Willie's Angels

Willie worked at the UM-Dearborn Wellness Center for over twenty years before retiring this autumn to pursue his arts.  He's a master with line drawing--in about five strokes he can teach you to draw a skull and point out all of the constituent bones that make up

[paraphrased] "I don't go to church, but angels are real."

A Conundrum of Compassion

... there's more to this notion of love for sustainability (I feel like the ideas are 3/4 baked at this point).  In particular, the role of concepts like compassion, love, hocma, and their relation to appropriately bringing one's courage,  wisdom, and capacity for expressing it in life that signify the significance of an individual in the world.  I can see it, but it'll take me a while to put it all down into writing.  For now, here's something I call the conundrum of compassion: How an unsustained instance of kindness can create tremendous pain through disempowerment.

Good education allows us to discover, and some of what we learn from discovery enables us to wisely live through whatever truly matters in life.  Oddly enough, increased exposure to the sensations of a holiday like Valentines day, or for those who experience it, exposure to loving people (even those with non-amorous intent) can be painful and disheartening.

When suddenly lifting the burdens of oppression and anticipated threat creates trauma in itself. When realized opportunities for that kind of reprieve are unsustained or non-existent, it doubly serves to break one's hope. It's a different kind of growing pain.

Sometime last year I started to realize it was very likely I was still clenching a few grudges so closely that they might have influence over how I trust and engage other people.  I know of a few people who always have "an ax to grind", and could feel myself teetering in and out of bearing preemptive hostilities in almost every situation I came across.  I frequently considered it mandatory that I prepare something to validate and assert about myself or my presence before I engage another person, or whatever event or activity before me.  I'd come to an event out of curiosity, but find ways to point to bigger responsibilities or obligations beyond self-interest.  For the most part, it works--people might know there's something more to what you do or they'll find out if they do something to trigger the unveiling of whatever you had to say for yourself.  Yet working in many public forums and among passionate and injusticed community activists, I also recognized that this kind of armed or hostile mental mechanism quickly becomes a detriment to the intended consequences that people seek.

Exposure to a genuinely compassionate person or event that makes any anticipated hostilities pointless can become profoundly painful experience of remorse.  You spend so much of your life living in anticipation of hatred only to realize that some people currently don't or never had to deal with systemic injustices the way you had to for all or most of your life.  You also realize that their life and community might actually have all of the things that allow them to express themselves in ways that you'd have never conceivably done before.

If you carry a burden on your shoulders for long enough, your body undergoes a kind of traumatic shock from its sudden release and removal.  I've experienced this physically several times in my life, but taken as a metaphor, it's a fairly new phenomenon that arose for me in 2012.

The best illustration of this experience might be seen in a film.  To make this a bit more realistic, imagine a film where a malicious dictator was apprehended and eliminated from a country, or where the oppressed people were extracted and rescued from the grips of the regime.  After having endured and been rescued from a terrible situation, a person of few words and grim resolve suddenly breaks down even though they're in a safe environment and one would think that they should be overjoyed about their favorable new circumstance.

To the casual observer, it's a bizarre token of sadness in humanity, but sometimes it represents something really profound:  suddenly lifting the psychological burden of living in anticipation of threat and oppression creates trauma in itself.  It might be good, but it's almost unbearably profound and it hurts almost as much, if not more than being in a state of consistent oppression.  In essence, they're growing pains, but the brevity of the phrase doesn't do justice to the extent of the challenge some people have to endure.

I most keenly realized this phenomenon last year after speaking with a person whom I initially was extremely guarded around and was taken by surprise when she allowed a long phone discussion for me to address a lengthy array of personal concerns, and much later I realized she had sincerely entertained the possibility of being a girlfriend to me.  Months before, as smitten as I might have been, I was convinced that people were more disposed to using each other for temporary personal gain and let that overshadow and sabotage the reality and opportunity presented in our relationship.

