Another solstice and i'm reminded more than ever that i don't have any time to waste. I feel there's still work for me to do before i shuffle off this mortal coil. I had thought my contribution was to organize the world's wisdom but it seems Intelligence has other ideas and has hit on me, innumerate candidate that i am, to bring a new economic theory to light. It struck me as ironic but, as the theory took shape, i realized that conventional economic minds, steeped in the dismal science, would be the last to admit the possibility, much less grasp the import, of an alternative system. They are doctrinally blinkered with what i call moneytheism and brook the existence of no other gods.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind there are few.
~ Shunryu Suzuki ~

My unlikely qualifications include being born under the counter of a chaini shap; seen imperialist extraction and wealth appropriation first hand; witnessed and endured class, race and colour prejudice; been an entrepreneur, artist/designer, social deviant and intuitive empath; combined with a boddhisattvic compassion, all contrived to prepare me to question deeply the current status quo as the Occupy protesters are doing. I had at first only vague intimations that would coalesce into a coherent system. I daresay not many others, certainly not economists, can claim a similar hodgepodge of experience. That seeming diffusion resulted in a generalist overview with a holistic grasp of systems. Life prepares you for itself. You just have to be ready to see the opening door.

Like everyone else not part of the 1%, i was faced with diminishing financial prospects, qualifying me for food stamps, Medicaid and a free monthly cell phone service, without a single dollar coming to me. This basic life support allowed me to work in the community and on creative projects, work that is not readily counted in GDP or that attracts remuneration. Granted my needs are minimal but could this safety net not be extended universally and distributed digitally? There are enough resources to go around if some don't get too greedy.

I became aware of the the work of Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project proposing, with the help of The Zeitgeist Movement, a Resource Based Economy where all the world's resources are owned in common and managed rationally. It is a single system after all. Everyone would share access to these resources without the need for money. Considering the ongoing financial crisis which seems to have no end, every day bringing new problems resulting from the last round of adjustments, precipitating further tweaks in a downward spiral, money seemed to be the central problem, so why not do away with it? Money is after all only a symbol of wealth, a means of exchange. Somewhere along the line, we have mistaken it for wealth itself, even trading it as a commodity. Systemic change is needed and not structural adjustments as proposed by conventional economists.

My concerns with all the moneyless proposals i came across was a conspicuous absence of a means to control distribution. As evolved as we'd like to think that human beings are, fear and the greed that it engenders are part of our survival responses. I have seen near riots when rice was rationed in our shop in the 1970s, and the behavior of Black Friday crowds is evidence that the instinct has not been restrained by conscious evolution. It is very difficult to overrule the reptilian brain.

We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination.
~ Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976

Without the incentive of profit, would creators and producers continue to innovate and produce? These two concerns led me to consider an index similar to GDP but greatly expanded. This index i call Net Planetary Value would be calulated by algorithm using three types of criteria — ethical, social and environmental — over time — past, present and future. Each individual, company, product and organization would be pegged according to how much it contributed to NPV. That index would in turn determine how much access they had to goods and resources, a reciprocal effect.

The system would be self-regulating with a constant flow of information providing feedback in a fractal-like structure, like this animated graphic. I believe this arrangement would be a tool for the rational management of resources and provide the incentive necessary to motivate. I have grandiosely dubbed the system PANACEA, an acronym for Planetary Accounting Network Affording Communities Equitable Access. Communities are defined to include ecosystems, bioregions, animal populations and indigenous tribes which are all recognized as sovereign entities, much in the same way that Bolivia has recognized the Rights of Mother Earth in its constitution. You can Like PANACEA on Facebook.

So imperative do i regard this contribution at this time of imminent global economic collapse, compounded by climate change and the growing unavailablity of fossil fuels that i have devoted most of this year to documenting and propagating these ideas. I've stepped down from leadership positions with Ecolocity, Petworth Market and our tenants association, all initiatives i helped start, but happily they have matured and can stand on their own. I feel like Paul of Tarsus must have felt when struck by revelation on the road to Damascus. My world view has been completely changed. To quote myself, once you know something you cannot unknow it. The response so far has not been encouraging; though it's early days, this is no time for dawdling. We'll see whether i come to be known as a crazy, if harmless, eccentric, or if like Copernicus and other proponents of unorthodox views, time will vindicate me.

Outline for a new economy

I fully support the Occupy protests and gratified that some people are waking up and making their objections known. I place the demonstrations in the context of the Arab Spring uprisings and other demonstrations throughout the world. They have a common cause even if they have not identified it exactly - the economic inequity of the monetary system. To be successful, the single demand of each of these movements ought to be the phasing out of money to be replaced by an accounting system based on a value index.

To replace the irrational, inequitable and inefficient monetary economic system which prevails, a new rational, self-regulating system is necessary to meet current and projected global realities. The present model is ultimately based on the barter mechanism which grew into trade and digital exchange. Units of exchange came to be standardized to facilitate trade but the issuing of these units is strictly controlled, creating an artificial scarcity, and converting the currency itself into a commodity. These units are further hoarded and manipulated in such a way as to create debt, inequity and poverty.

It is difficult to displace such an entrenched paradigm, so embedded in every aspect of life that most people cannot even conceive that there could be an alternative. The silver lining to the current economic crisis is that people will be forced, perhaps for the first time, to examine their unconscious assumptions and stretch their cognitive range to allow for a different approach.


A value-based economy would look like this:

New Planetary Economy


ASSUMPTIONS
The planet can sustain all life on it, though not at the level of consumption that obtains in developed countries. Everyone and everything has value. The sum of all unit values is Net Planetary Value. Value is potential until triggered into manifestation by activity. People realize value by accessing goods and services.

MECHANISM
Each entity – individual, corporate, municipal, national, bioregional – is assigned an index relative to its contribution to NPV, which index determines its level of access to goods and services. Particular elements or activities may be indexed positively or negatively as it affects populations, infrastructure or the environment. Indices are computed algorithmically from a matrix of nine criteria: ethical, social and environmental qualified by a time dimension that embeds past provenance, present utility and future impact. Entities acknowledge each transaction by digital and/or biometric means. Data is transmitted to a distributed network which continuously updates all indices using algorithms in a self-regulating feedback loop. Built-in checks and balances adjust indices to mitigate excesses, waste and abuse.

