Violence – and diet…..
Yesterday, November 17th, a friend as well as a former employee called from across the continent. We talked for quite a while. During the conversation, he mentioned that he believed that I hadn’t been happy with him when he last lived and worked here because he wasn’t vegan. He told me that it takes some time to “digest” the information regarding the health effects of a vegan diet vis-à-vis the animal based American diet. He said that I had time to understand all of this but he hadn’t had enough time. He was wrong. First, I wasn’t disappointed that he had not become vegan. I knew that he didn’t understand. Second I hadn’t become vegan for physical health at all. I told him that it was a simple change: Twenty-four...
Our Passion: Creating an Evocative Destination
Joan and I have been innkeeping for 34 years. The average length of time in this business for “owner-innkeepers” used to be 7 years and we are certain that we have raised that average. We remain innkeepers because we are essentially educators – in the truest sense of the word. The word educate is related to educere in Latin – “to lead out” or to “evoke.” We are evokers – at least Joan is – I might be more a provoker. The inn is our “campus” and every guest room, common rooms, the gardens, and the river are classrooms. Text books are our newsletter and the books that we offer for sale or inspiration (usually inspiring guests to order from Barnes and Noble, Borders, Amazon or, better, their...
Remembering BS Sessions
Not long ago I found a paper I wrote with a friend while we were at the University of Manitoba. I was taking every undergraduate class in anthropology in order that I could enter graduate school the following term. I already had a BA in economics and had only taken one general anthro course. My friend, Nelson Jones, was finishing his undergraduate degree in architecture and this was a project for one his classes. In any case, it presaged many of the changes I later experienced. Sharing the common ecstasy must go further than sharing emotional time with fellow men, for ecstasy requires the deep appreciation of man and his relation to the planet upon which he lives. This is awareness of a fuller extent: Once man is able to share, once each individual is fully...
Home and Canadian Health Care
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...
Musings on the Road to Winnipeg – Happiness and Expectations
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...
A Question of Justice – Juvenile Justice Gone Awry
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...
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