home

where is this land i wander in between joy and heartbreak. i've left the land of brokenness yet have not yet found that place i recognize. i wander to distant shores, hike mountains, ford rivers, sweat in the amazon jungle, sail aboard ships, swim in the sea, free, so free with the aquatic. i feel home floating swimming kicking and enveloped in quietude surrounded by diamond bubbles and bejeweled fish. i hike i walk i run and i stop and sleep breast to the ground, breathing, breath. i look i always look up dizzy to the stars. a billion trillion white lights. where is my casseiopeia? i can not orient. i am not home. even when i am. these paved streets and shops and stores and houses i do not recognize. i am content and free but i have not yet found. i am following the path, i have reached down and picked the crumbs left, the signs they lead me home but i do not know where they lead. i follow, i lose my way but i always find the stars and the earth and the fire leading me on, ever on to home. ever on.

I'm Carbon Neutral for 2007 - Thankfulness!

I finally did it - I calculated and then fell off my chair at the amount of CO2/greenhouse gases that I personally emit...(well not personally, mind you, but through my car, plane travel and home electricity). I'm double the U.S. average and NO, not because I drive a Hummer or huge SUV (I don't... well I drive a Subaru Forester which is a small SUV). However I take a lot of plane trips, and most particularly the trip to Nepal in itself pretty much doubled my carbon emissions (at 25,980 miles...). Back in July during the Live Earth concert I did a quick-calculation and got 15 tons, which is under the U.S. average of 20 Tons CO2. However, this time I did a detailed calculation and added up all the flights and my car mileage etc. I got 39.66 Tons... Yowza. I used Carboncounter.org to calculate my emissions, and I chose to offset with its affiiated 501(c)3 nonprofit Climate Trust. Check out their carbon calculator. I chose this nonprofit to offset my emissions and make my life in 2007 carbon neutral because they were 1 of the 8 best ranked of 30 reviewed in the recent report by Clean Air, Cool Planet, "Consumer's Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers." In other words their offset projects were high quality, they were engaged in education efforts, and it was an overall good organization to donate to.

This year I'm thankful for:

• Family and friends, new and old and the love you've all shared with me
• That so many people care enough to try to help save the planet - let's hope it's not just a "trend" that disappears.
• That we CAN offset our emissions... I encourage others to at least match the average U.S. output. That equals a donation of around $200.
• Good health, a wonderful home, and the opportunity to travel and write about places and issues that need positive attention drawn to them.
• Saving grace, and the love and sacrifice of Jesus: Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. My Lord, Savior, Redeemer and Friend.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. God Bless You!

spending holidays alone sucks

Maybe it’s because my kids left for their grandparents with my ex 2 days after I got back from Nepal and I’m totally alone on Thanksgiving (tho a friend did invite me over tomorrow) but I’m just feeling really incredibly lonely. Funny thing is that despite how heart-on-my-sleeve this blog is, and how often I share my feelings, I feel hesitant about saying that I'm lonely. I don’t mind being alone, I actually like many aspects of it, but I have to wonder if that is not just my wall that I’ve built to deal with an inevitable situation I can’t exactly control. Or can I? Do I keep myself single and too busy for dating or out of the way of meeting people subconsciously on purpose? Anyway, I’m just wanting to share my thoughts because I’m alone on Thanksgiving and it sucks! Hopefully I'll go to bed and wake up tomorrow feeling a little better, and I'll offer some things to be thankful for. xoxo Wendee

it's not my imagination!

I am having had such a hard time with jet lag and getting my sleeping/waking rhythms right that I had to research this, and what do you know, some scientists say that it is indeed more difficult to recover going from East to West (I flew East from Nepal to Bangkok to L.A. to Houston over the Pacific Ocean coming home) - check out the Wikipedia entry on jetlag (OK I know this isn't exactly a scientific paper but I don't have time for serious research on this right now!). It probably doesn't help that I am able to sleep in or go to bed when I want, as opposed to when I went to Nepal and we pretty much had to wake up and go, no matter what. I went to bed at 1am, pretty normal for me, but then woke at 450am and could not get back to sleep! So I worked for a couple hours, then napped again expecting to wake at maybe 10am but I got up instead at my mom's phone call at 145pm!! Crazy. I went for a run today and it felt so great. I'm trying hard to work on my article on mountain lions and it's killing me...

A couple of my articles are out now.
An Off-Setting Adventure:
Cruising the Galapagos with a Carbon-Neutral Conscience, E/The Environmental Magazine, Nov 2007. Unfortunately you need a subscription to access it... but soon enough I'll post a version online.

