted bakeries and manor houses, eating and drinking as they went. Caribbean slaves and French villagers used carnivals, with their masks and public processions, as occasions for revolt. In this country, slaves sometimes warmed up for uprisings with song and "ring shouts." Considering this venerable tradition of combining pleasure and politics, only the most pinched Puritanical soul could insist that political activism be an exercise in deferred gratification.

It's not just "the sixties" raising its impish head here. Yes, that decade was famously fun: Abbie Hoffman wrote (and largely lived) Revolution for the Hell of It. French radicals ran in the streets shouting, "All Power to the Imagination!" American campus activists made love, not war, and probably did as much recruiting at all-night dance parties as at teach-ins--not just opportunistically, but because we truly believed that the id could be a reliable guide to social change. But the sixties weren't all sex-drugs-and-rock-'n'-roll. Most of the time, we were doing the same kinds of hard work activists have always done: Going patiently from door to door, bickering over the wording of leaflets, organizing teach-ins and rallies. In fact, most of the reputed political fun of the sixties was the same kind of "fun" no doubt experienced by activists in the thirties or teens: The thrill of solidarity, of marching and chanting together, of being caught up in a great transcendent cause, "larger than ourselves."

And i agree with her conclusion:

But on the whole, we have barely begun to explore the politics of pleasure. For all the time spent on "principles of unity" and structures of leadership, we know hardly anything about how to make the struggle something that people might, in large numbers, actually want to join.

I do believe in working together and think that there is much to be learned by combining the playfulness that Newmindspace represents with the community organizing and intellectual smarts of groups like TPSC and Planning Action and others. Ahhh, but that is tricky, of course. As it means tolerating if not accepting big differences. As dian marino, a dear friend, used to say, the necessary working in coalition that we must do in social change work is about "keeping difficult company".

I am worth 4, the other 3 are in bed

Here's an image that Clara just sent me from the struggle for the rights of CFS sufferers in Spain. The sign says "I am worth 4, the other 3 are in bed."

A Victory for Popular Struggle

My friend Clara, as some of you know, is both a sufferer of and an activist on chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) which is a pernicious disease that affects many bodily systems, especially the immune system. Diagnosing it and treating it does not fit easily into contemporary medical practice and ideology and thus goes ignored, misunderstood and/or stigmatized rather than treated. Clara is one of the leaders in a Spanish popular movement that has been struggling for the rights of people who live with CFS and the related disease fibromyalgia. As you can see from Clara's letter below, the Catalan parliament has responded to popular pressure and approved a process that will result in legislative change.

Dear friends and colleagues far and near,

Yesterday, the Catalan Parlament accepted the Popular Legislative Initiative on Chronic FAtigue Syndrome/ME and Fibromialgia (FM), presented by representatives from 80% of the people with CFS/ME or FM who are in associations in Catalonia. This acceptance is the first step towards a world-first: a law that would ensure proper servicies for people with CFS/ME and FM and a fair treatment by medical inspectors. Here is the news item in the Catalan Parlament's home page

No one thought that a group of ill people like us, in a not so user-friendly country would be able to pull this off. So we are all very happy and it is a big boost for the CFS/ME and FM community here.

Now that it has been accepted, the signature gathering can begin. We need 50,000 signatures and we have a team of 150 signature-collection coordinators ("fedetarios") ready to roll.

Once the signatures are gathered, the law will be discussed in parlament and voted. This will probably take place in the fall.

Up to now, it has been a lot of work for us sick folks: writing the law and the document to justify each article of the law (thank you to all of you who sent me the necessary bibliography!), working with all the associations to create unity and the much needed empowerment, meeting with all political groups and sub groups (we have the support of all the political parties, except, of course, the party that runs the Health Ministry), campaigning to recruit signature coordinators, meetings with unions, women's groups others.

It has not been easy as we are presenting a proposed law that puts totally into question the goverment's plan to keep CFS/ME and FM solely in Primary Health Care (where most doctors do not believe these illnesses exist or do not want to work with them and are not allowed to do any relevant tests), while our law, amongst other things, demands CFS-FM units. So we have had (and continue) to deal with pressures, intimidations, etc, from goverment and goverment-related organizations. We are also having to deal with the two foundations (one run by the goverment party, the other run by businessmen) who, up to now, had managed to control and manipulate the CFS and FM associations in CAtalonia and create division. Encouraging the associations to be independent and to create unity has been hard but the most rewarding work.

The documents (the law, the justification document and other documents) are avaliable in Catalan and some in Spanish. If anyone is interested in receiving them, let us know.

Clara Valverde

for the Promoting Commission of the
CFS/ME-FM Popular Legislative Initiative
Catalonia, Spain

Reminding Myself Why i Love to Make Art

Making murals in the popular education class these past couple of weeks i am reminded of my work with dian marino in the early nineties. She had a teacher who was a wonderful fount of wisdom about creativity and art. Here's some words from Corita Kent:

When you are not separate from the creative process, time ceases to exist. You might start to feel tired and suddenly realize that much time has passed. It isn't necessarily a happy time - and may be very difficult to start if it is a job or an obligation. But if' you start with all the concrete needs and proceed in a thorough way - the creative process will take over and you will forget whether it is work or play. Working in the here and now is one of the most uncontaminated ways to work.

