My Heat-Induced Fairie Festival Fog: Hey, Where’s My Tent?

Okay, I’ll admit that after six days of baking my brain in the sun and heat at Spoutwood Farm, I’m not so swift anymore. My head aches, I close my eyes a lot and make zombie noises. You could embed a promise that you can have my car and a goat into a conversation about the existence of aliens and I’m not likely to catch it. You could dress Carole King in fairy wings and say she wants to buy my most expensive necklace and I would just moan, “We’re closed…” Even so, I’m pretty sure that I left the remains of tent #3 on that hill and now it’s gone. Who steals trash? I withdraw that question, I know dumpster divers. Come to think of it, we sell a cloth shopping bag with the “dumpster diving team” logo on it. Still…

Retracing my steps, I arrived at Spoutwood Farm in Glen Rock Pennsylvania on Wednesday, giving me two set up days prior to the Fairie Festival, usually Heathcote Earthings’ biggest show of the year. Although the day Wednesday has no etymology associating it with wind, I’m going to pretend that it does because, wow. It was windy. I had three EZ Up canopies to set up, two for Heathcote Earthings’ inventory and one as a Heathcote Community information stand. My booth site was at the top of the hill and the gusts scraping across it were impressive.

I got help opening the tents from four twenty-something volunteer fairies. Number three gave us lots of trouble. I’d recently replaced some of the cross braces and might have over tightened some of the bolts. By the time we yanked and coaxed and threatened it open, the volunteer fairies flitted away to some other mission, leaving me to stake all three tents myself.

I was hammering down tent one when a gust scooped up tent three, bowled it over my van, and down the hill, leaving it upside down in the middle of the field. About three-fourths of the cross braces and upper supports were bent. It was totaled. Another vendor helped me walk it into place and I finished staking. I even staked number three into place and duct taped it to number two for support. It was in position to cover my tables but I would not be able to collapse it again for removal.

So our temporary boutique took shape.  Tables were positioned and necklace branches and handmade batik flag sets were hung. Several new collections of earrings shined on our custom made displays. Scarves, purses, buttons, bumper stickers, hand etched gourds, clay cats, elephants and bunnies, onyx fruit, candleholders, turtles, frogs and cats, handmade instruments, including bamboo xylophones and flutes, ocarinas, grass and juju bean rattles, thumb pianos, wrist bells, all paraded out for showtime.

There was a chance of rain for Sunday. So in my mind, I made contingency plans for getting inventory away from the curled and mangled corners of tent three.

The rain blessedly held off until the festival was over and the very last scrap was in the van! Instead, our bodies faced the challenge of heat. The crew, C.T. Butler, Regina Tassone and Kwame Bidi, helped me drink gallons of water, yet no one needed any bathroom breaks. I started to feel heat exhaustion by the end of the first day. By the last day, I was dragging and a bit foggy. Thanks to my crew for picking up my slack!!!

So Sunday evening, just before dark and the first raindrops, everything was packed away except tent three. I left it there over night, staked down, since it needed to be dismantled to fit into a vehicle.

The next morning, I arrived solo. The field was occupied by slow moving, dazed vendors, packing up the last of their wares. And several tents remained to be taken down.

I  was armed with the wrench they give you with every EZ Up you buy. It’s a happy little wrench. You dance around your tent, “La de da. This is the only tool I need to work on my wonderfully engineered instant shelter. La de de de da…”

But your little opera needs a dramatic shift–”Ooh! I’ve been deceived!!! An allen  wrench and socket wrench are also needed…or dynamite…Curses, EZ Up!”

So I went off in search of more tools. In the interest of full disclosure, I also obtained a fast food sandwich at this time.

When I returned, the field looked much the same, a scattering of vendors, moving slowly among the remaining booths, business as usual. But when I pulled up to my site, it was empty, in a stark, satisfied way. No tent number three!

I ran up and down the field, looking for  some corner it might have blown to, but it was nowhere, as if it had never existed. I stared at the sky, as if I might sight some UFO that curiously requires mangled steel and poly canvas as a fuel source. The sky just stared back at me, as if saying, “I didn’t see anything.”

