A Day in a De-Growth Life

I like the work set up that I have going on right now.  I work three shifts per week at the restaurant, and I have four days off.  That's barely part-time...
So what do I do with the rest of my time?  (How do I make ends meet?)
I'm living very well, thank you.

Actually, I've now found a complementary job. Yep, I'll be joining the ''Echo'Scouade'', a team of animators-educators, which tours some of the biggest festivals in order to raise awareness on the topic of waste management, i.e. recycling your bottles while on site...and at home.
Between the two jobs, I should be able to feel a certain financial stability this summer.
And I still get to have about three days off each week.

My point in sharing all of this is to share one example of a life that is possible... A life of quality, of not being ruled by a work schedule, a boss, a mortgage.
What I'm really talking about is tied to a concept I've been musing over for some time: de-growth.

A couple of weeks ago I attended an international De-Growth Conference.  There, eminent professors and lecturers talked about different aspects of the transition our civilization might want to get into.
De-growth means stepping away from the illusion of happiness as progress and profit.
To me, it seems to point towards greater sanity and health, as well as creativity... and intimacy.  Instead of isolating ourselves by spending forty hours tiring ourselves out at work, coming home being exhausted, watching tv as an easy way into mindless relaxation, and wondering about that yearning for deeper and more meaningful relationships... We could work half, or even three-quarters of that time, and spend the remaining hours enjoying the presence of people we love, perhaps growing some plants that will give us food, and coming to terms with our fears of nothingness...
Don't you think?

I fear nothingness.
I fear the changes that are happening.  But I love the changes that are happening.
It has to do with Time, in part.

Am I inhabited by that old millennial, apocalyptic thinking?  I don't think so.  I don't think the end of the world is coming.  At worst, the human species would perish within the next fifty to two hundred years.  At best, we create a more sustainable world for ourselves.  Chances are, we're shifting from His-story to another kind of story...

Either way, Life and our Consciousness of it All is Divine and Beauty-full.

We could really use more networks of bike lanes and installations that make it easier for everyone who can use bicycles to get around.  We could rush less, move more.  We could spend less, and help each other more.  We could take time to communicate with our neighbors, get to know each other.  We could solve problems together.

Today, I ate breakfast with seven other people.  Then I cut my friends hair on the balcony, and after that I gave an intro of an astrological reading to a friend and I cleaned around the house.  After lunch I juggled a little bit outside while waiting for my other friend to return with his bicycle.  We talked about the choices he's trying to make, his aspirations and his fears.  We talked about going for a bike ride to the Canal Lachine.  But then a girl from work - she's gorgeous! - happened to walk by our house as we were sitting on the porch, so we invited her to sit with us a little bit.  We hung out, with two of my roommates.  We talked about synchronicities, about ''the hundredth monkey effect'', morphic fields (we didn't have the names for those phenomenon but that's what we were talking about), and collective consciousness.  We talked about sharing our greatest potential within the communities you are part of.
And then A. and I went to Parc Lafontaine, and we drew a huge chalk maze in the middle of a path.  People walked by with a smile.  They asked a few questions.  They wanted to walk it and they did once we finished the piece.  Two park workers drove by. ''We're making ephemeral art,'' I told them.  ''I was just taking a look'', one of them said with a smile.

We went to the market and bought lettuce and radishes (grown ''in Québec''), some pears, a mango, grapes, and avocados (grown far away), roasted sunflower seeds (where from?) and some balsamic and oil to make a fresh salad.  We made dressing out of mango pulp, garlic, ginger, lemon, balsamic, grape, and sesame oil.  We sat on the balcony and feasted while reminiscing about the intensity of yesterday's storm...
Yesterday, a crazy storm fell on Montréal.  Dark clouds and thunder quickly led to heavy... heavy rains, which, we soon learned, turned into flooded tunnels and metro stations!!!
Nature is mighty.

The climate here is so different than what it is in the Bay Area... I loooove these warm summer storms!

And tonight, I'm finally going out to dance!  It's been months since I've made it to a good dubstep party...

You can follow your bliss.  Take part in the beauty of existence.

the concept of Economy

A sweet Tuesday en la casa.... doing nothing.  Doing nothing?  No.  I'm writing.

Yesterday, Yves-Marie Abraham - associate professor at the prestigious HEC and one of the main organizers of the De-Growth Conference - did a presentation about the concept of ''the Economy.''
''What,'' he asked, ''is the definition of the economy? "
He didn't mention the etymology of the term: oiko-nomia = management of the house, but he instead gave us the definitions of those who play at the top of the field.  And it turns out that the modern concept of ''economy'' is inextricately tied to the notion of ''rarity''.  He didn't use the word scarcity, but the idea is the same.  Economy has do to with the managing, that is the production and distribution, of our rare resources.
 (I didn't write the definition verbatim, because I was busy doing some half-assed whisper translation for my anglo neighbors.)
Abraham went out to ask, ''Is the concept of economy then fundamental to all of humanity?''   What he found out, is that a brief research through anthropological lenses and research (what he called ''the anthropological detour) shows that many societies of hunter-gatherers do NOT live with this notion at all.  Even though they do not accumulate as much as we do (my addition), they do not know ''rarity'' (perhaps they know scarcity, however, and perhaps this is where the difference lies between those two words!), simply because they don't seek to satisfy a increasing number of their needs.
They are a-economical.

And this uproots our conception of human nature as homo economicus, doesn't it?