Don't Mess with the Snappers: Irascible conservation veterans keep fighting for their beloved Big Thicket. Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine. Dec 2007. The link still goes to the Nov issue as of today but the Dec issue will be up soon.
Fabrics, KathmanduMacaque at the monkey temple, Kathmandu, overlooking some Tibetan prayer flags.

A tea plantation in eastern Nepal. Tibetan bowls in a Buddhist temple in Meghma, India.

The porters carry stuff in baskets that they balance with their heads. It's amazing how much weight they can carry... they would carry 4 of our backpacks/duffel bags in one load.
Insane! Amazing!

reflections on non-attachment

We're both looking for something we've been afraid to find. For once in my life, I'm scared to death. It's easier to be broken. It's easier to hide."
- First Time (song) by Lifehouse

This came from my journal ... reflections on the trip.

I was really excited on the flight home to Houston, as well as the last leg of the trip from Bangkok to LA. Don't know why, it was just this bubbling energy from the adventure gone by, that all had gone well, that I was safe and sound and the bonding and connecting that occurred really mostly toward the last days. For many days of the trip I just felt alone, though not lonely, but didn't know if I fit in. Anyway, as I was riding in the bus back to Bhadrapur from the mountain highlands I started to reflect on the sort of detached attitude I carried through the trip and wondered where could I find again this pure joy that I experienced when I spent some weeks in solitude in New Mexico? Why on my trips to Peru, the Galapagos and now Nepal was I not feeling particularly inspired? I felt mostly just a lone soul wandering through a distant land. I liked the people on the trip but making friends takes time. There's no instant bonding as adults, I think, the way kids do.

At one point on the trip a communication breakdown, and some small frustrations added up and I felt overwhelmingly not just a lone soul but I felt strongly that I'd made a poor choice in coming on this trip and spending money that I should have saved or spent on the kids education or something for our family (since my editor said I could write the article without going - though of course such articles are inevitably better when one sees things first-hand). I questioned myself as to why I made the choice to wander and explore when my heart truly belongs at home, with my children who need me and my ability to love, protect, cherish and guide them. (I also do believe that kids suffer when parents have unlived lives or unmet dreams -- they sacrifice too much of themselves at the kids' expense... kids need parents as role models also). But in my circumstance, money is truly extremely tight and I just felt that I'd made a bad choice. I started to cry as I walked alone down and up the rugged path, people far behind me and people far in front of me but me alone.

I felt maybe the reasons I chose to go to Nepal - besides my wanderlust and desire to see all the continents - will come out in time. I certainly loved seeing the red pandas in the wild, something very few Westerners have seen - few people at all, for that matter. I loved the scenery (though cows and their cowbells are omnipresent no matter how seemingly remote the forest or extreme the slope), and I loved the hard sweaty, heart-pumping, breath-taking trekking we did and meeting new people and seeing the culture.

I came to a sort of conclusion that I want to travel with someone rather than alone. I don't mind being alone but there's something to be said for traveling with a close friend or partner who you share a bond with already before the experience. I think that having someone like that there would have made all the difference. I'm a social person who cherishes my friendships, even as I also need a lot of alone time to nurture my creative spirit. The experience certainly enriched the muse and gave me some inspiration for the fount. The feeling on the plane was unmistakable, just hopefulness, excitement and energy and a desire to step back into a leadership role that I have given a backseat over the last few years. I love public speaking, teaching a group of students, and hope that with my book I can step back into that role.

I also had some insight into religion and spirituality as I reflected. Being in a nation with a lot of Tibetan prayer flags, Buddhist temples and Hindu worship (and sharing a trip with Hindus, Jews, Buddhists and myself a Christian) I got to thinking about the Zen Buddhist principle of non-attachment. I am interested in knowing the origin of this principle and its etymology, because I tend to think that attachment is normal and healthy - to friends, family, children, and even God. It's when attachment degenerates into addiction that problems ensue. We have to be able to say goodbye - often permanently - to people or ideas that no longer work without catapulting into depression or an inability to function. The alternative is that the principle is 'wrong'... though I tend to think not because Jesus' teachings repeatedly echo these words about non-attachment or what I'd refer to more as non-addiction.

"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25) -- don't be attached to your very life because it's a temporary home of the spirit which has a greater purpose - to serve and love selflessly. Death is not to be feared.

