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Thank you for your interest and support.

Warmly,

Shodo Spring, for Mountains and Rivers Alliance

THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT?

WE LIVE IN DIFFICULT TIMES. How shall we meet them?

Last week there was an onslaught of events that lead to feeling hopeless. I wrote a list, didn’t want to start with it, then knew it was necessary. Skip it if you need.

• “The End Of The World As We Know It” was the phrase used by the usually cautious NPR as they talked about the retirement of Justice Kennedy and the U.S. Supreme Court becoming a 6-3 conservative majority.
• Also Thursday, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved a Certificate of Need for Line 3, in disregard of the overwhelming public opinion, the unanimous opposition of the four tribes directly affected, and the Department of Commerce position that Minnesota does not need it.
  • Background: Line 3 is aging and should be taken out of service. Among those who support pipelines, there is debate about replacing it in place versus building a new route. Among those concerned about climate change, it is clear that we need to end fossil fuels. That topic was not allowed into the room. The main room was filled with high school students, paid $30/hour by Enbridge to arrive early, get tickets, and sit there wearing pro-pipeline shirts. I was there Wednesday for a short while.

• The policy of separating small children from their families at the border was replaced by a policy of indefinite detention of those children with their families. The children already separated are being lost; families are often not reunited unless the adults agree to deportation – and, rumor has it, often not then.
  • Background: This is actually not new or unAmerican at all. Residential schools for decades tore children from the arms of their families, seeking to “kill the Indian, save the man.” Children died, or were irrevocably harmed. In slavery, children were routinely sold away from their parents. The Japanese internment camps imprisoned families together. We do not have a virtuous history. We have a history of genocide.
• Turning immigrants into felons is new. Many of them are actually refugees, from countries destabilized by wars or economic policies of this government, but there is essentially no legal path for refugees now – according to numerous reports of people who tried to enter legally.
• The Supreme Court approved Trump’s immigration ban, finding a way to pretend it wasn’t a Muslim ban. (The latest version included two extra countries that aren’t Muslim, and claimed to focus on screening procedures.)
• The Supreme Court supported a lawsuit against “fair share” union payments.
  • In this practice, nonunion members are required to pay a fee reflecting the benefits they get because unions negotiate contracts – not including any lobbying. The claims made (that those fees supported union political work) are blatant lies.
  • The difference in average wages between anti-union and pro-union states is $6000/year.
  • Incidentally, the IWW never participated in those agreements.
• Massive droughts are happening in food-raising parts of the country. In addition, as farmworkers are deported (or leave before deportation), there is nobody to harvest crops. We’ll be facing massive food shortages – for some of us that just means higher prices, for others it means hunger – and there’s no reason to think things will get better.
• Black people are being shot by police so fast I can’t keep up. I think there were two last week, and one of the shooters is being charged with murder. As a white person from northern Europe, I try to imagine if my grandchildren were targets in that way – never knowing if they would come home.
• The list of changes making their way through Congress is horrifying. Again, I can’t keep track. Attempts to destroy food stamps, Medicare, Social Security. Selling off national parks and lands to fossil fuel companies. Defunding and censoring science, particularly about climate change but also about guns, violence, health, and more. (I don’t have the heart to look up any more.)
• Five people shot at the Capitol Gazette – just more violence.

WHAT MUST WE DO?

I don’t have an answer. So here is what I’m doing, day by day.

• Working for money. I’m fortunate to have work I like, though I’d rather be a full-time Zen activist.
  
• Being with the land, including gardening, working with nursery plants, and occasionally spending time on the hill or by the river. It’s nourishing and also a place for learning, watching the habits of my mind as I seek control over invasive plants and animals. Who is the invader? I keep forgetting.
• Daily meditation and chanting, offering the energy of this person back into the universe. And receiving.
• Ordinary life – the truck needs to be fixed, the berries picked, dishes washed, all the rest.
• Relationships, taking care to be with friends, family, and others in a nourishing way. Resisting the slide into depression.
• Following news, sometimes analysis, often too much, but enough to still be aware and to consider responses.
• Tending the deeper thing, the matter of relationship with the life around me. There may come a time when I choose to be on the streets, or to risk arrest, or some other direct action. I do my best to be slow, centered, connected. Not well and not enough, but this is crucial.

Imagine living in a culture in which there was enough for everyone. Enough safety. Enough food, of good quality. Enough access to the natural world. Enough love.

On Saturday I went into the streets about immigration, with a couple hundred people in Northfield. Not liking protests, I thought that sometimes you just have to visibly say no – and that this is such a time. I’m encouraged by the tenor of that conversation – people recognized there’s something bigger here – and by the hundreds of thousands of people across the country who showed up in the street. If Trump was testing the waters to see how far he could go, he didn’t get an “all clear.”

