Soundscapes

For Liz and for petitpoussin.

Thursday. Coffee grinding, music playing, conversations to my left and right, keys clicking. Change being counted, newspaper unfolding, coffee grinding ceases, and rain. I could be anywhere.

How often do we stop and listen?

Wednesday night, awake with eyes closed, just before dawn. Rain, the chirping of the coqui, the rustle of sheets, and, in the morning, what is this, a rooster? Yes, a rooster, then later a siren, and more rain.

I first heard the term “soundscape” when I was in college. The concept is exactly what you are thinking – the sounds that form a place. Like a landscape, soundscapes start as compositions of the “natural” world and are layered with the auditory impacts of human presence. Your beautiful view of the beach is intruded upon both by the industry blurring the coastline and the really loud tourist that you somehow hope you are not becoming.

I have been visiting a friend in Hawaii for the last few days, so I am a bit behind on blogging. Last week the NY Times magazine ran a piece on the auditory loss of biodiversity and a man has devoted his life to recording so many “places” that we are in danger of never hearing again.

I read this piece on one of the three planes that it took to get me from the desert to the tropics, and the story stayed with me as I encountered places that were new to me, and yet reminiscent of other places, by not just sight, but sound. And not just sounds I had heard before, but sounds I had heard of, sounds I had expected to hear, and others that came as a surprise.

Saturday, the crunch of glass like rocks, beginning their slow path to soil, beneath three sets of hiking boots. Waves pounding against rocks. A helicopter. The hiss of lava falling into the ocean. Excited gasps and the click of cameras.

Friday. So many birds, waterfalls, more waves still – the Tropical Botanical Gardens. And then Karaoke with old and new friends.

Sunday night, we stop to look at the stars. A silence of sorts, my own exclamations, and the hum of the car’s motor. Sunday afternoon, snorkeling, hearing my own breathing, the movement of water, my muted “ohs” which vibrate through the tide pools as I float only feet away from a sea turtle, living reef, schools of fish.

A couple speaking in Spanish, a blender, a child’s footsteps running, keys clicking, classical music playing, loud announcements, planes landing, the beep of an EZ-Go, and the crunch of fast food filled paper bags opening and closing. Where am I now as I write this?

And tomorrow, what sounds does tomorrow bring?  What sounds now mean home?

Stop La Parota Dam

An important call to action from a dear friend…

The following is a press release put out by Root Force, Rising Tide North America, Arizona Earth First! and Justicia Global calling for boycotts and protests of CompUSA, Sears and Kmart due to their involvement with a planned hydroelectric dam in Mexico. Please read this and forward it to anyone who might be interested, whether because of an interest in Latin American solidarity, environmental defense, indigenous sovereignty, anti-globalization or other issues. This includes NGOs, NGO supporters, grassroots activists, friendly press, etc. If you are part of a group that is interested in signing on to the boycott, please email info@rootforce.org.

Activists Demand that CompUSA, Sears, Kmart End Involvement in Controversial Mexican Dam

Background information: www.rootforce.org

Public urged to protest and boycott retailers linked to Carlos Slim, investor in planned La Parota megadam

Human rights, indigenous sovereignty, environmental and anti-globalization activists are calling for protests and boycotts of three major US retail chains-CompUSA, Sears and Kmart-due to their involvement with plans for a hydroelectric dam that would displace tens of thousands of indigenous subsistence farmers in southern Mexico and destroy critical tropical forest ecosystems. A 2006 United Nations report listed the planned La Parota dam near Acapulco as Mexico’s top economic, social and cultural rights concern.

Endorsing the call are Root Force, Rising Tide North America, Arizona Earth First! and Florida-based Justicia Global.

“When consumers shop at these stores, their money goes directly to people who are profiting from violence and the destruction of threatened tropical forests,” said Ben Pachano of Root Force.

Mexican businessman Carlos Slim, who Forbes lists as the third richest person in the world, owns a number of companies that have publicly expressed interest in financing and building La Parota. Slim also owns CompUSA (a computer retail chain) and Sears Roebuck Mexico. The owner of the Sears brand-Sears Holdings Corporation-in turn owns Sears and Kmart in the United States.

