The Stanford Inn by the Sea - Eco-Lodge & Retreat Center

Where else can it be?

In my last writing I noted the explosion of life in Manitoba - here's a field of canola:

And here are Dana's gardens at the Stanford Inn - she planted wildflowers, where last was a 4-H project - now in summer hiatus.

Nature in explosions of color is happiness. And nature is in continuous change - which is what I wrote about earlier in "The Weather". And embracing change, which is our very nature, is embracing our life and for the I Ching's "superior" man (or woman) leads to success/happiness. But the I Ching guidance is far stronger - embracing our lives is success. And sometimes one has to cross the great river to get to that realization - to that success. We are lucky. Here, in Matlock, the great river is the Red River and in Mendocino it is the Big River. So near and so meaningful.

I am on "vacation" and my ordinary days are broken by this interval which allows time to contemplate the nature of life and in particular the nature of my own life. Everything is "grist" for this mill of contemplation. And what I notice is that this process is identical to that 35 years ago in this very place.

I go away from home to come home. It doesn't have to be Matlock. It can be in a hotel in Scottsdale or Phoenix during a break with Alex to catch a few of the Giant's spring training games. Or, I don't have to leave at all - there is the mental space of the morning in our own bedroom in the Barn after Joan has gone down to feed Murphy - while Gypsy waits for me before getting-up.

These moments are precious and they are bracing, or embracing. And here is joy.

Our daughter forwarded us an editorial in The New York Times on juvenile justice in the United States "12 and in Prison" that notes that trying juveniles as adults is "terrible public policy." Children sentenced as adults are more likely to become repeat violent offenders and The New York Times calls for Congress to cause the States "to simply end these inhumane practices to be eligible for federal juvenile justice funds." The editorial could more simply advocate putting "justice" back into the nation's juvenile justice system.

This summer our daughter, a law student at New York University, interned in New Orleans helping represent children caught in the city's juvenile justice system. Some of the stories she tells are horrendous - there's a culture of violence in New Orleans that is difficult to understand and accept. Kids have access to guns; young teenagers steal cars, sell drugs, commit armed robberies, and worse. Police stop children without apparent cause. They use vehicles to knock kids off their bikes - bikes are often used as getaway vehicles. There are horrible stories and there are two sides. But what I got from her stories is that the kids do not expect justice and have an attitude that what they do doesn't matter because they will be hassled anyway and the police, in a similar mind-set, suspect that most children in certain areas are engaged in some criminal activity.

Kate believes in Justice with a capital "J" and she did not go to New Orleans with a mindset that the justice system is broken. She was however in the midst of it and I wasn't happy that she saw the underside of American Life. It sucks, to put it bluntly. It is sad that lives are lost either literally or figuratively.

In its op-ed, The New York Times sites a study by Michele Deitch of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin From Time Out to Hard Time - Young Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System. Deitch begins her study with the case of pre-teen Christopher Pittman who suffered from depression and was placed on Paxil. When his doctor ran out of the drug, the doctor gave a sample package of Zoloft. Immediately, relatives noticed a change in behavior. Trying to control the boy, his grandparents, threatened to paddle him. Later Christopher killed them in their sleep with a shotgun that had been a gift from his father and set fire to their house. The South Carolina juvenile justice system tried him as an adult. The case was complex due to the use of Zoloft and this child, who was 12 at the time of the murders and who had no history of delinquency, was sentenced to 30 years in jail with no chance of parole.

In South Carolina as in other states, fighting crime has become political with the result that our justice system is punitive and not reformative. And in many areas the juvenile justice system is nothing more than a juvenile control system.

How do we change all this? Kate knew of the inadequacies of our justice system and she chose to intern at Juvenile Regional Services in New Orleans, an overworked underfunded agency to help defend children caught in the system. In one of the cases she was assigned she was able to do the research, meet with the 14 year old client who was in jail, write arguments and working with the lead attorney, help prove the evidence to be insufficient and tainted. NYU paid her to do this work - about 1/10 the amount many interns receive in our corporate law firms. One case and there's many more. In the case of Christopher Pittman, the University of Texas study notes that "Christopher is believed to be serving the longest sentence in the country, if not the world, for a crime committed at such a young age."

The implications of recent research into the adolescent brain is striking. The American Bar Association's Juvenile Justice System reported in Cruel and Unusual Punishment The Juvenile Death Penalty - Adolescence, Brain Development and Legal Culpability sites research by Elizabeth Sowell, UCLA, that frontal lobe is the last to develop and even though adolescents are fully capable in other areas, they cannot reason as well as adults. The brain continues to develop into the early 20's. The report notes that the frontal lobe governs judgment, impulsivity, future planning, "foresight of consequences," that make people "morally capable" and notes further that "age 21 or 22 would be closer to the 'biological' age of maturity." (Dr. Ruben C. Gur, neuropsychologist and Director of the Brain Behavior Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania quoted in "Cruel and Unusual Punishment..." )

You can help by supporting organizations such as the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana whose mission is "to transform the juvenile justice system into one that builds on the strengths of young people, families and communities in order to instill hope and to ensure children are given the greatest opportunities to grow and thrive."

Stay mindful with regard to justice - advocate for district attorneys and judges who themselves are advocates for juvenile justice, who believe in redemption and are willing to work for it. I am not advocating that we "go easy" - I believe that we must extend a hand that is both firm and fair. Minimally, I advocate for treating children whose minds are not developed as beings in need of our assistance.

Gypsy and Joan, August 3, 2009, at Matlock, Manitoba.