I’m encouraged by some other things too:

• States, cities, and churches suing over these practices and others.
• The occasional court victory, such as the dismissal of cases against another 30 Standing Rock water protectors. However, if you don’t know about SLAPP suits, lawsuits brought for the purpose of chilling public participation, please read this for help understanding the nature of our society: https://anti-slapp.org/what-is-a-slapp/ Also consider that it’s considered a victory merely to be allowed to bring a suit, or to be allowed to present certain evidence, or to use a defense based on avoiding greater harm (such as climate change).
• Individual humans are risking death, getting hurt, being uncomfortable, spending months away from whatever their ordinary life was, commuting hundreds of miles to court dates which then get rescheduled repeatedly, spending weeks and months in jail – to temporarily hold off a wave of repression and permanent environmental degradation. I’m reminded of the little Dutch boy putting his finger in the dike: so small, so personally expensive – may it succeed.

• Cultural changes: In the water and land protection battles going on currently, it’s become standard practice for the indigenous groups to lead, for white-led groups to follow. As they/we should: White American culture is toxic.
• The ranks of small, organic, permaculture, sustainable or regenerative farmers are growing and growing, and organizing. This is relevant to food security, and also a matter of the cultural change so needed. I exist within this network of small farmers, though not actually farming.
• Religious organizations – conventional ones – are increasingly on the side of the oppressed, the the humans in need, the planet – Consider https://isaiahmn.org/ as one of many examples. They are remembering their origins. May it be so.

Martin Prechtel, in The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive. His teacher, at dying, sent him to the United States to keep the sacred seeds alive. Finally he writes: “For ever after that, the seeds I was trying to keep viable were no longer “my” seeds of the Seeds of Tzutujil spirituality, but the seeds that every citizen of the Earth has somewhere tucked away inside themselves, or outside in their lives, or somewhere in the ground, or lurking around the family baggage, or hidden in their bodies. In dreams or inexplicable proclivities, but always somewhere they never look or know anything about. These seeds were the seeds of that very precious thing we all have that contains embryonic caches of possible understandings of how to live ritually and intactly with an indigenous mind, seeds that have been bequeathed to us all from our own more intactly earth-rooted ancestral origins from millennia previous.

… But, how can we find our seeds if they are hidden in a place we know nothing about, a place we cannot see or touch without the indigenous ancestral mind? The truth is, the seeds do not need to be found because they are already found. We are the ones who need to be found, for the seeds are wherever we go….We have been adrift for four thousand years, floating on people-centered rafts of provisional civilizations that have convinced themselves they are the real thing and the cutting edge of human evolution… the spirits…are effortlessly coursing right along with us….trying their best to get our attention and tow us home to our real selves…while we drift along figuring that the anxiety of civilizations’ never-ending feeling of emergency is normal.”

“figuring that the anxiety of civilizations’ never-ending feeling of emergency is normal.” If that makes no sense to you – if the whole quotation makes no sense – you are normal in this culture. But if it calls to you, whether clearly or faintly, that is the action of the spirits trying “to get our attention and tow us home to our real selves.”

It is our real selves that will find a way. Please listen deeply within for your real self. And please listen outside as well, to the you that is in other people, in lands, in animals, in plants – everything around you is also your Self.

We live in difficult times. It is harder to find the joy in life – and always more essential.

BERRY EVENT: Still, life goes on. The plants don’t stop. I’m putting out an invitation for Saturday morning, July 7, 9-12 at the farm:

• We transplant lots of raspberry plants, and prune the ones that are left. We do this as friends of the berries, as spiritual practice.
  
• You can take as many plants as you want: black, red, and gold raspberries, and/or strawberries.
• Black raspberries are ripe and offered for your eating.

Temperature will be 70-77 degrees and sunny. RSVP for address, directions, and so I can expect you. Shodo.spring@gmail.com.  (“Maybe” is also helpful information.) Between Faribault and Northfield, MN.

MWA Newsletter June 10: Offering

OFFERING

The essential nature of life is offering. Some people, and some cultures, still know this. Modern Americans, not so much.

One of the first things that caught my attention in Zen practice was a meal chant which began, “Innumerable labors have brought us this food; we should know how it comes to us,” continued with “This food is for the Three Treasures”, for the four benefactors, and for all beings in the six worlds, and ended with “We eat this food with everyone. We eat to end all evil, to practice good, to save all sentient beings, and to accomplish the Buddha Way.”

I didn’t know anything about offering, but that chant included everything. And it told me I was in the right place, in a holy place, home. (The translation was changed decades ago, but these are the words that opened my heart.)

