When the River Meets the Sea - Re-Vitalizing the Voices of Teenagers and Transforming the Parent Relationship

The river flows to the sea and becomes part of something greater. Without the rivers, the sea would be diminished, thirsty, without revitalization and the ecosystems would suffer and die as a result of imbalance. As parents, we are connected by our experience of parenting with all its joy, all its mystery, and the times we are fearful and uncertain. Our children are their own beings, with souls that are being colored and carved by their experiences. We are their shepherds; we are their beacons, but they are not us and they do not belong to us. As their parents, we are charged with being witnesses of our teenagers’ journeys to becoming part of the consciousness of the world, the participants in shaping their cultures according to their vision and values. When we let go, if we can let go, we cannot predict the course. On some level we know they must determine that for themselves; to engage their imaginations, their resourcefulness and their voices. But how will they learn to use their voices if their predecessors do not teach them to speak in whatever language expresses them best whether it is through spoken language, the language of art, music, dance, writing or another of the imagination’s vehicles?

Transforming the Parent Relationship – From Knower to Witness

Witnessing is different than protecting, advising, teaching or telling. For the parent of a teenager perched on the edge of the nest ready to take the first test flight, witnessing is an act of refraining. To refrain from speaking, warning, teaching, advising or telling is to open space for the voices of our teenagers. To refrain from filling the empty space with our opinions and admonishments while they search for the right words is to trust that they will find them. Too often, we extinguish and silence voices that need a quiet host and we fail to act as curious guests in the imaginations of young minds and hearts. As M. Scott Peck wrote in his 1988 book “The Road Less Traveled, “Our job is not to prepare the path of life for our children, but to prepare our children for the path.” 

How Our Culture Affects Teens

Teenagers are weighted with cultural expectations for maturity juxtaposed against the realities of their emotional capacity. Teenagers try to match what the culture expects often at the cost of their self-esteem and inner peace. Many teens struggle with body image, sexuality, economic disadvantages, depression and learning problems, and many cannot imagine talking about these issues will provide relief or resolution. Those who cannot withstand the pressure from peers, parents, the schools and the culture often drop out of school, use substances to cope with emotional pain, join gangs or they decide suicide is the only way to end their suffering.

American boys are required by law to register for the draft when they reach the age of eighteen. When a war is going on, registering for the draft and contemplating possible death in a country thousands of miles away has the potential to be terrifying, yet our culture does not address all the implications of this requirement, selecting only to valorize voluntary military service as a means of achieving success or increasing self-esteem or guaranteeing a college education, if a soldier makes it home again. Many arrive home in pieces, their tender psyches reeling to return to the place left far behind on the threshold between childhood and adulthood.

Teenagers struggle to discern their values and expectations with those of the culture, schools, and parents in trying to create the paths they will take as adults. For teens who leave the school system or who drift after graduating high school with no clear plan for the future and few resources, the world can seem overwhelming and inhospitable. There is little time to dream, imagine and to retreat, perhaps cocooning into a chrysalis for a time to let the lessons sink in. There is only the experience of harshness, rigidity of the systems they are caught up in and our culture’s frenzied pace to know more, be more and do more. Despite the rumbling in their stomachs, their aching heads and emptied hearts, they press on keeping pace with a speeding conveyor belt with no “off” button within reach. American teenagers are a silenced population. They are given no clear role or voice during their most critical developmental years in shaping the world they will inherit. They are rarely offered a voice in decisions that will impact them as adults.

We are a nation of fearful consumers and ravenous competitors, our eyes turned outward for food that never satisfies the deepening starvation for connection with each other. Our children receive the anxiety like radio waves, and they respond to the frenzied pace with the language available to them, usually behavior such as bullying or withdrawing into the darker realms. We diagnose it rather than paying attention to what it says about the state of our culture. We identify them as the patients rather than examine ourselves and the world we have brought them into.

The Children Left Behind

According to Angela Diaz, M.D. MPD, director of the Mt. Sinai Adolescent health Center in New York, the population of teenagers between sixteen and twenty four is the most underserved in the United States in terms of health care, preventative care, mental health services and dental care.  They are legally adults at the age of eighteen, but unless they are in college, the likelihood is that they will get jobs that pay little more than minimum wage, inadequate to live on with no medical benefits. The mental health system has coined the term “transitional age youth” to describe the population of young adults who are suspended in the nether-region between being teenagers who have more access to social services and those 18 and older who are cut off from services or who cannot get into college and become stuck in survival mode of minimum wage jobs. These are just a few of the barriers that millions of teenagers who will inherit our country are up against.

Our educational system has put its resources and focus on preparing students to pass aptitude tests and less on developing imagination, creativity and the ability to navigate the complex problems of living in this competitive culture beyond high school which for many does not include college. Our children fear failure because they are not permitted to fail and then retrieve success from its fallout by accessing their own resilience.

For teens with emotional problems stemming from lack of access to stable caregiving, economic stability and medical care and who have experienced trauma as children, the legal system becomes the de facto parent. Children who break school rules or the law due to violent behavior, drug use or truancy are placed either in foster care or juvenile detention. Many cycle through these systems over and over again until they reach the age of eighteen. Without experiences of loving, caring stable homes, or parents with whom they can speak honestly, these children are released from the juvenile justice system at the age of eighteen and are expected to go out in the world and live according to the laws and expectations of a culture they are unfamiliar with. Some will make it into college or vocational programs against all odds, but most do not. These are the young adults this society fails to recognize and offer resources for healthcare, social support and life skills education in a supportive, safe and nurturing environment.

Talking about Suicide

            Although none of this information may apply to you and your teenager (s), the possibilities for any teenager to fall through the cracks and land in the juvenile justice system, on the streets, or drug involved is everyone’s concern. It is critically important for adults and teenagers to speak openly about the fears and challenges of growing up and out of the family and into the world. Statistically, male teenagers complete suicide more than female teenagers and the reasons for suicide remain the same as they were ten years ago. Boys often feel they must have certainty about their life path by the time they reach the age of 18; the benchmark we have set determining their ability to be independent.   And although there has been progress in cultivating openness about fear of growing up, boys are typically not as willing as girls to express such feelings. The CDC cites depression as the main cause for suicide and that suicide is the third leading cause of death for teenagers between the ages of 12 and 19 after accidental deaths and homicide. Among the leading causes for teen depression is discord, violence or abuse in the family, inability to feel a connection with parents or caregivers, pressure and anxiety associated with school, and isolation or being ostracized by peers. Statistics evaluating depression among teens show that if there is just one person, not necessarily a parent, but a coach or a teacher or an extended family member, with whom they can speak openly and feel safe and who can offer them support and unconditional love and care, it often makes the difference between rebounding from depression or not.

The Transparent Parent

The river is allowed to make its way to the sea meandering over the land, carving its way around obstacles, bumping over stones and crashing in great waterfalls to the valleys below. To watch it and witness its journey is a miracle, a marvel for all the senses to experience. To stop it by force is to starve it from creating its own path severing it from its ultimate destination which is to join with its greater ancestor, the sea. Learning to let go of old ways of being “the parent,” the knower or the authority is perhaps our greatest and most terrifying challenge. Transforming the parent relationship means learning to hold space for the most frightening conversations including depression and thoughts of suicide. Trusting ourselves in the action of refraining requires relentless faith that simply listening and holding space goes a long way, perhaps even preventing the desperation and depression from eating our children alive. An undefended and open heart is always an invitation even for the most reluctant visitor. The changing role of parenting as our children open their wings is an opportunity to show our humanity and fallibility and to choose humility rather than hubris, to hold sacred the role of being the one they want to come to first when life seems overwhelming.