Fierce Light - Video Diary 4 (Nairobi, Kenya)

This is one of a number of Velcrow Ripper's video diaries of the World Social Forum held this past January in Nairobi, Kenya. As some of you know i was in Nairobi in December though i could could not stay on to take part in the WSF. Alas. Energetic, wonderful, contradictory, festive, problematic - it sounds like it was the usual "carnival" of high-spirited resistance to the global corporate monoculture. Check out Velcrow's other diaries and more of his work here on YouTube.

conspiracy 911

A friend just sent me this very clever video by a friend of hers (thanks, Sushil). I'm not much into conspiracy theories (except for their strange power as compelling stories.) And I'm not sure if Apeman888 (the director) is for or against conspiracies. He writes:

I made this film as a rejoinder to all the crazy 911 theories floating around the Internet. My plan is to fight madness with madness. It's a battle the conspiracy nuts cannot hope to win. For I am the Moscow of madness, whereas they are merely the provincial weather stations.

Is he saying that his conspiracy theorizing is better than all the "nuts"? Regardless, I love the cleverness of the juxtapositions that Apeman888 has made. And the warning about Iran as the next target of US aggression is timely. See my previous post with the slide show scored to Cat Stevens music.

Ethics for Activists - 10

The Stream & The Desert

Once there was a stream that began high in a mountain range where it was a mere trickle. As it travelled down the mountain it grew and grew until it was a lovely cascade which coursed on down into a valley to become a rushing river. It widened as it crossed the land and it flowed strongly until it reached a vast expanse of sand. The stream that had become a river tried to cross this desert but as fast as the waters poured forth so equally as fast the waters disappeared into the sand. The river was discouraged. It could see no way to continue its journey.

Just then a voice on the wind said, “you must let go. The harder you try the more water you’ll lose to the sands.”

“But if I let go,” said the river, “how will I know where I am to go, what I am to become?”

“Let go and see,” said the voice on the wind.

The stream that had become a river let go. It gave itself up to the sun and sky and wind where it became clouds. The clouds were carried high over the desert by the winds. Now, having crossed the desert, the stream poured down from the sky, with the power of storms.

Now that i have to learn more about parenting:

Not exactly something you wanna show the kids (for a variety of reasons)but this is rather falling-down-funny. Thanks to my sister for telling me about this one.

Ever wonder about the "runcible spoon"?

Some friends gave me and J'net a gift of the Owl & The Pussycat (by Edward Lear) along with a hearty rendition of the song. Which got me to wondering about that good 'ole runcible spoon. And i'm glad to say that i've learned all about runcibility at last. Here's what the Straight Dope has to say about the runcible spoon. I just know you were wanting to know this.

Cadboro Bay, Victoria in February - hard to believe this is winter

Spent the afternoon on the beach yesterday, with kids making driftwood & sand houses. A beautiful February day in Victoria, BC.

The View from Port Alberni's Harbour Quay

The sun was out yesterday in this Pacific Coast land of trees and water. My heart goes out to all my Ontarian family and neighbours currently in the arctic deep freeze. I'll be with you soon.

Popular Education, Puppetry and….

Meeting with a friend and some young students interested in popular education I was asked about the relationship between popular education and Bread & Puppet which my friend knows me to have been involved with for over 25 years. Coincidentally, I’ve been thinking a great deal about the history of popular education in Canada and the world and I am currently working on a manuscript provisionally titled Trickster Pedagogy that puts some of my ideas out there as well as scrutinizes my experience with popular education these couple of decades past. When asked about Bread & Puppet in the context of popular education it crystallized for me some thoughts about the uniqueness of Canadian popular education history, practice and theory or, in a word, praxis. As with all things human, there are contradictions (some widely-recognized and some not so) in the history and praxis of popular education in Canada – something I am exploring even as we speak. That said, I am also confident in saying that there are some wonderful contributions that deserve attention including The Naming the Moment Project (inspired by the practice of conjunctural analysis in Latin America), The Doris Marshall Institute for Education and Action (a group of over 20 educators who worked together in Toronto between 1986 and 1997), The Centre de Formation Populaire in Montreal, The Tatamagouche Centre in Nova Scotia and Kairos (an ecumenical social justice umbrella group), and the Catalyst Centre of which I am a co-founder. There are countless events that have been part of this history including popular theatre workshops, social justice conferences, the Popular Education weeks that happened on Grindstone Island in 1987 and 1988. And Canadian popular education has integrated anti-racist theory and practice as well as made some serious headway in influencing trade union pedagogy. And, to return to the inspiration for this post, it has always incorporated a healthy dose of the arts – whether this is the use of mural production and other forms of visual art, the training and use of Theatre of the Oppressed (including forum theatre), song, ‘zines and puppets. As part of the Naming the Moment workshops of 1991-1992 in Toronto, we both produced a performance of Bread and Puppet as well as our own production of the Ojibway Prophecy of the Seven Fires (performed at the Native Canadian Centre in October of 1992 as part of the reframing of the much-vaunted Columbus quincentenary). I plan to write a more detailed history of that event which was a remarkable moment of coalition and collaboration. More recently, with respect to popular education and the arts, Deborah Barndt edited a collection of essays about community art that is well-worth checking out: Wild Fire: Art as Activism. And, apropos of my friend’s question about popular education and Bread & Puppet I continue to research this wonderful link and will share more of this in future. Meanwhile you could always check out these local (Toronto) groups for which I hold enormous respect:

• Shadowlands
• Clay & Paper
• Jumblies

Toronto Social Forum has new website

This new website is a good place to check regularly for many social justice and social movement activities. The World Social Forum began in Port Alegre Brazil in 2001 in response to the annual capitalist love-fest (aka the World Economic Forum) that happens in Davos, Switzerland. The most recent happened in Nairobi, Kenya last month. Here's an excellent report from Judy Rebick.

