in Bangkok!!!!

I'm at the Bangkok airport hanging out with Tom! The brand new airport is amazing, very open and 21st century. But the most amazing thing is after a nearly 15-hour flight I got an amaaaazzzziiiiinnnnngggggg Thai massage. It's like getting yoga done to your body. And get this -- 45 minutes for $16 USDollars!!!!! Or 500 baht. Woohoo!! My calves were sooo sore from teh flight I thought I was gonna die. So this was perfect. And now I'm drinking a mocha and hanging out with some other people heading to Kathmandu also. We have a 5-hour layover and we leave in 3 hours or so. And this may be the last I'll email again but maybe when I'm in Kathmandu. We'll see!! Ciao!

off to Nepal!!

I couldn't leave the last blog entry as "stress" so I'm in the apple istore in Pasadena, California and I wanted to just say bon voyage to myself and to everyone!! Had a blast hanging with my friend Paige and friends out here!!! I'll update when i can! Joy and love and peace!!!

stress

I didn't realize how much stress I was feeling until it all came out today. I have been pretty calm, and feeling like I'm staying on top of things as far as planning my trip (I leave Monday!). I've got a pile of things I need to pack piled on my bedroom floor... my version of early packing. Ha! And I've done my shopping to get various and sundry things. I spent some time researching places to stay for my "one night in Bangkok" (and one day, technically) and am super excited about that short but totally solo part of my travels, and I made my reservation. I screwed up on something this morning but it was over-ridable, and I spent time driving around doing necessary errands. I got 2 articles done and 1 very short one to go, due tomorrow. But then it all hit.

Let me backtrack. For starters this morning I felt super exhausted. The day before I'd thought I may be coming down with a cold (scratchy throat) so I took vitamin C and Echinacea, and yet this morn I felt super tired. After I dropped the kids off I went back to bed and slept till 1130am. I deliberately decided to miss my "coffee" with the girls that I LOVE, but then changed my mind and stopped by at the end of that meeting. I then did some errands, and decided to stop by home before picking up Savannah's bike which I'd dropped for repair of the flat tire so we can go for a bike ride this weekend, and saw on my Calendar I had a after-school conference with the kids' teachers. I was SO glad I came home & saw that on my calendar, b/c otherwise I'd have missed it. So I rushed up to the school and got there at 320pm (normally they're in after school athletics til later). I was told the conference would be "right after school" but wasn't given a time. School gets out at 315 so I was just very slightly late. When I got there one teacher was walking out the door, and the other had already left! The one leaving said they'd told me the meeting was at 3pm but I NEVER got that correspondence. Dude! So... I went in to meet with the last of the 3 teachers, who was still there (apparently my meeting with her was at 330pm) and I burst into tears!!! Like sobbing!!! LOL at myself....

I guess you need to know that this is NOT normal behavior for me. At least not in several years! During my divorce, hell, I burst into tears at the drop of a dime! But anyway, it made me realize how I really must be worried about this trip subconsciously (because honestly I don't feel stressed!). I think I have fears about several things. One is going to a place where the US State Dept has just issued a warning against travel. Another is just going to a country where the native language is not English or Spanish (Hablo muy poquito Espanol --> enough to get by). I'm thrilled, but a bit scared I think. I also don't love flying. I have overcome this fear of flying, and I don't get stress on the plane (though I can't sleep well), but I don't "love it" either. There's also just a lot of stress about my book proposal being sent out by my agent next week, because so much in my life rides on it, and it's so important to me, and I believe the topic is important to the world and especially the US right now. And just money issues, and getting everything done, and yada yada yada....

So now I am going to sign off, and I hope I can squeeze in one other blog before I leave. Godspeed!

PS I was tagged - 5 random facts (have to make this quick)
1. John Lennon is one of my personal heroes, and has been since I was young.

2. On my desk: A super-soft stuffed crab from San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf (I'm a Cancer), A card from my dear friend Laurie with a kid looking up at the stars that says "The wishing stars twinkled a little brighter each time she thought of her friend," A framed photo of the Central Park Strawberry Fields memorial that says IMAGINE,an incense burner, a stapler.

3. I have excellent credit! LOL.

4. I love my kids a million billion pieces!! (we often say this to each other, I think because one of them said this when they were younger)

5. My next dream destination: Africa!

6. I love bubble baths!

7. When I ride my bicycle I love to stand up and ride without holding the handlebars. Sometimes I even hold my hands up in the air like Victory! It's soooo freeing!!

