This will be the last installment of this series on Grief. I hope I have been able to paint a picture of why I feel hopeful and that it has been of some value.
 
The light of possibility is how I ended last month. The possibilities created from the practice of alchemy. Think of it as light in the dark labyrinth, of the prison that is the material world.
 
Human industrial society is in a predicament. Continuing is unsustainable. The energy to do so is not available to us and then there's the damage to our habitat. Stopping cold is also a problem. There is the Aerosol Masking Effect or Global Dimming to consider. You can google this if you are not familiar with the concept. So, we are in a predicament and no one knows how it's going to turn out.
 
Regardless, there are reasons to feel hopeful. I feel "hope" because I see that humans are a very small part of the biosphere. Also, we haven't been around very long and might be on our way out soon. Life on Earth will continue with or without humans. While I have no hope for industrialized society, I think it's more than possible that humans will survive. Continuing my work to save and preserve important elements of piano performance makes me feel hopeful. I also feel hopeful when I step outside of logic and rationality. When I'm stuck in rationality, the "facts" are quite dark and suggest industrialization to be a doomed affair. Thankfully, there is much more to life than rationality. There's beauty, gratitude, spirituality, nature, alchemy and miracles just to mention a few. 
 
When I say miracles, I'm not talking about god or any other deity. I'm talking about something we can't explain from our current perspective. 
 
Consider these points. 
1. The universe generates novelty. 
2. Novelty is one way to describe high spirits. Don't you feel high spirited when something new shows up in your life?
3. Alchemy is the redemption of spirit from matter. 
 
Could it be that all of the novelty we see, are really spirits that have been released from a previous materiality? Perhaps the high spirits you feel around something new is not just you but a reflection of something else. Maybe miracles are going on around us every day we just can't connect the dots. 
 
Alchemy was also used as a process of creating novelty based on intention. Language was an important element in that process. How did the alchemists use language? Part of the alchemical process was to involve your mind in the mixture. Incantations are more modern words, but words, thoughts and feelings were all fair game for 2nd century hermeticists. For more on this subject check out an ancient text called the Corpus Hermeticum. 
 
If miracles are things, we can't explain from our current perspective then why not speak of things that are not present. If we keep speaking them and we get more people to speak them, then things that are not, might be. And how might that change the current outlook? I will continue with this topic more broadly but if what I have been saying has resonated with you, you can get more of the same by googling Terence Mckenna. I will post my series on our website, so they are available to review.
 
------David Cutter
 
 

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash
 
 
       First Car
 
It was easy to hate
the Japs and Nazis
because they were
killing our boys.
 
We were too poor
to own a car.
Walked everywhere
or took an electric streetcar.
 
When we were too sick
to travel,
the doctor came to us.
 
Every Saturday morning
I pulled my wagon or sled
to the market
for groceries.
 
Fresh vegetables
arrived in the street
by horse drawn cart.
 
We flooded the street in winter
and I belly flopped my sled
while others skated and played hockey.
 
The street was also
our baseball diamond
and football field,
rarely interrupted
by an errant auto.
 
We thought things would never change,
but then we bought our first car
and the battle against the planet
began in earnest.
 
---Thom Hawkins
Copyright, May, 2019
 
Thom Hawkins is in his 83rd year of abetting the destruction of life on earth. He wishes to express his regret and condolences to the remaining survivors. He doesn't want or expect forgiveness. He wants all of us to love and care for each other and for all life forms. His expectations are exceedingly low that we will, but he weeps gratitude when we do.
 
 

Photo credit: Therese Brummel
 

The call came in: Kids’ Summer Theatre Camp is coming to Throop! 
But the stage curtains are ripped and tattered and have become a hazard. 
 
Throop Church has been the home of Transition Pasadena for nine years. It has been a symbiotic relationship. Transition needed a home base. Throop Church needed a hefty dose of TLC. And so began with the lawn-conversion garden. Soon the garden attracted the pastor. Rev. Tera’s charisma, vision and commitment have attracted diverse new members to the church. Church members now manage, maintain and immerse themselves in that garden. It is a goal of Transition Pasadena to create projects that have an impact and shift awareness, which can then be launched as self-sustaining. Throop Learning Garden is an example of that. Other such successes include the Cool Roofs rebate, Mulch for the People, and  the Styrofoam Ban. 
 
Repair Café Pasadena is another example. Repair Café, now with more than 600 people in its Meetup group, has been buoyed by capable leaders in the broader community who feel the call to keep this local networking fun growing. Here’s a story from this week that shows the evidence of community building by Repair Café. 
 
Throop Church asked if it might be possible for Repair Café to mend the time-worn stage curtains, a huge job, the largest curtain being larger than the stage floor! Taking Repair Café Pasadena to a specific job had never been done, but a call was put out to sewing folks and Repair Café helpers who all said “yes!”  A dozen or so people showed up at the appointed time, and dust masks were distributed. Several men climbed tall ladders to take down the heavy stage curtains. Shredded sections on each were pinned, re-sewn, patched with new fabric, re-hemmed, and even hand-stitched in some places. One helper dashed to the hardware store for more S hooks while sewing machines buzzed up the rips.
 