Martin Prechtel’s 2012 book The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The parallel lives of people as plants: keeping the seeds alive takes us into a world where the whole people know that way of offering, of responding to every single thing, every gift from the gods. He describes the offerings that must be made for something so simple as making a knife – the ore from the earth is just a beginning.

The American way of life sees everything around us as resources to be used for our own benefit. Martin refers to this way as hollow, stealing, empty, destructive – and observes that such a life results in destruction.

I wrote a little more here. And if you are nearby (southern Minnesota), I invite you to two occasions to study and practice the way of offering.

SUNDAY, JUNE 17, SUMMER SOLSTICE GATHERING

This happens in three parts; you may come to one or all, and friends are welcome. But please let me know…our address is 16922 Cabot Ave, Faribault, MN, and when you arrive you come to the house that looks like a barn (parking on the left).

• 2-4 pm: We will make an offering of physical work, restoring the forest while also making a path to the future meditation hut. This act of healing and nourishing is our offering to the land, and creating a sacred space opens a door to more offerings.
• 5 pm is a ceremony offering human gifts to what is larger than human. In other words, we will make beauty. Please bring offerings of songs, poems, material objects, adorning yourself – whatever feels appropriate to you. We’ll gather in a safe, accessible place, dedicate the space with our words, and allow ourselves to enter the way of offering.
• 6 pm (approximately) is a potluck supper. Please bring a dish to share. If you can’t bring something this time, please come anyway. And feel free to come even if you’re not feeling spiritual!

WEDNESDAY EVENING, JUNE 20, “ZEN AS RELIGION”

• 5:30-6 pm – sitting meditation with the Northfield Buddhist Meditation Center, 313 ½ Division Street (but enter off Washington from the parking lots)
• 6:10-8 pm – Talk and discussion:

This concludes the “Introduction to Zen” series, with a look at the chants and ceremonies, and a discussion of the classic question “Is Zen a religion? A philosophy? Or what?” (I promise there will not be an answer to the question.) We’ll particularly look at all of these things as the Zen style of making offerings.

And it concludes the Wednesday evening sittings. See below under Zen News.

FARM NEWS

We had a week-long volunteer, Celeste Pinheiro, who knows gardening and jumped right in. Thus we

The garden, after Celeste.

have some photos of how the garden looks afterward. She’s also an artist, and started work on a logo for us.

Last week my housemate TR asked if I had some work, on behalf of a college student friend. Well, Harry Edstrom came Wednesday afternoon and kept coming back through Saturday. On Friday Cassidy Carlisle came with him, and on Saturday Essam Elkorgle joined them.

So we have lots of things planted, big areas mulched, strawberries moved, trees in protective cages, and three tiny Korean nut pines safely in the ground. We also have another guest room! Funny how that happened: it was raining on Friday, so I asked Harry and Cassidy to do a very small painting job in the guest room. They liked it. It kept raining. I really, really wanted to get that place cleaned up. So they kept painting, I kept moving furniture so they could keep painting, and we wound up turning the junk room into a very nice space (photos!). The next day, with Essam, we moved furniture to turn it into a bedroom. Today Laurel Carrington (Buddhist center friend) promised to bring a real bed! I know some visitors will be very happy.

The most fun thing, unless it was transforming the basement, was working with the hand-powered two-person saw. Here’s a picture of Cassidy and Harry cutting wood with it.

ZEN NEWS

For a few years I’ve hosted a Zen group in Northfield, meeting two or three times a month, while carrying on a daily practice here at the farm (morning sitting and chanting, monthly retreats) and sometimes having Zen-practice visitors.

The Wednesday night group will end with the June 20 discussion. I’m hoping that people who want some form of Zen practice will contact me, and we’ll talk about what we want to do. Northfield has a very solid Buddhist presence, with sittings 6 days a week and monthly speakers, so nobody will be left hanging.

With the new guest room, the option of coming for retreats or longer practice opportunities is much improved. We also have a tent space in the nearby pines, created by Celeste.

ALLIANCE NEWS

We’re working on a better website, date some time this summer.

In mid-July I begin travels to visit some people, some of the mountains/waters members of the Alliance, and to attend a 2-week retreat at the Rocky Mountain Ecodharma Retreat Center. The first week will be just meditation together in the mountains, with a solo time outdoors; the second half will include conversation with other serious environmental activists and meditators. I’m really looking forward to this.

PERSONAL NEWS

I continue to offer psychotherapy services in Minneapolis, which is a lovely way to make a living and be able to support the Alliance. I am gradually shifting this work to an office in Northfield, which will be more convenient.

And that is all for now. Please be well and happy in every way.