Bread & Puppet Website - YAY!

Bread and Puppet has a website - joy-oh-joy. As some of you know, i have been attending Bread & Puppet events since 1980 - they've been a big part of my life, as you can imagine. They are one of world greats of theatre - not just puppet theatre. And for all you budding community artists and activists you might want to check out their APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM. Throughout the 80s i longed to apply to work with them but instead found myself in Nicaragua working for the Sandinistas instead. Their website also includes an interview with Peter Schumann and a link to a "academic" article on Bread & Puppet. (The above photo is one i took in November 2006 when i co-produced a performance at York University. This is the face of an Iraqi woman puppet. You can see more images from that performance in this old blog post.)

I miss the snow... no, really, i do ....

I understand the snow is a-falling in Toronto right now. And i love a good snowfall. For my part, i' enjoying some west coast winter weather as you can see from this picture. This is hard for me to call winter. Pretty though. And warm.

Peace Train by Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)

It’s funny how memories of growing up can suddenly sweep back into view with all the richness of the emotion of those moments lived, for some of us, long ago. Seeing the video by Lucas Gray about Iran scored to Peace Train by Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens) my memory of long-forgotten teenage days was rekindled. Partly because my closest friend from the age of 17 until I was well-into my twenties was a Persian student, Majid, who became a refugee after the revolution in Iran and who continues to live and work in Montreal to this day. And the other memory rekindled was my almost-complete collection of Cat Stevens records. His music was one of a set of things (which also included the Rocky Horror Picture Show, lentils and Harold & Maude) that ushered me from the suburban hinterland in which I had been raised into the urban (inner-city, really) world in which I have lived ever since. So it was with dismay that I learned (now long ago as well) of his conversion to Islam (ironically not a couple of years after I had discovered his music). Despite having muslim friends, I can see now that I was suspicious and even a bit resentful of this conversion. And while I am somewhat critical-minded about all religious conversion experiences I can see from this vantage of three-decades distance that my feelings about Cat Stevens’ conversion were certainly fuelled by both ignorance and fear of Islam. So, when the headlines that alleged Cat Stevens’ support of the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989, I was, sadly, inclined to grant them credence without the scepticism I usually apply to all media coverage. I was not inclined to look more closely at what the truth of the matter might be. I allowed my suspicions that Cat Stevens had become a fundamentalist, doctrinaire muslim to be confirmed. I can see now that this passive acceptance of this media-sense and “common-sense” opinion was, in part, due to my own suspicions (which are most accurately called racist) of islam.

I still don’t know the whole truth of the matter and this wikipedia info at least suggests that further research and reflection is necessary. I can see now that I was practicing a common strategy of oppression, commonly called the double-standard (though triple, quadruple and so on is probably more accurate). And, like many people, I tolerate contradictions in people and institutions I otherwise approve of while expecting people and institutions of which I am suspicious or fearful to prove themselves contradiction-free. Just one of the many tactics of racism/white-supremacy, sexism/patriarchy, classism and so on.

So learning of Lucas Gray’s piece about Iran, and quite moved by it (see previous post), I checked out YouTube to see what might be there and found this rendition of Peace Train that brought tears (both sad and bitter) to my eyes and that has caused me to regret cutting out of my life some music that I once loved dearly. Fear and ignorance, especially of the racist variety, are insidious things that seep into all our lives.

Cataloguing Books on-line

Hey fellow campers, i've just discovered Library Thing - an on-line book-cataloguing site. You get to catalogue 200 books for free after which you have to pay $10 a year or $25 for life - given the price of many softwares, it's a pretty good deal. And many of you know what a book geek i am. The thing about this site is that you can view other people's libraries. In theory it's a way of sharing libraries, swapping books and such. Though i'm pretty protective of my collection - again, as many of you know. Nonetheless i like sharing and a couple of dozen of my books are abroad in the world at any one time.

Popular Education News - Jan 2007

I'm catching up on posting and here's one things i have been delinquent about: The Popular Education News which has been published devotedly by Larry Olds for these past few years. Some great links, resources, meeting announcements and more.

Peace Train memories and new inspiration

Here's a slide show that's worth a couple of minutes of your time : http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html (thanks, Kim).

Community Arts University

Well, i've quite loved the Community Arts Network website for some time and now i love it even more as they have created a virtual university (actually a collection of articles and syllabi) about community arts. Despite some syllabi about global perspectives, it's a tad U.S-centric - which is small detriment to using this wonderful collection of stuff. You could say i'm a bit of a syllabi junky.

U.N. OKs Bill to Protect Disabled Rights

Another one of those weird coincidences. While here doing this human rights training there's this piece of good news about the UN approving the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Sadly and frustratingly, the same can't be said for the much delayed UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People which Canada has thus far refused to support. And it's been 23-years-in-the-making. And, what's more, is that those 23 years included the UN's "Decade of Indigenous People" which ended two years ago. An earlier post of mine is worth following for some wonderful speeches by indigenous people.

Culture Collective

I just received an email from some friends at Living Folklore. They're promoting an arts group that i certainly want to learn more about: Culture Collective. It was founded by the family of Dan Eldon, a young photojournalist and artist (he kept remarkable journals and my friends and family know how important journal writing/book-making is to me), who was killed in Somalia while covering the conflict there in 1993. I'm struck by some odd coincidences. Dan Eldon spent many years right here in Nairobi where i have just received my friend's email about this and from where i am currently writing this post. Also, it was only seven week ago that another young journalist, Brad Will, was killed by assassins while he was covering the teachers' strike in Oaxaca, Mexico. Who knows what coincidences signify? And i don't really believe in coincidences. This year, as some of you know, has been a remarkable one for strange and wonderful happenings in my life.