Bhadrapur, Nepal

I have so much to say, but no time to say it in. I've been busily getting ready for my big trip to Nepal, my first time to Asia. I've been to South America, North America and Australia but never Asia! So this should be cool. I am a bit of a cold wimp so hopefully I have enough warm weather gear now to not totally die or get frostbite or a case of the whines. ha ha! I don't think it will be THAT cold because it's not like I'm climbing Mount Everest or something. We'll be at mid-elevations but heck this is the freaking Himalayas!!! After a day in Kathmandu, we fly into Bhadrapur, in eastern Nepal. We'll be trekking along the Singhalila Ridgeline at the border between Nepal and Inida, which apparently was only opened up to trekking around 2000. Surely on one of those rinky dink planes that I hate, and I've read that Nepal has some of the shortest runways in the world because of the mountains. Nice! At least I've (mostly) overcome my fear of flying!!

Here are some maps and weather info for the Bhadrapur area. Loooks like 12-24 degrees C which translates to 53-76 degrees F. Not so bad. But we'll be trekking around and camping some nights. Here's another map. We'll be heading into that snowy part, to be sure. I'm really very excited. Mostly because when I get away on these adventures the whole world falls away. There's no stress of anything at all... no chores to have the kids do, or chores and errands of my own, no deadlines (at least none that I work on while away), and surrounded by pure beauty. I hope all goes well and safe since there's been some interesting developments there in the past few weeks. I've been told by someone that the Maoists have promised no violence until after November 16th. I don't know why that date, probably has to do with some of their holiday and the election (that was postponed) but it's nice of them to delay the violence until the day after I leave :)

I'm eating wasabi peas and my mouth is on fire. When I eat them they remind me of my friend Clea from Italy who made the funniest face when I gave her a few to try and was like "eww! bleh! gross! Why would anyone want to eat these???!!!" and then she proceeded to eat more. Ha ha!! It was so cute and funny. I miss Clea!

I'm on the radio!

Host Sidney Wildesmith interviewed me yesterday about my writing on the Wild Side News: Nature Talk Radio, a San Diego based radio talk show. You can listen to the interview ("Want to be a Nature Writer? Wendee Holtcamp talks about what it takes to be an environmental writer and journalist") at their website. Check it out! Click on "Segment 2" then forward past the "news" to minute 9:14 if you don't want to listen to the news before it.

camel, lion, child

I just finished Martha Beck's book, Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith. Wow! Not only was it a fast-paced, well-written and hard to put down book, it gave me a couple of spiritual insights that really resonated. I came across it by total serendipity. I was browsing the audiobook CDs in the library and even though I had several others on my list to read, there it was, so I checked it out. I'd seen her columns in O the Oprah Magazine, but never knew about this book. So it's a memoir about her experiences outgrowing the confines of a ritualistic religion and finding a faith that fit her spirit. I resonated with that because my own book, which my agent is sending out the proposal to this week, deals with losing my own childlike faith to atheism, becoming a scientist but then finding my faith again - a Christian faith but not a fundamentalist one.

It's rare to have a sort of Eureka moment, but I had one reading her book. On my bathroom mirror, I have a paper with graphic of a white dove with an olive leaf in its beak, along with a Deepak Chopra statement: “When you die, God holds your heart in one hand and a feather in another. If your heart is as light as a feather you know you have evolved.” I've always loved this Chopra saying but I didn’t know how to square it with Christianity, exactly. In the Bible, Jesus says that unless you become like a little child, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 8:13). Here's where the revelation comes in.

Martha says she read about many different spiritual experiences and religions and mentions this parable of evolution of the spirit from 'camel' to 'lion' to 'child.' I was running while listening to the CD and now I can't find the exact place on the CDs where she talks about this. I'd thought she said it was from a Buddhist or other spiritual tradition, but I've traced it back to Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, his most well-known book. I can't tell if the concept originated with him, or came from another spiritual tradition and Nietzsche put it into a work of fiction to illustrate the concept. If anyone knows, please tell me as a Google search did not turn anything up other than Nietzsche! Now Nietzsche was against religion, so this is interesting, but one has to think outside the box and not just condemn everything that is not directly from a religious person because all people, I believe, are God's children and we all have some divine wisdom which we impart on the world, even while we may also be wrong in some aspects of our own wisdom and our own beliefs. The way this spiritual maturation process squares with Christianity and also other religions - as well as with psychology - is amazing, if you synthesize everything.

