Some six years ago, a small group of us were gathered in a friend’s living room to explore how we might reach out working with the community. We had been involved with one project and another to reduce greenhouse gases and restore the natural order of our deteriorating planet. After reading about a project in the Netherlands, one of us suggested trying it here in Pasadena. They called it Repair Café. The cafe part seemed a bit odd, but that’s what they called it, and in time the name took on a life of its own.
​Who was going to be involved? Who would be the repairers? Well, one friend said she could sew.  A man working with putting electronic systems together at Caltech, said he loved fixing stuff. One of the more astute among us looked at me and said, “You’re a wood sculptor. You can be a knife sharpener.”
And so, I got volunteered. There weren’t many of us repairers at the first, nor were there many repairees. The number of fixes increased slowly, however, then after a year or so – and due perhaps to our casual style of operating- we began to see repeat customers. They would come without a tool to sharpen simply to say hello. We touched, exchanged a few pleasantries and continued on. It appeared that Repair Café was an opportunity where folks- never knowing their neighbors - could meet, conjoin, couple, and be recognized by in-person communication. The touching seemed to produce wholeness, however temporary, and a sense of being completed.
I was as surprised as others to witness it, though on reflection, such incidents should have been as expected, as were those by the rare customer who, having waited an inordinate “over-an-hour” to get their hair dryer fixed, complained bitterly to staff, all this while getting their gear repaired for free.

Human character being what it is, an array of it was on display one RC day when inadvertently, a suggestion was carried out to expand our monthly local announcement to include Facebook. As a result, the number coming for repairs tripled, quadrupled. Some came from as far away as fifty miles.

Our “Sharpies” corner was a throng. One woman had brought a half dozen scissors and wanted to learn how to sharpen them. I explained it wasn’t difficult but the diamond files used needed time and practice to get right. She insisted, and soon she was busily dulling her snippers as best she could, and was delighted…to be there. Others too had caught on and availed themselves – with our tutoring - the inexpensive sharpening blocks from Harbor Freight we kept on hand for aspirants to get the hang of things.

As I looked around, there were scissors and kitchen knives in varying stages of repair and disrepair, diamond crusted files and blocks, Sharpies and customers, conjoined, and enjoying the busy enterprise of camaraderie. Of all the RCs in which I have had a hand, this one was the most gratifying.

Watch this video about RC for inspiration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLrl3Gx687Ihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLrl3Gx687I


----Greg Marquez

Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash


Peter Kalmus won the Walking The Talk Award from Transition US. for making a significant effort to align his lifestyle with Transition values. 
 
Here is the transcript of his acceptance speech on Oct. 31, 2018:
 
It’s interesting that Transition started because of Peak Oil. Now it’s pretty clear that Climate Breakdown is the real emergency that we are facing. So I urge Transition, don’t ever let go of that part of who you are. Transition means transition away from fossil fuel. The main reason I had to reduce my own emissions is because I just hate burning the stuff. As a climate scientist I’m hyper aware of the impacts of burning the stuff.
 
Science is a way for uncovering the truth. It also provides means for looking into the future in ways that we can’t do otherwise. And what I see is really terrifying. It just feels really yucky for me to burn it and that’s the main reason that I have reduced. The second reason I reduced is to shift the culture. 
 
CO2 is an interesting kind of pollution. It accumulates and stays in the air for thousands of years. And it’s also interesting because it is invisible and you can’t smell it and it’s all around us. It’s embodied in everything that we see when we fly, when we drive, it’s completely around our lives but the fossil fuel system hides it away. There is no warning on airplane tickets. When you fill up your car you don’t see how much is actually going in there. 
 
We need people to actually vote through their actions to shift the culture. We need leaders like you guys. A lot of environmentalists are saying that it’s a mistake maybe to focus on individual action but I see that as a false dichotomy now. 
 
Collective action enables individual action by shifting the system, and individual action enables collective action by shifting the culture. We can’t have collective action with carbon fees and dividends, if people aren’t voting for that.  So we have to raise awareness of the public by voting with our actions. So those are the two reasons I do it. Thank you.
 
You can watch Peter’s acceptance speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8c_t_NGQPQ&feature=youtu.be 17:58-20:24
 

--------Sylvia Holmes.