Love,

Shodo Spring

MWA newsletter May 31, 2018

We look forward to a summer solstice celebration, Sunday June 17, in the spirit of gratitude for the gifts of the earth and making an offering in return. More information.

You’re invited to a gardening day Saturday, June 2, in the spirit of offering, of loving the land, of befriending our plant and earth neighbors – we’ll be planting vegetables, mulching, moving some berry plants. You may take home some strawberry or raspberry plants. Lunch is provided if you RSVP. Come any time 10-5!

 Journal: I’ve been thinking about chanting, what it is, what it means, and our whole relationship to the earth and beings around us. Read here.

News: This is brief; the more interesting things have gone to Journal and Study Group. But at the end of April I taught in Columbus, Ohio. There was a workshop on facing the coming challenges, and a day-long sitting focusing on basic Zen teachings. I look forward to returning. I spent five days studying with my teacher and two others, and came away feeling much nourished.

I’m continuing to work as a psychotherapist to support this work; now I see clients in Northfield and by “teletherapy.”

A week-long visitor, Celeste Pinhiero, is helping with the garden, camping in the pines, and bringing a wonderful energy, more land-based than I have ever been – and bringing in new flowers, tidying, sitting with me in the mornings. Susan Schoenberg visited for a day and hopes to return. T.R. McKenzie still lives here, works full time but we manage occasional fruitful conversations.

Plans for the summer include a month-long journey, centered around a two-week meditation and activism retreat in Colorado. Plus more time with the land, and continuing the deeper work of studying what it is I have to offer. Writing will not be happening so fast.

There are still spaces for short visits for practice, work, and Dharma conversation.

Please keep this work in your heart. And write if you wish.

Warmly,

Shodo

 

P.S. Study group entry – What do you love?

I just wanted to invite you to look at the new writing. These will be about once a week, and will not have notifications except through the monthly newsletter (until we get the new website).

MWA April newsletter: A thousand true fans

Mountains and Waters Alliance newsletter: April 7, 2018

The newsletter will include an essay, upcoming events, and major future events. I’d like to highlight two events: April 27-29 weekend in Columbus, and Land care retreat May 25-28.

Please see new thoughts at “Journal”, which includes ramblings, responses to things in the news, links, and miscellaneous – unedited.

“Study Group” will offer thoughts and support for living the conscious, engaged life as part of the family of life.

Neither will have notifications at this time. At the moment there are new writings in Journal.

A Thousand True Fans

This is an ask for money. It’s hard for me to do, but if I don’t ask you will never know.

The article was written for artists, who are famous for not having enough money. It proposed that rather than trying to make it big, an artist could survive with 1000 true fans – people who went to every concert or bought everything you produced. The idea was that such fans spend about one day’s income per year on your work. If that amount is $100, you have an excellent income.

My adaptation of it is like this: Instead of chasing foundation grants, which takes a lot of time and produces usually nothing, I’ve chosen to earn a living – which takes a lot of time and produces enough to live but not enough to move forward with the Alliance.

I’m inviting you to offer support to the Alliance, at whatever level would feel good to you. You can donate yearly, monthly, even daily. You can donate $5, $10, $100, $1000, any amount. Fees are small. There are over 200 subscribers to this blog; I don’t know many of you or even why you’re here. But if 20 people chose to donate one day’s income per year, and you averaged $36,500 income, I would have $2000, which would cover Internet fees, brochure printing, the accountant, and some more. If 200 people donated $20 per year, I would have $4000 and could actually move forward slowly. 200x$50 and I can go back to full time Alliance work – or we can pay our debts or something.

There are lots of other kinds of support (ask me, especially if you are good at internet stuff) but this is for people are short on time – perhaps for all those of you who send something every time I ask – would you consider making a commitment? Go here for more information or to make that donation. Here are some ways we would like to spend it:

• Internet access, phone use, travel for meetings/teaching/study, printing brochures.

• Growing food sustainably, restoring the land

• Turning the farm into a gathering place; making it a place for residential practice

• Repaying loans, beginning with the solar panel loan, then the loans from people, last loans from me.

So that’s it. I’m asking you for financial help if it works for you. The energy is growing, and I’m doing my best to give it what space I can.

Meanwhile at the farm – we have maple syrup and box elder syrup (this is less time-extravagant if we cook it inside on the propane stove; we are making vinegar from apples, pears, strawberries, pineapples, and pretty much anything that comes by, and drinking it for health and taste. “We” means me and T.R., a friend who is staying for several months. A different “we” is me and Perry, doing nursery plant stuff because he knows how to grow and also to sell. We’ll have more plants and hopefully some income. I’m trying to save my time for the deeper spiritual work, but the land tempts. We’re below freezing and snow-covered at the moment. Like lots of places. Climate change!

I hope you are all well.