I hiked over to other vendors in other corners of the field. People remembered seeing my tent but didn’t see it leave. I sought out Rob and Lucy Wood, Spoutwood’s owners. We polled all the clean up fairies. Everyone had a theory, no one had any facts to report.

Well, what can I say? Weather is my white whale. Heat, floods, Snowmaggedon, now wind.

The aliens got away clean this time. What the fuck? Who steals trash? I’m stuck there. I lack closure. Some part of my soul still haunts that field, the part that rolls around like a dying plastic spider…

—WT

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Upcoming Post: The tent theft and the “culture of stuff”–My life didn’t change, although the business took a $500 hit. But the twinge of violation leaves one with the pause, what else could leave while I’m not looking? An heirloom? A child?

Also, the issue comes back to intentional community, where we ask, what kind of world do we want to live in? We like to envision a world where, maybe, just maybe, we don’t have to lock our doors. In community, if something disappears, there are just a few people to question, they haven’t fled the scene, and if you find the new owner, you just discuss it as a misunderstanding.

Stay tuned, and feel free to comment here and on the HCD facebook fan page! –WT

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Well, I’ve lived through Snowmaggedon without expiring from despair. It was actually quite easy. Intentional Community is the place to be when natural disaster hits. I kept seeing news clips on my computer of urban dwellers worried about running out of food, living without power or heat, and I kept thinking, “Loaves and fishes, people! I’m pagan and even I know that bible story! What you need is probably right next door! Go introduce yourself to your neighbors…”

The first weekend we were snowed in, Heathcoters Greg and Juji invited everyone for a lovely Sunday brunch at Polaris, our strawbale group house. Even though blazing trails through the waist-high snow took some heroism, once we were there the building was toasty warm from the southern exposure and the masonry stove. The tea, pancakes and conversation kept flowing. Karen, who teaches at Goddard as well as Heathcote, showed us an impressive notebook on how to construct a homemade portable sawmill. One of her students had created it and the Heathcote construction team was very interested. I love watching things spread virally that way! I got out my handmade peg solitaire game and several tried, cooperatively or alone, to end with one piece in the middle. I think we got as close as three.

That same weekend we had our quarterly retreat for members. So being snowed in was little change in a way. Somehow, we managed to run out of propane in the Mill at that moment. So we lost heat to every space except our Conference Center, which is heated by a pellet stove. No biggie; We were planning to spend most of the weekend there anyway! The community dinner, homemade pizza by Nick, was shifted to the Farmhouse. The kids were a little grumpy at the loss of heat but they were included in a session of cooperative games at the end of our retreat. They led the adults in several group machines, an activity we frequently do in Open Classroom.

Since most of us work here at Heathcote, it was business as usual. Hammering, talking and NPR could be heard in the Mill bunkroom, where John, Nick, Betsy and Kwame continued renovations. Somehow they managed to get a load of drywall between blizzards. With Mike pitching in, they carried two sections at a time up the hill, into a second story door, and up to the third floor.

Mike, Larissa, Gloria and Betsy continued to work on Natural Awakenings Magazine. Paul worked on Cooptek software projects uninterrupted. Open Classroom was in session, with Gloria, Kwame and I meeting the kids on Tuesday and Thursday. The chess club met.

Although we did decide to cancel Visitor Weekend and last night’s Dancefree, yesterday was Mike’s birthday. So at the end of dinner cleanup, before we enjoyed several birthday fruit pies, Paul put his ipod into the boom box and Heathcoters busted a move to Love Shack.

Our monthly coop food delivery was several days late, waiting for our one lane road to be plowed by the county. But we had plenty of food to last. The big truck got in and out. And the usual sampling of Heathcoters came out of the snowbanks to inventory and put food away.

All this snow must be a culture shock for Kwame, our intern from Ghana. When he flew here in December, he was laid over in New York City for two days because of snow. And when he arrived at Heathcote, we scrambled to find him enough warm clothes. Now he’s experienced a record setting double blizzard. He shoveled most of my path, uphill! When he heard the Open Classroom students wanting to play in the snow, he said, “I didn’t know this was possible,” Five minutes later, he was performing flips in the snow, to the kids’ delight!

