The Heart of Poverty

When we visit places that are poverty stricken, we often witness acts of kindness that go far beyond what any of us could picture ourselves doing. On the reservation, people adopt anyone who is homeless, despite it adding to the number of mouths to feed on a low to zero income. At least a roof is provided, and a family, to one who is lost and in need.

Well, I certainly still have a roof over my head, and its not in the house of my own family. But despite the college degree and everything else, I am starting to understand poverty a little better. How joblessness leads to hopelessness, discomfort and despair. But in such moments of desperation, I think we all need to ask ourselves what really IS the most important thing to us. Is it important to me to hoard the money I have left and deny my friends something as simple as a meal to share together? Is it important to me to become cynical and depressed?

I know in my heart that I am hopeful. That I believe in magic. And that being poor, if anything, is a chance to focus on the things that really matter. Instead of wearing my sharp edge down to the bluntest it could be by applying to position after position after position, I want to keep myself sharp. I want to start my own business. Make my own way. And the only way to do that is through the community we share with others. If we don't have money, we can have food stamp meals, or dumpster dive food. But as long as we're sharing, the rest will work out. As long as we are believing in our future together. The rest will work out.


But I say that maybe because I have a backup plan... I can move back home. It wouldn't be the worst thing to spend time with my family and live closer to best friends. So I've got nothing to lose. The next month I spend in Portland will not be a waste. No matter how much money I make or lose.

the badlands

the other day, i was showing judy pictures of my trip to pine ridge and beyond, and I came across a video i took on my digital camera of the badlands. i was trying to capture how quiet everything is.

this morning i realized how entirely impossible it is to capture that. imagine... let me upload my video on to my computer (already we have the buzz/fan of the computer), i am sitting in a room or house with air conditioning and refrigerators and someone doing the dishes or eating crunchy cereal -- and i am supposed to hear that silence again by watching this video. Or i am outside where there are cars and people and sidewalks and construction, pressing "play" on my camera screen wishing silence could play out of the speakers and return me again to the calm of the land.

imagine sitting on the grass... and still feeling so distance from the true, rugged, unpopulated land.

the badlands hold the crumbling earth and let it sit there quietly and delicately. occasionally a bird will land on a fragile piece of consolidated dirt and it will slightly tip itself out of place and tumble as far down as its weight will carry it.

this land might seem scary... and lonely. but we need land like this. it holds the pain of humanity and lets it dry up and stay and take shape and fall apart. it is beautiful.

the calm of the land. i need that calmness sometimes, when i am hurting, to just let myself be the brittle fragile formations. to be in the quiet and solitude that listens and is silent and respectful to all that our soul is trying to hear and listen to and love.

the city has a different allure, the run-ins with strangers and unexpected encounters. things to buy from every corner of the world. a lot more things in general. pavement, covering up what used to be, containing the trees and the rivers to parks and pathways we visit when we get the extra time. time to be in nature.

well what if we are nature? part of it, i mean, not just visitors to it? it is part of us... for as long as i live, i hope the badlands and those hills in south dakota can hold that same silence... that they can always be a place to revere and respect what is desolate and fragile. that the only song you can hear is the wind and the insects and the birds. that the hum of everything else will have the respect to shut off and listen again...

sometimes

sometimes there is absolutely no reason to be spending my time on the internet.
sometiems my body and soul are ready for a change long before my conscious mind even begins to contemplate one.
sometimes i'm in an unexplainable mood that wants to do nothing but read a silly book about high school romance, fearing lost potential, and going on an epic adventure.
sometimes i need to get out of the city. badly.
sometimes i have poetry inside me waiting to be writen.
sometimes the thing i'm most afraid of doing is exactly what i must do.
sometimes the time is ripe for whimfully buying a plane ticket to visit a far-off soul-friend.
sometimes a simple visit to the farmer's market can keep me gleeful for the rest of the day.
sometimes i need a night all to myself for painting and singing loudly to sad love songs, even when i'm desprately in love.
sometimes my visions of a better world can harness my life into a place of complete dedication and hard work.
while other times i wander completely "off track" and into a quiet space of input and solitude.
sometimes, when i'm feeling particularly wise, i realize and appreicate that there is absolutely nothing wrong with my life or me.
sometimes i make it my entire bike-ride to work without stopping. without even thinking about how badly the hills hurt. just breathing, meditating, and wishing the air weren't so polluted.
sometimes i feel lost because of my need for direction. my need for a vision. my need for creating my future. and all the uncertainty that lies therein.
sometimes i just need to keep going with my dreams.
sometimes it takes pushing through.