In the meantime a small group of Throopers, watched their Tuesday movie and the Folk Dance tribe, undeterred by the clutter and chatter of the stage crew, put on their traditional tunes and carried on with their line dancing as if nothing was unusual. At the end of the evening, the three groups of mini-communities intermingled over the salads and home baked bread which Greg had supplied. 
 
Greg and I shared a smile and a “who-knew?!” shrug in the kitchen. 
We agreed that it’s a far cry from the nearly vacant Throop Church we walked into nine years ago. Shelley, who held the vision and made this project happen told the crew, “You remind me to trust that we are not alone and that everything will work out when we figure it out together. And we'll have fun doing it!” 
 
The curtains are hung again by fourteen  workers who would not have known each other had it not been for a series of nibbles tasting the joys of community. Thank you Laura, Anne, David, Michael, Greg, Richard, Susan, Vicki, Kirsten, Harvey, Tami, Denise,and Shelley!                                              
------  Therese Brummel

Transition Pasadena will make five presentations this month on who we are and how we are so successful in creating projects that draw in so many people without being a nonprofit, and without a bank account. The discussion around creating the presentations raised key words Empowerment and Hope and Fun.
 
It is heartening to feel our message rippling out. Marina Khubesrian,MD, the new Mayor of South Pasadena invited a group of local environmental advocates to attend our presentation to her.  They are full of ideas and energy and have focus on engaging school aged kids, something we can learn from them!  Even better they have the full support of the City Council! It was an inspiring two hour conversation.
 
Here are four more bits of good news on ways we can build resilience. One is about food, one about carbon sequestration, one about drawing youth into climate consciousness, and one about staying in the mindset of abundance.
 
Restore California is a new program in our state by which restaurants and consumers can pledge to contribute 1% of their bill to restoring farming practices which promote carbon neutral dining. LA Times article 4/25/19
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd8909dMGtg_V3Cy57XV9UI3wNNX51l5nwLy0GILWOSwEqZ2A/viewform?fbzx=6050533573157516122
Here’s a copy of the consumer pledge. I signed.
 
At the Transition Pasadena/ Throop Church Coral Reef talk I learned an astonishing fact: One square meter of seagrass sequesters 10-40 times more carbon than one square meter of rain forest. Novagrass is a Danish program looking at propagating sea grass and planting lots of ocean meadows in waters less than 90 meters deep
 https://www.novagrass.dk/en
 
 
And here’s a link to a viral music video cartoon for adults. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=pvuN_WvF1to
(the 1st couple of minutes is a prelude)
 The song “Earth” (modeled after ”We are the World”) has 50 million views in the first week and indicates that profits from the song which features many musical artists go to save the planet via WeLovetheEarth.org.  Gathering young folks into the fold quickly is urgent.  Thanks Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Leo DiCaprio and many more.
 
One more thing I learned, again, is that “If you build it they will come”. Lopez Tree Service came to trim my pecan tree. I asked them to leave some mulch. My eyes were bigger than my garden needs. I put a “free mulch” sign on the pile on the curb and met a new neighbor who invited me to tea, and greeted four more neighbors who came to share the gift and say thanks. Abundance reinforced! Community expanded!
 
----Therese Brummel
 
 

Plant the Rain. - Brad Lancaster
We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.  - Jacques Cousteau
 
Los Angeles flooded 17 times between 1815 - 1938, resulting in many deaths and property damage.  The United States Army Corps of Engineers led a colossal effort to yoke the Los Angeles River, Rio Hondo River and San Gabriel  River. They wanted to be prepared for the next 100-year flood (a flood event that has a 1% probability of occurring each year).  Men from the federal unemployment rolls moved mostly by hand more than 20,000,000 cubic yards of earth, poured 2,000,000 cubic yards of concrete and placed 150,000,000 pounds of reinforced steel.
 
This was a classic Man vs. Nature battle.  The engineers succeeded in creating massive, concrete diversion swales that rapidly disposed of rainwater, but failed to allow water to infiltrate into the ground. Useful freshwater that naturally recharged the groundwater flowed to the ocean only to become salinated .  60% of LA is paved over by streets/parking lots which also contribute to absent groundwater.  Most homes have a high amount of impermeable surfaces - (concrete, asphalt, brick, artificial turf). The net effect: freshwater is being flushed away/polluted while California siphons 1.4 trillion gallons of freshwater every year. 
 
When 2.5 % of the planet’s earth is freshwater, but less than 1% is easily accessible, rain is a gift that we should embrace.
 
A bioswale uses rocks, mulch, plants and basins to encourage water to collect and infiltrate our soil.  By capturing/storing rainwater on your property you reduce pollution. As rainwater collects, it picks up herbicides, fertilizers, and pesticides. Runoff from our homes transports contaminants and combines with pollutants on the streets (engine oil, antifreeze, heavy metals) and eventually pollute the ocean.  Beaches closures occur when raw sewage is added to the mix.  Nitrogen and phosphorus, found in fertilizers, encourage harmful algae blooms, depleting the ocean of oxygen and robbing sea life of sunlight.
 