I, of course, took the snow play as an opportunity for a forty-five minute Earl Grey break in the always buzzing Mill kitchen, during which I consulted with several Heathcote carpenters on the bunkroom renovation. They always appreciate my input…

My main inconvenience was delaying a trip to the bank. Truth be told, I often live as if I’m snowed in here. It’s not unusual for me to go two weeks or more without driving or hiking out to “civilization.”

I had the comfort of community and simple living. If we had lost electricity, mine is the only residence that requires that for heat–My pellet stove had electrical components. If we had also run out of propane and heating oil during the blizzards, four out of nine of our buildings can be heated entirely by wood. And with games, hot tea, and friends who play guitar, I was never going to be cold.

Now that I’ve replaced my whining with bragging, I see we’re due for more snow tomorrow and Wednesday…Wow, karma is swift in snow.

–WT

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Note from Wren Tuatha: HCD was asked to pass on this press release for this fun event due to our participation last year, as Heathcote Earthings. We had loads of fun (I got to touch a snake–edgy for me! ) but be aware that this animal event may not be as animal rights oriented, as some HCD readers might hope. We were very concerned about the sale of sugar gliders by Pocket Pets, Incorporated, and the display of wild animals in a loud, crowed venue. Otherwise, we had a blast and made some great new friends!

For Immediate Release Contact: Jeanne Emge
410-374-5964 or 800-882-9894
www.worldofpets.org

Celebrate the World of Pets Expo & Educational Experience, January 29, 30, 31, 2010
Thousands of items from parrot perches, live performers, workshops, pet first aid and more!

(Timonium, MD) – In today’s world, pets aren’t just animal companions, they’re often the favorite family members with their own personalized dinner ware, special sleeping places, custom diet, fitness plans and more. Some pets are simply pampered, others perform for their own and their companions’ amusement, still others are working animals with a serious job to do.

You can see all of these animals – along with a host of toys, treats and tricks – at the World of Pets Expo, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, January 29, 30, 31, 2010 at the MD State Fairgrounds:
“We’ve got something for everyone from the serious pet enthusiast to the casual pet admirer, including a chance to show off your pet in the “Parade of Breeds” explains Jeanne Emge, President of Premier Events, the producer of the Expo. “Exhibitors will fill the 165,000 square foot Cow Palace with thousands of products and services for pets. Some of the country’s foremost authorities in the pet industry will present seminars and demonstrations covering practically every aspect of pet care and training. It’s fun and educational – just a great day out for all ages! This is probably the best $$ value for family entertainment & education. Pets are welcome too! See all the details at www.worldofpets.org “

Expo shopping offers hundreds of booths with a wide variety of exhibitors featuring thousands of items – everything imaginable for your pet and for pet lovers. From pet essentials, to pet training products, to pet-themed home décor, the World of Pets Expo is the place to be if you are a pet lover.
Pets covered in the seminars include dogs, cats, birds, fish, reptiles, ferrets and other animals. In addition to the shopping extravaganza and the seminar series, there will be continuous entertainment and demonstrations by nationally known pet organizations, an AKC Dog Agility Trial, interactive/educational presentations with live animals, a Parade of Breeds and more! Highlights include:
World of Cats ACFA Cat Show – presented by Hidden Paw Cat Club
AKC Dog Agility Trial – presented by Oriole Dog Training Club
Extreme Reptile Exhibit
Classic K-9s – Performing World Record High Jump, Grand Prix Racing and High Speed Relays
Wild World of Animals – Educational and Fun Reptile Presentation.
Johnny Peers Muttville Comix
Free Seminars
Intensive Workshops for the Serious Enthusiast – Pre – registration required.
Boogie Woogie BowWows – Dancing w/Dogs
Grooming Demos – learn technique from professionals
Gerbil Show – presented by the American Gerbil Society
And much more – see www.worldofpets.org for the full show schedule!

Expo hours are Friday, January 29, from 2 pm to 8 pm, Saturday, January 30, from 10 am to 8 pm and Sunday, January 31, from 10 am to 6 pm. Admission is $9 for adults, $5 ages 5-12 and FREE for children under age 5. Tickets available at the door. Ticket sales cash only. Heated facility and Great Food!