 

The Everest Challenge

Lessons from the Tarahumara

Jon and I listened to the audiobook version of Born to Run on the way to Bishop. I've wanted to read it for several years, but always told myself I should be working on my dissertation instead. If you haven't read it, I recommend it not just because of the storytelling; it has wisdom we can all use and apply especially about love and compassion in sport. Joe Vigil, the renowned coach for Adams State College studied the native Mexican Tarahumara tribesmen running the Leadville 100 and wanted to discover how they could run for miles and miles in their sandals and flowing white capes with smiles on their faces the entire time. They flowed over the roughest terrain as if their feet were winged creatures. Dr. Vigil concluded that the "secret" was simply love of running. The understanding they have of their connection with Gaia (earth) and Nature as the ultimate source. There was nothing cavalier, ego-centric or competitive about running and racing; just the love for being connected and at one with each footfall, each stone and creek, each nuance of the earth beneath them.

 

 

I thought about the 38 years that I have been running and more recently cycling. I recall my mother-in-law condemning my daily ritual as being selfish and silly, a waste of precious time when I could be working. What she didn't understand was how learning to run saved me from self-destructing. It was the soul-medicine I needed after the death of my mother just after my 16th birthday and soon thereafter, my father's choice to move away with his girlfriend without me. I was alone, without any firm sense of identity, an amputated daughter, a wandering orphan looking for a place to be or soemone to show me the way. My boyfriend at the time took me for my first run straight up a mountain trail. Upon reaching the end, I collapsed in tears and cried rivers and rivers of tears never cried before. Tears I didn't know I kept dammed up behind a safe wall of toughness and Amazonian resolve to survive without needing anyone. And when the tears finally slowed to a few sniffles, I realized I felt one with the ground I wept on. I wanted more because I love the feeling of my breath and the rhythm of my feet touching the ground. I loved engaging all of my senses in my surroundings, the sounds, the smells and the taste of water from the streams. I began racing because a coach at Sierra College told me I ought to. But I hated it at first. It made me anxious and nervous and I could never sleep the night before. I grew to love it when I learned to love myself and to transform the mind's chatter about how much better I should be than so and so, or how much better, thinner, more muscular so and so is than me into more loving self-talk. But my mind has its way of being a persistent and annoying pest when it wants to be so it is a daily practice of gently telling it to be quiet so that I can hear the voice of compassion instead.

 

The outdoors has been medicine, Mother, Father and serenity, a time of silence and solitude away from the noise of the world. I run and cycle alone because I love the solitude more and more as I age. Although I enjoy my friends and the occasional gathering, I find myself more introverted than I used to be. I often imagine myself a Crone in the woods, rocking on the front porch with her Crone husband and feeding the animals as they wander into the clearing in front of our hut.

 

So what does all this have to do with the Everest Challenge, a two-day 203 mile bike race with 29,029 feet of climbing in the eastern Sierra Nevada?

 

If anything will test one's ability to go deep within and draw from the heart's capacity to divine a way through the difficult hours, this event will do just that. The surroundings are magnificent, climbing through the primal canyons of Mother Earth with the aspen leaves turning on the flanks of the towering peaks. All but one of the roads are quiet and narrow with minimal traffic so the only sounds are my breath and the water in the creeks. The smells of desert mingle with the alpine flora and the hot breath of desert wind shifts to cooling breezes from the peaks as I climb higher and higher.

Day One:

I am used to riding alone so the tightly bunched Peloton is a bit unnerving. Neutral start until we turned up to South Lake after which we could race. But the pace was sooooo slow! I was going nuts being caught in this tight pack of women who didn’t seem interested in going fast. I told myself to be patient and just wait but really, it went against my desire to break free. So I went into the lead when I couldn’t stand it anymore and of course, the group sat on my wheel until I decided to move left and see if someone else would take it. Anyway, we went at the speed of drool until we were only about 6 miles from the turnaround. So with about 4 miles to go, Kathryn Donovan decides she’s finally going to go faster (she won last year by about an hour). I knew that pace was too hard so I kept my own pace and was glad to be out of the craziness of a pack. I then found that I could attune to the sounds around me instead of being vigilant about watching other people's bike wheels to avoid a crash. But even if I'd stayed with the pack, I get left behind on downhills because the heavier women can really power and on the flats, they get me every time. So there I was, flying down 168 at 47 MPH but still getting way behind!

Descending back down to the desert and into the rising heat, the second climb through Pine Creek Canyon was a leveler. Several women who had gone out hard with the leaders were suffering in the 90+ degree heat and no wind in the canyon. And the beginning of the final climb, a 22 mile ascent from 5,000 feet to 10,000 feet would be hotter at the beginning and very challenging at the end. I really gained a lot of what I’d lost going so slow going up the final climb from Paradise up to Tom’s Place and then up Rock Creek Lake Road to Mosquito Flat. But the early part of that climb was hot! And I felt myself feeling discouraged, telling myself it was perfectly okay to just stay within myself and realize that this was just a low point where I needed to be gentle with myself and just keep going. Don't force the uphills, just turn the pedals over and be patient. I heard the voice of my heart telling my brain to shut up. My heart said, "You're fine. Just trust yourself and rememeber, this is impermanent, the heat will not last forever." My brain said, "See? I told you this was a dumb idea. Who do you think you are you silly old crone! You should have gone with them when they broke away. Now look at you...drooling along like a snail." Although I'd gone painfully slow at the start thinking I should stay with the pack, I was still within three minutes of last year's time. When I finished, I was feeling woozy and nauseous and a little uncertain of what to do with myself. Should I obey the impulse to lie down right in the middle of the road? Throw up? Keep walking around in circles? Jon was working on a woman who had crashed in the Pine Creek Canyon climb but somehow pulled herself out of the sagebrush, banged up and bleeding, to finish the remaining 30 miles of grueling climbing.

After suffering through the climb out of the desert on Old Sherwin Grade, I felt stronger especially knowing the Jon left an ice cold Pepsi in a cooler at Tom’s Place for me and that was the fuel I needed. Before each endurance event, I drink about 20 ounces of Chia seeds soaked in water (another tarahumara tool). I learned this trick from my children's father who presented me with my first jug of Chia seeds back in 1978 when we were first going out. It had the consistency of snot and looked just as the author of Born to Run described it: "Like a science experiment from a swamp." But those little seeds pack a lot of nutrition and they hold about ten times there size in water so amazing hydration. So I finished strong, powering up the last 10 miles feeling fresh and powerful. So my heart was right...again...It was cooler and my nausea was impermanent!
I'd ridden back down to Bishop (another 33 miles or so) back to our motel while Jon provided massage for people up at Mosquito Flat. I went swimming and sat in a bathtub full of ice water, I chatted with three girls, age 17, 15 and 13 all of whom were riders in the race. Their father was the chief coach and support along with their mother and their 11 year-old sister who would enter her first Everest Challenge when she turned 13. What a delightful experience to see these young girls enjoying a potentially life-changing event such as this.

That night, I ate huge amounts of Mexican food from a little hole in the wall in Bishop where the Mama makes all the food herself.  And Jon gave me a massage.

 

Day Two:

Waking up was so painful. Never before have I longed to just go back to sleep so much. Oh wait...I felt this way last year on Day Two of this race. I told myself I would not be riding in the pack today. I would just do my own thing. They would mow me down but that would be fine with me. I would get mowed down either way. I'd just hoped some would come back to me later on. The first climb takes you from about 3,900 feet up to 7,800 in about nine miles. I didn't really wake up until I was about half way through this climb and then, thankfully, the Chia and coffee kicked in. I began to pass a few women who had gone out hard. I have made it a practice to say a little prayer for us all, wishing us all a safe ride with no mishaps. No ill will. The second climb, Waucoba Canyon was longer than it was last year by about four miles. So much for monitoring my time in order to try to make up any time lost from yesterday on this day. Good. Now I can go back to focusing on what's happening in my body instead of what's happening on my bike computer. Last climb, 22 miles from 3,900 up to 10,100 feet at Bristlecone Forest. Hot hot HOT in the first six miles! I was moving slow and once again focusing on impermanence. I can make it through another half hour, I told myself. It's fine to just turn the pedals over and not force it. No sense in dying out here in the desert and being eaten by vultures. At the aid station at 6,000 feet, I asked them to dump ice down my jersey to cool my core temperature. That did it. The wind changed from hot breath to cool alpine breeze and I felt fantastic. The final 15km is a showcase of the entire eastern Sierra showcased against a flawless blue sky. Although I kept my eyes focused on what was right in front of me most of the time, I could glance up and feel like I was flying above the earth. The pain of the 20% climbs seemed more a product of my judgement about them more than anything else. "Omigosh, I am going SO slow! I might as well be going backwards!" said my mind. "Well duh...it's 20%. And you've gone what...195 miles so far in the past 36 hours? Of COURSE you're going to be just getting the pedals around and hoping you don't tip over! Relax!It's all good!" said my heart.

