Harold’s Challenge for a Better Answer to War; Wren’s Answer: Blue Jellyfish and The Line of Other
[Harold, an osteopath from Virginia, is pictured above teaching tantra--quite a peaceful practice itself!]
Now that I’ve had my tea, I’m thinking about the human history of war and peace. Within Heathcote, my Intentional Community, everyone who lives here commits to our conflict resolution policy. It’s developed by consensus, so members who see improvements to be made in our process can bring them up. It’s a living, evolving agreement. But it’s only practiced among those who stay. Someone, for example, with a strong need to be right can just say, “This is bullshit,” and leave. The members who stay with Heathcote’s culture of processing end up being of similar temperament, having tremendous patience and commitment not to their own plan but to the higher good. So within the bubble of Heathcote, the process works fairly well. Extending that bubble to the entire planet is another issue. I can’t even get Heathcote’s neighbors to return my calls to meet with me about our beaver issue. I don’t feel equipped to stop a war among those determined to have one.
Yet the yield of any war that humans have waged has only ever been some land grabbing (creating historical amnesia and generational resentment for millennia, as pointed out in my favorite t-shirt, to the right), some winners, some big losers and countless dead. Still, my own generation continues this tradition, this entitlement to tunnel vision. I wonder how evolved we really are. Am I wrong to believe that we have the capacity to come together as humans planetwide?
Last night I caught a nature program showing the blue jellyfish. Its body is a bubble shaped to act like a sail. But half the creatures have their body sails pointing them left and half point right. So half sail out to sea to live life and procreate and half wash up on the beaches of Australia (see picture below). The randomness of evolution dooms half their population to death.
So even as I feel within me a tremendous capacity for peace, why should I assume that’s a universal human experience? How do nature and nurture influence a person’s ability to justify war, or violence of any kind?
Maybe I should switch to herbal tea. But my answer to such questions has always been to make my own choices, such as living in community and buying in to our process, and being available as model/guinea pig for those who want to come and learn. Maybe, Harold, witnessing is my personal answer.
A huge influence on the actions of humans seems to be what I call the line of other.
Individuals and cultures have this invisible line they cast out around them. Some people and living things are on their side of the line–family, friends, community, pets, nation. Then there are living things and people that are outside of this line–plants and animals one eats, other nations, people who are different in some triggering way. The line defines how we treat others. If you’re inside someone’s line, The Golden Rule applies. If you’re outside someone’s line, it does not. They can torture animals in factory farms and slaughter houses because they’re not like “us,” they’re “other.” They can invade another country with no obligation to understand its people’s culture or objections because they’re “other.” The line of other creates an impunity that terrifies me.
I hope my life and my choices help to negotiate a collective moving out of that line of other to include all life on Earth and the planet itself. I try to model this in my Open Classroom teaching, promoting fair trade with Heathcote Earthings and inviting dialog on Hippie Chick Diaries.
I get frequent emails from partners in this work who are fearful of humanity’s direction and impatient to make major changes.
Looking at the systems of nature, as Permaculture teaches me to do, I see that lasting change happens in two ways–catastrophically and incrementally.
War and natural disasters are catastrophic changes. They happen without my help, and will continue to. I don’t wish for them, as some do. I try to make my peace with their rhythms and minimize my carbon footprint. Incremental change feels more peaceful to me and I am satisfied with my little victories of having information about sustainability or Intentional Community when someone comes asking, or witnessing for animal rights or human rights when I hear someone being intolerant. And I live as lightly as I can every day. I’m not a monk but I’m not a soccer mom, either.
Maybe, Harold, walking my talk for those who will notice is my answer. And like every creature that evolves, my answer is a work in progress.
I’m looking forward to everyone’s thoughts!
–Wren Tuatha
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Shut Up and Talk to Me
Wow, talking bes hard. The communi in communicate is so true–If you don’t get the other person to buy in to finding a solution to the problem or conflict between the two of you, then you’re an unhooked battery, all charge and no current.
Intentional Community is a laboratory for communication and conflict resolution.
At Heathcote Community, all members agree to a flexible process for addressing conflicts in a timely manner, and we agree on certain rules of engagement. If I have an issue with Jane Heathcoter, I’ve agreed not to carry it around, stewing in my juices. I must ask her for a “checkin.” Depending on the voltage of the charge, Jane and I might
- sit down one on one
- ask another Heathcoter to mediate or
- take our issue to the entire community for help and support.