Kalahari Bushmen Victory

How remarkable that while we're meeting here learning together about human rights education that in Botswana there should be such a remarkable victory for the Kalahari Bushmen - a hunter-gatherer society that have been forcibly relocated from their ancestral lands by the Botswana government. This is a remarkable victory for indigenous peoples. You can read a couple of excellent articles about it in The Guardian: Kalahari Bushmen win land battle and Bushmen win rights over ancestral lands.

A week of workshopping

Well, things are wrapping up and winding down and the 20 human rights educators are finalizing their program plans even as i write this. We'll all be heading home tomorrow, me to Toronto and the participants to all points African. It has been a remarkable week of learning together, sharing stories, laughing, getting to know each other. this is a unique experience for me, never having facilitated a workshop made up exclusively of African participants. What a privilege it is to be able to work for such a group. And moving to consider the context of their work and the courage it takes to commit oneself to being a human rights educator. What is an choice that can be made with relative security in a north american context is anything but in these countries.

The Maasai Market and the Art of the Hard Sell

Circulating around Nairobi is he Maasai Market - a street market that moves from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. On Tuesday's it s found across the street from the Meridian Hotel where i've been staying this week. Tomorrow it will be near the Hilton Hotel and i hope to find it. I know many people will be coming to Nariobi from around the world in January for the World Social Forum and the Maasai Market will be something many will want to check out. Prepare to bargain - those of us raised in economies where virtually all prices are fixed might want to bone up on some principles of haggling. Not that i have any particular skill. The market is crowded, noisy, fascinating. There are numerous vendors and at least as many brokers - men who spot likely customers and are remarkably aggressive about selling you things. Its all pretty good natured. But it is also overwhelming. At one point i had at least five guys competing simultaneously for my attention, each pushing various goods in my arms and face. If you're white then you stand out pretty obviously as a mark for everyone's attention. I'm not sure how the brokers work, though i imagine they "represent" vendors and get a cut. But it's clearly pretty fast and loose. One fellow tried to persuade me that the young Maasai woman from whom i wanted to buy a necklace was his sister. I thought it unlikely and wished deeply that i spoke ki-Swahili so i could understand what looked, from the body language, to be a fascinating negotiation in which the broker was trying to convince the young vendor that he could get los of money out of me. The young woman was beautifully tough and clearly not giving the fellow an inch. So, to those of you coming to Nairobi in January, best of luck at he Maasai Market. The above-images are the street the day before the market and the morning of.

Downtown Nairobi

Yup, Nairobi is a big, noisy, crowded city. Fascinating, as usual. It's been a beautiful day here as well: sunny, dry and 26. Other parts of Kenya (to the north) including southern Somalia are experiencing torrential flooding and tens of thousands of people have been displaced. Nairobi is 1600 metres high, though, and generally has pretty good weather. I'm told that Nairobi has always been too high and too cool for the malaria mosquito to survive, but global warming is changing that (though i've heard of no danger at the moment). We're staying in a modest hotel on the edge of the downtown core and all the participants of the human rights workshop are arriving this evening and tomorrow from Nigeria, The Gambia, Somalia, Uganda and elsewhere from around the continent. The curriculum i'll be facilitating is one that i've facilitated a couple of times for the annual human rights school organized by Equitas in Montreal. For you educator types, i recommend looking at the Equitas manuals which are on their website. They have a unique approach to human rights education in that they are heavily influenced by popular education, Frierian thinking and such. While much human rights education is rather document-driven (i.e. everything you wanted to know about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), Equitas has a participatory approach that balances well the sharing of people's unique experience with the need to learn about the history and documents of human rights work.

The Mighty Nile - That Storied River

I saw the Nile yesterday as i flew from Paris to Nairobi. Such a storied river - the longest in the world and beside which can be found the Great Pyramids, Thebes, Karnak, Abu Simbel, Khartoum and so much more. From the Mediterranean to Lake Victoria, the Nile courses across Africa just as the Milky Way courses across our night sky - or so the ancient pyramid-builders thought.

18th Annual Kensington Market Festival of Lights

It's a rainy day in Paris as i wait for my flight to Nairobi. Whatta world. As some of you know, i'm Kenya-bound to facilitate a five-day human rights education curriculum workshop for Equitas. Meanwhile, i just checked my e-mail and saw a workshop announcement from Red Pepper Spectacle for preparations for the 18^th Annual Kensington Market Festival of Lights. I'll be posting photos from Nairobi so check back here over the next week.

The Snow Queen - Dec 17th

One of the most powerful stories i read as a kid was The Snow Queen by Hands Christian Anderson. Something about it touched me deeply and alternately gave me nightmares and inspired fantastic visions. Now my friend Alon Nashman is starring in a production of Snow Queen in a few weeks. I've followed Alon's work for many years and think him (and know him) to be one of Toronto's (and Canada's) finest actors. I highly recommend taking in this show. (Thanks to Elizabeth for, as always, keeping me in the loop). You can click on the picture of the poster to get a bigger version or go to the JCC site here: http://www.milesnadaljcc.ca/441.html

I'm gonna try and make it, if i'm not sleeping after arriving home that afternoon from Nairobi (that's right, i'm going to Kenya - details to follow).

Guilty seasonal pleasure

Quite some years ago now, Matt and i found this game Snowcraft. Since then, the first snow has always reminded me of this silly, if strangely rewarding, waste of time. What makes it memorable is the sound effects. You'll see/hear what i mean.