 

I pushed hard over the last 5km, going deeply within myself and focusing only on the rhythm of my breath. I was thankful for being able to finish and even more thankful for all those volunteers at each aid station who took an entire weekend to stand in the heat and make sure we were all watered and fed. This event is always an experience in faith, a lesson in gratitude and a return to the essence of why we find ways of testing the reaches of our phsyical and emotional endurance. For me, there are no greater lessons available than what I learn by shutting everything out and going within.

 

TAKING ANTI-DEPRESSANTS-And Other Precious Rituals - by Kimball C. Pier

The March winds brought rain and then the quiet came. Snow began to fall, each flake heavy with moisture. They fell like tired doves onto the tree branches. The snow, welcome snow will feed the lakes and rivers. The house is so quiet and I can’t hear the trains on the distant tracks anymore. The fire crackles and I worry about the man I saw walking in the snow with his head down. My feet are warm in my fleece socks. His are not.

Then I think about how heavy the snow is and whether we will be able to get out tomorrow because I long to ski out on the trails where I hear nothing but my own breath. The man found shelter from the rain in the medical building but he smelled so foul that he was asked to leave. I wonder whether it would be possible to ski with the snow so deep. I am truly shallow.

In the morning, we went outside to survey the driveway. We discovered one of our Aspen trees had fallen during the night and it lay across the driveway with its branches stiff with ice and snow. I wanted to lift it up and make it not dead. But its roots had pulled out of the ground and when we tried to lift the tree, it wouldn’t move. We had to amputate all of its branches. The Skilsaw screamed through each branch and I dragged them one by one to the side of the house by the neighbor’s SeaDoo which I hated. We’d have to haul the pile of limbs away at some point. They all had buds on them because it seemed like it might be springtime there for a while. There was nothing left except the trunk now and we had to cut it into pieces so we could move it. I went in the garage and found a pushbroom and I began to knock all the snow and ice off of the other trees in our yard. They were weeping under the weight of it all. I wanted to save them from death and with each swing of my pushbroom, more ice and snow feel and the tree’s began to reach their arms upward again. A chunk of ice landed smack in my eye and scratched my cornea. I wondered if I would be able to ski with a scratched cornea. I am truly silly.

Then we discovered that a trip of Aspens had fallen by the mailbox, their bodies lying halfway across the road. Jon thought perhaps we could lift them up and brace them with boulders so they could live. I briefly thought about how much work that would be and by the time we were finished, there would be no parking left up at the Nordic ski center. Then I felt ashamed and began to help Jon lift the trees. They were too heavy for us even after we knocked the branches clear of snow and ice. And we surrendered. They had to be cut up and moved back with the other cut up tree. I felt like a murderess. If I were really devoted to saving the trees, I would have gotten the neighbors to help us but I really wanted to go skiing. I thought we could just go and buy new trees which is so typically American. Just throw it away and buy a new one. The other day, I saw the ragged, smelly man looking in the trash for cans and other things he could use or sell.

At dinner, Jon said he felt “off” all day and wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with him. I felt a little agitated too but I thought it might have been my usual Saturday mood. I was always anxious to go out and play and my mind raced like a Border Collie who had been cooped up for too long. He noticed that the snow was falling again and I suddenly felt very anxious about the trees. He’d spent about hour going around the yard knocking snow and ice off the trees as high as he could reach. “I got most of them except for the pine tree. He’s still pretty upset,” he said when he came inside with snow caked on his eyebrows. We looked at each other. “It’s the trees,” we said in unison. That’s why we felt off all day. “We didn’t try that hard to save them, did we?” he said. “No.” I said. They were so beautiful in the summer. They gave so much; the least we could have done was try to resuscitate them. Aspens grow prolifically even in conditions they don’t normally grow in such as by our mailbox where the ground is hard and dry. I wish I didn’t have such tender feelings about trees and rivers and animals and the oceans; I wish I didn’t care about everyone being well fed and housed because it hurts too much. I find joy in so many things, but I feel so much pain about so many things. Meditation, yoga, coffee, wine, anti-depressants, skiing, my bicycle rides…all precious little rituals to aid my journey through this life.

When did I recognize that the ocean breathes? When did I know and hold in my tender heart that raging forest fires are a consequence of human behavior? What moment was it that I reconciled what I knew deep within me and what I heard from my teachers that it was truth that granite rocks held soul and for certain that mountains speak? When did I know the frantic feeling inside me was Gaia’s grief? Such a painful moment of acute awareness. I could not contain it very well and felt I needed to cry or scream or laugh or vomit. What to do with this knowing that erupted into awareness?

An Urgent Prayer from Yahweh and Gaia (Mother Earth)

Dear humans-
Please repeat after me:
“Wisdom”…(“Yud” in Hebrew )
Now breathe out...until you are empty…Haaayy (“Behold” in Hebrew)
And breathe in….”Vav” (“The Great Connector” in Hebrew)
And breathe out..”Haaayy”
Breathe in…I am (Yud)
Dry. So dry…now breathe out Haaay
Behold Breathe in….vav “The Great Connector”
Breathe out….hayyy...
Yud-hay-vav-hay
Yahweh…

Now Gaia asks us,
“Remember your breath as you read this and breathe with me….”

My floor crunches when you step on me
all these thirsty pine needles…
I breathe wind that cools on summer evenings.
Creatures sleep in the shade of the swaying trees
so kind to lend their shade.
Parched.
My rivers only weep a little
my streams no longer whisper.
Something has shifted
and I no longer rest beneath the haven snow.
Thirsty. So thirsty.
I beckon the rain but it does not hear as it has before.
My lakes disappear
leaving naked flesh.
And I pray the mood will shift.
Sons and daughters:
Please care for me as I have mothered you.

Shhh..now…I hear the snap of gunfire (yud…I am)
the moan of tires…(haayy…so disappointed)
the whine of engines in the reaches…
A careless hand drops
an emptied can. (when you say Budweiser, you’ve said it all.)
And then a careless wave
sends a white hot match which gave
a single little thirsty tree
at first, a playful flame
which then became
a raging angry fire (Yud…)
blistering into a funeral pyre.

Death (hayyy)
so near, yet you do not hear.
It calls—it laughs and loves the game
of hubris.
Just keep driving, driving, driving
and buying
to fill the space between
you and me
until I say….
The End.

Yud-haay
vav-hayy….yud…..haayy….vav………..haaayyy

More conversations with Mother Nature about winter

"Did you see Mark Nadell's photo album on Facebook, "A Tale of Two Winters?" I asked Mother Nature this question as I was making coffee this morning and wondering if I could just do several up/down trips at Tahoe Donner, maybe Andromeda.

"I don't need a computer to get inside Mark Nadell's mind," she scoffed, "I'm in there all the time and I know what he's thinking." She fingered the wilting fern plant on the kitchen window sill. "Too much sun," she remarked.

"You can say THAT again." I said. "Listen Mother, I have been really committed to seeing you as the ultimate authority on what is best for this planet, that it's a bit ridiculous for us to be worrying about when it will snow and getting frustrated and angry when we see pictures of yellow balls instead of clouds and snowflakes on the Accuweather website," I said. "And I still really believe that you know best. However, I do get a little downhearted when I try to skate-ski on icy trails and my toes cramp from trying to cling to something secure. And my knees hurt from my skis sliding out from under me when I push off."

She rolled her eyes and beckoned for her black raven to perch on her shoulder. He'd found his way to the kitchen garbage and was feasting on old coffee grounds and rancid sunflower seeds.