Harvesting rainwater lowers your water usage and reduces  pollution that flows to the sea.  Bioswale plants absorb some pollutants into their systems and store them.  Some plants (willows and sunflowers, etc.) are better than others at uptaking pollutants. Phytoremediation employs plants to remove contaminants from soil, groundwater, surface water, soil and sediment.  Gutters/downspouts have been designed to flush away rainwater as if it is a waste product.  Rainwater can be captured by rain barrels and then overflow into your bioswale.  Cisterns can more effectively capture large amounts of rain.  Cisterns can store hundreds to thousands of gallons of water that can be used to water your landscape.
 
 
Additional Book Resources:
 Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond Volume 1 and 2 by Brad Lancaster
 Creating Rain Gardens by Cleo Woelfle-Erskine and Apryl Uncapher
 Water-Wise Home by Laura Allen
 
 -------Jonas Stafford

Sylvia Holmes, member of Transition Pasadena Steering Committee, together with Therese Brummel and Frances Fitzgerald put together a talk that Sylvia presented at the League of Women Voters on April about the work that it’s done at our organization. Following is the text.
Transition Pasadena is part of the global Transition movement that came into being out of a dedication to fight climate change and develop ways to adapt to its outcomes.  Transitions are inevitable; but how will we endure them along the way? The more effectively we anticipate changes and prepare for them, the more comfortable the transitions will be. 

One example of the work of Transition Pasadena is the Throop Learning Garden where we grow food in partnership with Throop UU Church.  True, right now we can get our food from the grocery store, but what if there was suddenly no more gas? The food would stop arriving via trucks from the Central Valley and beyond, and we would have to find it closer to home. In such a dramatic situation, Throop Learning Garden’s existence would mean that some food would be available.

Another brainchild is the Repair Café Pasadena, which, along with building community, is about keeping objects out of the landfill -- which is a symptom of our throwaway society. Again, if there are no trucks and no gas to fuel them, the flow of consumable items to stores is halted; so we had better learn how to fix things instead of tossing them! Why not start now? Decreasing consumerism helps climate too. Repair Cafe is an example of the gift economy at work, by volunteers fixing and mending things that would otherwise be discarded. 

Pasadena 100 is about fighting climate change through activism at City Hall. The goal of Pasadena 100 was to convince the city to move towards 100% renewable energy by 2035. They came close -- but they did agree to two other initiatives: first, no more long-term fossil fuel contracts, and second, to include the social cost of carbon when doing their calculations on where to best source our energy.

One of our early projects was the Cool Roofs campaign which successfully influenced the city to give rebates to citizens who add cool roofs (which reduce the urban heat island effect.)

Council is about establishing trust and learning communication techniques and practicing them. These are skills we need to continue to build community networks essential to coping with stressful times. Storytelling and deep listening are our tools.

The Beautiful Bioswales project in partnership with Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition is about capturing storm water to keep green spaces thriving.  Since climate change in California has created more drought and more ‘strong storm’ events, capturing storm water is an adaptation that will reduce soil erosion and increase lush landscapes. The goal is the establishment of more bio swales in public and private spaces.

AltaPasa Green Circle is about going plastic free. The elimination of fossil fuels means less or no plastic. We are practicing for the future; and, every time we refuse to buy plastic we are changing the market with our dollars. Altadena’s Wednesday Farmers Market hosts Green Circle making fabric bags, sharing plastic free dining, and raising Zero Waste consciousness. 

A 100% California native garden was planted and is maintained by neighbors at Pasadena’s Jackie Robinson post office.  Establishing native landscapes is important for biodiversity because climate change is rapidly altering the quality and location of habitat for pollinators, bugs, birds and critters, which are suffering as a result.

Mulch for the People is about building soil more effectively by getting more mulch to more people more easily. Better soil creates healthier plants and plants sequester carbon; another way to fight climate change. It also keeps mulch out of the dump where it causes methane, a greenhouse gas.

Pasadena environmental advocates is a collaboration of multiple groups that meets bi-monthly at Eco-breakfast.  Participants and guests of the many local environmental organizations network, brainstorm and collaborate on short-term bursts of activism. The needs range from fighting climate change to various ways of working towards adaptations. Many projects spring from the synergy achieved at these meetings.

Piano à la cart is a project linking eco-friendly transportation – in this case, bicycle riding -- and the gift of music. By transporting his piano around town on a cart strapped to his bicycle, David Cutter is a one-person climate change force of nature!  And, playing music in public is a delightful example of the gift economy – the free expression of art prompting others to share their creative gifts as well.

From native plants to cool roofs, from music to mulch, Transition Pasadena has been fighting climate change and building community inside City Hall and out in the environment for nearly 10 years.  The progress continues through the gifts and efforts of long-term as well as newly recruited volunteers. The danger of climate change is real, but the efforts to combat it are powerful too! 

We are online at TransitionPasadena.org

---Sylvia Holmes, Therese Brummel, Frances Fitzgerald