Okay - this you gotta see

If you haven't heard of Têtes à claque, you must check it out. You need to speak french to appreciate it fully. It's real Québec humour. This halloween scene is one of the funniest things i've seen in a long while (Thanks, Sean, for letting me know about this). Le Pilote is also side-splitting. And check out Le Willi Waller, if you've got the time.

Indigenous Peoples' Resistance to Economic Globalization

Indigenous Peoples' Resistance to Economic Globalization: A Celebration of Victories, Rights and Cultures is a must-listen-to-it episode of Democracy Now (one of the best news shows coming out of the US).

A Postcapitalist Politics

This new book- A Postcapitalist Politics by J.K. Gibson-Graham is a must read for anyone doing popular education and/or popular economics education.

Activist Training in the Academy

I've recently learned about a new Master’s Program in Environmental Advocacy and Organizing at Antioch University New England. Worth checking out. Steve Chase who has both written a dissertation and designed the program and argues that popular education is the most suitable pedagogy for this program. Here's what he writes in his abstract:

In the last part of this section, the study identifies 5 core curriculum content areas that are key to teaching environmental advocacy and organizing and then discusses the tradition of popular education as the most appropriate educational methodology for activist training programs.

You can get Steve's dissertation on this page. He's got a blog, too: The Well-Trained Activist.

Popular Education for Social Change 2006

A belated posting of the syllabus for the popular education course i'm teaching at the Faculty of Environmental Studies (York University). Feedback is always appreciated. Especially if you make use of this syllabus in some way.

Amapola y los aviones

For those of you who speak spanish, i recommend watching this trailer for a Spanish film being made by my friend Clara about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Most of what i've learned about this pernicious and invisible disability I’ve learned from Clara. Check it out! And here's more info here (Documental Sobre el SFC) and here (Conferencia del Profesor Dr James Baranjuk de la Georgetown University)

Rabbit

Thanks to Matt for passing this on. A bizarre little morality tale. Very, very creepy.

Vivienne Jones work

This is a belated post to introduce you to Vivienne Jones' work which i learned about from a mutual friend. I just went to Vivienne's exhibit (a collaboration with Ken Nicol) that closed today (my bad - in terms of spreading the word in more timely fashion). Vivienne's work has an organic elegance and roughness that i am very fond of, reminding a good deal of Nick Bantock's work of which i am a big fan. I learned of Vivienne's work while looking for an engagement ring (more on that in a later post). Her rings are enchanting and seem to me like they have been carved out of the earth itself as much as cast. This most recent exhibit of works (quite different from her jewelry) includes resin-encased collages of buttons, iron filings and other found items and the whimsical ephemera of plumb-bobs and fawcetts. Again it reminded e of Bantock's work as well as the work of Dave McKean who did the covers to the Sandman comics. Here's one of the first covers that he did that has inspired my own collage work for many years.

Eagleton on Dawkins

English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has just published The God Delusion in which he applies his scientific reductionism to religion. The certainty of atheists such as Dawkins has always struck me ironically to be most similar to that of fundamentalists. Weird. Terry Eagleton, one of my favourite writers (whom i yet disagree with about postmodernism), has written a blistering critique of Dawkins that is well-worth the read - more than a few laugh-out-loud lines. I wanna write like Eagelton when i grow up - though i'll never be as wicked smart as he is. Here's a taste:

Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as though it were entirely obvious exactly what this might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not exactly with a white beard, then at least as some kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how this chap can speak to billions of people simultaneously, which is rather like wondering why, if Tony Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a principle, an entity, or ‘existent’: in one sense of that word it would be perfectly coherent for religious types to claim that God does not in fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of possibility of any entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is the answer to why there is something rather than nothing. God and the universe do not add up to two, any more than my envy and my left foot constitute a pair of objects.

Thanks to Corvin for the link!

What journalism should be doing

You may have heard about Clinton's interview with Fox News. Well, check this video out that Matt put me onto:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcYSHuGDqrU

And then treat yourself to the Daily Show's take on things:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS8v94M4DCc

My ongoing thinking about love

I've rewritten an essay about love that i first wrote about 3 or 4 years ago. I'm interested in elaborating a theory of praxis that pushes the traditional definition to include love, humility and more.

On Broken Hearts - MSWord

On Broken Hearts - PDF

At Hollyhock

Here i am on the hem of the world. Hollyhock is, as i've heard from so many people, sublime. This is a shot of soe of the dahlias in the famous garden. And what a garden it is.

I am i the midst of a wonderful workshop with Nick Bantock, a writer/artist whose work has inspired me for many years. It's a group of 15 wonderful people and we get to play all day long with collage. Does life get sweeter?

Such immanence

I was in Cathedrahl Grove this morning and, as with previous visits here, i was deeply moved. As ouristy a stop as it might be, the majesty of the trees and the forest growth seems to silence my pessimistic and cynical reactions - even as they seem to silence the traffic on the road that cuts through this ancient place. I was reminded of hiking the West Coast Trail in 1980 with a good friend. No traffic three, unless you count the whales. I don't know what that trail is like today, though i do know you need to book well in advance (a year, i've been told) if you want to hike it. But that journey (over 25 years ago now) felt like walking through the world before we had wrecked it. But even now, standing in Cathedrahl Grove, the despair i often feel for the wreckage we have caused (and continue to) lifted for a moment and i could feel the pulse of the earth and i felt that no matter the damage, the earth will yet abide.

On the west coast

What a contrast from the populous plains and hills and coasts of Europe. I always forget how beautiful is this land of evergreens and water and snow-capped mountains.