"Didn't you hear what Tav Streit told you as you limped across the parking lot at Royal Gorge on Saturday?" she asked impatiently. "You're supposed to find balance right over you feet and pay very close attention to riding a flat ski even though it goes against all your instincts. I saw you out there trying to find security by clinging to the snow...butt sticking out...snowplowing...legs straight as matchsticks. You should know by now that there is no such thing as security so why spend so much energy trying to have it? Just let go and trust your balance and your strength instead of clinging all the time. Honestly, all those books you read about Buddhism and you still get all worked up about things you have no control over...like for example my decisions about whether it should snow."

"I'm not that worked up!" I said defensively. "I just find other things to do. I went for a 50 mile bike ride yesterday down at Foresthill didn't I?"

"Yes and when you hit snow on the road before the 25 mile turnaround, you obsessed about how you were going to get in an honest 50 so you added on three miles at the end. And then you worried about what would happen to your upper body strength if you couldn't cross-country ski and you thought about how much you hate swimming in pools and how much you dislike lifting weights. You thought about a pulley system that would be like Nordic skiing and that you could get rich if you invented something."

I was deeply humiliated that she'd been spying on me and even worse that she was inside my head. There should be a sign on my forehead saying, "DANGER-DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION FROM THE OWNER."

"Do you have any flies around here," she asked looking on all the windowsills. "I need a snack."

"Well you'd think there would be with all this SUN.." I said indignantly.

"Ahem...look outside dear. It is snowing this morning." I saw one or two flakes outside the window.

She went on..."You know all that yoga you practice. When you ski on the ice, why not just apply those principles of being grounded, finding balance and stability, bringing attention into your feet and trusting the innate wisdom of your body?"

"Are you taking yoga classes too?"

"Honey, whom do you think yoga was intended to celebrate and honor? What you do in yoga is exactly what I do all day every day. I bring balance, beauty, love...I bring the darkness and I bring the light...I bring storms and I bring the calm afterward. It's all about balance. There can be no light without darkness and no wisdom without working through hardship. And perhaps the hardest lesson of all, no life without death. Humans are really resistant to death of any kind. Death of giving up ego wishes, death of old ways that do not work to make way for the new and different."

I sat down and realized how fortunate I am that some days my most challenging decision is what I will do for play...ski, bike or run.

I looked at her as she stroked her raven's smooth black feathers.

"You're right," I said. "I always have choice even in the worst of circumstances. I can always choose how I will respond."

"Now you're getting it!" she said. And then she was gone in a swirling skirt of snowflakes.

A Conversation with Mother Nature by Kimball C. Pier

I didn’t start really craving a three foot snowstorm until my knee started to bother me from running a few days ago. Up until then, I was happy to roller ski and run remembering that it was only six months ago that I was whining about too much snow and how it was hindering my summer activities, like running and cycling.

While my husband obsessively studies the weather maps and practically becomes hysterical when he sees a cloud, I just shake my head marveling at the folly of it all. All the beseeching, lamentations, cursing and bouts of uncontrollable sobbing when the sun is out yet again…Don’t they know that Mother Nature has supreme wisdom? She is unconcerned about the economic impact on ski reports and all the employees so desperate to begin earning money.

“It wasn’t MY idea to cut holes in the forest and put chairlifts in so people could ride up and slide down all day. If this silly idea of skiing were mine, I would have told them to walk up and ski around all the trees. It’s good exercise. People have become too fat and under-active anyway, they could use it.”

“But what about all the poor employees who need to earn money?” I argued trying to engage her empathetic side.

“When in the 53 years that you’ve know me have I ever been predictable?” I became defensive about how our technology captures her moods fairly accurately. “We can predict your moods pretty accurately,” I said almost with a tinge of haughtiness.

“I let you people do that for a while just until you get over confident and full of yourselves and then I usually become contrary and sometimes downright violent just to teach you not to get complacent. Remember last year?”

“You mean all those times when we thought it was going to be summer soon and then it was winter again?”

“Indeed. And don’t forget about earthquakes, tsunamis and Hurricane Katrina.”

“So how is a ski resort supposed to operate profitably when we can’t predict winter? Does it entertain you to watch all the corporate executives wringing their hands and drinking too many martinis?”

She took a long look at me and raised an eyebrow.

“Well actually it IS rather entertaining. Look, as I said, people do all kinds of silly things in order to make money. Ski resorts depend on me to provide them with the means to make money and I do not make weather to suit people who run around in expensive ski sweaters. I make weather to do what is best for the trees and rivers and lakes. Even though you people think you’re in charge of what’s best for the planet, you’re not. Remember, there are fish and birds who have survived for millions of years without polluting themselves out of existence. Humans have managed to destroy entire continents and pollute oceans in less than a hundred years. You’ve even wiped out members of your own species who knew better than you how to live with me not in opposition to me. Remember what Carl Jung said almost sixty years ago?

“But our progressiveness,though it may result in a great many delighted wish fulfillments, piles up an equally gigantic Promethean debt which has to be paid off from time to time in the form of hideous catastrophes" (CW 9.1,PAR 276).

“Hideous catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina and wildfires and tsunamis?” I inquired.

“Precisely,” said Mother Nature shooing a swarm of bees from beneath her skirts.

“So maybe we should trust that you know what’s best not only for the planet but for us too? And when people are unemployed because there’s now snow, perhaps we should be innovative in thinking of other kinds of fun, healthy activities that people can engage in so that people will come up to visit our resorts even when there isn’t snow?”

“Now you’re getting it!” she said.

“If it were up to me, I’d plan to offer mountain biking or hiking or having big yoga workshops or meditation training…or even cooking and winemaking classes!” I said.

“Imagine how good it would be if people actually slowed down, got out of their cars and explored this area more with their own two feet,” she said patting one of her most precious Juniper trees.

“I’m actually giving you the extended summer and fall that you wanted last June,” she reminded me.

And we walked together for hours smelling the pine and watching the river flow through its frost-covered banks.

THE WELCOME HOME SHELTER OF TRUCKEE

By Kimball C. Pier
Does Anybody Want to Donate a House?

I have a dream that in the town of Truckee and in the surrounding communities, nobody wanders the streets looking for a nook or corner where the cold isn’t so biting to settle in for the night, that nobody is hungry, and that nobody dies alone with nothing but pavement to hold them as they draw a final breath. I envision a community that wraps its arms around anyone who is alone during the holiday season to ensure they are fed, warm and welcomed, that nobody is left holding a cardboard sign asking for help as the last car leaves the grocery store parking lot at night.
At this time, we have no emergency shelter which means that there will be people wandering the streets looking for protection against the bitter cold. In my dream, those who own commercial buildings and homes that sit empty and dark week after week welcome those who have no place to be. Hearts open wide and all the reasons why not just go away because the time to give is now upon us and we may not have another chance to experience the joy of a heart opening to grace.
In Seattle or New York, when winter comes and shelters are full, the warmth of subway grates to sleep on or doorways offer some protection from the elements. Seattle has tent cities, a coalition between churches to host the tent cities throughout the year. Encampments move from the inner city out into the suburbs and neighborhoods of Seattle and although people were reticent at first, surveys indicate that for the most part, the homeless people who live in their midst for a month or so each year are friendly, cooperative and thankful. They clean up the litter along the streets and mind the rules of the encampment which includes no drugs and alcohol and no violence.

But those are cities, what about small towns and ski resorts?