Photo credit Wild Goose Coffee Roasters



Here in Pasadena we’re fortunate to have a few local businesses that care about social justice, and it’s a joy to support them.
 
Our economy is failing us because the system doesn’t reflect the TRUE value of Earth and all its resources. Big Oil and Big Corporations plunder the planet’s resources and burn through every last drop of oil and gas on Earth. Production creates enormous profit for the wealthiest while generating goods destined for landfills that pollute our land, air, oceans and rivers. As local dollars rush to offshore banks, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer putting the most vulnerable even more at-risk, and our systems of government fail to protect them.
 
One local business making a difference is Rosebud Cafe, whose motto is “Coffee with a Cause.” They do great work providing barista training and jobs for homeless and at-risk youth in Pasadena. Here's an article published on Teen Vogue highlighting a success story:  This California Café is Training Homeless Teens and Finding Them Housing
 
Rosebud Cafe even hosts a monthly event where youth can improve their standup comedy routines: Caffeine & Cackles: The Clean Open Mic. Notably, Wild Goose Coffee Roaster in Redlands, supplies the responsibly-sourced coffee to Rosebud with a unique promise to donate 10 lbs of food to a local food bank for every pound of coffee purchased. Their slogan is “Better communities through better coffee.” Food goods are supplied to Rosebud Cafe by Hope Cafe  whose mission is to extend hope to those who have been outcast or overlooked, to those in need, and to encourage clients to do the same.
 
It is a privilege to support a local business that invests in the community and whose business model provides one solution to the homeless youth crisis, making our city and the world a better place. The visionary manager of Rosebud is also committed to sustainability and determined to reduce plastic waste at the cafe, an initiative perfectly in sync with Transition Pasadena's Green Circle project. 

Rosebud claims to have "an amazing cup of coffee.” We wholeheartedly attest to the truth in that statement! The love that nurtures this cafe community makes every amazing cup even more satisfying. Give it a try.
 
------Therese Brummel
 

 I ended last time saying that you have a choice. You can believe that there is no meaning to life. It's a “fools’ tale” etc., or you can appreciate the mystery that life is. There is a direction to history and prehistory and an increasing velocity to the appearance of novelty that makes up that history. It's not random. It's hard to imagine history continuing as it has for another hundred or five hundred years. The Earth simply can't sustain it.

At this time, our way of living on the Earth is no longer viable in the long term. It's becoming necessary to be, think and synthesize a new way of living and being on Earth. Individual humans are the best able to create that synthesis.

However, we have all grown up in a culture where we have been socialized to accept authority. To do what authority figures say. To follow large institutions because they have authority over us. Yet, it is clear that large institutions and the authorities that head up these institutions represent the least amount of thinking that's going on. They are barely carrying on with business as usual and often not even that. Any thought about the future is put aside. Kick that can down the road. 
 
Part of our mainstream view of existence is that we are separate individuals. We have been told we are disconnected atoms with no power. In our society it's easy to believe we are disconnected atoms. We are encouraged to follow leaders or the ideas that come out of larger institutions.
 
Large institutions don't think. Our institutions are producing boneheaded politics. They are approving mega tar sands pipelines right in the face of the obvious global warming disaster these projects represent. Even the people in large institutions are so bound up by procedure, rules and who knows what, that the ones who actually do think end up punished for having done so. 
 
Institutions are not capable of the same depth of thinking as individuals. The individual is where the deepest thinking is going on. We evaluate, synthesize, compare and contrast. All the different and growing problems we see, global warming, ocean acidification, resource depletion, it's individuals who will make the biggest difference in solving these problems. Only individuals will think and then implement ideas that are "outside the box". Individual thought and action, outside of institutions, will be the source of new ways of being on Earth.
 
It can seem like the large institutions have power over us but the good news is, the revolution is happening. There is a change in consciousness which probably got its start with Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics in the physics of the early 20th century. Our mainstream society is still catching up with these discoveries. 
 
Looking at the mainstream you would never know that there was an uptick in consciousness. We are not the disconnected atoms that the authorities would have us believe. This new consciousness of interbeing suggests we are all one. We can create the needed answers, but we have to let go of the past in order to do so.

---David Cutter