Lamentations - Solo & Collaborative Paintings by Joshua Barndt

If you want to take in one art exhibit this month, and if you're in Toronto on the dates below, please check out this marvelous work. I'm shamelessly promoting the work of a young man i have know since he was a tot. Josh is the son of a dear friend with whom i have worked in popular education for 20 years. And now i look at Josh's paintings and murals and i see so much of our lives reflected and refracted through the eyes of the next generation. I'm moved and humbled. Here's the gallery info:

August 4 – 12 2006

Whippersnapper Gallery
587 A College Street (at Clinton) Toronto

Whippersnapper Gallery is one of Toronto newest, edgiest and hippest not-for-profit exhibition spaces. Recently relocated to the heart of Little Italy, Whippersnapper boasts 2500 square feet of exhibition space dedicated to emerging artists. With great success on July 19th we celebrated our grand opening, showcasing the work of 26 young, talented artists and attracting 550 people to the reception.

LAMENTATIONS is our first solo exhibition featuring the energetic, monumental and provocative paintings of Joshua Barndt.

Barndt is a graffiti and community mural artist, with a specific interest in socially critical content. Trained on the streets of Toronto and classically in the studios of Concordia University, he is exhibiting a large body of solo and collaborative canvases embedded in contemporary social critique.

For more information or interviews contact Joshua Barndt at josh@whippersnapper.ca or 647-201-7436
www.whippersnapper.ca

(The image above is titled "Lament for Relations" and is oil and latex on wood, 8x20 feet.)

The Universe is Keeping me Humble

Back home from France and Spain and what should happen but that i get a sore throat that has threatened all week to become a cold. Much rest and slowly-sipped hot water and i'm healthy again and heading to BC for a couple of weeks.

Ahh, how i yearn for more time in the south of France. But i'm sure that old training about worthiness and humility is working at some level and, what with being raised catholic, one can't go having too good a time without there being some soul-testing consequence. Thus the sore throat.

Superstitions aside, here's a lovely shot of Shawna & David on of the streets of Olargues on the day, a couple of long weeks ago, when we went walking about that ancient town.

Because they're so pretty - thistles in Calatanazor

Les Horts, Languedoc, France

A many hours journey brought me to the doorstep of the mountain “gites” (rental cottage) that my friends Shawna and David have rented for a couple of weeks. I am partaking of their generosity and offering a modest amount of writerly solidarity as Shawna and David also work on writing projects (between hikes up precipitous mountain trails, runs along converted rail tracks, swimming in pools of blissfully sparkling waters in any of a number of gorges, trips to the markets, and, of course, partaking of the cuisine – it’s France, after all). I confess that I am a total geek for French culture at the moment – the food, the food – is there any better? This are of France of fascinating and I will have to return to learn more – This was the place of the Cathar resistance to the Roman Catholic church. And these mountains – the Black Mountains are a piece of heaven on earth. The collaged photo above is the view from the front window of the chalet that we are staying in. Incroyable.

Our writing Corner

Angel bought a table to place under the awning of the garage so that Clara and I would have a place to write outdoors. Though the sun was rather hot, the air was so dry that this shady corner was ever a cool spot – perfect for writing as we were also spurred on by the ceaseless buzzing of bees on the honeysuckle.

A Parade for Hinojosa del Campo

Well, the dust had hardly settled from the Baja España when this quiet town was disrupted once again. This time by a parade of antique cars that was making its way from village to village. Everyone turned out to marvel at the craftsmanship and chrome and antiquity of this remnants of a more genteel age (even if that age is mostly myth).

Dust and Thunder – The Baja España Has Come and Gone

It was a day of sun and dust and souped-up engines of all kinds as the Baja España roared by this sleepy – though, on this day, very alert, town. Great fun for all, especially the kids who would look for the signs of distant dust and come running from their lookout spots yelling “Polvo! Polvo! Otra! Otra!” (“Dust! Dust! Another one! Another one!”) The arrival of every one of the over two hundred racers (motorcycles, quads, cars and trucks) was greeted with the same enthusiasm by the wee ones, even if the adults flagged and, by the end, were counting the minutes before they could retire from the hot sun to the cool confines of the TeleClub and a cold drink.

Carrasquilla – The Tree at the Centre of the World

Many cultures in the world speak of a world tree – a tree that exists at the centre of the world and around which the heavens revolve. Yggdrasil in the Norse land, its roots in hell and its branches in heaven, Odin, the Allfather, hung upside down and gave it an eye that he might gain wisdom. African cultures tell of trees that gave life to all who could say its true name. Baobabs and yew trees, ash and cedar, oak and pine. All kinds of trees have the honour of being the world tree. Here in Hinojosa del Campo it is a carrasca tree – an oak – and it is called by the villagers here “carrasquilla.”

Numancia – Las ruinas

Numancia – The Best Offence is a Defence

This archaeological site tells the story of a pre-Roman Celtiberian people who once thrived in this land. Celtic control once covered Europe and there remains but little of a once vast people – now found in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Galicia and Bretagne – with a modern offshoot in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The story of this site is one that is beloved of the people of Soria. The Numancians resisted Roman conquest for 20 years. They waged a resistance struggle centred in this amazing fortified hill town for two decades before the greatest Roman general of the age, Scipio Africanus was dispatched to deal with this intractable enemy of Rome. Scipio had Numancia surrounded by seven roman camps, none more than a kilometre away. A wall connected all seven Roman camps. As effective a blockade as that seemed it was yet eleven months before the Numancians were defeated. But the way that the story survives, it would seem that, like the Alamo in the US, the Spartans at Thermopylae and Julio Buitrago in Nicaragua, the Numancians won the day.