In Truckee, poverty has never fit in well with the persona of a resort community. Like the unwanted kid on the playground, poverty is not invited into the circle to be a part of the community. Truckee, like many ski resort towns, has a rather dark history of colonization by white opportunists who dislocated Native American people or exterminated them. In resort communities such as ours, the history lurks under the clean sidewalks and renovated buildings; poverty is made invisible, shoved underneath the layers of faux quaintness. Worried residents and merchants wish the ragged ones would just go back to where they came from instead of haunting places like Truckee where it’s supposed to look nice and be a fun place to recreate. After all, we say, Truckee is not the place to be if you’re homeless. But really, there is no place in this country with its extraordinary albeit disproportionate wealth, where anybody should be without a home. In our communities, thousands of second homes sit empty month after month and many buildings sit vacant awaiting purchase or rental. In our country, extraordinary wealth abounds among the top 1% who make 40% of the nation’s income. (www.npr.org/2011/04/16/135472478/study-americas-wealth). And according to one survey, in the strata between 1-10%, Americans make over $1 million per year. (http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph). In Truckee and the surrounding communities, there is evidence of extraordinary wealth and extreme poverty, yet we have only one organization, Project MANA which feeds the hungry families and individuals from Truckee to the North Lake Tahoe communities. We have very little in the way of accessible medical and dental care for those who do not meet criteria for MediCal or county medical assistance or who have no insurance or money to pay for healthcare, and we have no services for the homeless at all.
But guess what? Aspen and Vail have homeless shelters. There are multiple services for those who need a warm place to stay and food to eat. The Aspen Homeless Shelter and related services are a supported by Aspen Valley medical Foundation, a group of doctors and medical professionals who developed this organization to fund services for people without the basics, shelter, food and medical care. (http://www.avmfaspen.org/communityInit/AHshelter.html). Imagine…Aspen and Vail, places where I can’t afford to breathe the air having a place for people who are without a home and services to help them get on their feet again.

In our community, the homeless survey of 2010 turned up 66 homeless people, which did not include those living in trailers or dwellings without sources of heat, water or light. Each winter, hundreds of youth aged 18-28 who come here for resort jobs struggle to keep fed, sheltered and clothed while they work for our resorts without access to healthcare. We do not consider them to be part of the poverty culture, yet they are. The statistics on youth in this age category living on the edge of homelessness and disease are staggering. So when the resorts decide suddenly to fire thirty to fifty workers making $9.00 per hour, many cannot afford to continue paying rent, buy food or a ticket back to wherever they came from. A business decision like that is made without much consideration for the human consequences, with the priority being placed on profitability of a business. With respect to the fiscal health of ski resorts, I argue that there must be consideration given to how people are treated and a balance struck between good business and sudden termination of employees without consideration of the impact not only on the individuals but on our community resources. An emergency shelter would have given these youth an option other than sleeping in their cars or couch surfing or sleeping outdoors.

I ask myself how I am participating in perpetuating this problem of passing the buck and excusing the problem of hunger and homelessness here. I find myself wanting to stop and give the little I have to everyone who holds a sign outside of Safeway, but I often don’t. I tell myself that I can’t help everyone, that they might use it to buy alcohol and then I’d be creating more of a problem, or that they might be in need of something more than just money and then what would I do? I can’t bring them all home.
A few weeks ago, I was faced with this issue. On a cold, rainy day a woman appeared at my office, wet, cold and crying. She’d been put out by a relative who was understandably fed up with her drinking. She wasn’t drunk; she drank intermittently as many recovering alcoholics do. However, the discovery that she’d been drinking was just too much for her family who had endured many bouts of relapse interspersed with sobriety. As she sat shivering in my office rocking back and forth sobbing with fear and remorse, I scrambled to find her someplace to go. It was 4:30PM and I set about calling every single treatment program I could find in Placer and Nevada Counties. None were able to accept clients without insurance or financial resources, the funding for such clients having dried up over the past few years. There was no way I was going to allow her to sleep outdoors so I resolved the problem by putting her up in a hotel and getting her some food which bought me some time to find a shelter down in Roseville or Sacramento. And I could sleep knowing she would be warm and safe. Still, part of me felt really guilty that I didn’t just bring her home with me. If I were really a person with the heart of Buddha, I would have, but I’m just plain old me who likes her home to be a refuge.

Another woman, young and disabled wanders from place to place every day. She’s hard to pin down and teeters on homelessness. Her nightly bed depends upon what mood her mother is in. Again, I wonder if I could bring her home with me and whether she would even be comfortable if I did. She seems to need her routine and the small bit of structure she has created for herself amidst the chaos of her life. So I meet her where she is and we do the same dance over and over again. She agrees to get signed up for disability, medical services and food assistance and we schedule appointments she rarely shows up for. One day, I picked her up hitch hiking and noticed her shoes were literally worn right off her feet so we went to the shoe store. I worry now that it’s so cold that she’ll give up and wander into the cold and freeze to death just like the man who was found dead of exposure in Truckee the other morning when the temperatures dropped to 12 degrees.

The Welcome Home ShelterI have a dream that what I would do when someone shows up at my door wet, cold and hungry and needs a place to feel welcome, a place where eyes don’t turn away and the tea kettle sings is make a quick phone call to my imagined Welcome Home Shelter in Truckee. I would discover that indeed there was a space for the person holding the cardboard sign whose shoes were worn right off his feet. It wouldn’t matter how he got here or why, it would only matter that he felt welcome and cared for. I would ask him to get in my car so I could bring him to Truckee’s Welcome Home shelter.
“Can I bring my dog?” I look at the thin, ragged dog wagging her tail and looking at me with her hopeful, amber eyes.
“Of course you can bring your dog!” I exclaim. The Welcome Home shelter has a yard and volunteers who care for pets. And I discover as I chat with him on the way to the Welcome Home shelter that he once was a lot like me. He has two children and he had a wife. But he lost his job and his home. Then he began to unravel and his wife left. He searched for work elsewhere but found none. He became ill and had no money for healthcare, so he drifted from place to place until depression and hopelessness were constant companions. Drinking is a problem but he'd like to quit since it’s making him sicker. He ended up here because he thought he might work at a ski resort but he realizes he looks so bad and with an illness like his, it’s pretty hard to function some days. As he tells his story, I see more and more of myself and I realize once again that none of us are separate and we must care for one another as we care for ourselves.

I have a dream that The Welcome Home shelter is donated by a family who was having a hard time paying for a second home now that the bottom has dropped out of the economy. They just figured it was the right thing to do for a town they’d been visiting for a long time and that it was time to give something back, to contribute to the well-being of those less fortunate. Or even more far-fetched, I have a dream that the Bank of America or Wells Fargo just donated a couple of houses in foreclosure because they felt it was time to stop being so greedy and opportunistic. The CEO’s just came to our Truckee Homeless Coalition meeting and said they felt it was their karma to donate the houses for a Welcome Home shelter. And then I woke up from my dream for a minute…What about “NIMBY?” Oh yes…that. Who would want a shelter in their neighborhood? Who wants the crowd of alcoholic, drug-addicted people who might be dangerous in their neighborhood? And then I think about how many people with severe alcoholism, violent behavior, drug addiction and mental health challenges already live in our (your) neighborhoods. The only difference is they have a place to live and it’s harder to see. The bars are full at night and when they close, the people who have had too much to drink get in their cars and try to drive home. How dangerous is that? Most homeless folks don’t have cars so at least they aren’t killing people or themselves by driving drunk. And sex offenders are everywhere too, some disguised as coaches and Boy Scout leaders and teachers or pastors that you trust. At least if an individuals are clearly unkempt and perhaps homeless rather than woven into our sanitized culture as coaches, pastors or Boy Scout leaders, they stand out and you can protect yourself and your children. It’s when they look like you that they’re dangerous and most sex offenders do look just like you.

In my dream, the Welcome Home Shelter (which is drug and alcohol free) has about six bedrooms, a playroom for kids (supervised), and a living room with a library and a television for movies. It has four bathrooms with tubs and showers, it has a huge kitchen for preparing community meals and a dining room where people eat together. It has an office where residents can meet with therapists or other community services workers, a computer for researching jobs or educational opportunities and it has lots of outdoor space for walking around and enjoying nature. Oh and a fenced yard for pets. And a garage for the van that brings people around to look for jobs or get to their healthcare providers. The van was donated by the people who make Hummers because those who consume the most should give back the most. I dream big, don’t I?
The Welcome Home Shelter would be funded by medical professionals and other individuals and grantors who want to participate in creating well-being accessible to all. It would be staffed by volunteers and a few paid staff from the community and by representatives from local agencies because everyone wants to be a part of this amazing gesture of love and compassion. Truckee wants to follow in Aspen and Vail’s footsteps in that way, wanting to be a model for other ski reports and small communities where poverty exists but is less obvious than in New York, Seattle or San Francisco. And residents of The Welcome Home Shelter would be expected to keep it clean, share the cooking and maintenance and to contribute to the community as well. We would have our artists to help them express their creative talent and musicians to come and sing and play because music is the voice of the soul.