The stages represent how the spirit must sojourn in order to become creative, or truly free - which is of particular interest to me because I recently read Scott Peck's People of the Lie in which he defines evil as that which opposes the creative life force (consistent lying, confusion, and hiding behind a pretense of being good). God is Creator, after all, and we humans,"made in His image," also create - we bear children, we write, we build, we create art, we create societies and cultures. The camel stage represents submission to external rules, and the willingness to bear the burdens of religious teaching. But taking on this burden drives the came into the wilderness or desert (also rich with imagery from Jesus' time in the desert wilderness). There the camel confronts the dragon, which is evil and must be overcome to ultimately progress to the lion stage. The lion rebels against authority and takes on its own authority, its own wisdom. And camels (which most religious people are) often feel threatened by those in the lion stage.

In my memoir I'm working on (about science/faith), I relate this to the stage of atheism and rebellion against religious rules. But the rebellion has to occur after the camel stage to truly grow spiritually into the next stage, the child. A metamorphosis occurs. Martha describes the child as a stage of joy and laughter. That was what the revelation was for me. It seems so obvious now! I have been chasing joy for so long, but it's not something one can chase. It's a butterfly that will arise only when one metamorphosed beyond the lion stage. I've rebelled from religious rules for some time now, and I've taken on the authority of the lion for some time. Joy comes in bits and pieces. It will come, I can't choose it. It must find me, as I move along my journey.

It never made complete sense to me Jesus' parable about the child, because I didn't understand what he meant by "child." Certainly it was not the "blind faith" that some Christian leaders say it is, because that opposes truth and God is Truth. But it makes complete and absolute sense that it refers to the childlike joy and laughter that is so natural to kids, that they unfortunately grow out of and get squashed out of them by the burdens of the world. It's our duty, and our spiritual imperative, to seek the joy by embarking on the journey to wholeness and maturity. Unless we become like the little child, we will not see the kingdom of heaven... that does not mean we will not "get to heaven" after life, it means we will not see the kingdom of heaven on earth - in our lives - which we can achieve if we seek God with our whole hearts, minds, soul, and strength. Amen!

the irony and the literary

I had to laugh at the extreme irony when I read this CNN article, "Rice says Kremlin's consolidated power endangers democracy". I have to wonder if the journalist and CNN realize the irony because everything Secretary of State Rice is warning that the Kremlin is doing President Bush is doing in our country as well. I can't help but think that she's either in denial and her subconscious is reflecting exactly what is going on with the US through her criticism of the Kremlin (as people in denial of their own behavior often abhor that same behavior in others), or she is sending out a 'message' in the only way she can, within her current regime. She said "In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development," and "I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin....There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma," (the Russian parliament). Hello people!!!! That is exactly what's happening in the US, too.

What I'm reading now (or listening to on CD) ... God's Politics by Jim Wallis, a book by a progressive Christian minister concerned (as I am) about the mixing of the conservative fundamentalist Republican politics with Christianity, since of course Jesus' agenda was pretty much completely opposite in many aspects of their current agenda. ie care for the poor, treat all people with humility and respect, love your neighbor as yourself, oppose violence. Instead we have war, privilege to the rich at the expense of the poor, and a very selective addressing of human social ills. Check out his blog, linked above, as well as a video of him on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I also just started Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith by Martha Beck who is a columnist for O the Oprah magazine.

Books I want to read, having already read many of those on my list from my blog post of 7/21, are below. Any comments on these books? Other suggestions for must-read books? Anything related to Nepal that I'd like since I leave for there in 2 weeks? I'm finding that I'm really craving this literary stimulus these days. I used to love to read as a kid, I devoured books. Since college I pretty much lost time for any pleasure reading until I joined a book club a few years ago, but that circle of friends has fallen away so I didn't read again until recently anything except nonfiction books relevant to my writing topics (and some of my reading list, such as God's Politics and Leaving the Saints, are related to my book - though also enjoyable - I'm really enjoying Leaving the Saints).

• Water for Elephants: a Novel by Sara Gruen
• The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Taleb
• The Liars Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr
• The Red Tent: A Novel by Anita Shreve
• Love in the Time of Cholera (Oprah's Book Selection for this month!) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Save Me From Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs, and Lived to Tell My Story by Brian "Head" Welch
• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
• Don't Think of An Elephant by George Lakoff
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Henry and June by Anais Nin
• The Inheritance of Loss: A Novel by Kiran Desai

All for now! I had an awesome fun day and evening with Daline yesterday. I went to get my immunizations for Nepal and my India Visa and since I was already downtown, spent the rest of the day with Daline. Went to REI shopping for cold weather clothes and such (got sooo many cute clothes! and warm!), and had so much fun esp trying on funny hats. We ate lunch at the Hobbit Cafe, then dinner at Whole Foods then went back to her sisters pad to chat and hang out. She played me Brown-Eyed Girl on her guitar which she'd learned at lessons. I LOVE that song! Love and laughter to all!!