IMPLEMENTATION
Since it is not dependent or contingent upon monetary values, NPV can be implemented by any functioning economic unit. It will run parallel to the monetary system until that system strangles itself with its own contortions or belief in it is withdrawn, whichever comes first. Increased parity and efficiency are realized with the accession of each additional entity until universal inclusion is achieved. Each person is automatically assigned an index that gives access to food, housing, education and healthcare. Personal index is increased by life stage, training, skills and accomplishments, affording access to levels beyond basic needs.

EFFECTS
There are no monetary limits. No budgets, no debt, no banks, no inflation, no price distortions. There will be less government, less corruption, less crime. Land ownership will revert eventually to occupancy rights. With basic needs guaranteed, many will no longer work at jobs. Traditional jobs are becoming obsolete anyway. People will choose vocations. It is a means to advance their indices. Every service rendered is rewarded. Each corporate entity likewise is assigned a base index that allows access to infrastructure and services. All corporate entities are by definition non-profit. Businesses compete and prosper by offering superior goods and services thereby increasing their corporate index with concomitant access to higher levels of goods and services.

Everyone counts. Everything is counted.

From Arab Spring to American Fall?

The chickens seem to have come home to roost as young people, unable to get ahead, while saddled with unserviceable student loans, and older folk, unable to find jobs in a shrinking economy, are taking to the streets to express their disgust at a system which has left out 99% and benefits only 1%. The Occupy Wall Street movement has taken inspiration from Tahrir Square, practicing direct democracy and non-violence and setting up operational and social services in Zuccotti Park under the resurrected name Liberty Plaza. A library even. They've reminded the cops they too are part of the 99% and invited them to join in solidarity, reminiscent of the Egyptian protesters offering flowers to Mubarak's soldiers.

Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall St.) from Alex Mallis on Vimeo.

Their demands, published in a manifesto, are admirable, covering a wide range of abuses. Have the American people, who seem to be broadly represented, finally woken up to their condition of wage slavery and financial chattelry? Are the activists tenacious enough to occupy public spaces for long enough to wrest concessions from the Powers That Be? You can be sure even if all their demands are met it will result in superficial reforms and regulations that will allow the corporatocracy to continue business as usual maybe a bit less brazenly.

Talk of revolution and manifestos is well and good, creating media buzz and a feel-good camaraderie on the barricades and behind the digital redoubts, but nothing less than the dissolution of the monetary system will bring about real change. We have conflated the meaning of money with wealth and power for so long that it is unthinkable to even consider overturning the tables in the temple.

Ecological economists who promote a steady-state economy like Herman Daly, Bernard Lietaer and David Korten limit their proposals to reforms of the present monetary system. Participatory economics touted by the left and being taught at Liberty Plaza may give the appearance of empowering the grassroots but the economic balance of power will remain substantially unchanged. Some like Charles Eisenstein promote the idea of a gift economy which relies on people's better angels to give freely without expectation of return. This may have worked for Trobriand Islanders of a bygone era but is not likely to hold much truck in today's complex global systems. I fully support localization and recognize that power down, downsizing and downshift are inevitable but i don't see people going back to trading a cord of wood for a loaf of bread outside of intentional communities. The few voices on the fringe who do advocate doing away with money, like Jacque Fresco and his proposal for a Resource Based Economy, promoted by the Zeitgeist Movement and others, are paid scant attention even by progressives. None have said just how the free-for-all would be managed.

The wealthy will not willingly give up their power. They hold all the aces in the house of cards. The solution then is to withdraw from their game, shift to another system of accounting and distributing wealth so they are left holding bags of worthless cash.

Jobs and growth

It’s not just that the threat of a double-dip recession has become very real. It’s now impossible to deny the obvious, which is that we are not now and have never been on the road to recovery.
~ Paul Krugman, "Wrong Worries," New York Times, August 4 2011

So now the band-aid has been applied and, in the temporary respite it has provided, the mantra will be repeated ad nauseam by every pundit and his mother that creating jobs and growing the economy is the solution. For all of the high-powered experts and economists, they don't get it, do they? -- least of all the Republicans. The average householder in Djibouti, anyone with common sense, can figure out that all the measures that have been taken are just so much tinkering, re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

It's said that 70% of US GDP is driven by consumer spending. In applying stimulus funds to restart the economy, the bailout was given instead to the banks and financial institutions who have diligently balanced their books and have resumed their constitutionally-required profitability. Executives have been handsomely rewarded for their troubles but companies are still awash in cash with nowhere to invest it because consumers are not spending. Duh. Where were those consumers to get what with to spend? If they had been given the bailout instead, they would have paid up their mortgages and credit cards, small businesses would have a life-line, jobs would be saved and there would be a trickle-up effect. It would have increased purchasing power at the starting point of the cycle and set the whole machine in motion. Tax intake would be maintained and state and federal government would not be faced with cutting as drastically as they now have to do.

Main Street is where the economy is and not Wall Street, which is nothing more than a big boys' crap shoot. The "volatility of the market" is but the alternation of the sole motivations, greed and fear. The real economy will continue apace as long as the sun continues to input billions of joules, or whatever unit of energy you care to use, farmers grow crops, bakers bake, builders build, teachers teach and healers heal.

Ignoring for a minute the well-documented limits to growth, let's say some entrepreneurial venture capitalist decides to be bold and initiate the production of some new widget. In the interest of efficiency (read maximum profit), the operation will be automated and roboticized as far as possible or outsourced to the cheapest sources of labor. Where does that leave the local wage slaves who have been bred, brought up and educated to be cogs in the industrial machinery as well as consumers of its output? Without income to continue consuming and nothing to keep them occupied, their life purpose is rendered meaningless and obsolete, so what option do they have but to run amok in the streets? The young have seen their parents play by the rules and get shafted so why should they go down that same path?

The entire concept of employment, work, jobs and the education to prepare for them has to be revisited. Jobs as we know them are never coming back. Even the ones outsourced to China will leave there like water seeking its lowest level till there's nowhere lower to go. The main purpose of education will become to prepare people to live.