I later noted something similar when I shared conversation with a few people who considered me a friend over drinks in Detroit as we discussed transformative ideas for social justice and proactivism.  Simple acts, but a taste of ambrosia--you've discovered a brutal possibility about compassion, love's prerequisite.  It's something that everyone should be able to live with, but for some, it's rare to find in the environment they live in.  A moment of genuine reprise from a struggle so constant, you never knew there were other ways of living life that don't require hindrances from hostility as a preemptive defense.  Instead, you discover what it's like to live with a part of yourself that's exposed and unfamiliar.  For some, it triggers an overwhelming kind of grief that results from suddenly lifting decades, lifetimes, or generations of burden.   It's a traumatic appreciation--good grief in a literal sense--that has you wishing you had found and embraced the opportunity to act without hindrance or burden sooner.  It's a naked consciousness that's as fragile in its being as it is mysterious in its resilience.  At the same time, I think some people, myself included, are inclined to fight the signals of reality so as to minimize the pain of trauma--especially when we see those opportunities to openly live remain rare, inconsistent, or non-existent.  We uphold facades of hollow identity to keep excuses at the forefront of our existence to the world that we're willing to engage.

Last summer, Willie of the Wellness Center at UM-Dearborn had said to me: "some people don't know what love is, or how to love--they never grew up with it" (paraphrased).  In the context of his story, he was talking about juvenile delinquents in Detroit but it was profound to me given my circumstances. Thrashing through a mix of hardened oblivion, self-hatred, and what almost certainly amounts to an iteration of unknown behavioral triggers for acute-traumatic stress coupled with behaviors to patch disingenuous actions [listen to Paper Cuts by Broadcast for a sense of this "the things you miss out when you try to mislead..."], I know I've squandered even simple friendships.  From here, the only solutions amount to giving up—which doesn’t fit with my ethical framework—or belief in ideals that hold little other than disparate possibilities.  Belief, and perhaps faith then becomes a requisite for social sustainability as well.

Love for sustainability

"In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." -Baba Dioum

“What we need to match the science of human health is what the ancient Israelites called ‘hocma’—the science of the heart. . . the capacity to see. . . to feel. . . and then to act. . . as if the future depended on you. Believe me, it does.”-Bill Moyers

Alright, in heed of Valentine's Day, I've realized love is necessary for sustainability.
Again, there are some who’d argue that love goes well beyond romance, it's really about finding ways to embrace life to its fullest with other people whom you can trust, even in trying circumstances [1]. Perhaps in essence, much of the world is enamored with romance because it exists as the opportunity and hope for lightening discovery. But overall, love's about fostering relationships and circumstances that celebrate others as much as it invites and encourages them to become the best they can be at all times. Perhaps that's a key element for distinguishing love from compassion.

Love then becomes a requisite ideal for sustainability because people must move beyond a sense of duty in compassion. Compassion wholeheartedly considers a humane cause or misfortune, and like love, it may operate on a notion or ethos of improvement and hope. However, without commemoration or celebration-- outcomes from possible merits also fosters awareness about the products of something deeply appreciated. On some level, this can imply a deep understanding as well. The more you know, you're more capable of appreciating, and thereby loving. Which brings us back to Baba Dioum's statement:

"In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."

Those who find pain in loneliness or comfort in solitude have learned something profound as well, and in many cases, have an opportunity to articulate the experience in profound ways, often in the arts or through their commitment to substantive endeavors [2]. That's what makes the arts so elusive: they can commemorate an experience and guide us toward our shared humanity in tremendous ways. They can also inspire deeper appreciation and learning about the world we live with, and why the things we live with matter. That's necessary for sound conservation--the practice of ensuring near-term and long-term well-being.

[1] http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2013/02/romantic-love-busting-the-myth/
[2] http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2013/02/the-pleasures-and-pains-of-solitariness/

... there's more to this notion of love for sustainability (I feel like the ideas are 3/4 baked at this point). In particular, the role of concepts like compassion, love, hocma, and their relation to appropriately bringing one's courage, wisdom, and capacity for expressing it in life that signify the significance of an individual in the world. I can see it, but it'll take me a while to put it down into writing...

Swingin' musings of love

After a day contemplating existential ethics of romance and time-sensitive self-promotion, here's my say: There's a possibility I'll perform a cookin' handful of early jazz and blues tunes for a Valentines swing dance night with Alex Belhaj (or with him and his quartet) this Wednesday evening in Ann Arbor [1].

Even for those without a valentine, Ann Arbor has one of the best swing dance scenes in Michigan where you can pick up the basics of swing dance--no partner or previous experience required! For me at least, dancing and music yield vibrant moments and memories in life. There are some who’d argue that that’s what love’s really about. More than the romance, it’s about finding ways to embrace life to its fullest with other people whom you can trust [2]. In a vague way, I suppose that’s a shallow iteration of love to everyone reading--it’s not always obvious, but there’s a community willing to step forward, take your hands, and go for a dance. There’s a community willing to share the best music that they can make. And if instead of finding content in your solitude you suffer loneliness [3], I hope you’ll recognize and offer solace to another who shares a similar state, as you've got an opportunity to improve the community at large with fundamental compassion.