Some funky robots in a window in Berkeley on Telegraph Avenue.

Me and my niece Kira!

My adorable niece playing with yuk soup!

Me, my "sister-in-law" and friend Zofia and Peggy Vincent, author of Baby Catcher in CA last weekend!

hugs from my daughter

How I wish someone with my daughter's huge heart was around when I was younger. I've always told my daughter that "some bad things" happened to me when I was a child and for some time she's been bugging me to tell her the nature of those things. She's a very precocious, well-read and extremely intelligent child for 12 (nearly 13) but I've always had a hard time telling her just what happened to me, though she knows very well about the birds and the bees and loves to watch crime shows (NCIS, Criminal Minds) as well as health shows - she's been hooked on them for years and that's what made her want to be a doctor for the last 4 years. An emergency pediatric surgeon to be precise. But today she read my Chapter 1 from my memoir, (which is about balancing faith and reason, and Christianity and evolution specifically). Chapter 1 talks about how my parents --specifically my mom's denial of my reality and my dad's hippie lifestyle - led to my intense questioning of everything and ultimately to my becoming a scientist. It also talks about the difficult childhood experiences such as being molested at age 10 and raped at age 15. She read these things and asked me some more questions about the situations, and then gave me a really big hug. We're a huggy family already, but she deliberately gave me several hugs throughout the day, and when she did, she would just look at me in this compassionate wise way. So sweet. This week my agent should be sending out my book proposal. Prayers are greatly appreciated!!

on the road again...

Having just come back from the San Francisco Bay area for the ASJA East Meets West writers conference, I am leaving tomorrow (yet again!) this time for Caddo Lake, Texas' only natural lake. I'm going with my son's classes outdoor ed trip. Each class does an outdoor ed trip every year. We camp and canoe and have a campfire which is great fun. But I leave for Nepal in less than a month - holy cow - and have so much to do. I also found out that the Maoists quit the government yesterday, and started protesting. There had been a 10-year civil war in Nepal that ended peacefully when the king stepped down from power but now unrest arises again... it may be an interesting time to be there. The Maoists never turned violent against tourists, but you never know what will happen in the future. Prayers appreciated!

I've been feeling restless lately. I find that I'm allowing the little things that used to drive me crazy, make me have a bad day etc sort of roll off me. I vent but I don't get too upset and feel alright that things will all work out, as they always do. But I can't help but feel some sort of internal unrest in my soul over the world, and my own place in it. I wonder if I'm doing what I should be doing in terms of writing, activism, evangelism, spreading love and wisdom. Am I doing enough? Am I on the right path? Where am I getting sidetracked and on what should I focus? It's a very difficult challenge to balance single motherhood and career in itself, but combine that with a life calling to make a difference, to spread the seeds of love and light which this world so desperately craves and needs and yet to still need some love and light sprinkled on myself as well. I'm blessed to get that love and light from my friends and family! Loved seeing Zofia and Kira in SF this weekend! I also met a longtime friend and colleague, Peggy Vincent, author of Babycatcher and a longtime midwife in the Bay Area. We had known each other online but never met in person. I'll put up pics when I get back from this trip to Caddo Lake.

If you ever get to San Francisco you have to go to get the best hot chocolate in the world - Bittersweet chocolate cafe! That's where I met Peggy. Have the spicy hot chocolate which has chipotle and other pepper and is so yummy and has a real bite! It's great with a shot of espresso. Yummy!

Big Bend National Park

I love this photo because of the gorgeous cat eyes on this mountain lion. This is at the Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in Kendalia, which we stopped at on the way back from Big Bend but I'm putting the cougar photos first because that's what my article that brought me to Big Bend (and WRR) is about. The cat is in a very large enclosure not a cage but she was sitting near the edge of it, observing.

Two mountain lions. The enclosures have several cats in together and we got to hear them interacting which was very cool. They mew and scratch and interact. It's really pretty cool. In the wild they are solitary but in captivity they behave very differently.