This is what new members can’t always prepare for in advance: Intentional Community is a fishbowl, a small one. Everyone else sees your baggage. They’ll be impacted by it and call you on it. Processing this is the deepest, hardest, most sacred work of community. Sustainable living, beautiful scenery and community dinners are in a way just the trappings of it.
Some people have the self knowledge that this is work they dream of doing. Others have the wisdom to know it’s not for them. Some believe intellectually that they want this, but are shocked by how hard the work is, how bruising to the ego, and how hard that ego is to put down. Good communication is a skillset, not just good intentions.
In my thirteen years of observing communication and conflict resolution at Heathcote and other communities, I’ve come to recognize these components in successful processing:
- each speaks her or his truth without agenda or manipulation, sticking to facts and speaking from experience, putting down that ego and the need to be right or wise
- each listens so as to understand the speaker’s experience, walking that mile in her or his moccasins–”Oh, that’s how it is for you…” putting down filters, not preparing for debate
- everyone looks at all the cards on the table, looking not for the solution they had in mind at the beginning, but for the win/win that arises from new understanding and acceptance of each other
Even after thireen years in the fishbowl, I still fall into all the traps of bad communication. But I try hard and, because of the sacred work we’ve done, I’ve created trust and mutual respect with my long time community mates. I have enough safety to bring them just about any subject and speak with transparency.
At Heathcote we’ve brought in outside trainers to improve our skills in conflict resolution and consensus, as well as meeting facilitation. We’ve added to our communication “toolboxes.” Many of us have found processes like Zegg Forum, Non-Violent Communication and Imago very powerful and helpful.
Are you seeking community where you can have lovingly honest relationships with your friends? Do you want to learn skills of sharing and listening without agenda, noticing when you get triggered and looking at the causes?
Do you live in community now? I’d love to hear your adventures in conflict resolution!
I often say that Intentional Community is the toughest gift you’ll ever be glad you opened. If you’ve been considering seeking community, I’m inviting you in. Now that you know about that secret gift, welcome to the fishbowl.
Meet you in the deep end!
–Wren Tuatha
A Pisces in the Timothy
The Timothy
The timothy is a lake of tickles and scrapes,
for capering and cackling in these
early days of fall.
I’m turning forty this winter.
I bring my dogs and goats and my
neighbor’s children to the edge and watch
the show.
The air is satisfied. I love it till I hate it.
The children crisscross the waves and swordfight.
The shelties dive, surface and pounce.
Random mice and voles are herded
like fish in schools, unseen in
brown water.
I’m a pisces in the timothy, a fish on land.
I’m a fish on land. Two inches, the right
flip and I could be righted.
The goats chew and check my location.
They depend on me and I live
vicariously. It’s t.v. Symbiosis, and the waves…
technicolor.
A warm clean breeze is a moment to be savored
on the tounge. I learn from the goats.
From the dogs–A hole is to dig.
And children…Where is the child I
planned to have? The timothy spits pollen in undulations.
I make it hard, a pisces in the timothy.
–Wren Tuatha
Big Talking Rocks
This poem appears in the spring ‘08 issue of Loch Raven Review: 
Big Talking Rocks
I’m moving the muscles to breathe in
cold water. They feel like bone in the effort.
We had the same brand of toothpaste
on the night we didn’t speak of the
dimming between us.
Snow that doesn’t stay.
You would kiss me poetically
then pull a story out of me like a
magician’s scarf, red then yellow
through my throat.
I undressed to expose skin
printed with stories I should have
withheld, psychic tattoos with ink so
shiny you were afraid to
touch and be branded.
I’m moving the muscles to speak of
big talking rocks, monoliths like
grandmother trees, who have
stories in whispered radio waves
because they stayed.
They speak in hugging colors and
purring hum smiles because they
watched while mammoths, raccoons,
wrens and Americans
skittered in circles that never avoided
their fate. Their muscles made them do it
while big talking rocks wrote the
mythology of staying long enough
for restlessness to have its season.
I brought the brand of toothpaste
you use. I have enough for the season of
snow that sticks.