The great thing is, since this home was donated by a family, we don’t have to worry about offending merchants. In my dream, the neighbors welcome having such a fine example of human generosity and kindness right in their midst. The house glows with love and warmth and the glow can be seen on dark nights from far away.

So does anyone want to donate a house?

Mother Earth re-arranges herself

" Not famine, not earthquakes, not cancer....but we are the great danger" (C.G. Jung, The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man)

I am a compassionate person, however, when I read the headline about the earthquake in Japan and the tsunami that followed the other day, I was not horrified, surprised or sad. Does that mean I am not compassionate? I also consider myself a participant in the folly of being a modern human. I expect to pay for my behavior as a participant in a culture that clearly has an addictive relationship to consumption of natural resources. I make miniscule efforts to reduce my carbon footprint, but not to the extent that it would cause me discomfort. I still drive a car; I still use paper cups for my espresso drinks; I use non eco-friendly two-ply toilet paper because it works better, and I take for granted that the sun will come out every day. If it hides behind clouds and makes me chilly, I will turn a little dial on my wall and use up some natural gas to get warm again.

I think I have more compassion for Mother Earth than I have for myself and my human brethren. As I saw the photos of Japan, replete with horrible scenes of wreckage and distraught citizens, and felt acutely humbled but not sad, I wondered if I would feel differently if the earthquake had occurred in Oakland, California where my daughter and other family members live. I remember the earthquake in 1986 that collapsed one freeway on top of the other in Oakland and which caused immense damage to homes and buildings in the San Francsico area in addition to the loss of human life. I wasn't particularly sad or horrified because, well...it IS San Francisco and earthquakes will occur. It is not a question of if, it is a question of when.

Then I thought about the oil spill that destroyed coastlines and entire eco-systems north of San Francisco back in 1971 when two oil tankers collided spilling 800,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil into the ocean. I still cry when I see photos of humans wading into the toxic surf to rescue birds who strained for air and whose wings were unable to open to lift them from the oily goo. This assault to our environment was entirely preventable, yet the prevailing attitude continues to be cavalier. There have been many more oils spills since, all followed by lame justifications and minimization of the violence and destruction. We seem to fail in making the behavior-consequence connection in our desire for everything in our world to be easier, faster and cheaper in the short run.

Humans choose to build cities on fault lines and in flood zones; they choose to take their chances and densely populate areas where Mother Nature tends to become restless from time to time. What continues to surprise me is how humans behave as though it is some sort of horrible accident when an earthquake destroys a city or a wildfire burns its way through an expensive suburb or the ocean, whose power exceeds everything and anything a human can create, decides to heave itself onto the land and level a coastline. Gregg Levoy, in his book "Callings" writes: "Toni Morrison once described how the Mississippi River, had been straightened out in places to make room for houses and livable acreage, and how occasionally the river will flood these places. 'Flood is the word thay use' she said,'but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.'"

We are living organisms whose phsyical bodies mirror all systems in Nature, yet we seem to continue to think of ourselves as separate, as we build our homes and cities in flood plains or upon the earths fault lines and tornado zones. It seems we have a rather unrealistic expectation that the Earth somehow should accomodate our every whim and fancy despite how out of sync our actions are with nature's powerful rhythms and systems. Carl Jung wrote, "But our progressiveness, though it may result in a great many delighted wish-fulfillments, piles up an equally gigantic Promethean debt which has to be paid off from time to time in the form of hideous catastrophes" (C.G. Jung, CW 9.1, Par 276). For the most part, humans' orientation to nature has been one of conquest, not sympatico. We continue to insist Nature conform to our manufactured reality and behave as though we have been wronged when Nature acts as Nature does. The New York Times (Sunday, March 13th, 2011) had a front page article describing a tribal culture in the Phillipines which has managed to escape modernization and annihilation of its traditions and practices which are notable in their harmonious and reverent relationship with Nature. Such cultures have all but disappeared save for the Aboriginal cultures and others hidden deep in the forests out of the reach of land developers and other industries that have little regard or foresight in evaluating the costs and consequences of changing Nature's eco-systems.

Perhaps the massive earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, wild fires and other expressions of Nature are reminders of who is really in charge. And I am brought around again to the question of whether I would be devastated if I lost one of my children or a loved one as a result of nature's coughs, hiccups or out and out slaps across the face of humanity for its blatant arrogance. Yes, of course I would be devastated.I would be leveled and very humbled. But not surprised or indignant.

The Powerful Voice of Silence

Unconscious Speaking
In our culture, we are battered with words often spoken half-consciously or unconsciously. Words fly out of our mouths at warp speed, pressured, unintelligible, mulched in with colloquialisms and delivered without thought as to their intended meaning. Our vernacular uses superlatives to shape beliefs we act then act out: “Hurry! Sale ends soon!” “Buy now! Don’t miss out!” Our behavior is in large part, an outcome of the way in which we use language.
“How are you?” with the reply, “I’m fine” is a common exchange. How often have we wondered why we ask unless there is time and desire to hear a genuine response? What gesture can we offer instead? Perhaps eye contact, a smile and saying, It’s good to see you.”
“Love you,” a wife says to her husband on the phone, a pregnant comma following. She waits for him to return the sentiment. “Me too,” he says. Satisfied, she disconnects clicking the “end” button on her phone. She said it to assure herself that some remnant of love still remained. He replied in a constricted way; love was missing and besides, there was work to be done. He would not or could not get into the landscape of his actual state of mind and emotion, not with her. She was his wife, he didn’t want to hurt her. The marriage crucible cannot become capable of holding truth unless its occupants intentionally subject it to alchemical fire to burnish it into high resonance. Suppose he had obeyed the urge to remain silent and say nothing? In the silence, she would have been given back her own words, an invitation to become conscious. And the crucible would begin to sing with fire.
Silence- the gentle teacher
A couple argues the same argument, each sentence beginning with the word, “why,” which usually invites a defensive response. The circularity and escalation of the argument has no purpose, its words running in a haphazard herd, raising egoic dust and blinding its warriors to any possibility of resolution. If only someone would lower their eyes, come to their knees and offer gentle silence. The body posture is surrender, the silence is the invitation. Silence invites one to return to the heart, to make an affective turn inward to mindfulness. Thich Nat Hanh writes, “Just embracing your anger, breathing in and breathing out, that is good enough…” The breath offers medicine to the paralyzed heart, freeing it from the bondage of misperception and destructive thoughts.


Too Many Words
In the turbulence of words, meaning and intent loses its place. The desire to listen and investigate assumptions is usurped by the need to be right. Reversing this pattern requires us to slow down our speech, carefully considering what we want to say and being economical in our use of words. Too many words turn the potential for poetic expression into noise. Allowing silence to fill the spaces between sentences opens the way for reflection and creative response. Taking the time to be curious, to check out assumptions and to choose words with care reduces the potential for reactivity and circular arguments.