This was a shot when we first arrived at Big Bend, in the morning's golden hour. Sotol growing and glowing in the golden morning light.

I love this photo. This was actually on the hike down from Emory Peak, which we did on our second day in Big Bend.

A mountain lion track on the trail. We saw several on the way back down. We took one trail up and another down the mountain. We also saw scat on the trail but I'll spare you the (dis)pleasure of a photo of mountain lion poo.

I love this photo also - it was a huge lightning and rainstorm off in the distance.

This is a macro shot of the rock at the trail at Ernst Tinaja.

A shot of cactus and the rock hills at Burro Mesa trail, which we did on the last day.

The top of the mountain! The view from Emory Peak, the tallest peak in the Chisos Mountains. You had to scramble a bit to get up top and you can see the antenna to the left so we had cell phone coverage - woohoo! Just kidding... ;) Though I must admit, I did check my email on my blackberry up there. Is that sad or what?

Tomorrow I'm flying to the ASJA East Meets West Conference at UC Berkeley so that should be cool and I'll get to see my friend Zofi and my niece Kira! And meet up with a couple writer friends. Should be loads of fun, as always!

Media coverage

The local newspaper did a front page article on me last Wednesday! Check it out, Adventurous Atascocita woman explores the world through writing and travel . It starts: Wendee Holtcamp is a freelance writer, photographer and self-proclaimed bohemian, but around Atascocita she is referred to as "the female Indiana Jones." The paper used the photo of me hanging upside down from a vine in the Peruvian Amazon but it's not online.

Also the Houston Chronicle Living Green blog interviewed me about my "30 Days of Consumer Celibacy" article I wrote for OnEarth magazine about The Compact. It appears on the Aug 31, 2007 entry.

The Artist's Way

I'm reading the Julia Cameron book The Artist's Way right now and have a group of women friends reading it at the same time and we're sharing our reactions and thoughts as we go through it. One requirement of the book is writing "morning pages" in a journal every morning and I created this collage on a standard kids' essay book. I knew I'd go through a lot of these journals since we have to write 2-3 pages every morning for 12 weeks which we've expanded to 24 weeks due to busy schedules. I like my collage because it has everything I love and that inspires me. It has a rainbow which represents hope, it has a butterfly which represents metamorphosis, it has a camera lens for photography, mountains for strength and beauty, a bird for freedom, a yoga pose for peacefulness, a hiker with arms raised - which I just love and find inspiring. And the stars and moon which represent humility to me. How can one gaze on all the zillions of stars and not be humbled by our small place on this planet? And yet we still have a responsibility to care for our Planet Earth. The flowers represent spring, the eternal spring which always comes... and joy. I thought about putting a cross but I didn't find a photo that spoke to me with one, and to me my Christian faith runs through and in everything else. It's not one extra piece of the pie - it IS the pie that includes all of these other things. The money word, well that is where I struggle. I don't love money, but want to be financially independent enough to truly be able to contribute significant and substantial amounts to the world, and to rise out of the whole middle class struggle.

mountain lions

What beautiful animals. I love this photo! I just returned from my first trip to Big Bend National Park in search of mountain lions. A friend and I explored several shorter trails in the park , and on the day-long 12-mile hike up to Emory Peak, (or technically on the way down) we saw mountain lion tracks and scat but no lions. Big Bend did not disappoint! It's a gorgeous area. Yesterday, on the way home to Houston, we visited Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in Kendalia, Texas which had several captive mountain lions that were recovered from the pet trade. They are awesome. WRR has many animals they take care of, most received from the (often illegal) pet trade and usually people who got them as babies, but then could not take care of them as adults. Many had been maltreated. Now they have ample room to roam. When we visited, several of them came right up to the fence. I also was just in awe of the one African lion they had. Wow. What a beauty. I'll put the rest of the photos online soon but I'm headed out again tomorrow!

Eco-mochilas and so much to do!

The article that just came out in OnEarth, How to Save a Monkey, talks about a two decade project to help save endangered cottontop tamarins in Colombia, Proyecto Titi, spearheaded by Anne Savage. The latest aspect of the multidimensional conservation project is an innovative idea - to make eco-mochilas (see picture) from plastic bags that litter the forest. They're beautiful aren't they? The famliies collect the plastic bag trash, clean them, and cut them into strips which they then crochet using traditional crochet needles and techniques. They make purses and beach bags and some other stuff. It's been so successful that they've started a thing called Turtles, Tamarins and Trash where they're expanding it to other countries. In Colombia, it has increased the standard of living (via income) for some women and families by many-fold, and they got to teach women who flew in from Costa Rica and another country that I can't recall. The article didn't have a photo of the eco-mochilas so I wanted to include this.