Another goal which our schools and teachers should be pursuing is the discovery of vocation, of one's fate and destiny. Parrt of learning who you are, part of being able to hear your inner voices, is discovering what it is that you want to do with your life. Finding one's identity is almost synonymous with finding one's career, revealing the altar on which one will sacrifice oneself.
~ Abraham Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 1972

Head of a pin

This whole brouhaha over the debt ceiling and deficit reminds me of nothing so much as the medieval church fathers' respective positions on the number of the angelic host that could fit on the head of a pin. Whether or not either side, or none, were right would not affect the state of grace of the average penitent, or in the instant case, the economic state of the average wage slave. The system is broken and nobody knows how to fix it. Regardless of what solution they finally come up with, its effects will be short-lived. They know this, talking about kicking the can down the road. It does not matter whether they kick a can, a rock or a football, down a road, field or green, it will make no difference.

Money has served out its usefulness. The symbols of wealth can manipulated no further. The complexity into which the monetary economy has been elaborated is beyond human understanding or intelligence. Economists will be last to admit this. The money spinners have been too clever by half, but they have run into the limits of physics, the limits of growth as they define it. Some growth is called cancer and left unchecked, it destroys its host. Metastasis.

It's hard to even think of a world without money, so let's not. It's a far-fetched notion so we'll pretend that another world, another economy without money is not possible. Back to the real world.

The basic problem it seems to me is that the business of government is conceived of and treated just like a household economy or business, trading something for tokens it can spend, offering services in exchange for taxes, another outmoded idea. Taxes probably began as protection money extracted from peasants by strongmen, warlords, kings, then the state. Then the robber/banker barons loaned money to the king/state to wage wars, creating state/national debt. The state got suck(er)ed into the monetary morass.

The function of the government is to enable the economy, allowing businesses and households to prosper. Under the present cumbersome arrangement, if the state budget shrinks so does the economy. It is ludicrous then for the state budget to be determined by an arcane, arbitrary and inequitable system of imaginary units. It's time to get real, people, and the answer is not gold.

Doing without money

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one.
~ Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790 ~

It's been a while since i had a real job, not since i walked out of my assistant manager position at an art supply store. I had high hopes of becoming a writer/publisher and though i've managed to put out two books, my income from them has been nowhere near adequate to cover my expenses. Despite the odd paying gig, frugality and food stamps, i've been forced to survive on savings accumulated from inheritance and a long period of entrepreneurial effort. Numerous job applications have netted one job interview but my discouragement is admittedly mixed with relief as i realize i'd have no time, were i successful in being hired, to devote to the pursuits that fill my days.

And i have been busy. There are not enough hours in the day to follow through on all the ideas and schemes that go through my head. So i began to wonder how i could continue to follow my bliss and get paid for doing it. That's a common theme among many self-help gurus so it must be possible, somebody somewhere must be doing it.

It has led me to think of publishing more and trusting the universe will take care of the details, of raising funds through grants or crowd-funding, of continuing to subsist in near penury until the savings run out. I tried the marketing consulting, life counselor bit but that requires going out and marketing yourself and playing nice even when you don't feel like.

I don't need a lot, just enough to cover my rent, telephone and ISP, gym fee and Metro fares. It's not as though i'm a slacker, far from it. Much that i do is in service to the community, to knowledge and letters, my small contribution to the universe so when i'm gone someone may observe that my presence made a difference. So what happened to casting bread upon the waters and finding it again? Surely there's a way to have my basic needs met without becoming a wage slave in a corporate system for which i have nothing but distaste?

There must be millions of people who endure jobs, whole careers even, that they hate, that stress them out and make them sick, just so they can have a roof over their heads and have some little life. In the twenty-first century when we have conquered nature and become masters of the universe, there is something wrong with that picture. Scholars have recognized this and pointed out that the GDP index countries use to measure progress does not take well-being into account and in fact includes things like incarceration, sickness, war and disaster as economy boosters. Think construction, factory orders for arms, equipment and supplies. Some countries, notably Canada, France and the UK are beginning to recognize the limitations of GDP and have introduced other indices that measure things like happiness and well-being and progress. The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has based its national planning on a scale called the Gross National Happiness index and some economists support the use of the Genuine Progress Indicator which factor in environmental health as well.

The prevailing idea of wealth is based on purely material considerations centered on the production, consumption and accumulation of goods and services. Money came into being as a token symbol to facilitate trading and to access that wealth conveniently. It has become itself a commodity, the supply of which has been made scarce in the way it is created and distributed. Money -- the creation of, the accumulation of, the lack of, the trickling down of, the compounding and impounding of, the manipulation of, the theft of -- seems to create nothing but problems. For a convenient symbol, it sure is troublesome. So what if we could do without money?

I'm not even thinking of alternatives like parallel currency, mutual credit or digital systems. Inevitably, those are based on the prevailing monetary system and of limited application. It would only be a matter of time before they are subsumed into the system by manipulation and corruption. The banks and corporations would cream off the profits making currency scarce because that is their sole objective and we would be back at square one. There's got to be some other way to make this work without money and profit so the interest of everyone is served.

Memento mori

The knowledge that we will die burns out our attachments to the dignified madness of our socially constructed existence. Death is an ally that helps us to release our clinging to social position, material accumulation, and superficial desires as a source of ultimate security.
~ Duane Elgin, 1943- ~

Last year this time i was beset with a series of aches and pains which gave me cause for concern. Indeterminate chest pains triggered anxiety which fed on itself bringing me squarely face-to-face with my mortality. Having a family history of cardiovascular disease and hypertension only increased my dread. I lost my sister Lily just last May and have only one sibling left. Was my time coming up?

Then i seemed to recall these symptoms recurring each year at about this time and wondered if i might be experiencing Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). However, i was not depressed, depression being a classic sign of SADness — but somehow less sunlight seemed to be implicated. Further research on the internet led me to believe i was suffering instead from Vitamin D deficiency which is characterized by chest pain, particularly a tenderness in the area of the breast bone, bone pain even, and other symptoms that can mimic and exacerbate heart condition and hypertension.