Entry forms for the Cat Show and Workshops are available on-line at www.worldofpets.org
###

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I was privately saying this would be our last year selling Heathcote Earthings at the York Fair. Sales have been fine, but when we figure in the high fairgrounds booth rental, the numbers weren’t so impressive. But it seems the fair organizers have hired a consultant (I saw a car painted with that info on the grounds) and they’ve added new attractions. Result for us: a good year!

I was worried about our new location; The new circus took over our building and we were moved to Memorial Hall West, across from the restrooms. The across from the restrooms part, I like! But people are managing to discover us there, and remember us!

Each year at York, Rita Jane from Crystal Cottage helps me in my booth, after I spend eleven days helping the Crystal Cottage folks in their booth at the Maryland State Fair.

I appreciate having Rita Jane help because she’s taught me much of what I know about jewelry making. She’s been at it for twenty years.

This year she’s been helping me catch up on restocking baltic birch, gemstone, pewter and cat’s eye earrings. And we have a fun new collection of ceramic peace signs for pendants. We also have been reintroducing some lampwork glass and foil glass pendants, old favorites.

We finally have all this and sterling silver wrapped gemstone pendants on display at the York Fair, which runs through Sunday.

All our new shinies will be front and center for Mother Earth Harvest Fair at Spoutwood Farm in Glen Rock, PA on October 4th. This is the location of our favorite festival of every year, the Fairie Festival!!! Please join us for this up and coming fall version.

I’m organizing Intentional Communities to have networking/information tables at Mother Earth. So far, Heathcote, Twin Oaks and Acorn Communities are confirmed.

As I wrap up York and look to Mother Earth, many thanks to Rita Jane who’s been my rock while I work full tilt despite a lingering cold. You make me look good!!!

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The first weekend of the Howard County, Maryland Fair (“How Cow“) 2009 is through the chute. I am wiped out and hoarse, but also exhilarated to be camped out in the forest my beloved necklace branches and Karuna Arts batiks again. The sounds of customers tinking on the bamboo xylophone and rubbing the frog mating calls, shaking the juju bean rattles, tossing the cicada stones, etc.; These never get old for me.

Parents endlessly hissing, “Don’t touch anything,” that got old the first time.

I wouldn’t have packed fourteen tables to the gills with colorful shinies if I didn’t want little ones to touch them. When are parents going to read a book and get it that children are tactile and learn about their world through touch? “Don’t touch, just look,” they say. Duh. Children’s eyes are on their fingertips. They have to touch to look. Then there’s the enlightened, well meaning parent who says, “Look with your eyes…”

This is why I long ago decided my booth’s rule would be, “No leaving until you’ve touch everything. Now get busy!” Then I made the policy, “We don’t charge for breaking.”

I save broken things from Heathcote Earthings and my friends at Crystal Cottage in Roanoke, Virginia and I sell them on special scratch & dent tables at certain shows. How Cow is one of our clearance shows.

Nine times out of ten, however, when something gets broken, yours truly has done it, not someone’s grabby kid.

Besides developmental appropriateness, I also get frustrated with parents following their children around, pulling their paws back and barking, “don’t touch,” because if the parent is policing his or her kid, the parent isn’t shopping. I imagine that grumpy shopkeepers who are not also child development specialists have trained generations of parents to curb their kids. How does this not grind the economy to a halt?

My friend Herb, lovable curmudgeon that he is, follows greasy fingered tykes around his store, abandoning his pursuit of sales to do it. Granted, he sells more breakables than I do. And he pays young people to Windex fingerprints off his inventory. I skip this step mostly, and feel I have a measure of peace in life.

My observation about this drama is that, the shopkeeper isn’t focused on selling, the kid and the parent aren’t focused on buying. The store gets to keep its inventory, fingerprint free, and the parent and the customer who gets ignored get to keep their money. That’s one nice outcome but…

I have signs around my booth that read, “shoplifters will be hexed.” I often get asked if I’m worried about shoplifting at my booth, where so many tiny items are packed so tightly in a big space. My philosophy is the same for theft as for children. I don’t like it, but if I become paranoid and focus my attention on who in the crowd might be stealing, then I’m not focused on who in the crowd is ready to buy. I might catch a few sticky fingers if I try, but probably not. Their job is to steal and they’re good at it. I’m not a detective. I’m not good at that. I have some talent for sales. Let’s all stick with what we’re good at.