That said, I’ll hope the music and dance are enough to content the hearts of several who do attend.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/events/523669560995472/?ref=14
[2] http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2013/02/romantic-love-busting-the-myth/
[3] http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2013/02/the-pleasures-and-pains-of-solitariness/

The cat lobby org.  And yes, they claim cats don't murder birds on the facebook page.  For anyone who've spent a lot of time observing cats (especially feral ones) with other animals, they'll know that

http://www.alleycat.org/page.aspx?pid=376

Mermaids with cancer

This morning (Jan. 31st) I dreamed I was traveling with a companion (I don't remember whom, it might have been my mum, for the sake of description in this, I'll say it was), walking through a relatively old Western European town that had large stone alleys and walls.  We were supposed to meet with somebody and found the door to his house.  As the man was just entering his home and his door was still open, my mum knocked on the door frame of the house.  At the same time, I noticed another door, white, and almost completely hidden as part of an intricately patterned wall adjacent to the door, standing with waning magic to its right.  I knocked on that.

The man greeted my mum and opened the other door for me.  I saw he had a flaring salt-and-pepper streaked beard shaped a bit like Arvo Part's (the person looked a bit like Arvo Part too).  I stepped into a room laden with large smooth stones for the floor and wall--it almost looked like part of a castle.  In it, I noticed what I knew were a few Arthurian relics--part of a crown, a scabbard--and I stepped in.  There was definitely magic to the place, but it was mostly bare with stone.  I was also greeted with an enthusiastic cry from the ground and saw an attractive pallid mermaid with long, dark black, curly hair, dark blue/green scales, and tattoos across the top of her chest, on her forearms, and part of her obliques laying on a cot.  She cast a large down comforter off of her body as she leaned to look up and greet me.

She recognized me (or at least claimed to recognize me with genuine conviction) as an old friend whom she hadn't seen in a very long time--at least 8 years.  She had a fine English/British accent too.  I quickly accepted her assumption and wondered (I'm pretty sure I also asked her in good spirits) what she was doing so far from a body of water, and then (quietly to myself) why/how she got tattooed.   I learned, perhaps from her caretaker (the same person who let me into the room), who was also the curator and guardian of the relics and room, that she was ill with cancer.  I knew right away I could only give my heart's attention to her challenge even though I had not immediate or substantive ways to help her out or prevent it from happening to others.  I also started to imagine other potentially complicated challenges for water dwellers like noise pollution...
. . .

First off, I have no idea how I came to dream about a mermaid.  Nothing in my recent memory (or prior) makes me consider mermaids.  Giant squid? Maybe.  I might have eaten part of a trout not long ago.

Second, I normally don't share dreams like this with other people--some stories can only be told once or twice before losing their magic.  In some cultures, you're encouraged not to tell anyone about powerful visions/dreams you've had at all. In most cases, it seems like acceptable fantastic myths no longer have appropriate reasons to exist without a franchise or burgeoning industry or institution to support them.

Finally, I can be slow to trust some people, especially those whom seem to qualify me as a friend unusually quickly.  At this point in time, I'm skeptical and would even be surprised that anyone actually would warmly regard me as an old friend in that light.  But I think I might have figured out a thread that would affirm her confidence by looking back at one of my actions from today:
.  .  .


Later this morning, after a treacherous drive to campus, I noticed a post from Friends of the Rouge remarking about the rising water level in the Rouge River. When I checked the USGS data, I saw the discharge was around 1090* (*I think, out of a previous record which I think* I recall reading was at 1270--the data changes by day and often by the hour), which compelled me to post this to the Student Environmental Association page:

Hey, check out that Rouge River data! It's edging up to the 1971 record maximum daily discharge.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mi/nwis/uv/?site_no=04166500&PARAmeter_cd=00065%2C00060"In honor of what's been happening with the river over the past few days, here is a song by Johnny Cash." - Friends of the Rouge
A little bit of permeable landscape/green roofs upstream in the broader Wayne/Oakland County area can make a big difference downstream.

And later try my hand at broadcasting a reduced announcement on twitter, which led to an updated "cover" photo:

https://twitter.com/GreatLakesIan

I was rather satisfied with the balanced counterpoint of urban & natural features in all the photos I used (all my own)--a silver maple leaf with water droplets resting on concrete pavement, a pigeon peaking out of a rain gutter, and a photo of me looking at a snake in a natural area as I wore a nylon windbreaker and backpack.