Long story short, my lab results showed severe hypovitaminosis D which was treated with a megadose - 50,000 units per week for 4 weeks - of Vitamin D supplement. The symptoms all but disappeared. The cycle has started again this winter so i'm on another megadose. The cardiologist wanted to put me on statins because of a high LDL reading but i declined, prefering to use diet to address it. I increased intake of flax seed oil and meal, hemp seed meal and walnuts, all high in Omega-3s, combined with oats. My LDL level dropped back to normal limits. Now i only contend with pain related to arthritis and a frozen shoulder.

Ingredients for a tasty cholesterol-lowering holiday treat. For variations, use hemp seed meal in place of flax seed meal. A splash of rum with nutmeg gives it that festive taste.

If you live in temperate zones and/or do not spend much time outdoors, i suggest you have your Vitamin D level checked. The amount you may absorb from fortified milk is hardly adequate. Your physician may also not be up to speed on the latest Vitamin D research, so you may have some skepticism to contend with. It's your life, your body, you choose.

Rather than a morbid sense, these creeping signs of ageing and decrepitude are a memento mori that heightens my appreciation of life, of waking up to another day. It reinforces my resolve not to waste time on distractions and trivialities, but to make each moment count. This must be what they call the fierce urgency of now, knowing that there is so much to be done and little time to do it.

Death gives value, and in a sense almost infinite value, to our lives, and makes more urgent and attractive the task of using our lives to achieve something for others … which apparently embodies more or less what is called the meaning of life.
~ Karl R. Popper, 1902-1994 ~

Trying to make a difference

This is the true joy in life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.
~ George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950 ~

Life, as we've come to think of it, goes on — despite the threat of climate change, energy crisis and economic decline. These will impact everyone in one way or another, whatever one believes. Much of my time has been spent trying to address these challenges at the local level as this is where i feel i can make a difference. I have continued to preach the Transition gospel to all who will listen. Consequently, i have given presentations in Maryland at Frederick, Towson, Greenbelt, Bethesda and Takoma Park, many of which now have budding Transition initiatives.

In the same vein, our group is working to encourage local farming and food production in the District. We have a demonstration garden where we conduct workshops and we field volunteers to help with community gardens. This becomes increasingly critical as USDA data has shown that one in seven US households have difficulty putting food on the table while 40% of food in the US goes to waste. As droughts continue and energy costs increase, cheap, imported food will become more difficult to sustain. If this is true of the US, countries like Jamaica which depend on imports for much of its food supply need to take note.

Additionally, a diet high in animal fat, processed carbohydrates and refined sugar has been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. More people need to eat more fresh fruits, vegetables and plant-based foods. If you have not yet reduced your meat consumption, begin now.

Above ground: The surface of the site was designed as a park by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., the leading landscape architect of his time. Tower-like structures are bins for storing clean sand for filtering the water in underground cells. The vines covering them were a part of Olmsted's design.

Another project which i've adopted is McMillan Park, the 25-acre site of DC's former water filtration plant. Underground there are 20 acres of catacomb-like cells which commercial developer plans call for demolishing to erect housing and shopping facilities. As an environmental designer and wearing my Ecolocity hat, i have proposed a Low Impact Development (LID) approach whereby the green space is conserved and given to urban farming and the cells are restored and repurposed for light industrial, agro-processing and retail use.

This could include a glassworks, utilising the tons of sand on the site to make bottles for filtered water from re-commissioned cells, possibly wine from grapes grown on the surface, beer and honey. Cows grazed above could also provide milk for cheese-making below. Mushroom growing is another possibility in the naturally cool, dark caverns. An existing underground stream could be exposed and developed as an urban beach, completing the creation of a destination that would bring delight and pride to the area's residents and countless tourists to replenish the depleted District coffers.

Hand to mouth

Whether you and I and a few others will renew the world some day remains to be seen. But within ourselves we must renew it each day.
~ Hermann Hesse ~

Both my books, Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing and Wisdom for the Soul of Black Folk are still available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. These books are my bread and butter so if you haven't bought yet please do so and support a struggling self-publisher. You can also order directly, especially if you want them signed.

I've not expended further time or dwindling resources on developing other publications i had planned; the economic downturn is not the best time to expand production of something with as low a turnover as books. So those have been deferred indefinitely. I've been otherwise occupied with maintaining my patois website, Langwij Jumieka and other domains.

In October, after years of sending out resumés and applications, i was fortunate to land a part-time job as editor/designer for a monthly newsletter put out by the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission, which is the lowest level of local government in the District of Columbia. It helps pay the rent though it doesn't cover it entirely. My immediate boss is Commissioner Michael Yates, originally from Jamaica. Another Caribbean connection brought me another part-time position working with a Maryland heritage tourism non-profit, but that was short-lived due to internal constraints.

So i subsist hand-to-mouth, living on the edge, good thing my needs are few and my lifestyle simple. In a more ideal economic dispensation not wholly defined by monetarism, i'd be more than adequately compensated for the non-paid work i do. Never satisfied with things as they are, i've begun to explore Edgar Cahn's Time Banking and Co-Production, systems of mutual credit that are based on equitable exchange of service. That will probably be my next big thing.

I haven't had much time for anything else. I try to keep up my yoga and zazen routine and get some reading done on the train or while resting between sets at the gym. I've finally gotten around to reading Ken Wilber and am completely sold on his integral vision. It has given me a firmer and more defined framework for much that i already intuited and that i've tried to represent with SoulVentures and I-sight. I keep my counseling skills honed by the occasional consultation and by reading Wisdom Cards at Takoma Park Metaphysical Chapel once a month. After 29 years, i'm inspired to paint again. I've already bought brushes and acrylics, a new medium for me having worked almost exclusively in gouache.

These are exciting times and we have so many tools at our disposal. We are now more intelligent and more prepared than anyone who has gone before to take the next evolutionary step.

Local currency

One of Transition's key mechanisms is to set up a local currency to unify the community, encourage self-reliance and resilience. To this effect i started the Greater Washington Exchange to issue Potomacs. Here Dr Rogate Mshana, economist with the World Council of Churches, purchases the first Potomac at the Forum on Faith, Economy & Ecology, Washington DC, May 3 2009 where i was invited to make a presentation on Transition.