–WT

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As I was writing my last post about my favorite chocolate bar, something was eating at me. I wasn’t mentioning a priceless consideration we can make in our buying choices–locally made products! The omission bothered me, as I am both diligent and inconsistent about promoting this idea.

I vend at festivals and fairs in my region, promoting fair trade crafts, which I buy from fair trade wholesalers and charities, such as Ten Thousand Villages, Northern Sun, Gypsy Rose and ethical American companies and non-profits such as Karuna Arts, Native Scents and Aurora Glass.  Choosing winning products from their catalogs and websites is quite easy, compared to choosing from the river of local artists, hobbyists and craftspeople who ask me to turn their tinkerings into gold. Locals following a creative outlet haven’t always checked the marketplace to decide what they should make. There are lucky guesses–Duct tape wallets are wildly popular!

But nothing is simple. I make jewelry, so to see me at a festival and buy from me would seem “local.” But my gemstones, findings, etc., come from all over the world, under all conditions imaginable. And I’ll bet the kid who makes the duct tape wallets isn’t holding out for duct tape made locally, from local materials. I imagine my Amish neighbors who do a fine business with outdoor sheds choose the cheapest wood, not the most local.

Like my favorite localvore and online mascot the wiselittleraccoon, my partner Iuval is looking for land to found a new intentional community, one in which members participate in a much more local economy, getting by with very little and making most of their basic needs. In this new/old model, most people would participate directly in growing nearly all of their food, including grains.

I know truckloads of gardeners and farmers. Some grow 5-10% of their food. Others grow nearly all the fruits, vegetables, beans and nuts they need. Grain seems to be another story, a final frontier.

With farmers’ markets, backyard and community gardens, CSA’s, etc, buying food locally seems to be comparatively easy, if not cheap. Government subsidies and other factors make commercial foods much cheaper than local organics. I love being right each time I repeat, “You get what you pay for…”

But as filmmaker Annie Leonard points out in The Story of Stuff, the trinkets and plastic crap we seem to think we need leave wakes of environmental and social distruction (slavery, child labor, unsafe working conditions). In my life, learning to live without “stuff” is the first step. This has been easy since I pared down from a four bedroom Victorian to a ten-by-twelve foot stone springhouse and commune life. In that process, I got clear that “stuff” doesn’t make me happy; It doesn’t fill that spiritual empty box. People do; Nature does. A dog is just the greatest. Stuff, not so much.

Now if I decide something is a need, not a want, I have mental flow charts to navigate. Can I get it made of anything except plastic? Made locally, of local materials? Union shop or crafter? Organic? Minimal packaging? Locally owned retailer? Will online shopping save or add to fuel consumption?

As of this writing, chocolate is still listed as a “need,” although I have friends who never partake because cacao can’t be grown in their area. We’re all hiking in different places along the green trail. My backpack still contains chocolate. And a car. And my own detatched cabin I share with only my family. And a cellphone, my mac mini, and the Firefly boxed set…

Shiny!

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OMG, the post about the guy living in a cave will have to wait. I want to stop and do a little dance around this blog because my ever loving Iuval just returned from running errands in civilization and, despite pressuring me for days not to crave them, he brought me two of my favorite organic chocolate bars!

I discovered this bar about a month ago at Saubel’s, the nearest locally owned grocery to Heathcote Community. Saubel’s has an extensive “organic marketplace,” sort of a health food store inside a conventional grocery.

Since I live in an intentional community, I don’t have to do grocery shopping. I am a member of a food coop and most of what I eat is grown in our gardens or delivered wholesale once a month to the mill, our main building and conference center. I have my own kitchen at Hina Hanta, my little homestead. But for breakfast and lunch I prefer to climb down the wooded path to the mill and eat in the common kitchen. Most dinners are community meals, members taking turns cooking their vegetarian specialties. (I’m known as the sauce queen.)

So walking through most groceries is a surreal experience for me, the once or twice a year I need something therein. Sugary this, over packaged that, the lighting, the colors, the muzak; If I ever need surgery again they could just wheel me into a  grocery store with all that hegemonic stimulation and I’d be anesthetized.