I also believe in Equality

Some freedoms be damned.

Equality, to me, is more important than efficiency. Equality, a sense of shared burden, effort to lift the burden together--to each carry a piece--leads to deeper happiness and authentic joy.

Capitalists have got it wrong. I swear. They do.

What good is a higher GDP, even a higher "quality of life" full of material things, if a segment of society MUST do the grunt work--disempowering and undesirable jobs--and the rest of society then carries the guilt deep down inside of knowing they got an unfair deal...they got off easy.

Capitalism and efficiency aim to produce more in order to garner more profits and harness more material goods. Capitalism hopes that there will be a trickle down effect with materials and happiness. That the more capital we accumulate, the easier our lives are, and the more joyful our souls become. Efficiency = fulfillment.

Really, not everyone's souls work this way. Joy comes from within, from our actions, from our contributions, from our sense of self-value, authenticity and empowerment, and explodes out. Joy comes from community, from lessening the load for others, from giving, from selflessness, from justice.

While some people deeply care about efficiency (the people who invented capitalism, presumably), efficiency does not make everyone giddy inside. It is also not the answer to everything.

What's traded for efficiency in our competitive capitalist society? Respect, equality, fun, love, compassion, generosity, spontaneity, altruism, authenticity, empowerment, togetherness, fairness, justice. These are fundamental parts of the human heart--the human race--that we fold for the sake of efficiency.

I can't believe in this system.

I must believe in equality. In valuing each person on earth the same despite their contributions, talents or skills. "I am woman; therefore, nothing human is alien to me." I must believe in a system that empowers people to do work that is empowering and desirable. I must believe in a system that strings humanity together and redistributes the burdens for everyone to carry pieces of. I must believe that if efficiency neglects so many core human values, equality and democracy must be prioritized for the sake of humanity's soul, for the sake of fulfillment and for the sake of true gratitude for our time on earth.

I don't want to spend my time here so hung up on efficiency that I neglect compassion, generosity, and spontaneity. That I neglect to enjoy life. To love it. To love others, fully.

These Things I Believe

I believe hope can be inherited.
That a whole lifetime need not be spent convincing yourself that you are magical.
I believe those who came before me did not tread a path simply so I could voyage down it or relax at the end--but so I could dream even further distances--practice even deeper love.
I believe truth comes in whispers found deep in your soul and we are better off for all the times we let our soul-whispers sing.
I believe in giving permission to sleep in, say no, and opt out when your heart most needs it.
That giving permission for others to push you in their direction is like giving permission for someone to quietly usurp all your dreams.
I believe that kindness must find her way in to the most rusty parts of our beings.
I believe it is never too late to begin, we are never too tied up to come clean about our deep longings.
I believe that men need to hope and cry and be held in loving arms, too.
I believe anyone can be an artist.
That art can set you free.
I believe in the humility of knowing little, of being a beginner, of asking for help.
That if I am so privileged to inherit hope, to inherit belief--my life work then becomes to pay it forward.
I believe that together, we can open doors to the wild possibilities of the human heart.

What things do you believe? I'd love to know in the comments below.

The Hardest Thing About Having Nothing

Is Having Nothing To Give
-Andrea Gibson


What would I give if I had everything?


-value to people who are deemed worthless
-justice
-patience
-hope hope hope
-sisterhood among brothers & sisters alike
-wild possibility
-the courage to dream
-smiling eyes that read, "yes...you can"
-tools & resources
-collective spirit
-lots of apologies
-a great alternative to capitalism
-a tiny push at the beginning
-permission to follow your soul-voice
-permission for men to be emotional
-permission for gender flexibility & loving who you love, simply
-my extra garden produce
-a garden for every home
-a home for every family
-a family for every child
-children for every community
-a community for every lost teenager
-a lost teenager in every heart so that it never forgets what it feels like to be tender, rash and creative
-creativity for every impossibility
-a soft hello to doubt...a place for it to wait while belief takes its turn

on brows of courage

wild love
anxious possibilities
dripping pollin
sweaty and raw
nervous and ready
unshaved legs
sun-salted skin

deep pause
slow breath
smiling temples
neighbors-
lounging in the sun

fading sky
finger lines
across sweaty faces
atop windshield pollin

dripping eyes
finger lines
across cheek's cowardice
smudged fear
on brows of courage

leaping belief

wild love
anxious possibility