We can envision another mode of social patterning.  We could reconsider individual value as coming from other realms than ''professional'' or ''marketable'' value.  We can come out of our isolation and wake up to each other, and the ties that have been there all along: you are not alone.  And once you see and know that, you don't have as much of a need to go out and buy things.
It's become a cliché already and it doesn't seem to affect people anymore, but it is so true:  capitalism sleeps in the same bed with the advertisement industry (which has benefited so much from modern psychology uncovering our fundamental fears and insecurities) by creating more insecurities and fears, more needs...

Seeing this side of reality makes me sick to my stomach.  Because I participate in it everyday.

How can we change an entire system then?

By creating another one at the periphery.

In a post-economical world, we won't be working 40hours/week.  We'll work much less in fact, and we'll spend more time together.

De-Growth and Re-ligare

Most days are made of labour and wonder, boredom and anxieties, delights, communions, and questions.
Most days I pray, not in the form of penitences but in giving thanks, and praise.
Every day, I wake up with the knowledge of one world,
one planet, cast in a spiraling dance,
since hundreds of thousands of years,
and I, descendant of an exploding star
pondering
the feeling, of wind on my skin
this phenomenological presence
in the midst of an ''ecological crisis''

not only am I anthropocentric
I am also ego-centric
for I am trapped within the confines of my body
craving for an umbilical connection with All there is
an embrace
not as a hope that my thirst be quenched
but as a celebration, of the dance
pushing and pulling
sinking and soaring
between Mother Earth and Father Sky
a child, a navel and a star gazer
knowing myself, as the Self,
as one concentric being of possible becomings
amongst infinite networks, of centers also unfolding
amongst patterns, of a Life,
Self-organizing

Today I attended a conference that's taking place on the Concordia campus.  I hadn't planned on going.  It got decided over breakfast and freshly baked banana bread.

My roommate was looking at the program trying to decide which panels and activities to go to.  I had heard about she and A. signing up to volunteer and attend that De-growth conference, all week.  I was curious, but I also thought to myself: ''Well, here's another wonderful thing happening in Montreal and I won't get to be part of it... because it's expensive and overwhelming, for it's attracting all those wonderful people who are involved in the gardening movement... and blablabla... how come I can feel so close to this intellectually and yet not get more involved?  What's keeping me from getting my hands dirty?  blablabla...''

In short, I hadn't planned this day.
But there I was, 9 in the morning, biking down Rue Sherbrooke along with two of my friends.  Sunshine in and out.
How did it happen?  She said there was a film being presented this morning, and she wasn't sure she wanted to go because it was so nice outside.  I asked about the title of the movie, and she answered: ''Journey of... ''
'' ... of the Universe!?'' I interrupted with a big smile.
''Yeah''.
''Oh my God!  That's my professor!', I explained with overflowing enthusiasm.  ''I totally want to see that movie!''
''I bet you could just get in like that,'' she said, ''they don't really monitor.''

And so I walked into Concordia University's auditorium.  And there he was on big screen: Brian Swimme, one of my dear professors from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Invited for this projection were three imminent panelists: two professors from Yale - creators of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology - and the producers of the film: Marie-Evelyn Tucker and John Grim, whose names I have heard so much about during my time at CIIS, as well as William Rees,
professor of public policy at the University of British Columbia... and the originator of the ''ecological footprint'' idea and co-developper of the method.

Listening to Brian Swimme reiterate his wonder about the unique circumstances that made human consciousness possible in the Universe, hearing talk about that 14 billion years old journey to this new scientific narrative, witnessing his praise of play and wonder being communicated to people gathered right here, in the province of Québec... I personally experienced the bridging of what often comes off as two worlds...
San Francisco meets Montréal!  My mind: hyper stimulated, the way it gets when I attend those ''academic conferences''.
(''In my days'' while I worked both at UMaine and for CIIS Public Programs, I attended a hella those lectures and conferences, and I've been reflecting on that recently as I went through the résumé process.)

But it wasn't only CIIS and Montréal, it was my bachelors at UMaine also, the environmental and political philosophy papers, the thought process...
I was inundated with flashbacks from my trajectory, hearing my own personal worldview and conclusions being investigated.
Part of an important conversation.

So I guess that the International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas is right along the lines of my work.  I might not know exactly what this work is, I suspect it is going to play out in several aspects, but I cannot deny that I am strongly tied with this community of thinkers and ecologists.

I regularly get down on myself, for I find it difficult to see that even though my understanding points to the necessity of re-learning re-lating with the natural world, of re-incorporating and re-localizing the process of food production, even though I know and praise the importance of urban agriculture, I still haven't planted a seed this year!
I'm surrounded with people who do, though.
I tell myself it'll unfold in due time, when I have landed a bit more in my new reality (Is six months long enough?).  I tell myself that it's good I am surrounding myself with all these community and guerrilla gardeners while I'm attending to whatever needs to happen in my own life at the moment.  I am learning by osmosis, through conversations and observations mostly.  I am cultivating kefir.

I did dig up rocks in my friends' gardens last week, when I went to St-Élie-de-Caxton to spend a Monday afternoon with the ground, massaging the Earth's body, turning mama's soil and giving her oxygen so that seeds can grow.

Little by little... I am grounding into something... and that's something is changing, evolving, at a pace unprecedented.

I have physical theater plays flashing in my head, doctoral theses waiting to get delivered, and dance phrases burning to get drawn in space and time...

I have visions, and Professor Tucker said that's exactly what we need right now: visions to guide us.

I have visions.