But I manage to keep my wits about me in Saubel’s “organic marketplace.” I wander there for the occasional homeopathic drops or herbal flea remedy. That’s probably how I discovered this chocolate bar. It is dark milk chocolate, 40% cacao, with puffed grains, not rice crispies, but oats, wheat, rice, rye, barley and millet.

The brand, Seeds of Change, donates 1% of it’s “net sales to advance the cause of sustainable organic agriculture worldwide,” hopefully planting things other than more cacao…

I’ve been a connoisseur of such chocolate for years. I hear people using colorful jargon to describe fine wines or even beers and bourbons. I am a chocolate snob. I appreciate it’s “nose” and “bouquet.” Despite living only 56.99 miles, one hour and four minutes away from Hershey, Pennsylvania, I have little use for that town’s famous watery, over sugared brown stuff.

Brands picked up by health food stores are often themselves the kind of consumers many of us try to be, making informed choices about labor, trade, ingredients, packaging, etc. There are often many vegan bars to choose from. I used to buy a vegan milk chocolate bar, made with ricemilk (left). Usually organic and/or fair trade, such bars are often “fruit juice sweetened,” not “cane juice” or sugared.

Click this link to read just a few of the environmental problems with the sugar industry, even in America. The article doesn’t mention air pollution from the seasonal burning of the sugar cane fields, which I observe every time I visit relatives in Florida. (This is one more senseless hit for the Everglades, a priceless ecosystem, half of which has already being drained.) A Brizilian study found a 21% increase in respiratory illness in the elderly, 31% for children, during their burning season. Sugarcane used in Coca-Cola has been revealed to be harvested by child labor.

When I indulge in a muffin from a bakery, it is so packed with sugar my teeth hurt. When I make sweets at home, I usually use 1/2 or 1/3 the sugar called for (or use honey), and can’t tell the difference. Why grow so much sugar in the first place?

Health food store chocolatiers understand that they’re not selling you a sugar flavored candy bar. They let the sweetener step back and be a supporting instrument in this symphony. And they understand that the melody is sweeter when the golden rule is applied to all.

Like many such companies, Seeds of Change combines entrepreneurship and sustainability. Celebrating their 20th anniversary, “Seeds of Change was born in 1989 with…a pretty ambitious two-pronged mission: To preserve the biodiversity of the world’s food supply by creating the largest and most diverse organic seed stock ever propagated, and to advance the cause of sustainable agriculture around the globe.”

Great work! This particular bar I’m in love with, Isle of Skye, with dark milk chocolate and grain puffs, is currently made with sugar. How about fruit juice or honey, folks? The work is a journey…

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So our third year at Baltimore’s Beer Bourbon & BBQ Festival is history. So is our participation, I think. It seems the festival has grown larger and more corporate and louder. It was so loud I couldn’t hear myself leave my body. But when someone on one end of the hall would drop the glass  they’d been issued with admission, meaning, I assume, that their drinking was done, festival goers from one end to the other would shout a wave of mourning and sympathy through the hall. This happened a lot.

As people became tipsy, their explorations of our fair trade wares were at least amusing. One young man, regarding our onyx carvings, mused, “It’s like, turtles…only made outta ROCK!!!”

So as I look ahead to our schedule for 2009, I hope you find helpful these lessons I take with me in case we do similar shows:

• When selling to drunk people, wear washable shoes. Sorry to start with this. I know you’re thinking vomit. In fact, the reason is that when they go to dig change out of their wallets, they don’t realize they’re pouring their drink onto their salesperson’s feet.
• Drunk people say, “Keep the change,” with strange frequency, sometimes to statements like, “May I help you?”
• Don’t cry over spilled crystals. Don’t cry over things spilled into your crystals. Cry over things spilled into purses.
• Beverage-themed festivals should provide extra restroom facilities or locate my booth near tall shrubry.
• Pretzel necklaces go with everything.
• Five-gallon buckets of water aren’t good enough sandbags for an EZUp canopy in thirty mile-per-hour wind. If you see a row of canopies so anchored, don’t park downwind of them.
• Drunk people sometimes want to hug their festival vendors as if we were hosting The Price Is Right and they’ve just won something. Yes. Show them what they’re won, Wren! “You’ve won a shopping spree at Heathcote Earthings! This includes a menora made from a recycled bicycle chain, all the treetop angels left over from last year, and five pounds of fancy jasper, which I think is cool but no one seems to want! Will that be cash or check?”