Love,

Shodo

APRIL:

• April 15 MWA potluck day including work 2-4, ritual 5-6, potluck supper and gathering

• April 21 FARM 12-3 grafting workshop with Sarah Claasen, registration required, fee, two spots left.

• April 21 FARM all day work day (might go to Earth Day celebrations late afternoon, might keep grafting until dark)

• April 18 ZEN 6:10 Intro to Zen “What’s it good for?” – Northfield Buddhist Meditation Center.

• 27-29 ZEN and MWA – Shodo is teaching in Columbus, OH. Friday evening workshop, Saturday morning sitting and discussion, Sunday all-day sitting with 2 pm talk. For more information contact Don Brewer.

MAY:

• May 2 ZEN no gathering

• May 1-5: studying with my teacher in Bloomington, Indiana.

• May 16 ZEN 6:10 Intro to Zen – “Spiritual community” – Northfield Buddhist Meditation Center.

• May 18 FARM all day work day

• May 19 MWA potluck day including work 2-4, ritual 5-6, potluck supper and gathering

• May 25-28 MWA Land Care Retreat – includes meditation, work as practice, dharma talks and discussions, community building.

2018:

Silent retreats are held almost monthly. If you would like to come to one of these, please contact Shodo directly. An Intro to Zen retreat will be arranged when there are a few requests.

• Midsummer: I will be traveling to Colorado and could arrange to be available in Colorado, northern New Mexico, and points along the way from Minnesota.

• Late September: I will be in upstate New York and could arrange to be available.

• October 26-28: Land care retreat – same as May

• For Zen and farm events, see here.

Mountains and Waters Alliance newsletter: March 12, 2018

We’ll begin with a few event announcements, then continue with guidance – this time, an introductory essay.

Events

Retreats in Minnesota:

May 25-28: Land care retreat – includes meditation, work as practice, dharma talks and discussions, community building.

October 26-28: Land care retreat.

To be determined: Intro to Zen retreat – a full day at the farm, or a half day in Northfield.

Silent retreats are on the calendar, not shown here.

Travel & Teaching:

April 27-29: Teaching in Columbus, Ohio.

Midsummer: I will be traveling to Colorado and could arrange to be available in Colorado, northern New Mexico, and points along the way from Minnesota.

Late September: I will be in upstate New York and could arrange to be available.

For farm events including workshops, volunteer days, and potlucks, please see the calendar.

For local Zen teaching schedule, please see the same calendar.

Guidance

We’ll begin with a few words on what Buddhist practice means, as a foundation for more later.

For me, Buddhist practice is about living as part of the earth, fully sustained and embraced in joy.

Usually we think of Buddhism as a philosophy – intellectual, disembodied – or a religion. “Religion” might actually fit, if we understand it correctly. It’s based on Latin words meaning “respect for the sacred” or “reconnecting with the gods,” and until the 1500’s religion was not separate from secular life – even in Europe.

Buddhism calls us back to the ancient or indigenous way of relating to the world and to the sacred. It asks us to let go of these ways of life and thought that have been trained into us from birth: humans as special, nature as resource, greed and hate as normal. In Buddhism, greed, hate, and the sense of separation are called the Three Poisons. They’re not natural at all, but it’s difficult to become free of them because of long training and the incessant harping of industrial civilization.

The way Life actually works is that each one of us is created by everything around us, past and present, and we in turn give life to everything else, present and future. We are a speck on the wave of Life, never lonely while in a way profoundly alone.

Knowing this is freedom. We can drop our burdens, whether those burdens are saving the planet or making a successful career. Life takes care of itself. Our job as individuals is to respond to the movement of Life in and around us. This requires dropping ingrained beliefs, which is why Buddhist practice can be arduous: before we can respond to Life we must be able to see/hear/feel it. Fortunately, even a glimpse is enlivening and energizing, and glimpses are common.

This way is joyful. Its hope is not the hope that something will change, but hope that embraces things as they are, joins with them enthusiastically, and responds in kind, with gratitude, creating resiliency without expectation.

This way is open to anyone who wants it.

Mountains and Waters Alliance – commentary and our news

We live in difficult times. Words fail. 2018 has seen seven significant school shootings in 55 days. For the moment, I am chanting on behalf of Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg, Cameron Kasky, Jaclyn Corin, Alfonso Calderon, Sara Chadwick, founders of the Never Again movement. If you pray in any way, I invite you to join me in supporting these young leaders as they call us to take our children’s lives seriously.

We need to look deeply into the nature of our society. Why are we the only country on earth with this problem of mass shootings including children? It has something to do with our attitude toward guns, yet there’s more: 50 or 150 years ago guns were ordinary and mass shootings were unthinkable.