Local currencies are perfectly legal in the US and have usually emerged at times of economic uncertainty. Because earnings cannot leak away from the community and must be spent locally, studies have shown that one unit can circulate up to five times more than the equivalent dollar.

Potomac bill. Other denominations are 5, 10 and 20, accepted at five businesses as of this writing.

Fine time to be alive

This is supposed to be the season of good cheer, right? I don't mean to dwell on doom and gloom, though i have every reason to. Having always been of the half-full glass persuasion, i consider the present age the most wonderful time to be alive, and see this crisis, the likes of which has never been seen, as an opportunity to clear the decks and set things up right for once.

The election of Barack Obama to the US Presidency is a great start but all the President's horses and all the President's men cannot put Humpty back together again. All the money in the world thrown at the problem will not solve it. It requires nothing short of a transformation in the way each person thinks and acts. Those in the West, and others aspiring to a Western lifestyle, will need to reduce consumption, conserve resources and live simply, building relationships instead of portfolios. Many in developing and undeveloped countries who manage to subsist on what they can produce without the convenience of electricity and petrochemicals are by the irony of divine justice more prepared to withstand the tsunami of change once they have a secure water supply.

As a memory hook, i used my birthdate this year to call the first meeting of EcolocityDC to begin the discourse along these lines and get the city that i now call home prepared for powerdown. How does a Chiny-boy from Brown's Town have the gall to try and influence the capital of the Western world? I suppose it's my sappy need to be of service and to make a difference and the fact that i've been through the calamities of natural disasters, political upheaval and exile. Being on the periphery has an advantage in affording one a wider perspective and better view of the centre. There is also the Jamaican proverb which says that when fish comes from the river bottom to say alligator is down there, believe him. I've been there and am here to say leviathans await us if we do not change course.

Our message seems to be picking up momentum as we take part in community activities and programs. Barely six months old, our membership is over 300 and growing every day. We have politicians, students, teachers, architects, planners, writers, activists, young mothers, folks from all walks of life but with a common interest in bringing about sustainability. We've tabled at the Pathways Expo, GreenFestival and the monthly Eco/Justice Cafe at the University of the District of Columbia. We're actively supporting the petition for an organic farm to be put in at The White House and we will be part of an Inauguration weekend event when a song written in honor of the new president will be released. You can sign the petition online.

Our next major foray will be to stimulate the creation of a local community exchange with its own currency to cushion the shocks of the economic meltdown and build local resiliency. Folks who know me from the days of SPECTRUM 20-odd years ago will remember we considered the idea of setting up LETS (Local Economic Trading System) even then. I'm in communication with Dr Edgar Cahn, originator of time banking, who happens to live in DC. That's one advantage of living here, besides the excellent public transport system, there are so many resources available.

I encourage you to make a difference, right where you are, in your home, village or community. The Transition model provides Twelve Steps that any group can follow. In a spirit of sharing, cooperation, collaboration and synthesis, which are all necessary to see us through to survival and sustainability, information and resources are available to everyone. Through our outreach and our connection to the US Transition network. we are fostering the spread of the movement to Bethesda and Brunswick in Maryland, and to Brookland, a DC community with its own identity and strong activist tradition.

If you own a car, consider trading it in for a more energy-efficient model and drive less. I take transit or walk and i've bought a bicycle though i don't trust myself enough yet to hit DC streets on it. If you must shop, consider trading something with someone or buying used. Thrift stores and yard sales offer many wonderful surprises, even new brand-name, at low cost but you will also be utilizing the embedded energy in the product all over again. Homes and buildings use up an inordinate amount of energy, so check on your HVAC system, install energy-saving appliances, solar and geothermal if available. Plant an edible garden and share the harvest with neighbors. Eat locally and low on the food chain, meaning less meat and less processed food. You'll be happier and healthier for it.

Cuban lessons

I'm going to venture a prediction that we will look back at this year as the last normal one, despite the challenges and tribulations that beset us. It may not seem so now, but we will look back at 2008 with nostalgia and longing. We've had a few intimations of what's to come but i daresay most people don't realize just how much life as we know it will change. It doesn't matter whether you're in Kingston, Karachi or Kalamazoo, globalization has seen to it that you will be affected.

Friends in Jamaica were complacently reassuring themselves that they were out of the loop so it would be business as usual. The pundits there said the financial market and economy would be minimally affected, nothing more than the usual fluctuations that could be accommodated, some stock market losses and a few tourist cancellations, that's all. Now we see the Golding government has announced a bailout package, for what it's worth. When Golding paid a visit to DC in August or thereabouts, i thought of going to the town hall meeting at the Embassy to ask him what plans he had to deal with the coming crisis. I didn't bother to attend since i doubted that my input would have made any difference, especially as the PM has abjured advice from homosexuals.

The suggestion i would have put forward had i gone was that he should immediately create a Task Force comprising the Office of Disaster Preparedness, and the Ministries representing Energy, Labour, Transport and Agriculture to devise a plan to deal with the end of cheap oil. The adjustments that Cuba made in the Special Period when their oil supply was cut off overnight following the collapse of the Soviet Union holds many lessons for Jamaica.

Take an hour to watch this video The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.

I was gratified that Agriculture Minister Tufton visited Cuba and shortly after made his cassava proposal and promotion of backyard gardening. It was a small gesture but headed in the right direction, but doesn't go far enough. Food security becomes an increasingly critical issue as Jamaicans depend on imports for most of their food and the Jamaican dollar is grovelling at 80 to 1. Middle class consumers, let alone the poor, will be faced with nutritional deficits and starvation. Having lived through the 70s and experienced rice, flour and cooking oil shortages and the supermarket riots these engendered, i shudder to think what the coming deprivations will spawn.

The developed countries are not much better off as they depend on oil-based inputs and food imports in a globalized economy where the price of oil and commodities is increasing along with the temperature, salinization, desertification and inundation. The present US industrial agricultural situation in which the average meal travels 2000 miles from farm to plate and takes 10 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food energy is patently unsustainable and on its way to join finance, manufacturing and housing in sequential collapse.

For a better grasp of all this, i recommend you read The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, one of the most important books around. There was a proposal that author Michael Pollan should be chosen as US Secretary of Agriculture. He has modestly declined but remains at the forefront of those demanding reforms in agriculture.