Not my crowd.

I’m on the road to Arkansas, to visit my partner Iuval as he searches for land to form an Intentional Community. Watch for posts on my adventures!

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P.S. The links keep coming in. Thanks, facebook & gaia.com friends! I’ll sort through them and try to contact the orgs, to see 1) if they want condoms mass mailed to them, and 2) if there’s support that’s more relevant to them. I’ll post the results ASAP!

People, people people. Dude thinks he has The One True God talking in his ear. He’s got no need to back down on anything he says. I assume we all know the action of sending millions of condoms to the Pope is to raise awareness among people who are not the Pope.

Given that, although the gimmick of mailing condoms to the Pope and asking him to distribute them in Africa is dramatic, is it worth the environmental impact of those millions of condoms being produced, shipped, wholesaled, shipped, bought, mailed, received and thrown into an Italian landfill?

I recall about twenty years ago, back in Louisville, Kentucky, when an Alderman reversed his position, deciding not to support adding “sexual orientation” to the city’s list of classes protected from discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation. We activists and supporters of the local Fairness campaign sent the alderman actual flip flops. It got a lot of press. His office was inundated with beach footwear.The alderman didn’t flip his position back again for several years. But our point was made to the city of Louisville.

Now, a prickly difference here is that we weren’t sending flip flops to a public figure who was opposed to the wearing of shoes. I assume that his staff carted them off to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, the Home of the Innocents, and whoever would use them. I bet that Alderman still has a few pair saved in his own size. All in good activist fun.

We know theater. But we can be dramatic and actually impactful at the same time.

I propose that we identify organizations already distributing condoms and mail our Pope prophylactics to the saints who will actually hand them out! We can send them in His Holiness’ name. And we can suggest that, if any condoms should fail, resulting in pregnancy, the child should be named Benedict…or Benedictine, if it’s a girl. Being from Kentucky, I love Benedictine. Kentucky is the state of fattening spreads–Benedictine, pimento cheese, beer cheese…Sorry, off topic!

I’m putting out some feelers to identify organizations that distribute condoms in Africa, for a start. Write me if you know of them. My guess is that money is tight for such groups and they would thank the Pope’s One True God if she would, through us, send them the condoms they need!

Or maybe they’re sitting on warehouses of donated condoms already and need some other distribution support. Can we wait a couple of news cycles and find out what is of most help?

It occurs to me that staging the activism on a bottom-up level might actually have an impact on the policies of the Catholic Church long term. What about mailing a condom to your local priest or bishop? Some of  them are the future leadership of the Church, people who may be in a position to make directional shifts in the future, which are not likely for a standing Pope. A few pragmatic local priests might actually send the condoms to their local health clinic or Planned Parenthood under the table, and those could do more good before the landfill…

I’m Unitarian-Universalist and Pagan. So I imagine I have very simplified ideas about the Pope, the Catholic Church, the Vatican, and also the AIDS crisis in Africa, which I only know from the headlines, not the trenches. But I have been in the trenches of the green and simplicity movements for decades. I know how to screen for my impact in the choices I make as a consumer, an educator, an activist, an animal living on the planet. So it’s my knowledge  that is sending up alarms, and sending me into brainstorming on topics out of my area. But that’s the wonderful thing about this internet: Some of you have the pieces I’m missing.

The following links were suggested by facebookers, members of the various groups that formed around the call to send the Pope condoms:

• http://www.avert.org/ I had previously found this group on my own first google search. I emailed them to ask if they were an organization who could accept and distribute donated condoms. They wrote back to say that, sadly, this is not their gig. But they gave me a list of about 10 NGO’s to contact. I’ll keep you posted.

• http://www.avaaz.org/en/pope_benedict_petition/ a gaia.com friend sent me this Avert.org link to their related petition. Thanks!!!

• http://doctorswithoutborders.org/

• http://www.unaids.org/en/default.asp.