When I was in high school, I remember I would call certain friends who would be so busy that they would not call me back. I never got this. They were real friends I'd hang out with during school, eat lunch with etc. But I thought, how could anyone be so busy that they don't have time to make a phone call? I was not involved in sports, or music, or any extracurricular activity at all. So needless to say - before the internet - I was bored and wanted to talk to friends. Bored? I can't even remember how it feels! But now as a mom, a single mom with so many activities and appointments and things to do... I absolutely completely understand now how a person can be so busy that you can go through an entire day from morning until you plop down in bed without a single good time to call someone. I tend to make my personal phone calls when I'm out and about, but sometimes even then it's like when you're in the car you just need to zone out because when you're home you're working working working, or you're making dinner or cleaning up or talking with the kids. Whew. It's a busy but full and wonderful life!

I am headed to Big Bend National Park on Friday for an article I'm writing. I've never been there but hear so many good things about it. Then later in the week I'm going river raffting for the first time ever, with my daughter and her school class! That will be in Guadalupe River State Park. Woohoo!

How to Save a Monkey

My latest article is just out in OnEarth magazine! How to Save a Monkey: In the tropical forests of Colombia, a new breed of "conservation entrepreneurs" are using education and economics to protect an endangered primate. OnEarth Magazine. Fall 2007.

Check out the fun self-portrait of Elissa and I in Pioneer Square, Portland. Elissa lived next door to me in 7th grade (in Beaverton, OR)! We've kept in touch since. She owns Sweet Pea Nursery in Bozeman, MT and is a pilot! I've blogged about this before but in high school - after my junior year - Elissa and I, wild childs that we were, sort of lived "on the streets" down there for about a week. We ate at the homeless children's shelter, slept on park benches at the river's edge and in abandoned houses with some true street kids. It just shows how far I've come!

A self-portrait of me and my cousin!

Urban Zen

A friend turned me on to this website and I was inspired by the video of Kris Carr, a young woman who has stage 4 cancer, and author of the book Crazy Sexy Cancer. I heard about the book because I met the book's editor at the ASJA writer's conference in NYC this past April. I haven't read the book, but this video is inspirational. Go to http://www.urbanzen.org/ and then click on Video. The project is one put together by designer Donna Karan, and in the first video, "Voice of the patient" you hear my favorite singer-songwriter Alanis Morrissette.

I'm working on an article about mountain lions, and reading some in David Quammen's book Monster of God about large alpha predators and the fear they inspire in people, and how for better or worse they've been a part of our cultural and evolutionary history and to lose them would be a shame.

I'm also working through Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way with a few girlfriends and though we've just started, it seems like it will be a good project for me to help myself break through the glass ceiling, so to speak. I love things like this that I can do with other people to discuss progress, etc.

One thing I've realized is that literature and books really inspire me and help energize that creative side of me. I used to read voraciously as a kid, and now as an adult I rarely have time to read anything that is not directly related to articles I'm working on. But over the past year or so, I've been listening to more books-on-CDs. I actually was in a book club a few years back and did the same - listened to them all on CD. It really also does stimulate the creative side of one's brain also to keep reading new thoughts, and new ideas. I've just started listening to Al Gore's The Assault on Reason, and during my trip to Glacier actually managed to read a whole print book cover to cover. It was People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil by Scott Peck - which was utterly brilliant and fascinating. I plan to blog about these two books on The Fish Wars blog.

Visiting Glacier National Park

Dad and Wendee's trip to Glacier National Park. We drove from dad's cabin near Deer Island, OR to Montana and stayed at Glacier NP for several days, and then drove back to the Seattle/Tacoma area where I met up with my cousin Holly and her kiddos. This is dad and I on the roadside inside Glacier NP, at a scenic spot. Not a great photo but the best I could do! Glacier NP used to have 150 glaciers, but today only 26 remain - one fewer than last year's 27. Global warming hits the high mountain areas faster than elsewhere.

A gorgeous view of the mountains.

A coyote at Two Dogs Flat (left). Dad at Josephine Lake (right).

Lucas M, a graduate student, took Dad and I out in the field to look for pika, which he studies for his doctoral work. These are the talus slopes we climbed up!

Can you spot the pika?

Here I am! Squeak squeak!