Calatañazor – Orson Welles Slept Here

Wednesday was grocery and roadtrip day. So off to Soria we went with a couple of side trips to some notable spots. You approach the medieval village of Calatañazor along a winding road carved from the native rock amidst a confluence of steep ravines. This was once a fortified hill town and, as with many such sites, all that remains of the magnificent wall that enclosed this hilltop are fragments. Clara pointed out that walking through these streets was like walking through a set of a Shakepeare play – and I’m one to agree. The small houses of mud and clay, rough brick and stone, exposed beams and unusual double doors speaks of antiquity. The town wears with honour the event, long ago, of Orson Welles making a film here – Bells at Midnight, I think. Gotta see that when I get home. Angel, a natural anthropologist, spoke from some while with a fellow who worked on the film.

Soria – Home of Antonio Machado

Antonio Machado is one of my favourite poets and this is a land that loves its poets. He wrote: “between living and dreaming is something more important: waking.” Fleeing the Spanish civil war he crossed into France where he died not long after and is buried there. Ironically, Walter Benjamin, the famous German theorist of culture crossed into Spain fleeing the Nazi regime and where he died shortly thereafter. He is buried in Spain near the French border.

My Writing Retreat in Hinojosa del Campo - Casa Martinez

Sunset in Hinojosa de Campo

Windmills – Let’s Tilt Shall We – or not

What would Don Quijote make of these modern windmills? Would he tilt at them? Ahhh, as the struggle to establish a wind power industry grows I Canada I am amazed to travel over this land and see these great turbines majestically populating the mountaintops of this windy land. Vision of something to come for Canada? Let’s hope!

Future Site of International Writing Workshop – I can dream, can’t i?

Wandering about this lovely village, enjoying the warm summer days and cool summer evenings of this 1000 metre-high altiplano valley, my attention was called to this vacated carpentry shop. Hmmm, it got me to thinking. Imagine an international writing workshop here in the Spanish countryside, far from the distractions of the urban world where more and more of us live. This village is hanging on to life by the skin of its teeth. Once a vibrant farming community, the changes in the global and local economy, the introduction of technologies that allow two people to do what used to take 50 and the general lure of cities has depopulated this region, not just this village. People have lived and farmed here for centuries, millennia perhaps. The presence of history is almost palpable. I can imagine no better place in which to take a break from ever-accelerating pace of 21st Century life. Ahhh, imagine a couple of dozen people from around the world, sitting down to write together for a few weeks. I know, I know, it isn’t cheap. And how would we handle languages? Would it be the dominant English? The local Spanish? A mix? I like to dream. So, if you’re a very rich person reading this who’s looking for something pretty cool to put your money into, give me a holler.

José Maria Valverde poem

José Maria Valverde

José Maria Valverde was one of Spain’s great poets of the 20th Century. He wrote about literature, taught philosophy and did the definitive Spanish translation of James Joyce’s Ulysses. He also translated all the works of Shakespeare and Rilke, the New Testament, Goethe, and more. Yup, all of ‘em. He and his family lived in exile while Franco was in power and they returned to Spain after Franco died. He is also the father of my friend Clara whom I am currently visiting. José Maria died 10 years ago and Clara and her husband Angel interred his ashes in the local cemetery of Angel’s family village of Hinojosa del Campo. Angel and Clara have fashioned a plaque that now adorns the gravesite that has on it a poem Jose Maria wrote when he was a teenager. Some years ago Clara sent me the following story in which the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire met Jose Maria:

Paulo Freire meets my Father (José Maria Valverde)

They are both dead now.

But before they left, the two frail-looking men met. “Teacher,” “philosopher,”
“liberation theology intellectual,” “communist,” “theoretician,” “writer” and
“wise man.” They both carried the same labels without letting them get to their
white-haired heads.

Paulo requested a meeting while visiting Barcelona and his entourage arranged for it. It was to be a breakfast meeting. The living room was packed with expectation: family members and admirers wishing to witness the meeting of the two Old Masters.

Freire walked in, wearing his sailor’s hat, quiet, timid. They smiled, shook hands and exchanged brief words in Spanish and “Portunhol.” They sat, each sinking their bony bodies into their armchairs and they grinned at each other like children, recognizing each other, not needing to utter any of the many sentences written in their long list of published books.

They were pleased, comfortable, sharing a few observations about the world, exchanging a couple of jokes, silences, complicity.

The entourage watched, some still expecting the “The Truth” would be uttered, some knowing that it already had.

Paulo left. He left me two things: his sailor hat and his words in a book: “To Clara, with so much clarity...”

Romanesque tower in Agreda

Road trip to Agreda

As much as I am aware that indigenous people have lived in the Americas for millennia, I still feel in European cities something of the age of this place that I rarely feel in North America. Here in Agreda (where we came to buy some propane) I am moved by the am moved by the antiquity of the buildings and streets. And of the weight of the storied past that still lives in the stones of this place. This city was a place where three cultures (Muslim, Christian and Jewish) co-existed (if uneasily and if a little idealized and mythologized today) for many generations. Muslims lived and ruled in Spain for many Centuries before they were finally defeated and expelled by Christians by 8^th century. I was impressed by Ridley Scott’s vision of Jerusalem in Kingdom of Heaven as a place where Christian and Muslim and Jew could worship side-by-side. And I wonder if there were moments elsewhere in history (as perhaps here in Agreda) where that peaceful idea was realized – if only for a moment. I am saddened and angered – as I’m sure many of you are – with the escalating conflict between Israel and Lebanon. I despair of ever seeing it end in peace that isn’t the peace of the “desert” as John Prebble concludes in his history of the battle of Culloden. I understand much about the politics and history for control of various pieces of land. But a part of me refuses to understand what cannot be “understood” of the greed and short-sightedness of human beings for it is something fundamentally irrational. And can there be a rational explanation for the irrational? I am unsure.