© Wren Tuatha
Lucky Pigs & Not So Lucky Pigs
I heard a good one from Charlie, a customer at the Hunt Valley Mediterranean Festival. You can view it through whatever lens you want, vegetarian or carnivore. He was buying one of my three legged Peruvian lucky pigs ( a Ten Thousand Villages fair trade craft, pictured) for a friend who’s a pig farmer. The story goes that there was this three legged pig and folks asked the farmer how the pig came to have only three legs. The farmer explained that the pig had saved his entire family from a house fire–came in and woke everyone up and saved them all. The farmer waxed on and on about how they all loved the pig dearly are regarded it as one of the family. Since that didn’t explain the missing leg, folks would ask again, how did the pig come to have only three legs? Oh, said the farmer, a pig like that you don’t eat all at once…
The Hunt Valley Mediterranean Festival does have some unlucky lambs and other critters being served. But it also has several vegetarian entrees and side dishes. Several Heathcoters came by and gave the fare high marks, so come on down! I’ll be sampling the falafel and stuffed grape leaves tomorrow!
Various Mediterranean dance troupes will be performing throughout the day. There are games for kids and several craft and food vendors, including a Middle Eastern grocery!
Heathcote Earthings is thrilled to own two new curved EZUp canopies. Not only do they perform well in the rain, but they make us easy to spot in a crowd (as if our batik flags and necklace branches didn’t do that already)! This is a view of our booth at the 2008 Maryland Faerie Festival.
Hunt Valley Mediterranian Festival
Heathcote Earthings just discovered a charming three day event north of Baltimore! Join us for the Hunt Valley Mediterranean Festival at St Mary Orthodox Church, 909 Shawan Road (just west of I-83 off exit 20). Organizers Kay and George have been very gracious to squeeze us in last minute and give us a nice booth location. You’ll see our tents draped in batiks of dragons and fairies as you drive in! I am so looking forward to the Mediterranean food, which often includes a few nice vegetarian choices, and the music and dancing.
I must admit, even though I complain about shlepping boxes of rocks all over creation, I do love a festival atmosphere and I have a great job that gets me out of the house and bouncing to some kind of music every weekend!
Giving you more notice, let me call your attention to another wonderful music event, Common Ground on the Hill, at the Carroll County Farm Museum. Tom Paxton and many other great roots musicians are featured this year, and this event always draws an exceptional collection of artist vendors, several notable clothing vendors, and me! But the music is the reason you’ll want to come. Common Ground on the Hill always has at least three or more food vendors with vegetarian and vegan choices.
This year Common Ground on the Hill is starting a “Green to our Roots” area, with green non-profit information tables. Heathcote Community has been invited. Organizers are waiving the booth fee for non-profits this year (a $100 value), so if you’re a green group and would like to participate, check out their site!
Make Soup, You Said
Previously published in The Baltimore Review and the poetry anthology Blood and Tears.
Make Soup, You Said
I’m making a soup
to fill my bowl.
I’m after that carrot of consolation
you dangle.
I would remember
a recipe
uttered
in that season of my childhood
without language.
The three sisters–
corn, beans and squash…
When they hold hands
they can give weight
while they dance and stir,
balanced in a circle chain,
resolved, complete.
If I know the right herbs,
if my flame is humble,
if I stir with the tide,
if I ladle with steadiness,
if I eat with grace,
if I digest with stillness,
I will understand
why you have gone.
I wrote you a letter.
(I had no place to mail it.)
I burnt it,
buried it,
scattered it,
sent it sailing,
nailed it to my bed.
Make soup, you said, nothing is simple.
–Wren Tuatha
The name of the bumber Sticker
Hi. I really like your website. I noticed the photo of the sign outside your main building “War is not the answer”, but no suggested alternative. So I wondered if it would be more in line with your philosophy to offer what COULD be the answer? Maybe that should be a topic for discussion, leading to a second sign offering the new direction for those who would like to agree with the first one if they had any other ideas?
Harold, Hi! And thanks for visiting and commenting! Good idea to phrase things in the positive instead of the negative. I just woke up so all I have right now is, “Tea is the answer.” A good backrub would solve a few of my woes, too…
Funny that you make this comment now, because I’ve just spent a week intensely processing conflicts within the community and with some neighbors. And it’s clear that peace, or specifically conflict resolution, only works as an answer if all parties buy in. Still, you won’t catch me buying in to the war…