“Sears Holdings Corporation is ultimately responsible for the behavior of anyone who is authorized to use the Sears name,” Pachano said. “By withdrawing his right to use that name, it can place substantial pressure on Slim to end his involvement in La Parota.”

Great controversy has arisen over the planned dam, primarily due to its anticipated effects on local indigenous communities. Road blockades and lawsuits by these communities have stalled the project, but the cost to locals has been high. Internal conflict fomented by the Mexican government has led to the deaths of at least six people, while others have been beaten and arrested by local and federal police. On January 6, Benito Jacinto Cruz, a farmer opposed to the dam, was shot and killed by assailants unknown.

La Parota dam has also drawn fire for its anticipated impacts on soil and water quality, a particular concern given its placement in the Sierra Madre del Sur mountain range-globally renowned for its high concentration of rare and endemic species. In addition, environmentalists are concerned that the dam would contribute to the pace of global warming. Studies have shown that dams in tropical regions actually produce from two to 40 times as much carbon dioxide as an equivalent coal plant (http://www.irn.org/programs/greenhouse/resemissions.html).

“Slim is gambling with the very future of our planet,” said Nina Williams of Rising Tide. “We hope shoppers of conscience will agree that no one should profit from that.”

Boycott organizers have stated that the campaign against CompUSA, Sears and Kmart will not end until Slim publicly guarantees that none of his companies will participate in the La Parota project in any capacity.

http://rootforce.org/dada/mail.cgi/u/announcements/

One Month

In one month I will have been to Hawaii, hiked through lava fields, snorkeled near sea turtles and sang karaoke with petitpoussin.

In one month I will have been to California for a training on Pastoral Care for Religious Educators. That’s right, another intense weekend spent with the roaming peacocks of the Mary and Joseph Retreat Center.

In one month I will have celebrated my 13 year anniversary of being a vegetarian.

In one month I will have turned 25, which I suppose means, I must finally admit I have survived adolescence, and entered the sometimes mundane realms of adulthood where people watch both what they eat and say.

In one month my parents will be visiting from Philadelphia, after selling their house and after my dad has finished his radiation treatments. We will hike, and picnic, explore cute little southwest towns, and go to a spring training baseball game.

In one month I will have cleaned my apartment and (hopefully) built more bookshelves to house the piles of reading materials that currently are taking over our home.

In one month, this Sunday’s intergenerational worship service on peace that I still have to prepare for will have come and gone, and the topic of dreams will be dominating my working hours.

In one month I will be compiling a list of people to take to coffee so that I can politely beg them to spend a portion of their time volunteering in our Religious Education Program, ‘cause yes, children are important.

…

I go in and out of stages where my tendency to plan ahead starts to dictate all the other actions of my day. (I sometimes find writing upcoming events in my calendar calming). Things seem so complete before they have even begun; time takes on a different note, and an unidentifiable doubt creeps up from my datebook, through pencil and pen to my hand, and I begin to wonder what else I might be doing.

One Week

In one week I will be on a plane (really three planes) to visit a dear old friend in Hilo, HI, who is known to the blogosphere as petitpoussin.  I am totally excited and am already mentally packing my suitcase.

In one week I will have also done insane amounts of work, shopped for oragimi paper and beads, co-lead an intergenerational worship service on Making Peace, oriented parents of fourth and fifth graders to Our Whole Lives: Comprehensive Sexuality Education Program, and have attended an all day staff retreat at a dude ranch.  (’cause I really do live in Arizona).

In one week I will hopefully have fixed the perpetually there flat tire on my bicycle and done my laundry.

In one week the newest issue of the Earth First! Journal (where J. works and I volunteer) will be in the mail headed to subscribers and radical bookstores.

In one week I will have said good bye for another week to J. who I love very much.

In one week I will have attended a potluck, gone on a hike, auctioned off a bicycle at the Food Conspiracy Coop’s annual meeting, and seen Tucson’s 2007 production of The Vagina Monologues.

In one day it will be one year since my grandfather died. And I don’t really know what to do about that.  I miss you grandpa.  Thank you for so much.