Ah Hah images - see previous post for context

Hinojosa del Campo, Soria, España

This ancient village of stone houses looks like it has grown straight out of the earth. There is an organic quality to the way the houses are arranged in the village – the streets are at strange angles widening and narrowing seemingly on a whim. The houses seem more collaged together than constructed. This village belongs to this landscape. Which reminds me of the word “human” which comes from “humus” which means “of the earth”. It is common to attribute such sentiments to Indigenous peoples around the world though the etymology of “human” does suggest that the sentiment also once existed importantly in Western culture. This also reminds me of a story of struggling for an image to use to represent aboriginal Canadians in the Ah Hah drawing workshop ( a method of popular education using drawing. A characteristic shape is used for people that looks something like the left hand image in the next post. It was agreed that this did not respect the differences between non-native and native Canadians. Someone proposed using this basic image with a feather added on top. But there was concern about the stereotyping that would likely result. So someone proposed the right hand image in the next post - where the line beneath the feet represented the earth and acknowledged that native people were identified by their relationship to the earth. I have always loved this simple and elegant expression of identity. And, while I believe that we are all connected to the earth, the populations of the dominant global culture (euro-america) are profoundly alienated from the earth – from all the rhythms of nature, the behaviour of weather, the cycle of the seasons and more. Native people, despite centuries of oppression, have sustained a connection with the land that remembers still that we come from the land. I came across a clever bumpersticker-worthy quote a while back: “Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice”. Indeed, we would do well to remember that volcanoes still explode, floodplains are not wise places for new suburbs, global warming is not a joke and when the rich monopolize all the safe places to live the poor will live wherever they can, including a mountain that will blow up or tumble down under heavy rain. Too many of us live against this world and not with it.
I am reminded that the word “humble” also comes from the ancient word for earth. I wonder if the common sense notion of humble as meaning “weak” or “lowly” comes from a misunderstanding of the origin of the word. For you could say that humble means “low to the earth” which conjures an image of weakness, subjugation, grovelling, if you assume the person is low to the earth because they are in front of someone with greater power than they. But, in this case, we could see them as not so much low to the earth as they are under the power of someone. If we just take the word humble to be about our relation with the earth, then being low to the earth could be a very good thing. In aikido (as well as numerous marshal arts, I am sure) , to lower one’s centre of gravity as much as you can is to be more and more stable. Humble reminds us that we are of the earth. And the earth is actually a very, very strong thing.

Baja España ’06 Madrid-Aragon

Well, the sleepy summer weeks that characterize life in this ancient farming village are about to be disrupted by a rare event. Apparently the Baja España ’06 Madrid-Aragon is going to race (literally) right by this village on Friday. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event and will no doubt be the talk of the village for months and years to come.

Why Cities Are So Wonderful

La Rambla is one of the greatest walking stretches of urban road in the world. Unlike the frenzy of Broadway where people seem to be rushing from somewhere to who-knows-where the thousands who throng La Rambla give wonderful meaning to leisurely strolling. There are two things things in this world that i could watch for hours and hours, sitting still, calmly, serenely: any body of water (river, ocean, lake) and people walking by - another kind of ocean or river, i suppose. And such wonder it is. It reminds me of an old collection of Indian stories called the Kathasaritsagara which means "The Ocean of the River of Stories." That is what La Rambla feels like.

Barcelona rooftops collage

Here's another shot from the balcony. If you click the pictures you can see them bigger.

Happy to be in Barcelona

Well, i've arrived in hot and humid Barcelona. Feels a lot like how i left Toronto. My friends' apartment is simply gorgeous and looking off of their rear balcony you see one of Barcelona's most famous sites: the Gaudi-designed cathedrahl. It's funny how the cranes seem to fit.

Waiting to fly

I'm off to a small Spanish village to do some popular education writing. Thanks to the Metcalf sabbatical grant. Yay Metcalf.

It seems a lot of people i know are travelling at the moment - it's a perpatetic summer, you could say.

Judy Rebick is in Bolivia and you can follow her exploits on her travel blog: A Better World.

I'm gonna post pics as well once i'm on terra firma again. Check back.

Earthblanket

Here's an earthblanket i painted over 12 years ago (it's 4' x 5'). Here's a brief description from a popular arts 'zine i'm working on:

An earthblanket is a type of mural that dian marino conceptualized in her final years of teaching and artwork. It suggests the metaphor of a blanket, something that we associate with comfort and warmth, that can be spread (metaphorically) across our wounded and ailing earth. As a collective mural exercise, it provides an opportunity for doing environmental education. You can use either a contour or grid mural to do this. I have most often done earthblankets by having individual participants create individual images on small squares (4”x4” or 8”x8”) and then affixing the small images to a larger piece of paper. You can also affix the smaller pieces to a piece of cloth. Or you can make the mural as a quilt – using fabric to fashion the individual squares.

Comics reviewed and new episodes of podcasts

I wrote a review of six comics for rabble.ca here.

A new episode of Occasionally Disturbs Others is on-line: U.S. & Canadian Blogging Compared.

And a new episode of Comeuppance is on-line as well: The Old Woman and the Pot.