I’m looking at two long essays that describe how we got here. The first is a 2001 interview with Martin Prechtel, offering a completely different way of relating to the world. The second is notes on the concept of wetiko, described in Jack Forbes’ Columbus and Other Cannibals, and elaborated though not named in Kirkpatrick Sale’s The Conquest of Paradise. Both point to a profound dysfunction in society, and Prechtel makes it clear how this leads to destroying our own selves.

My question, and the business of the Alliance, is how we change this in ourselves and in the broader culture. For our own survival, it needs to change. I’m not yet ready to write, but will. Meanwhile, praying for the leaders, and doing my best to carry out the work that has called me, which faces and addresses the nature of our shared mind. Yes, it’s about climate change. It’s also about who we are.

Looking for those who are called to this same work

Everything I want to say is on this website page. Very briefly, if you feel like this work is your work, join this community for support in action, by becoming a member. If you would like to offer financial support there’s a discussion at the bottom of the page, and a link for single or repeat donations of any size. 

We’re quitting email lists in favor of blog posts. If you’re not already signed up, please go to the lower right corner of the page and “follow.” (If you can’t find it, email me and I’ll set you up.)

The blog will be more active, probably weekly. It will include events, essays, and teaching – guidance in ways to participate in this work. I’m gradually adding more information in other pages, and will announce when a new page is ready. Hoping to create a sort of library.

The 2018 schedule of events is coming soon, including farm retreats, Zen sesshins, potlucks and workdays – if you’re in the area, I hope you’ll come. If you’d like to spend time at the farm, please contact me. (A few items: next potluck is Sunday March 19, honoring the spring equinox; Intro to Zen class in Northfield, third Wednesdays at 6:10 pm through June; orchard grafting workshop Saturday morning April 14.)

And personal notes: we’re having winter storms, my car is snowed in, the house is comfortable, a second resident is in a try-out period, and my psychotherapy practice is going well.

Warmly and with thanks,

Shodo

Year-end letter from Mountains and Waters Alliance

Yesterday morning I was moved to offer prayers for calming the wildfires. What took me so long, I don’t know. My attention was on California and South Dakota, but I tried to include everywhere – and today learned about the New Mexico blaze. And I kept thinking of “the fires of war” raging alongside of physical fires. Seeing too many pictures from Gaza. So this morning I offered prayers for “peace with dignity for all.”

What do I mean by prayer? Well, nearly every morning I sit in meditation and follow it with chanting; the chanting is dedicated for the benefit of all beings and a whole list of specifics. I’ve written about that before. After that, I do an energy healing practice adapted from David Lasocki’s work:

Mentally invoke a powerful healing vortex. Strengthen and heal myself, then name a topic. What I did today was this:

Wrote: “Peace with dignity for all.” Underlined it and made a big circle. In the circle wrote supporting factors, as they were given to me. This was the list:

• Zen ancestors and all deities (my religion and others)
• Mountains and Waters Alliance members, and the entire earth
• the entire human species
• all sentient beings (includes animals, plants, and I don’t know)
• all place spirits in the world (Many religions, including Zen, acknowledge local place spirits)
• dispelling the demons of fear and hate
• calming greed for power, possessions, and fame
• Jesus and love (Who better expresses love?)

Then, mentally, I strengthened each one on the list, and their relationships with each other in twos, threes, and so forth. Continued until intuition said finished.

I started writing this letter at the full moon of December, 2017. The moon was brilliant. Since then, sun and moon together have been sliding gently toward the dark. Except for the quietness, it feels like a match for the state of the world: colder, harder, as the actions of “our” government instigate fear and disgust while relentlessly removing human rights and waging war on the natural world including many humans. I’m personally privileged and not much a target in this war, yet. Still, a part of me thinks my primary safety is in the land, the orchard, and the seeds – and in people. Not in laws, elections, governments, and the like, though I dare not ignore them. None of which means I assume I will survive when/if things get hard.

Daniel Quinn, in Ishmael, wrote about two kinds of peoples. One knows the difference between good and evil. The other lives in the hands of the gods. I wish to be one of the latter, but am not. I recall Einstein’s question: “Is the world a friendly place, or not?” My childhood answer was “the natural world yes, humans not” is still strong in me, even in my rational adult mind.

Yes, there have been terrible natural disasters this year, and many we haven’t even noticed. Puerto Rico is still too much without safe water and electricity, and damages to nearby islands are invisible to us in the U.S. Mudslides, floods, earthquakes, droughts, starvation, refugees – only the human response is visible. The last round of wildfires started after I first wrote, and they’re getting attention. Meanwhile the Oval Office provides a circus complete with death-defying acts, while Congress quietly removes civil rights and transfers money from poor to rich. It doesn’t look good.