The Palate of Words

An artist stands before her canvas and considers her choices colors for a painting of a landscape or perhaps of a beloved pet playing by the sea. Nature’s own palate provides a template for the artist to follow and she mixes according to the sounds she hears and the multiple voices of green speaking through the trees and grasses. She backs away just breathing and looking at the canvas before her. Does it speak what is in her imagination? Does the work of expression sing in harmony with Nature’s perfect voice?
Words are often spoken without consideration as to whether they fit what the heart longs to express. Too often, the voice of fear with its many disguises and costumes steps onto center stage and silences the tender voice of the psyche (the soul) and the heart. Jealousy masquerades as loving intention, explaining insists that it only wants understanding when all it really wants is to be right and to defend its position, anger says it speaks “for their own good” or in righteous indignation at some offense. All of these are the faces of fear. And when fear steps onto center stage, love exits and waits in the wings for the two cannot co-exist.
Choosing our Words
Choosing words with care and with an undefended heart requires an affective turn inward. As the artist’s eyes and ears attune to how she may best offer honor and sincerity of expression in her work, so must we be mindful of how we use words.
The Way of Council, a book written by Jack Zimmerman and Virginia Coyle describe the four intentions of holding council in the Native American Tradition. Those four intentions are: speaking from the heart, listening from the heart, being spontaneous and being lean of speech. Speaking from the heart requires being able to distinguish what is truly of the heart from the many voices of fear. Speaking from the heart is always an expression of love. Listening with or from the heart means one listens with the whole body rather than allowing the ego to dominate, to think up a response or defense or explanation while the other is speaking. Spontaneity in speaking means trusting that what the heart wants to express is perfect even when it may seem unrelated to what has been spoken by the other. And perhaps most important is being lean of speech. As the artist takes her brushes and mixes as her senses inform her way of expression, she is careful and quiet before she considers which colors fit. Often, she must walk away and allow silence to incubate what is in her imagination for a time before she returns to her canvas. It is well that we do the same when using words to express ourselves. The fewer words and the more quietly they are spoken, the more clear and powerful the message.

When the River Meets the Sea -Re-Vitalizing the Voices of Teenagers

When the river flows into the sea, it becomes part of something greater and the sea welcomes its arrival for this is the reunion, where the river sacrifices itself to become part of the infinite. The river disappears into the depths where there is no certainty of a destination, only a journey. As parents, we are connected by our experience of parenting with all its joy, all its mystery, and the times we are fearful and uncertain. Our children are their own beings, with souls that are being colored and carved by their experiences. We are their shepherds; we are their beacons, but they are not us and they do not belong to us. We are charged with being witnesses of their journeys to the sea where they will become part of the greater consciousness of the world soul. However, it seems our teenage children are trying to tell us something about how we are doing in our role as shepherds. The leading cause of death for teenagers and young adults between the ages of fifteen and twenty five is suicide, which should be shaking us awake from any illusions we might wish to maintain.

This age range represents a pivotal time heavy with cultural expectations for maturity juxtaposed against the realities of each individual teenager’s emotional capacity. Teenagers try to match what the culture expects often at the cost of their self-esteem and sense of self-acceptance. Many teens struggle with body image, sexuality, economic disadvantages and learning problems, depression and severe anxiety, and they often cannot imagine talking about such problems in a way that will provide relief or resolution. The ones who cannot withstand the pressure they feel from peers, parents, the schools and the culture often drop out of school, use substances to cope with emotional pain, join gangs or, as we have all witnessed lately both here in Truckee and all over the United States, more and more teens are choosing suicide as the only way of ending their struggle.
During this time in their lives, teenagers balance expectations of the culture, schools, parents and themselves to choose the paths they will take as adults. American boys are required by law to register for the draft when they reach the age of eighteen. With a war going on, registering for the draft and contemplating possible death in a country thousands of miles away has the potential to be terrifying, yet our culture does not address all the implications of this requirement, selecting only to valorize voluntary military service as a means of achieving success or increasing self-esteem or guaranteeing a college education, if a soldier makes it home again. Many arrive home in pieces, their tender psyches reeling to return to the place left far behind on the threshold between childhood and adulthood.

For teens who leave the school system or who drift after graduating high school with no clear plan for the future and few resources, the world can seem overwhelming and inhospitable. There is little time to dream, imagine and to retreat, perhaps cocooning into a chrysalis for a time to let the lessons sink in. There is only the harshness and rigidity of a frenzied pace to know more, be more and do more. Despite the rumbling in their stomachs, their aching heads and emptied hearts, they press on because they are on this speeding conveyor belt with no “off” button within reach. Teenagers in our culture are a silenced population. They are given no clear role or voice during their most critical developmental years in shaping the world they will inherit; we offer them no part in political decisions that will impact them as adults and we do not give them enough voice in forums where decisions that will impact their lives are made.

The fact that bullying has become an epidemic is not surprising considering that children and teenagers embody and express what adults do not. We are a nation of fearful consumers and ravenous competitors, our eyes turned outward for food that never satisfies the deepening starvation for connection with each other. Our children receive the anxiety like radio waves, and they respond to the frenzied pace with the language available to them, usually behavior. We diagnose it rather than paying attention to what it says about the state of our culture. We identify them as the patients rather than examine ourselves and the world we have brought them into.
According to Angela Diaz, M.D. MPD, director of the Mt. Sinai Adolescent health Center in New York, the population of teenagers between sixteen and twenty four is the most underserved in the United States in terms of health care, preventative care, mental health services and dental care. They are legally adults at the age of eighteen, but unless they are in college, the likelihood is that they will get jobs that pay little more than minimum wage which is barely enough to live on and which do not offer medical benefits to employees. The mental health system has coined the term “transitional age youth” to describe the population of young adults who are suspended in the nether-region between college and adequate earning capability. Minimum wage jobs are inadequate in meeting basic needs let alone health care needs. These are just a few of the barriers that millions of teenagers who will inherit our country are up against.

Our educational system has put its resources and focus on preparing students to pass aptitude tests and less on developing imagination, creativity and the ability to navigate the complex problems of living in this competitive culture beyond high school. Most teenagers I come into contact with express significant fear about what happens when they turn eighteen, especially when they are average or below average in terms of academic performance and uncertain as to whether they want to go to college.

For teens with emotional problems stemming from lack of access to stable caregiving, economic stability and medical care and who have experienced trauma as children, the legal system becomes the de facto parent. Children who break school rules or the law due to violent behavior, drug use or truancy are placed either in foster care or juvenile detention. Many cycle through these systems over and over again until they reach the age of eighteen. Without experiences of loving, caring stable homes, or parents with whom they can speak honestly, these children are released from the juvenile justice system at the age of eighteen and are expected to go out in the world and live according to the laws and expectations of a culture they are unfamiliar with. Some will make it into college or vocational programs against all odds, but most do not. These are the young adults this society fails to recognize and offer resources for healthcare, social support and life skills education in a supportive, safe and nurturing environment.

Although none of this information may apply to you and your teenager(s), the possibilities for any teenager to fall through the cracks and land in the juvenile justice system, homeless or drug involved are statistically higher than they ever have been. That is why it is critically important for parents and teenagers to learn how to talk about the fears and challenges of growing up and out of the family and into the world. Statistically, male teenagers complete suicide more than female teenagers and the reasons for suicide remain the same as they were ten years ago. The CDC cites depression as the main cause and the leading mental health websites (www.nami.org, www.nimh.nih.gov) talk about treatment but do not go into the root causes for depression of which there are many. Because suicide is the leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 24, it is important for anyone who comes into contact with teenagers to learn the signs of depression and then to be able to effectively gather the people and resources together to be the shepherds and witnesses they need us to be.

The leading root cause for depression in teens has been called “failure to connect,” by the psychological community. Statistics evaluating depression among teens show that if there is just one person, not necessarily a parent, but a coach or a teacher or an extended family member, with whom they can speak openly and feel safe and who can offer them support and unconditional love and care, it often makes the difference between rebounding from depression or not. Other causes for depression include lack of acceptance by peers which includes bullying and violence, failure in school, substance addiction in the family, and sexual abuse.

Because no community is exempt from this epidemic, with smaller communities often being more at risk due to fewer resources or lack of awareness, For Goodness Sake in Truckee is collaborating with me and with teenage representatives from the community to develop a group forum where their voices will predominate. They will be the visionaries and creators of a forum where they can discuss and develop their ideas about where change is needed and how to effectuate it. This proposed group for teens and young adults be created by them and will be guided by their voices. In this forum, our adult voices will not prevail, but by invitation, we will be a witnesses and servants to the imaginations and creativity of our children.

For more information, please email either Andy Hill at For Goodness Sake at Andy@goodnesssake.org, or myself at kcpier@sierraagape.org.