When his immediate family wanted to speak with Jesus while he was in a crowd, he replied, "Who is my mother? And who are my brothers? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." (Mt 12:48-50). In other words, do not be too attached to blood family because although it's natural to feel more altruistically toward them, our true calling is to God and hence all humanity. We are all brothers and sisters, we are all One. Our duty is to serve all.

"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." (Mt 6:24) In other words, do not be too addicted or attached to money or the seeking after of it...Jesus also told the parable of the rich fool: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." ' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God. (Luke 12:16-21). Many more teachings on greed and attachments to money are there also...such as when he tells the young man to sell all his possessions and follow him.

Do not be addicted to outcome... "God's will be done" even to the point of death such as Jesus crucifixion. There's a far greater good that comes out of suffering done for God's glory. Don't take this out of context though - there's never glory in inflicting suffering on another nor in staying in a relationship or situation in which one's very life, safety or sanity are threatened. I do believe that God brings good out of our suffering if we're open to the life lessons within and our hearts do not become hardened but stay open and humble. We can see a thousand deaths but still know that death - even if prolonged and tortured and scary - is not eternal but a momentary suffering. Sometimes perhaps it's harder to see death than to experience it. Death occurs and ends but our life sustains beyond it. Even if one doesn't believe in an afterlife, the gifts or creative works we leave behind, the love we've shared and given to others through hugs, kind words, smiles, friendships - these things live on after our death. Our molecules certainly live on - forming into dust and then into other organisms or parts of the earth and the universe. As Michael Dowd says, we are all stardust!

So overall I sort of had a feeling that I was ready to 'feel' again, to risk, to feel deeply and passionately in the part of myself that I seem to have closed off somehow, maybe due to detachment. But detachment differs from non-attachment. So... Bring it on!

jetlag from hell

It's taking me a lot longer to recover from jetlag than it did when I got to Nepal. I suppose it doesn't help too much that I stayed up purposefully until 430am this morning working on getting my photos resized so I can post a few. Then I slept until noon. However tonight I'll try to get to bed at a reasonable hour. I am physically exhausted though. It's weird.

At the airport my kids gave me a HUGE hug (both of them at the same time). Sam clung especially hard, which is unusual because Savannah is usually the one expressing how much she misses me. I gotta keep this short. Here are just a few photos from the trip. Will create a gallery at week's end after I write my article on mountain lions!

Paige, Dana and I at Malibu beach. I stayed with my friend Paige on the way to Nepal. I love this photo!

This is me, Mickey, and Tim (back row) with a family we stayed with one night. Tim is the producer of the It's Your World documentary on eco-conscious travel. Check out http://www.culturalfilmfund.com/

We saw 3 red pandas in the wild! They are so teddy-bear cute. It took a while to find any, then we saw 3 in the last days thanks to the sleuthful hard work of the local "forest guardians" who know the forest well and are hired by the Red Panda Project to survey and help protect the community forests. Whew!

A sunset shot of mist, clouds, and a silhouette of the forests and mountains. This shot was taken somewhat near the village of Santapur at the India-Nepal border, and around 12,000 feet.
I have so many shots of cute kids peering out open windows! Love this one. A cute Nepali boy carrying a load of sticks (probably firewood).
An abstract shot of incense and marigolds inside of the Monkey Temple in Kathmandu. Althuogh it's a Buddhist temple a Hindu prayer service was being held here.
A baby macaque eating what remains on a candy wrapper. The monkey temple is so named because of the many macaques there, protected by Hindus who believe they are an incarnation of the monkey God Hanuman.

Tibetan prayer flags were common throughout Nepal.

The whole group on the last day of the trip (minus Chuckles, who was sick). I had to include one photo of the Himalayas! This was Mt Kanchenjunga. We also could see Mount Everest when we got to the highest spots on our trip. Clouds covered the Himalayas much of the time though. Clouds would roll in, and back out with amazing speed! And along with that came heat, cold, snow, sun, rain... all within a few hours or even minutes sometimes!

one night in bangkok

I arrived in Bangkok about 7pm, and went through all the customs stuff. The doc crew just happened to be on the same flight so we're hanging together in the hotel and vicinity. We went out and had some Pad Thai and Red Curry and pineapple smoothies from some street vendors. I'm staying in the Khao San Rd area, and we walked around a little bit. We first headed out at 10pm (its almost 1am now) and everything is alive just like NYC - the street vendors are open 24 hours - and tons of people walking around, sitting around listening to music, eating good food. Pretty cool. Tomorrow my flight leaves at 740pm so I'm going to check out a few sites, like the Grand Palace and just walk around the Khao San Rd area. Then I'll catch a cab to the airport and hope I can get an aisle seat!! I want to get a Thai massage tomorrow! Sawadee! Ciao!