Except for points of light here and there, acts of kindness, bursts of creativity. And except for a growing resistance to imperialism, to colonization, to oligarchy, to empire – most recently in the #metoo upwelling, but also Black Lives Matter, the indigenous-led pipeline resistance, and more. Here and there court decisions favor people and land: An Oregon judge allowed Our Children’s Trust to sue the federal government for their “constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property” about environmental harm. https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/us/federal-lawsuit/; a Minnesota court allowed the “necessity defense” for some peaceful water protectors https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/10/17/victory-valve-turners-judge-allows-necessity-defense-climate-trial; finally a court sentenced a police officer to prison for shooting an unarmed black man in the back during a routine traffic stop. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html

More people are speaking in defense of the future, and a little support is showing in low and middle levels of government. There are elections next year and some dream of change. The future is not set.

Mountains and Waters Alliance in 2017

Here at Mountains and Waters Alliance, at Mountains and Waters Farm, we’re seeking to face this situation wholeheartedly and fearlessly. Our premise is that humans are not the only conscious beings, nor are we the only power. We are not alone in our wish to protect the living earth, in our intention to clean up our mess, our will for life to flourish. But as the ones who have done the damage, we need to abandon the colonial mindset and join with the other beings of the earth.

Our will is to listen to those other beings, to become their allies, and together to protect all of us. The whole thing began for me in 2015 when I walked the hillside here asking earth, trees, shrubs, and waters to protect this place from development – and felt their response. In 2016 flowers, trees, and mountains spoke to me during a retreat, and they have not stopped. In summer 2017 an ancient carving on an old hill said to me, “We’ve got it covered. We don’t need your help.” It turned my world upside down. I went home to lie in bed sick for a month, wondering what was left for me, this person, and all of us, to do.

waterfall spirit

at the conference

Amitabha Buddha

The one that spoke

The answer, of course, has not changed, though my identity as a change-maker has to go. My role now is to be part of that “we’ve got it covered” – neither to rest nor to take center stage, but to carry the task allotted me, which seems to be to keep talking and listening with beings of the earth, and to encourage other humans to join me. The morning “prayers” are the steady action, and the meditation is essential both as action and as sustenance.

(Meditation as action? In meditation, we withdraw attention from the workings of the world, and let everything rest. This is an action – call it a strike if you want. I withdraw energy from the workings of greed, anger, and ignorance, stop imagining that I’m a separate being, and allow the movement of the universe to go forward. Others have very different parts – from active resistance to running for office to growing food, caring for children, everything imaginable.)

Other events have shaken my identities as well. At the Sakyadhita (Daughters of Buddha) conference in Hong Kong (a major decision to travel so far; many of you helped that happen) I discovered how far my American Zen priest life is from the life of most Buddhist nuns, my commitment much less tangible than theirs, the freedom and joy equal. I received donations from lay people for no reason than being a nun – an amazing and moving thing every time. The world of Buddhism is amazing; I had a one week immersion, then went to the mountains and then returned to American culture.

A very important new thing is the monthly meetings of the Advisory Council. Five amazing wise and powerful people offer support, challenge me to stay focused, help with decisions – and edit my writing, remind me of the purpose, and let me know that this matters. They give me the confidence to move forward.

This year has been very much about personally slowing down, learning to actually take this work seriously and not jump at every other service opportunity. To believe my own vision, which fits neither mainstream politics nor frontline resistance, is a challenge. This work is quiet. It is intimate. And it is deeply connected with all the others. I feel special affinity for indigenous protection groups, for Climate Disobedience Group, and for the Women’s Congress for Future Generations. Every time an invitation comes up, at least daily, I have to ask myself whether to participate, and how. In 2017 I testified at pipeline hearings in Minnesota, but did not go to the resistance camp http://peaceatstandingrock.com/camp-makwa/. I went to the Women’s Congress and decided to participate in a small way, http://sehn.org/guardianship-of-future-generations/. I wrote about this work in an anthology by Soto Zen women priests, and have more writing and speaking to do.

I continue to teach Zen in Northfield, http://northfieldmeditation.org/upcoming-events-2/, but little else in this quiet year. Some visitors, some conversations with possible residents, taking up part time employment (https://www.therapy-mn.com/team-member/shodo-spring/), and taking care of the land. Learning patience, I remind myself of the Zen ancients who went to the mountains and decades later the students appeared. More patience please!

Last but central: in addition to daily sitting, chanting, and sending healing energy, I’m trying to go out on the land, to listen, to care, to be in relationship with it. The warm fall was a blessing, allowing me to be easily outside long after snow would usually come. We kept having one more warm day exactly when we had a group coming to work outdoors. And now it’s snowy and cold.