Poetry Rejoicing / Poetry Ranting

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

- By Rumi
- Translated by Coleman Barks

Excerpt from ii. Improvisation

there is something caught in my throat
it is this place
my baby is sleeping
i check to see if she is alive
she does not know about gagging
she does not have this place / in her throat
she doesn’t know where we are
how it sears the membranes
eats the words right outta your mouth
leaves you suckin’ pollutants impotence
& failure/

- By Ntozake Shange

pressing

This has been a week full of work, meetings, good conversations, visiting friends who are sick, and wonderful weather.

I woke up this morning an hour before my alarm clock, with my To Do list pressing onto my chest, my neck, my forehead.

Thoughts on lamentations, on exile, on remembrance, on Sabbath, have been beginning to form in my moments of reflection this week past. While great writing may eventually flow from these thoughts, for now, I have found a new aspiration of sorts: to live my life in such a way that my souls is happy.

Yes this seems like a terrible cliché.

But I know people, and perhaps you do too, who very simply glow. The ways they have found and chosen to work, to rest, to challenge themselves and engage in the world, are true. They are alive.

I am not there yet. To wake up with anxiety. To feel overwhelmed by the trivialities of the day. To want to apologize for all that is wrong in the world, without being ready to take action to change it. To see the beauty of the sunrise, and yet still spend the day inside. To want so much and yet still feel so stuck. This is where I still am.

Last week I started my Saturday with a poetry post. It felt good, true, alive. And so this week I present you with two of my favorites.

Neruda’s “Keeping Quiet”

This past week there has been some a stream of Pablo Neruda poetry posts. I first read about this wonderful phenomenon over at Truly Outrageous. And Sylvia at the Anti-Essentialist Conundrum, who posted the first Neruda poem, has been tracking the Neruda craze.

I first discovered Neruda the summer I was 16, and am pleased to join in the Neruda blogging with:

A callarse / Keeping Quiet

Ahora contaremos doce
y nos quedamos todos quietos.

Por una vez sobre la tierra
no hablemos en ningún idioma,
por un segundo detengámonos,
no movamos tanto los brazos.

Sería un minuto fragante,
sin prisa, sin locomotoras,
todos estaríamos juntos
en una inquietud instantánea.

Los pescadores del mar frió
no harían daño a las ballenas
y el trabajador de la sal
miraría sus manos rotas.

Los que preparan guerras verdes,
guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,
victorias sin sobrevivientes,
se pondrían un traje puro
y andarían son sus hermanos
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.

No se confunda lo quiero
con la inacción definitiva:
la vida es solo lo que se hace,
no quiero nada con la muerte.

Si no pudimos ser unánimes
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,
tal vez un gran silencio pueda
interrumpir esta tristeza,
este no entendernos jamás
y amenazarnos con la muerte,
tal vez la tierra nos enseñe
cuando todo parece muerto
y luego todo estaba vivo.

Ahora contare hasta doce
y tú te callas y me voy.

Keeping Quiet / A callarse

Now we will all count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth,
let’s not speak any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.

The fisherman in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.

What I want shouldn’t be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.

If we weren’t unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,
if we could perhaps do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and everything is alive.

Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I’ll go.

-By Pablo Neruda
-Englsih translation by Stephen Mitchell

medium

It begins with my chin, my belly and my upper arms.

That which did not used to be there.

I go to the mall to try on clothes for work. First size 10. Then 12, and sometimes 14.

In college it was a 6, sometimes an 8 for comfort.

In high school it was 4 and 6.

In junior high I would write my twice daily weight in the margins of journal. 98 lbs., 96, 94, 92, 90, 89 ½, 88, 88 ½ (I want to die) 88 lbs. I was, very simply, anorexic. Bulimic. An alcoholic. Depressed.

And now I am medium.

I am not well, I am not in crisis.

I took double dessert Monday night and no dessert tonight, I woke up yesterday morning and sat in meditation; I woke up this morning and simply sat.

This is what I did not every want to be. Mediocre. Ordinary. Medium. Bothered by the concrete.

And yet. I am alive, I am learning, I am growing. Today I walked to a park and stared at the ocean, surrounded by three beautiful women who are medium like me.