From William Mutch for Transition Cafe Nov 3, 2017:

Funny, this morning, during my sit, I watched two Coyotes frolicking just feet from a day-bedding Buck. I’ve seen Coyotes and Deer close to each other, before, but that’s the first time I’ve seen a Deer so composed about a major predator hanging out while he was relaxing. Perhaps they had eaten recently, and he could smell that or see it in their body language? One of my housemates just found some Deer legs down in the Oak grove we are stewarding, so one would think the Deer would be aware of the Coyotes as a threat. I wonder how often Coyotes actually kill adult Deer, in this area. Maybe they mostly scavenge from Feline predators? Anyway…

It is that time of the year, again, when we get to welcome our departed family, friends, and random party-crashers into our homes, celebrate their lives, remember their deaths, wish them well until next year, and perhaps contemplate our own mortality in the process. …or just dress up in costumes and go neighborhood-hopping, hitting up the houses with the best loot, and forgetting that someday we, too, will get to melt into the ground, or leave our bodies “forever” …whichever… (and yes, I know that this is highly culture-specific, with different cultures celebrating their Days of the Dead at different times of the year…(see last year’s writings on this))

If the latter, enjoy the fallout from that evening, and take care of those teeth. If the former, whether you do the whole thing, or some part of it, what is that like for you? What is it like for you to read that, whether you believe in that sort of thing, or not?

Interestingly, there have been some (many?) cross-cultural studies on bereavement, and it seems that those who have a continuing, evolving relationship with the departed become the most emotionally-healthy, going forward. To clarify:

Some folks force themselves to “move on” from the departed, whether or not they believe in an afterlife, on the grounds that they “shouldn’t” hold on, either for their health or for that of their departed loved one.

Some folks remember the departed the way they were the last time they saw them “alive”, as a “snapshot” of who they were.
Some folks continue to relate to that static image, as if their loved one “stopped”, right then.

For some, the relationship with their departed loved one continues to grow, mature, evolve, as it might have, had the person continued in corporeal form. This seems independent of belief in an afterlife, per se.

Whole cultures (and cults) have been based around each of those options. Some of us, due to culture, personality, indecisiveness, or general obnoxiousness, apply each of those to one or more individuals, at different times and/or when we are in different moods. Not to say that any of these is more or less right or wrong than any other, either, just that the last option seems to be the one which offers optimal emotional health. Of course, some of us also apply each of those relationship options to our corporeal loved ones, too, and for similar reasons.

How a culture deals with Death can have a huge influence on how it deals with Life. How does your approach to Death influence your life? Do “we”, in the US, have a dominant, cultural view of Death, or is it a sort of mishmash of different cultural ideas? Is it worth thinking about future lives and generations, or does the person who dies with the most cheap plastic crap actually win?

How do these questions relate to the world, today, and Transition Towns, in general?

Days of the Dead, 2017 edition, at Red Rock Coffee, this Friday. Dinner often happens, afterwards, maybe it will this week, too.

I’ve lived in Palo Alto for 10 years now, the Bay Area for 18. Admittedly, this is not a very long time compared to some, but it’s longer than many of my neighbors, and by at least a decade, the longest I have lived in one place in my 40 years.

Still, as a one-and-a-half-generation East Indian, raised in the deep South, former scientist, eco-passionate stay-at-home-mom, sometimes I feel I don’t fit in. Other moms take kids to a plethora of museums miles away, know which is the hot new date night restaurant, bike miles and miles, attend pilates, and make homemade brownies in the same week. Instead, my days are peppered with conscious, difficult choices that juggle responsibility and mediocrity – we are late for school, so should we drive, bike, or walk? Shall I pick up that piece of trash? That one? That one? Can we let the dryer run – just this once? And those fruits – pick, let rot, or leave to wildlife? Pick up another orphaned mug I don’t really need, or leave it to fill a potential landfill? Let the kids wander while I cook, or play with them, watch them, and let dinner burn? Do they like to do yoga with me, or it is just an excuse for screen time?