hello again from KTM

I'm back in Kathmandu after several days trekking around eastern Nepal. We saw 3 red pandas - they are sooo adorable and cool. So many images flood my mind from the days past, moments and laughter and good food (dhal baat=rice and lentils) and snotty nosed dirty kids (cute though) and lovely people all welcoming us with "Namaste" greetings. I got 3 memory cards worth of photos and it will take me a while to go through and put some up but I will when I return. I fly to Bangkok in a few hours, and stay one night, and then to LA, then home. The documentary film crew along on the trip were all very cool and they are also flying to Bangkok on the same flight as me - Tim, Chuckles, Mei-Ling and Jon. Another guy came also, Mickey, but he's not heading to Bangkok now.

I've been reflecting on what the trip meant, what eye-opening things it held for me and I'm not sure. It was hard trekking, lots of uphill, camping in the cold, extreme weather changes from hot to freezing and hailing and rain - within a span of minutes!! Everyone got sick in one way or another -from violent throwing up to nausea to sore throats and colds and fevers... I didn't have any particular revelations - maybe those will yet come. I've seen third world countries before - and in fact the area we went was one of the least poor regions due to a prevalance of cash crops like ginger and cardamom. Many houses near Ilam (a town) were all very beautiful with blue, white, and red ochre paint and a lot of flowers, especially marigolds which they use in their festivals and religious ceremonies. The religion/culture is a mix of Hundu, Buddhism and animism.

I always love the children, and took a lot of photos of them. This morning back in Kathmandu I visited an orphanage run by the same guy who was organizing the eco-tour (Not Brian, who runs the Red Panda Project, but the guide company he hired to run the camping/food/trekking - but Achyut Guragain of Sea & Sky Tours) and these children were all orphans from the Maoists war againt the villagers. Their parents were killed by Maoists, or their parents were Maoists and killed in fighting. It's very sad. One girl there, who was my daughter's age, is just beautiful and spoke perfect English and I felt a connection with her. I saw in her eyes the longings of youth, hope for a future better than the one she had and determination to succeed and live fully. Her next years will be so formative and important.. A few of the kids have mothers back in their home districts still alive but are too poor to take care of the children, or abusive, etc. I may sponsor one of the children there. Only $1000/month (US) pays for the entire group of 25 kids food and schooling! So something like $30/month would sponsor a single child. I'll post a link to their website when I get home. Well I need to go catch a ride to the airport. I'll post again when I can!

hello from Kathmandu!

I'm in an internet cafe in Kathmandu. We're staying at the Northside Hotel in the part of town known as Thamel, which is a tourist part of town, but it's very different than anywhere in the US! The streets are insanely narrow, and on them at all hours of the day and night are cars and motorcycles beeping their horns constantly and spewing out polluting stinky stuff and also tons of people walking both travelers and Nepalis. There are no sidewaalks but the storefronts come right down to the street, and they sell clothes and Nepal-made crafts, and incense and lots of Buddhist and Hindu statues and things like that.

Today in the morning Brian, Mickey and I (Brian heads the Red Panda Project and Mickey is his friend who is coming on the trek) walked to the Monkey temple which had these really steep steps up to the top, and lot sof monkeys (macaques) and Tibetan prayer flags streaming from the top of the temple. It's a Buddhist temple but there was a Hindu prayer service going on. It's really a hybrid area culturally and religiously. They use marigolds to offer up their prayers and people who have been blessed by the priest have red ink on their foreheads. Then we walked down so the guys could get a shave. They Indian barber shops not only shave with a razer blade they massage the head and the back for a really cheap price! Then we walked to the place where the film crew is staying (we met them last night and they're all really cool) and Mei-Ling said that Tim was violently ill last night!! So they were taking it easy, and we're supposed to meet them for dinner at an Indian restaurant tonight so hopefully he has recovered. We had a great breakfast there and then we took a cab back to the hotel, and after a bit Mickey and I got a cab to another area of Kathmandu which was totally cool called Patan. The architecture there was just amazing (google it!) I bought some things for Christmas gifts and just poked around. We got this awesome lemongrass/green tea at the Patan Museum. Well I need to get back to the hotel because we need to go to dinner!

We head tomorrow by plane to Badrapur (sp?) and then will trek in eastern Nepal for 2 weeks before flying back to Kathmandu. sorry about the typos! Hugs!!

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.