For those following Gypsy's story, here he is at the Lake not shown is his extended Manitoba family. He's a happy boy!

The other day, on the way to Winnipeg to pick-up Kate, Joan and I talked about the nature of "happiness."

We began by trying to define happiness. I remembered my work more than 30 years before and that for one to perceive they are happy, they must abide in unhappiness - this is dualism - more specifically the binary nature of knowing, which Alan Watts called "Zero One Amazement" for its power to evoke a peak conscious state. In order for happiness to be explicitly known, we have to know unhappiness. This "unhappiness" is tacit - held within consciousness - and is subjective. In the act of knowing, "happiness" is objectified and in a sense exteriorized.

Thus, if we are happy, are we aware of it? To know happiness is one thing, to be happiness - that is, in a state of happiness, is something entirely different. Simply - happiness exists when we are unaware of it - when we are engaged and present in our life, in whatever we are doing. The paradox is that when we reflect on happiness in the stream of consciousness happiness becomes inextricably tied-to unhappiness. Considerations arise, I am not good enough, this job is beneath me, I am on the wrong track.

Joan and I thought about our friends, particularly those we experience as "happy." We could not remember them mentioning that they were happy. We remebered them talking about the work they do, ideas, the latest research in something that they are interested in. We couldn't remember anyone saying, "Oh, yes! I am happy!" or "I'm a happy camper." But we certainly know others who tell us that they are unhappy and then recite what they are unhappy about and why. We recognized ourselves in both groups - in the "happy" but seemingly unconcerned about happiness camp and the "unhappy" and very much aware of unhappiness camp.

Talking about ourselves we realized that generally we aren't concerned about being happy....we rarely think about it, perhaps because we are busy with the Inn and our extended family. But does that mean that we are happy? And we wondered, what is the state when unconcerned about happiness? Joan explained that she didn't think about happiness: that her experience was engagement in whatever she was doing.

"Doing," is the key. We knew we might become unhappy when we thought about what we were doing. If what we are doing is something we want to do - and others would want us to do, then there's no problem. But when we think about what we are doing and believe we should be doing something else, there is dissonance and its partner unhappiness.

When we think about what we are doing, we can alter the nature of the experience by coming into conflict with it: the conflict arising between what we are doing and what we think we should be doing. The should arises from ideas we have regarding the importance and value of particular activities.

What blocks the experience of happiness is actually thought - thought in regard to assessing one's state. If I ask, is this job good enough for me, am I fulfilling myself, etc., how do I find the answer? I compare what I am doing with what I think I should be doing - based on what my expectations are for myself, or just as likely, what my parents expected, or Joan expects. These expectations are powerful. They are at the core of our identity - not who we really are, but who we think we should be, or our parents, educators, significant others think we should be.

And expectations prevent me from simply embracing my experience. Expectations block happiness. And the most paradoxical expectation is that I must always be happy!

However, expectations are helpful - guiding. We must be mindful of them - aware of their power, their driving force. And we must observe them, as they come to awareness - not judging, condemning, simply seeing them and learning as we do that in the very act of observing we free ourselves from their hold and "self" becomes more vibrant. And we become more spontaneous - acting without conditions, without expectation. It is in this action without condition that love arises. And with love happiness is moot.

Awoke this morning after a very short night (didn't get to bed until 4:00 AM). A raven called out. There were no other birds announcing their presence. I looked out over the pastures - brown and dry, dust rising up from the horses' slow walk to find grass. Mendocino is in the midst of the dry season and our fall-winter-spring visitors, killdeer, robins, redwing black birds, are gone. There are plenty of human visitors escaping inland's heat, exploring the California Coast, and/or just getting away from home, here, now.

Our vacation was wonderful: North America is magnificent - whether the plains relieved only by rivers cutting through the otherwise flat land; grain silos and trees; rolling prairies; mountains; or the coast. We discovered incredible restaurants in unexpected places. For example, a couple of Thai restaurants one in a remodeled KFC in Winnipeg's Osborne district and another in a storefront in a small mall in Billings, Montana were exceptional not only making our list of good restaurants, they are first and second of all Thai restaurants we have experienced from coast to coast.

We kept-up on the news - particularly the debate over health care. Canada's healthcare system is not perfect, but it is being misrepresented. We asked about our friends' experiences and no one had a horror-story - all were appreciative of the care they have received.

For example, in Manitoba, we spent time with a great family - a couple in their mid- thirties with a one year old girl. The father is still recovering from major brain surgery and before that radiation. In 2007 he was diagnosed with a small cell cancer. He almost immediately began radiation treatments at a specialty institution in Toronto, where he doesn't live. He and his family live in Winnipeg. Later he had surgery in Winnipeg and is now going through rehab there. His experience is in stark contrast to the experience claimed by the Ontario woman who had a non-malignant cyst near or perhaps on her optic nerve.

By the way, our friend (and relative) has been out of work for over a year because of the severity of the disease. His wife does work and he is now re-entering the workplace working part time for the company where he was working when he was diagnosed. The point is that the system in Canada provided for his treatment and recovery without bankrupting him and/or his family (his parents who would have helped financially if it had been necessary).

On the other side of the debate, Joan's mom had cataracts. She was not able to arrange to have surgery before her eyesight deteriorated to the point where, first, she didn't believe she saw well enough to drive and, second, she lost confidence that she could see traffic well enough to cross a busy street. We urged her to get the surgery as soon as possible, however there were not enough practitioners in Winnipeg and appointments were granted to the "worst first." The quality of her life deteriorated and even after surgery, she did not fully return.