One Swell Foop

Why not right here in DC?

Taking to heart the wisdom i've collected in my book Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennium of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing, start where you are with what you have. Ok, i'm here and what do i have? The will, the vision and some skills. I've discovered there are already some in the DC area who are interested in the idea of an intentional community, in permaculture, in finding solutions to cope with peak oil and other crises that increasingly beset us. It will be only a matter of time before we'll get to critical mass and something will happen.

The main aims of the community i envision:
Creation - To imagine, design and construct a permacultural center within the District
Organization - To model alternative governance structure, relationships and behavior
Energy - To revert to primary energy sources, becoming free of petroleum-based energy
Food - To eat low on the food chain, producing organic fruits and vegetables to meet community needs with surplus to trade

If nothing else, DC has more than enough lawyers, planners and grant writers to get a non-profit up and going in short order. The necessary architects, designers, engineers, farmers, artisans and community members will emerge and become part of the project as it grows. Financing and support will come from governmental, philanthropic and volunteer sources.

First, we'll have to identify and select sites from properties that are ruinate, abandoned or otherwise up for grabs. These would be acquired through usufruct, lease, grant, land trust, whatever form or combination the legal and regulatory heads come up with. A single large or complex of buildings with surrounding land space would be needed for the main campus or hub of the community. Here would be located fields, administration offices, residences, shared facilities, food processing, storage and retail. Buildings would be retrofitted to be solar passive, toilets would be composting and water would be recycled. Automobiles would be restricted to the periphery and transport within the community would be solar-, human- and animal-powered.

No animals would be slaughtered but honored as working members of the community contributing their companionship, energy, waste and by-products in exchange for protection, propagation and food. Animals could be rented out to fulfill tasks for others: rent a pair of goats instead of a power mower from Home Depot; they fertilize organically as they go. This could be basis for a community-run business, or private enterprise of a community member. In addition to food production and processing, including apiculture, viticulture and mycoculture, other income-generating activities would entail salvaging and recycling of goods and materials, environmental education, training and consultancy. Professionals, practitioners and artists could pursue their own businesses or operate under the community banner. The production of fresh fruits and vegetables would be the mainstay of the community, supplying nearby restaurants, food stores and retailing to consumers.

Some things that recommend this approach:
Intentional communities and eco-villages have tended to locate themselves in previously undeveloped or under-developed areas, increasing carbon footprint and cutting themselves off from existing communities. What they do is important and necessary but done in splendid isolation. The majority of the world's population live in urban areas which contain underutilized resources and degraded spaces. Our approach could be considered the green alternative to gentrification which tends to displace existing residents. We would encourage and assist homeowners in upgrading and retrofitting their homes to be greener. The elderly would be supported to age-in-place by health and social workers delivering services in their homes, working out of decentralized facilities based in the community. Disaffected youth and the jobless would be trained in green-collar work and support services, the demand for which will increase and not likely outsourced.

The coincidence of global warming, peak oil, food shortages, environmental and social degradation demands drastic measures carried out with urgency and pointed efficiency. An intentional community whose members self-select will commit to a common vision and work with a sense of purpose and dedication to achieving it. We can learn much from Transition towns but much will be exploratory, ad hoc and experimental in creating an urban model that other cities can follow. For this reason, research, documentation, analysis, publication and dissemination are critical aspects of the project.

Washington DC is the capital of the world's single greatest power, the virtual capital of the world, despite declining influence. A solution worked out within it will have tremendous impact on the world-at-large, promoting the adoption of best practices in the shortest possible time. Our project should hold great appeal and potential for Mayor Fenty in his attempts to green the city.

New jobs will be created as there will be a demand for old skills such as sheep-shearing, spinning, dyeing and weaving, bee-keeping, brewing and bottling, canning and food preservation, animal husbandry and veterinary, wheeled vehicle construction and maintenance, building construction, restoration and maintenance, landscaping and plant propagation, etc. New skills required will be retrofitting existing structures, green roofing, water conservation, treatment and recycling, solid waste cycling, materials testing and analysis, micro-climate modification, manpower- and horsepower-based logistics, etc.

Warming to peak oil and rising food costs

Many experts have figured that supplies of readily accessible oil will soon no longer be available. The cost of gasolene continues to rise without any relief in sight. There is a scramble to substitute bio-fuels, mostly ethanol derived from corn, which has diverted production away from food for human and animal consumption, thus driving up the price of grains. Along with global warming and its ensuing environmental effects, a crisis the magnitude of which the world has not known is imminent. Sure there have been natural disasters, drought, famine and the Black Death, but those have been localized. The inter-relatedness and pervasiveness of the current challenges have never before been encountered. All of modern life and technology is based on petroleum-derived energy. No one, from Dakar to Durham, will be untouched.

Slowly an environmental concern is beginning to seep into the awareness of the average consumer and we have seen responses ranging from driving less, switching to compact fluorescent bulbs, demanding more green products, etc. The range of organic stuff available from mainstream outlets such as Walmart, Costco, Safeway and Giant has grown exponentially in the past few years. These are all steps in the right direction but represent what many critics have dubbed the greenwashing of commerce. The current and growing situation, whether tagged recession, market adjustment, global crisis or temporary hiccups, demands more immediate and drastic coordinated response than these tinkerings can provide.

One approach that suggests itself to my mind is permaculture, which i was pleasantly surprised to discover is being implemented on community-wide scales in Cuba and some British, Irish, Australian and US towns. These are being referred to as Transition Towns and a book about this movement will be released in the US in September.

The thinking behind permaculture is basically using what resources are at hand to design systems that are sustainable and site-appropriate, taking into consideration geography, climate, natural history and culture. Growing bananas in the most certifiably organic and sustainable way, then shipping them to a consumer 2000 miles away would not be permacultural. Growing bananas and other crops that would feed the local population and their immediate neighbors would.

This is not to promote a return to primitivism and pre-industrial subsistence, but would entail the application of leading edge green technology to tap into non-petroleum energy sources and feed populations sustainably. It will require a degree of voluntary simplicity on the part of residents of the developed world but this is the paradigmatic shift that is required if the future of humans is to be assured. It's not the earth that needs saving, it'll take care of itself; it's our own skins. Keep in mind that the vast majority of the world's peoples already live in involuntary simplicity, so the elite would only be reducing their exploitation of finite resources, their carbon footprint and toxic waste.