These are the questions I ponder while I make that second batch of yogurt after the first failed (spent too long playing cards with my daughter), or pick apart moldy raspberries with my hands to save for freezer jam. There is joy in this – the not-knowing which way is right, exploring what works for us, fumbling our way to sustainability.

In my heart, I know it’s not enough, not nearly, not fast enough for what is coming, but this is the slow world of my choice, the one that lingers in vision. I wonder if others could see that being really intentionally in this world is a process that evolves even for the passionate, may they, too, might try. Maybe we can support each other as we dabble in the new, and take tiny steps towards giant leaps. All while the kids are watching.

Since my children were babies, we have been going to the Palo Alto May Fete Parade and Fair. This Children’s Parade has vintage automobiles, local school bands, floats from each school and local community organization, and children biking, scootering, riding strollers, and walking down the middle of University Avenue, as onlookers cheer and announcers describe each group – in short, it’s a testament to community in and around Palo Alto. This year’s theme was “Who is your hero?” – so there were plenty of superhero costumes and buttons that announced each person’s personal hero.

The parade is followed by a Fair in Heritage Park, where food trucks offer food, children and adults attend booths full of low-tech games and information about community resources, and prizes are offered. This is where we came in – my friend Priya and I hosted the Transition Palo Alto table (which was also strategically placed next to the Zero Waste table!).

We taped up a paper wall to be our garden, and the children wrote and drew on flowers and leaves, answering the prompt “I am a Planet Hero when I…” – answers ranged from biking and recycling to saving bees and planting trees. We filled our paper garden with ideas.

Priya and I also demoed her adventure, Pebble Pod, which is a subscription box that will have ideas for bringing families together around culture, community, and environment. We showed how to make a simple solar oven from the black box – using chopsticks, cling wrap, newspaper, foil, and tape. Kids were thrilled with the idea of making s’mores inside, and adult visitors were interested to learn that the temperature inside can get as high as 200oF!

I’ll be marching again with my children next year, albeit with a new school group, because this is what community is about.

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Save the date for the coming Share Faire on Sunday, August 14, from 1-3pm at the beautiful Mitchell Park Bowl. We will share clothes, toys, books, garden produce, crafts, and household items as usual, have some more (and new!) demos, plus have classes under a tent!

Have a skill you’d like to share? Let us know! 

If you can lend a hand, please sign up to volunteer as well.

Join us for the Spring Share Faire, where we share skills with small 30-minute classes, goods ranging from garden produce to household items, and stories. Our theme this Faire is Food and Garden, so expect refreshments, and bring family and friends!

Come celebrate Valentine’s day (or don’t!) with us at our first Share Faire of the year. We’re launching a new Share Faire schedule for the year – details are here – and starting off with a Faire that focuses on fabric and community organizing, organizing the fabric of our community!

We will be at Cubberley Community Center, rooms A7 and A3, onn Sunday, February 14th, 1pm to 3pm, with 30 minute classes in the rooms and goods sharing. Classes will include Community activism, lotion-making, knitting, and more! Visit the library sale at Cubberley and come by afterwards!

In partnership with the Palo Alto Family YMCA, we hosted a Halloween Swap on Saturday, October 17th. The evening started calmly as we (myself, Peter Ruddock, William Mutch, Roy Kornbluh, and my two children) set up tables and put out the few meager costumes we had brought. We laid out our craft table: recycled containers, broken toys, yarn, tape, paper, scissors.

Then the flood of children arrived! They wandered to the cookie decorating table, the make-your-own-skeleton with ear buds booth, and then found us! Pretty dresses and ninja sets, animal costumes, shoes, capes, masks, and more changed hands, some vanishing as quickly as they appeared.