This is my favorite shot. This was on the Trail to Hidden Lake, at Logan Pass behind the visitor's center. I was blown away by this entire hike!

A shot of people hiking the Trail (same one as above, at Logan Pass). The boardwalk protects the fragile alpine vegetation.

Another shot on the same trail.

Yet another gorgeous scene on the same trail. I love how we're literally hiking through and near the clouds.

To the left, the Canadian and U.S.A. flags fly near the Logan Pass visitor's center. Glacier National Park borders Canada and has a sister park, Waterton N.P., on the Canadian side. To the right, another shot on the Trail to Hidden Lake.

The mountain goat on the left was near Hidden Lake, and the one on the right seems to be nearly enshrouded by clouds.

A mountain goat kid - how cute! And a vocal chubby little Columbian ground squirrel.

Denial

I had an encounter with someone recently in which I told them what I thought, and they took it as that I was being mean. The truth is, the truth can hurt if it's something you don't want to see about yourself. Humans can be masters of denial. You have to be fully committed to truth in all of its forms if you want to be truly an emotionally healthy human being- including having the courage to see yourself for how others perceive you, even if it's not what you think you are, or how you wish to be perceived. We are masters of delusion.

I try to speak the truth in love, and am learning when not to speak, instead of "all the time" as I used to believe I should do. During the situation, I was calm, and the other person was what I'd call "freaking out" but what others my call agitated, upset, stressed. It was apparent from the moment I picked up the phone. It had become a regular state of being. I mentioned it, and said I thought the person needed counseling. This may seem harsh, but it affected my children.

So then after I made that decision to speak, I read something in Utne Reader that was like a sign from God, from the Universe, whatever, that I was on the right track. It was an article called "Out of the Drink" by Tess Gallagher, and was originally published in the Sun. In it, she is writing about her experience with an alcoholic friend, to whom she spoke up about his denial. She writes, "I guess all the havoc I've seen alcohol cause made me unwilling to play the denial game. When the spades fall, I call them what they are. It's the kindest thing to do. I recommend this kind of boldness or effrontery - whatever you want to call it - because although it won't always succeed, it might, and it is this chance that makes it worth the risk." Her friend, in the article, checked himself into rehab the next week.

Monday I leave for Oregon, and from there Dad and I will drive to Glacier National Park. I'm excited to see him. Glacier is in Montana, on the border with Canada. I booked my flight to Nepal also!! I will be there in the first half of November. Woohoo! I am trying to see all the continents in the next couple of years (after Nepal I only have Europe and Africa to go - unless you count Antarctica). I have a writer friend who I was emailing about my dilemma - to go or not - because of the costs versus the payoffs from writing gigs. She said GO, and enjoy. Her sister died young, and yet when she was sick it brought her joy to remember all the travels she'd done. I've always been sort of obsessed with death. I'm both scared of it, and not afraid of it. But I know that life is short, and I want to be able to say that I lived fully, and loved fully (even if that love was not always requited) and that I took the time for my friends. I think that finally in my last few years I am living up to this. And yet I am always reminded of my own imperfections as I continue to try to become a better person. I hope only that my friends and family will always be as forgiving and patient as I know the good Lord is as he smiles on us all with such love at our human foibles.

Kent State shooting victim Jim Russell dies

This is old news, from June, but it's personal. Jim Russell lived just down the road from my dad. I met him on several occasions. He remains part of that cherished spot in my heart and memory from my childhood, my roots, the only roots I have - on Meissner Mountain in Oregon. I moved around so much as a child that the only place that still belongs in my family remains my hippie father's homestead and rustic log cabin. That land is part of my heart, and all the people who live there. I grew up there every summer, and for 2 years (3rd and 4th grade) rode a school bus all the way to Rainier. Jim and Nelda lived down the road, nearly one of our closest neighbors at a couple miles away.

My dad told me that Jim died of a heart attack recently - on June 23, 2007. His wife Nelda was pouring him an Epsom Salt Bath and he slumped over and called out, as the reports said, "I think I'm dying" and then, "Oh God," more surprised than scared. What I didn't know until Dad told me was that Jim was one of the 9 survivors of the Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970 - where the National Guard shot at nonviolent Vietnam war protestors. Four died, nine were injured. Jim was shot in the head and leg. Ironically, Jim says he was not even involved in the protest but was on his way to turn in an art project (however he had participated in other protests). As one of the shooting victims, he got fired from his job, and the university told him he didn't need to finish, he could just take his diploma (he was a senior). Not only that, his dad got fired from his job. These kids were targeted as "dissenters" and anti-American.