My garden at Mango Walk, Trelawny, Jamaica, circa 2000, after about 6 months work. Much of the yard is concrete as cement was mixed on the ground during construction; a patch of bare concrete can be seen in the mid-distance. Raised beds were built on top of this hard surface using newspaper and compost. Paths were determined by natural traffic flow and surfaced in left-over tile chips. Foreground left, rockery with bird bath made from top of oil drum, clothes lines and compost heap at right.

The first of the tomatoes from my garden, the sweetest i've ever tasted. The seedlings were left back from the previous tenant. I never had to buy tomatoes for the rest of the time i was there.

Settling

A confluence of factors have influenced me into thinking about acquiring my own home. I was granted permanent residence in the US a couple months ago and thought it might be good to put down some roots now that the spectre of being rudely shipped out is that much less likely. In the current housing crunch, the ads have very convincingly said i could be paying much less for a house than i'm paying for rent. Who would not want to save some money while building equity?

There are lots of properties on the market within striking distance of my resources, many very desirable or with great potential for fixing-up, and the number increases with each passing day as more folks go into foreclosure. The irony is that the financial institutions are also tightening up their criteria for lending in direct proportion to the sub-prime mortgage crash as i discovered on tentative attempts to secure the wherewithal. Having owned a home before, i did not think i needed to go that route again, but the opportunities offered by foreclosures seem too good to pass up -- and i love a bargain.

See NY Times article on the conversion of one renter into buyer.

Spring has brought a profusion of forms and colors as the plants regenerate themselves after a mild but seemingly unending winter. I note with envy and admiration the dooryard gardens i pass each day on walks through the city, though there are just as many that are unremarkable or unkempt and overgrown. Living in a fifth-floor efficiency, i have to make do with a few houseplants and herbs on the window sill. But i have my memories of gardens past.

Datura and pentas in my garden at Mango Walk, Trelawny, Jamaica, circa 2000. More intense pink peeping out on the left is the ground orchid spathoglottis plicata.

Though i'm fast approaching retirement age, i have no plans to ever retire, but i've had this idea of living in community ever since i read about and visited the Findhorn Community in Scotland some 30-odd years ago. They have demonstrated a wonderful way to live together and with nature, growing much of their own food organically and creating educational programs and various business enterprises to support the community and teach others their approach. I've visited a few communities in Virginia and New York but i haven't found one that calls me to join them.

The pull back to the soil, combined with the food and energy crises, global warming and my need for community are urging me to revisit a vision i documented for an intentional community in Jamaica, dust it off and recast it for my present urban situation.

Person of the year

Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again.
~ Herman Hesse, 1877-1962 ~

Fun and joke aside, we have a lot to be thankful for. Just to get up this morning and see another day is gift enough. The prospect of seeing another year, infinitesimal as it in the cosmic scheme of things, should be of monumental significance, let alone that each of us is a singularity, never to be repeated. Even if you subscribe to a life beyond death in the Elysian fields or someplace inside pearly gates, or as some reincarnated entity, it will not be you as you are now. You are, as Kent Davy has put it, the "momentary concatenation of the dependently arising streams of factors that have eventuated" as the person known as you. It cannot, and it won't, happen again, ever. Appreciate yourself then, even if, especially if, no one else does.

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is transformed through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expression … It is your business to keep the channel open.
Martha Graham, 1894-1991

Time magazine is right on the button to name You as the Person of the Year for your control of the information age. Each of us is at the leading edge of evolution, with more access to power and information than any pope, king or potentate heretofore. We might not individually be capable of launching armadas and conquering hordes, nor should we want to, but Rameses, Genghis, Alexander, Plato, Charlemagne, Galileo and Napoleon would give their eye-teeth to know and do a fraction of what we are capable of now. Civilization has progressed through the stages of hunting/gathering, agriculture, and manufacturing, each with its hierarchies, oppressions and divisions of labor. For the first time, each individual, albeit some more apt than others, is a centre of production and consumption of the world's current and future wealth: information.

Whatever I do, however I find a way to live, I will tell these stories ... I speak to you because I cannot help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength, to know that you are there ... I am alive and you are alive so we must fill the air with our words. I will fill today, tomorrow, every day until I am taken back to God. I will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don’t want to listen, to people who seek me out and to those who run. All the while I will know that you are there. How can I pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as you pretending that I do not exist.
~ Dave Eggers ~
The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel , 2006
in Francine Prose, "Lost Boy," The New York Times, 2006/12/24

So how are we making the most of this opportunity that is our life? Are we spending it in drudgery, enduring each passing day, year, cast from one contingency to another, being swept along by the current, deferring our dreams until? Or are we awakened to our power, making a choice and seeing it through? Until recently i used to say i still didn't know what i wanted to be when i grew up. This may have changed as this publishing business seems to be the right fit; I get to write, draw, play, create, perform, pontificate - and get paid doing it. But then previous reinventions of myself seemed right at the time ...

Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him, and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique, and no man has any other call ... By doing his work, he makes the need felt which he can supply, and creates the taste by which he is enjoyed. By doing his own work, he unfolds himself.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

As we begin a New Year, let us do so with passion and vision that we can be and do all that we are capable of. Right here, right now, you are and have all you need to proceed; this is the entry point; begin now. I have no warm, florid feel-good wish for you. It is only for you to choose. Then i will celebrate with you your courage, your greater idea of yourself and the inevitable and subsequent expansion beyond your present limitations.

Do not look back. And do not dream about the future, either. It will neither give you back the past, nor satisfy your other daydreams. Your duty, your reward – your destiny – are here and now.
~ Dag Hammarskjöld, 1905-1961 ~

Another year

Celebrate, then, the days of rejoicing and do not tire of them. For lo, none may take their goods with them and none who depart ever come back again.
~ Khemetic Book of Songs ~

The sorrel is drawn, dark and strong, biting with white rum and fresh ginger, the way i like it, served chilled, no ice, in wine goblets. I had the best intentions of making steamed pudding, the dried fruits soaking since September, and bun with stout, the Guinness standing in reproachful vigil in my fridge, but as John Lennon is credited with saying in my book - unabashed commercial, get it if you don't already have it - "Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans." (Editor General's Warning: This missive is all about The Book. If you are already weary of hearing me go on about it, stop reading now and close this window.)