• http://www.nazarethhousejohennesburg.org/ I visited this site when the link was posted and emailed them as well. Another group member asked the question on my mind–Being a religious charity, do they evangelize, or make religious requirements of the people they serve? The poster of the link implied that they don’t. But the site didn’t mention the issue, so I asked in my email. I tried to be respectful. I hope it doesn’t prevent me from getting a response. The pros and cons of this issue could be their own post. But for those of us outside of organized or mainstream religion, it’s important for our giving to be without strings attached.

• http://www.mariestopes.org.uk/Home.aspx “Marie Stopes International is one of the major distributors of male and female condoms,” according to Kara Hanas, my facebook friend in Oklahoma. She posted this link to their Wikipedia article, describing their “social marketing programmes” in 17 developing countries.
• http://guttmacher.org/ Kara suggests this site “in regards to AIDS statistics, unsafe abortion, and contraceptive use in Africa.”

She adds, “I have written many a paper over abortion and contraceptive use so if you have any questions please let me know. The argument is best made if stats are looked at as primary indicator rather than ethics of such a practice. Maybe look into the Rape Condom as well, its chilling. Also Botswana I believe is a stable democracy (freedom house indicators) and has been since the 60s; however, something like 60% or 65% of their population is infected with the virus. Look that up because I can’t remember off hand the number of HIV cases and AIDS cases. Lancet has some really good articles as well over contraceptive use and unsafe abortion…”

Clearly Kara has a wealth of research to share. Unfortunately for this posting, she’s under tons of snow and without internet to send me the links and research she and I discussed. I’ll follow up with those. Hmm. I wonder if, nine months from now, Oklahoma will see a boom of snowstorm babies. Maybe Kara is busy going door to door with her tin of condoms!

As always, I’d love to get your comments, on Hippie Chick Diaries, on facebook, or on my favorite green/alternative/activist networking site, gaia.com!

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“…it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from.” —Earth Hour website

Join Earth Hour, the annual movement to raise awareness by turning off your lights this Saturday, starting at 8:30 pm, local time wherever you are.

Now, some of you harried activists and eco-geeks who don’t spend a lot of time sitting under trees pondering what bug just crawled into your skirts might be wondering what you’re going to do for an hour in the dark.

If for some reason you need to eliminate sex as the answer (sports injury, recovery program, Mom visiting, whatever) here’s a list of ideas:

• Play Marco Polo with the mice in your veggie bus.
• Order Chinese delivery or pizza by sending owl calls down the block.
• Invent moon tea.
• Tell the history of the Rainbow Coalition in a puppet show using glow-in-the-dark condoms.
• Go caroling up and down your street, singing Holly Near and Shekhinah Mountainwater.
• Liberate race horses into suburban neighborhoods to replace gas-powered riding mowers.
• Have an egg hunt in your yard using those rotten ones you haven’t brought yourself to compost yet.
• Let the cat out and follow her. Back off if she becomes paranoid.
• Sneak into the Wal-Mart parking lot and paste every car with the bumper sticker, “Mall-Wart, Your Source for Cheap, Plastic Crap!”
• Find the most manicured lawn in your neighborhood and plant it in milkweed for making paper and fabric.
• Throw a series of glow-in-the-dark frisbees off a school building and see if anyone calls in a UFO sighting.
• Clean out the fridge by playing truth or dare with leftovers.
• Practice riding your exercise bike for when you figure out how to power the hot tub with it.
• Box up random items from each others’ rooms and take them to Goodwill, to work on unattachment.
• Perfect your impression of Leonard Cohen doing show tunes.
• Let the dog out and follow her. Be sure you have pruning shears, your picture ID and a change of socks with you. Twine is optional.
• Host a naked drum circle, massage party or sing along in your front yard and when the neighbors show up with the police, tell them you left your permit in your other pants.
• Figure out Morse Code using the light of your cell phone. Then use it to debate your neighbor across the road over the physics of What the Bleep…

Whatever activity or inactivity you choose, this is a wonderful chance to create community by unplugging. Or, if what you need from the hour is stillness, then here is a gift for you and the Earth! I’d love to hear your experiences afterwards!

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