So he eventually moved to the woods of Oregon, like my dad, where they met. Until my dad told me, I honestly didn't even know Jim was one of the 9 survivors but my dad went to his wake which had a lot of the Kent State survivors there. From what I've read, Jim didn't talk about it for many years, since for many years he worried they would still come after him. The Kent State survivors have all kept in contact over the years. I've been reading about it and it has moved me to tears. In some ways, our country has not alienated war dissenters like they did then. But we, the public, have not staged as massive and united a movement as the hippie generation did. Who knows what our government would do if we did. I don't have a lot of faith that it would be much different.

Eight members of the National Guard were indicted by a grand jury, but they claimed self defense, and basically that was accepted. But in May 2007, one of the injured, Alan Canfora, requested that the case be re-opened after a videotape was found at Yale University on which the clearly distinguishable audio can be heard, "Right here! Get set! Point! Fire!" just before they fired into the crowd. I don't think he's made much progress.

Kent State's May 4 Task Force - has a memorial to Jim.
The Oregonian has a piece "The Long Road Back from Kent State."

Long live the right to dissent, and peacable demonstration! A Jim Russell memorial fund has been established through Rivermark Community Credit Union, 4875 S.W. Griffith Park, Beaverton, OR, 97005. 1-800-452-8502.

Islam vs. Islamists

I watched an absolutely fascinating documentary on Houston PBS last night, Islam vs. Islamists: Voices from the Muslim Center. It talks about attempts to silence moderate Muslims by more extreme fundamentalist Muslims, often by death threats. It talked about the Wahhabi Muslims, who are the very extreme Muslims that want sharia law instituted which means Muslim law for all people, even in non-Muslim countries. This law includes stoning women and men to death for adultery --the documentary showed secretly captured footage (which was horrid). Yet many moderate Muslims believe in democracy, and in separation of church and state, and were interviewed and highlighted in the piece. This includes Phoenix physician Zuhdi Jasser, who leads the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

Here's the documentary trailer on YouTube.


Apparently there was a big controversy several months back because the documentary was supposed to air as part of a Crossroads in America series on PBS, but got pulled. The reason? PBS wanted the producer to somehow say that the moderate Muslims portrayed within (who believe in democracy and live in a Westernized society) are actually not "true Muslims" but the extreme fundamentalism represents a truer form of Islam.

The irony here, and the beauty, is how parallel this is to Christianity, and to some extent Judaism. In these three religions (which I know best) there are gradations from fundamentalism and literal interpretations of Scripture, and more modern interpretations. Fundamentalists inevitably claim they are the only "true" believers. Ultra-Orthodox Jews take a literal interpretation of Genesis, as I understand it, and believe things like the devil planted dinosaur bones like Christian creationists.

Interestingly, the literal interpretations also seem to be more tied to political activism (at least within Islam and Christianity), probably because the leaders can control those with fear. Christians in past eras engaged in Crusades because they applied Old Testament laws to the new evangelism. Spreading the "good news" became killing others who didn't convert. It's quite similar to the current flaring of Islamic fundamentalism. They want to force everyone to follow their way, which will never happen, because once you've tasted freedom there's no going back.

The fundamentalist Islamists want to institute sharia law which came not from the Kuran but, as I understand it, from oral tradition (hadith). Christian denominations vary on whether the Bible is the sole source of authority, as do Jewish sects on the use of the Torah (Old Testament) versus the Talmud (rabbinic discussions and interpretations of the Torah and its Law).

These three religions share many similar teachings, and so it comes down to whether we interpret Scripture and religious teachings literally, or rather take the spiritual lessons meant within. You can believe the Bible, for example, to be literally true without believing that every word is literal. What about poetry? In Islam, do we interpret things like the 72 virgins one will receive in heaven as a literal truth or as a description of the ecstasy of heaven since perhaps sex is the closest ecstasy we will feel to heaven on earth? (It's no accident that Jesus called the Church his bride).

It's also ironic that there are fundamentalist Christians who tend to agree with the fundamentalist Muslims that "the only good Muslim" is one who is an extremist, and wants to force their faith on others. It furthers their own cause which is often to condemn those outside their religion, and paint Christianity as somehow different. All religions suffer the same problems. That does not make the religion itself wrong, it just shows the ways humans in their selfishness and greed and power-hunger can hijack what is truly meant by faith.

Here is a great interview with the documentary producer, Martyn Burke.