The Farm

November 2017 birds flocking

Sunset east November 2017

Sunset Nov 27 2017

Alternative post hole digging – December 2017

Creek today (12/15/17)

Living on this land continues to be a miracle. I look for people who will make it theirs as well, put their dreams into it as mine are. In spring Perry and Amanda showed up, planted some things, found mushrooms, disappeared to earn money, and came back in the fall. In fall, anticipating an income, I hired Ryan for farm work, and quickly came to appreciate his intuitive permaculture understanding. So we mended the driveway culvert, protecting it from the next floods, using only what we had on hand (and shovels and a chain saw). He’s growing mushrooms here, will be back in the spring. Nick and Chris came around and left, local young volunteers, and a couple of groups of college students came for projects. We took on the outrageous project of building a deer fence for the orchard, using stakes, rebar, and T-posts (see pictures). The hard part is done.

And because while walking on the hill I got a strong urge to build a meditation hut up there, I invented a monthly potluck gathering with 2 hours of work dedicated to that, or to other spiritual, joyful non-emergency projects.

Reaching Out/Looking Forward

There are two directions. One is deepening, the other broadening. So while I continue to do my own spiritual work for the sake of the whole, there’s also an invitation outward. Early next year we’ll be offering membership in Mountains and Waters Alliance. Let me start now with a brief overview.

• The core of membership is about being active in this alliance of many beings, and connected with each other. As we work this out, I’ll offer some suggestions for solo or group awareness practices, and will be available for support as you explore what this means for you. That exploration could happen here at the farm, or wherever you are. For those able to come here, there are retreats and short or long term residence is also possible.
• There’s also volunteer help of many kinds – from farm work to Internet help to food prep, audio editing to construction work to volunteer coordination – your skills are welcome, or simply your energy and willingness.

Donations: Things require money. Right now, Mountains and Waters Alliance is a guest at Shodo’s home. It pays for Internet, paid the bulk of the solar panels, and not much else unless there’s travel to do for teaching or learning. To be more active will involve more money.

• If you would like to make a year-end donation, please do so here.

 And what can we offer in appreciation? The most important thing is to be a part of this work for the benefit of all beings. Some additional things would include being part of creating the farm as a sanctuary for many, a residence for some; making this your spiritual home; - creating a counterpart wherever you are, in community together. Last, we can create an online community where we encourage each other, foster creativity, share ideas, possibly have world-linking ceremonies and events, and relate to other communities of similar heart. 

Thank you to everyone who has supported this work in the past – the Sakyadhita trip, the solar panels, and everyone who just sent or handed a check without even being asked. This inspires. As it inspires to have partners, allies in the work, mentors, supporters of all kinds.

Closing

May you be at ease, joyful and at peace.

May you be safe physically and mentally.

May you be protected from natural disaster, war, epidemic, and hunger. May you have work that gives meaning. May you love and be loved. May you be unafraid.

May you find yourself completely at home in this world, with our great and wide family of conscious beings.

With deep respect and love,

Shodo Spring

Farm news

It’s mid-summer. We started strong, selling extra strawberry plants and a few raspberry starts, planting a garden, putting in some mushroom patches. John Hatch brought a barrel of biochar and a pint of wood vinegar, with instructions, and I used some of each. I set up a watering system, to water plants every day, and John came out and watered them and the house plants. Perry Post, who has dreams for this land, did a lot of work on the things mentioned above, then got busy at home. I went away to the conference – in midsummer: what kind of farmer does that? When I came back the critters had eaten most of the plants I’d started near the house, and reed canary grass was stronger than anything.

Fast forward: some watering, some weeding. Few tomatoes (too close to the box elder, maybe?), many black raspberries, and some red and yellow ones. The strawberries are starting their second round. There are more vegetables near the house than I thought. I’m trimming back the raspberries. AND…..

DEER FENCE TIME. Of all the essential things to do, I picked the deer fence because the deer really like to eat our

the prototype

little trees. Copying the one built by Peter and Keith, my permaculture teachers. I spent an afternoon with Nick, experimenting and planning. Then two days with students from the Heart of the Heartland program – they spent six weeks learning about small farms, having workshops and working on farms. They’re in the photo, and they were really a lot of fun. (On the rainy day they also cleaned my barn/garage, which desperately needed it.

DEER FENCE SATURDAY AUGUST 5. We have a half day, 1-5, to continue building the deer fence. It would be really wonderful to finish it – many hands and all that.

students and fence

Building the orchard fence, July 2017

If you have questions, call me at 507-384-8541 or email me at shodo.spring@gmail.com. If you know you want to come, just tell me – the same way, or by signing up on the Facebook event page.