Whatever your pretext for celebrating this Season, there seems to be some underlying organismic appreciation for having survived another annual cycle. At some cellular level we seem, at least in northern climes, to sense the return of increasing solar radiation, variously referred to as Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun, the rebirth of the sun, later conflated with the Birth of the Son by the Early Church fathers and adhered to unquestioningly by unsuspecting millions subsequently.

Beyond the reach of Graeco-Roman influence, the Chinese have for centuries referenced the moon rather than the sun to mark the end and beginning of years. However, The New York Times has reported official protest by a group of graduate students in China of the wholesale importation of Western Christmas practices into that ancient and now re-awakening culture. And well should they protest as the symbols and trappings have lost any real significance even in their sphere of origin, conscripted as they have been into the service of mammon. To my positivist way of thinking, rather than protest, or be anti-war, or anti-anything, they should propose, propound, pronounce.

Here is an admirable opportunity for them to co-opt, copy, as they are so often accused, a western solar-based cultural artifact and make it uniquely their own. As a northern country they have as much reason to mark the Northern Winter Solstice as any other northern culture. They could contrive, say, a sinicization of Santa Claus, transforming him into a Shaolin warrior-turned-monk who goes about doing good and bestowing gifts on the poor to expiate his former brutality and ruthlessness, so bringing him back into Harmony with the Way, an example for the benighted millions. The Eight Immortals could be persuaded to appear in concert this one time of the year. Those old Taoists were presciently, or in Jamaican parlance previous, politically correct, including one female, and a castanet-clicking drag queen or transexual, we're not sure which, among their Immortals.

Observing a secular festival based solely on geophysical considerations, avoiding decadent and imperialistic associations with the Saviour and Light of the World, Archangel Gabriel, and St. Nicholas, should sit well with Chinese authorities as they scramble to liberalize their economy and spread proletariat well-being. For this reason, sheep-herders washing socks by starlight would be retained as a grim reminder of serfdom narrowly escaped, with oblique references to rapacious capitalist innkeepers who would deny shelter to a working man with a wife in tertiary trimester. They can even keep the reindeer and winter wonderland as those are native features too of their northern country. Southern and equatorial cultures need to consider bamboo rafts drawn by dolphins or crocodiles. You get the picture.

Postcard from the zen

If you meet the Buddha on the way, kill him.
- Zen koan

I was hurrying down Georgia Avenue to satsang which i convene so i didn't want to be late. I swept past a male version of the baglady, a rotund African-American freighted with shoppers, greeting everyone calling them by name. They addressed him as Baby Ray.
"How ya doin?"
"Hey Master, Teacher!"
"Piece a shit!"
Only then did i realize he was addressing me. Already way ahead of him, i didn't stop or turn back even to look at him, but burst out laughing. It's all the same, no distinction.

Another one

Proverbs are full of poetry and twists. They are made up of words that have been molded for centuries, if not milleniums, until a minimum of words carry an extraordinary potential for meaning.
~ Gaston Kaboré ~

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?
~ Philip G. Hamerton ~

The new book is out and i've planted promotional seeds, waiting patiently now for something to sprout. Barnes & Noble have said they'll start with 75 copies but i've not seen evidence of an order yet.

The experience of producing a book for the so-called urban market has been interesting but not surprising as the responses received to date have been more or less as expected. Seeing me in person, folks do a double-take as my visage does not tally with their idea of what the author of a black text should look like. The forthcoming ones will ask what prompted me to undertake such a project to which i reply that being Jamaican, a predominantly black culture, i feel capable of recognizing wisdom that resonates with black folk. Both black and white have questioned whether souls have any color, which i think not, but i make the distinction that black folks' souls collectively share in a particular ethos, mythos and experience which would predispose them to respond favorably to selected information. My spiritual training, literary sensibility, transpersonal psychology study and multicultural exposure all combine to prepare me for this task. In any event, wisdom is universally applicable beyond the narrow confines of limiting identities.

There have been many anthologies of black quotations before this but they have been limited mostly to African American sources. One of my intentions was to broaden the scope so folks could know there's a whole lot more out there. Some of this content is familiar only to black literati and cognoscenti. We get a more complete, balanced picture reading the words also of Carthaginian theologians, Ethiopian philosophers, Martiniquan poets, Senegalese griots, Jamaican pioneers and African, Afro-Canadian and -European writers.

In the dedication, i acknowledge Anansi, Akan deity of wisdom and Caribbean spider-man, whose stories i absorbed as an infant even before i was able to read Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin and Mickey Mouse. Many are unaware that Anansi is the direct forebear of Brer Rabbit.

I've started work on the third anthology featuring quotations from LGBT sources, called Wisdom for the Soul of Queer Folk. Let's see if i can complete it in time for Pride 2008.

Taking a break from the break

The book is done and out - not down and out, hopefully - on bookshelves in stores and libraries across America, and in homes across the world, in some pulpits too. I've done what i could to flog it through personal appearances, interviews and book fairs, and will continue to promote it as a perennial, if not best, seller. It's up to you all to hold up your end and go buy a copy. If the brick-and-mortar bookstores don't have it in stock, they'll order it for you; it's all over the web, even Walmart and e-bay list it, for God's sake. I don't quite know what to make of it when sellers on A Libris and AbeBooks ask over a hundred bucks per copy, more than twice the cover price. Should i be flattered that it's so highly appraised or is it just an instance of rapacious capitalism?

The flurry of activity having tapered off, i've started working on the follow-up Wisdom for the Soul of Black Folk and other projects. God knows, i have a million things to do, but it's been difficult to come down off my high and tackle the tasks in front of me with the same level of energy. I keep going from one thing to the other, instead of working steadily on one thing to completion. It has, however, given me pause to reflect more than i have been lately, basically to stop and smell the roses, or the coffee which i happen to love. I've resolved to go out more, see people, movies, exhibitions, the like. Not to push myself so hard, but just do stuff, like writing in this blog.