At our craft table, children were cutting, wrapping, contemplating, writing, collaborating, taping, choosing, assembling creations with such ghoulish signs as Death Rattle, Mummy Potion, de-Ogre-ant, Bat and Ghost Poop, Danger:Keep out, Pull here (Look out!) and Do Not Touch or You Will Turn Into a Zombie! We finally had to tell the remaining children it was time to clean up as they taped on the last few items. Smiles all around as they innocently asked, “Can I take this home?”

They would (and parents were reassured their masterpieces were recyclable). We packed up, sure to return to such a resounding success with more creepy craftivism next year. 

On June 21st, we’ll be headed out to the Lucie Stern Patio once again for our quarterly Share Faire.

Sharing books, toys, clothes, garden produce, crafts? Check. Old, fun demos? Check. Some new and interesting ones? Check. Sunshine? Likely. Fun for the whole family? You know it. Cool people attending? Well, we have FoPAL, Neighbors helping neighbors, conversation circle, scrapophony, Fabmo, massage, and a few others, but it’ll be even cooler if you come!

If you haven’t yet had a chance to come out, check us out, join the fun, even if you’re empty-handed. If you have been before and love it, bring a friend. If you think it’s not for you, try it ou, or tell us what you’d like to see! Don’t have transportation? The VTA 35 bus gets there. Have a funny thing you’re not sure if you should bring? Ask us, or bring it anyway and take it home if no one grabs it (they just might!).

If you’d just like to slow down and enjoy the summer, start with the Share Faire. No obligation, no commitment, just being outdoors, building community, and helping make our world a little better.

Sunday, June 21st

11am to 1pm

Lucie Stern Community Center Patio (grassy area near parking lot)

1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

Marching bands, walking bald eagles, aliens, children on parade…and Transition Palo Alto! On Saturday, May 2nd, we joined hundreds in Palo Alto as part of the May Fete Fair, which follows the (93rd) annual Children’s Parade. This year’s theme was No Space to Alienate – be Unique, be Free, be yOu (UFO), so of course there were aliens and spaceships everywhere!

After dodging closed streets, I and my kids unloaded boxes of recycled to-go containers and shiny plastic doodads rescued from the landfill, gathered generously by Trina. We marched (and rode a bike) in the parade with their respective schools, and we ended up at a table on the grass at the parade, where William Mutch was staffing a table where children were making UFOs and aliens out of those recyclables. We had a display of aliens and spaceships made at the Craft Night and artfully arranged by Trina. Using those as examples (or ignoring them entirely!), children braided yarn, stuck on tape, stuffed prescription bottles and ice cream containers, stuck stickers and bottle caps, and created amazing worlds of their own imagination. A few of the creatures and vehicles below. We were calling it Junkology (thanks, Elliot!) and having a blast of it.

Thanks to William Mutch, Roy Kornbluh, Peter Ruddock, Vanessa Warheit and Trina Lynn-Wilson for making this happen, and to all the children and parents for making this event out of this world!

We were saddened by the closure of Common Ground, a place where we once shared stories and goods and ducked inside to say hi or buy a little something. Alas, no more, but we have a temporary home for our sharing expos – along with a new name.

The Holiday Share Faire will be at Cubberley Community Center this year, in room H6, on the side of the Charleston Shopping Center (Piazza’s) and in the back near the Friends of the Palo Alto Library booksale, right next door to the Cubberley Artists’ Open Studios. It will be a busy afternoon, starting at 1pm.

Food and beverages will be outside, along with fun demos like solar ovens and music. Massage, yoga, garden tips, succulents, wreath-making, kids’ area, storytime, and more are on the offering from local experts who will guide you through.

If you bring or need goods, stations will hold books, clothes, crafts, garden produce, toys, and holiday decorations as well. The whole family is welcome, and we recommend taking public transportation (bus 32, 35, 88, 104) or biking to this accessible place. Rain will not cancel the indoor and covered portions.

More information about this event and others, and sponsors at transitionpaloalto.org/sharing-expos

Join us and share with us – just look up, there might be mistletoe on the door!