Recently, I've returned to thinking a lot about the nexus between genetics, medical health, environment, and cancer too. There was a time when I wanted to bring light to this phenomenon in Relay for Life events, among cancer researchers, and also in the neighborhood I grew up in (which has an unusually high prevalence for people who had breast cancer and is located near a landfill and industrial corridor which had emissions ranked 4/5 for poor air quality by the EPA).

These may not be the exact things that led to my dream or a privileged visit from a mermaid who'd consider me an old friend, but they certainly make me wonder...

Returning to another thought about the photos on my twitter profile: All of the photos have something to do with rivers and watersheds. Both the silver maple (Acer saccharinum) leaf background photo and the profile picture were taken in fairly close proximity to the Lower Rouge River, in Michigan. The photo of the pigeon (Dover Pigeon--Columba livia) was taken in San Antonio, Texas. San Antonio, for those who haven't been there, has a famous river walk paved into its downtown tourist area. Their river is terribly stagnant, it's stiff and can no longer move about due to their intensive channelization and lock system and you can smell the effluent (sewage) discharge. Call me biased, but the Lower Rouge River has a sweeter smell (this time from treated effluent), can freely flow and meander about its banks, and has far less channelization until it unites with its sisters to become the Rouge River in Dearborn. Granted, given fair river literacy, you'll note its banks are stressed by upstream development as well, but unlike the San Antonio River, it can change, and gradually, with far less revision to the man-made infrastructure which currently influences its behavior. At the least, both are richly storied water bodies stressed by heavy development.

An educated land planner will acknowledge that dense development can be important and have a lower environmental impact than sprawled development--it's never to be interpreted as a case of people-vs.-environment. However, most developers/construction firms tend to use pavement and roofing materials which cover up parts of the land that once slowed the flow of water (and all of the things that get carried by stormwater) from land quickly into streams, tributaries, and eventually lakes, etc. Viable alternative landscaping techniques (use native plants to capture rainwater and reduce chemical application/mowing, create "riparian buffers"/"no-mow zones" near open waters, etc.), pervious pavement (sponge-like pavement that allows water to seep through and into the ground), and different paradigms for roofing technology ("living" rooftops/greenroofs) can help mitigate this. Of course, there's no substitute for a quality wetland/swamp when it comes to filtering water. In the bigger picture, stormwater from flashy rivers--typically, rivers located in areas with 10-20% of the land covered with non-permeable paved/roofed surfaces--contributes to algal blooms which can be toxic, or at least will deplete the lakes of oxygen as they die off (bacteria digesting the decaying algae wind up using much of the oxygen in the water), which leads to large-scale fish-kills. For anyone wondering, this process is called eutrophication. It happens in small inland lakes, in the Great Lakes, and even in the Gulf of Mexico.


Note the green in agricultural areas like Saginaw Bay
and the Northern shores of Ohio--that's an explosion of algae.
Too much fertilizer from land washing into tributaries and rivers eventually
goes into the Great Lakes. The Mississippi/Gulf of Mexico "dead zones"
have similar challenges (see http://bit.ly/14w6eJg
for well-illustrated explanations ) Image from NASA Earth Observatory.

These are fairly technical details, but it's something I've comfortably worked to educate the public about for several years as it's a reasonable issue to convey (in bite-sized pieces) without making people feel threatened or overwhelmed, and I can easily point out social and economic bearings. Note that in Metro Detroit, waste water is dumped upstream of our drinking water collection facilities. The cleaner we keep the water from upstream by preventing raw pollutants and sediments from rushing into the river due to flash flooding (like the recent events witnessed in late January by those who looked at the Rouge River directly, or at its data in the link posted way above), the less intensively we have to invest (AKA, pay taxes) in our municipal infrastructure, and the less we need to worry about indirect health concerns like salt and pharmaceutical drugs that the water treatment plant is unable to effectively strain out of our drinking water.

I'll edit this post to provide direct pointers to better watershed practice soon.

.  .  .

Back to dreams about a mermaid with cancer:  Hopefully, putting all this information into writing and action meets the merit of doing things worthy of being a friend to mermaids even if it's in a distant and roundabout way.

Interesting coincidence: tomorrow is World Wetlands Day. Start 00:20 ; #23:21 1 II 2013