Or call For Goodness Sake at 550-8981

Dog Girl- A Story About Bullying

Before I entered the main hallway of Ellison Middle School in 1971 as an eighth grader, I thought my shag haircut was cool. I wanted to look like Shirley Jones, the mom in The Partridge Family television show. And I wasn't terribly concerned about the speed at which my breasts were developing; I hurried them along as quickly as I could with the aid of training bras. My mother asked me what I was training when I ask her for one. Mostly, they served as containers for the Kleenex I filled them with. I loved my mother and spent a lot of time with her, not because she made me, I wanted to. She'd spent much of my childhood very ill and in the hospital, so I wanted to redeem every second that was lost. I smoked cigarettes, but only the ones with pretty decorations on the filters. They were called "Eve" and I preferred menthol. I thought smoking automatically made me a part of the cool kids so when I lit up in the girl's bathroom with all the other girls, I expected acceptance.

I did not look like any of the other girls, but I didn't think it would invite rage and contempt. My hair wasn't long and parted in the middle, I didn't wear dungarees that dragged on the ground, I wasn't ready for make-out parties and drinking Boone's Farm Apple Wine until I puked on the front lawn.

The first time I hit the concrete floor because a locker door was opened suddenly in my face was surely an accident. The kid said he was sorry, even though he was laughing. And the first time I walked onto the school bus and the entire bus began to bark and howl like dogs, I looked behind me to see if a dog followed me onto the bus. And then I realized they were barking at me. A foot shot out into the aisle and I fell, spilling the contents of the pretty new purse I got from the five and dime onto the floor. As I gathered my books and my makeup and the piece of toast I was saving for a morning snack, I felt the wet splatter of someone's spit on the back of my neck.

"SIDDOWN!!" the driver yelled at me. "We can't move until you siddown!" I tried to find an empty seat, blinded by tears and finally located one next to a fat girl. I was so skinny that I fit next to her even though she almost took up the whole seat. I held onto the side of the seat for dear life so I wouldn't slide off.

Of course I cried. I thought crying would let the kids know that they were causing me great pain and humiliation and that they would then stop. But it seemed they enjoyed watching me fall apart so they turned up the volume on the barking and howling. Each time I entered a classroom or got on the bus, the herd of bullies mobilized and descended on me to tear me to pieces. "Ugly dog! You SUCK!" shouted the boys. "Fucking ugly flat-chested DOG! You're so ugly you should kill yourself so we wouldn't have to look at you!!!"

How I wished I could die. I thought of how sorry they would be if I died. I imagined them all standing around my coffin as it was lowered into the ground. And sometimes, in the tiny moments I felt angry instead of sad and desperately lonely, I imagined all of them lined up in a row as I walked down the line slapping each of their faces as hard as I could while they were made to stand there and take their due punishment.

I went to the school counselor's office to tell her what was happening. None of the teachers stopped it other than to say something like, "Settle down and let's open our textbooks to page 197." The counselor gave me very helpful advice which was to ignore them. "Remember...sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." If only I could have understood how not to be hurt not just by mass rejection, but by being someone so deserving of hatred. How did I become so easy to hate? Was it my hair? My pants? The shape of my nose or the fact that I loved my mommy and it wasn't cool to love your parents back in 1971?

I began to throw up in the morning. My mother rose up against the principal and the school truant officers who began to call and come to the house when I couldn't bear to go to school anymore, threatening to put me in juvenile detention. "She's not going to your school because it's a horrible place and I intend to sue you for every cent you've got," she would shout from behind the kitchen door. She was weakened by years of illness, depressed over being left for a younger woman by my father, and addicted to narcotics. She was still strong enough to be my most ardent and fierce protector, but didn't always handle these kinds of situations with the acuity and effectiveness she once would have. But she was all I had. She sheltered me and told me we would just sneak away to a place where I would never have to face those kids again.

I knew we couldn't just sneak away. And I knew they would be back the next day if I didn't go to school. So I just threw up and then got on the bus hoping I wouldn't throw up again before we got there. So I stopped eating breakfast. And I stopped eating lunch in the cafeteria, because the whole cafeteria barked at me, so I found a rarely used bathroom next to the gym in which to eat my lunch and smoke one of the pretty cigarettes I brought in my skirt pocket.

One day, I was bracing myself to enter math class and endure yet another round of barking and being told how pathetic my breasts were and how my face was so ugly that it made a dog's asshole look beautiful and one of the worst offenders came out to the hall where he saw me hyperventilating and leaning against the wall.

"We just wanted you to know how sorry we are for the way we have been treating you," he said smiling. "And we have a gift for you." Silly me. I thought maybe they were going to give me some flowers or maybe a box of candy. He took me by the hand and I blushed as if I'd just been asked to dance. And we entered the classroom where I was presented with a large box of Milk Bone dog biscuits. I looked desperately to the teacher to protect me as the eruption of barking became deafening, but he too was laughing, unable to contain himself. I wasn't one of his favorites because I was always behind, confused, dazed and drowning, afraid to ask for help.

So I disappeared into a dark place inside myself. We did move away and I never bothered to enroll in ninth grade. I crossed the street whenever I saw teenagers and carried that fear with me into adulthood. I returned to school halfway through my tenth grade year but dropped out again at the age of sixteen, unable to tolerate my chronic anxiety. By that time, I had developed a strong phobia of schools in general and was so far behind that I felt I would never catch up anyway.

My mother died two weeks after I turned sixteen and I found myself on my own shortly thereafter. My father chose his girlfriend when she gave him the ultimatum, "It's her or me." If not for a few people only a few years older than me who helped me grow comfortable in my battered and thin skin, I might never have survived adolescence. And when I learned to see beauty in my uniqueness as I once had before Ellison Middle School, I decided I could return to school and make up for what was lost. I discovered that my peers celebrated differences much more than they did in middle school and high school. Gradually, I was able to enter a classroom without acute nausea and a racing heart.

When my children went to school and were subjected to bullying and teasing, it was difficult for me not to react with all the pain and rage I once felt as a newly minted adolescent. But I did not half-consciously say stupid shit like, "Oh just ignore them...remember...sticks and stones..." I went to the school and sat down with my children and the principals and teacher and the bullies if I could manage to get them in the same room with me, and with the warrior bursting in my heart, I refused to tolerate it. Not for one second.

When adults create a hostile work environment by harassing other employees, it is grounds for termination. It should be no different in a school, where learning was once considered almost a sacred privilege. Adults in this culture do not do the best job of modeling celebration of diversity particularly in the corporate, military and educational systems. The archetype of Destroyer is invading our most fragile population and we cannot afford to be passive in bringing the Destroyer to peace. This is the responsibility of every child, every parent and every teacher who sees predatory behavior being perpetrated on another child.

In lieu of truth... we choose to hide. In Memory of Austin Roberts

A local Truckee boy just barely into his seventeenth year throws himself off a bridge in a location where he is unlikely to survive. He knows he will hit pavement because he has probably thought about where and how so many times. Maybe he imagined it over and over again because he wanted to be certain there was no chance he would live. Those of us who have had suicidal thoughts as our occasional or steady companion in the darkest of dark times consider the finer details of carrying it out. "Will I live if I do it this way? And if so, who will bear the burden of my survival? I may be a quadriplegic who must be looked after twenty four hours a day if I live. No...that will never do. I must be sure I die."

I attended his memorial service today which was called a "celebration of life." A celebration of life seems far more appropriate when the deceased is 95 years old and life has been lived to its fullest potential, or when a disease has chosen the time of death. When death by suicide remains the only choice for ending suffering, a celebration of life seems a denial of what was true. This young man screamed for a message to be heard. Did anyone hear him? What was it that haunted him day and night? What made life so brutally painful that he chose to jump off a bridge in broad daylight on a Friday just a few days after his seventeenth birthday? And why is it that the topic of conversation at his memorial service was his preference for pasta without any sauce and the kind of socks he wore? When a teenager dies by a choice he makes after years of suffering shouldn't we be holding his suffering and at least making it a primary topic of discussion at his memorial service? Should we not embrace and tenderly hold his suffering as part of our own? Shouldn't we be talking about the bullying in schools that we close our eyes to and simply write off as 'stuff teenagers do'? What about the pressure he might have felt from our culture's relentless infatuation with academic test scores and grades? Shouldn't we be asking his friends what really happened and did we do them a terrible disservice by asking them to keep it light at his memorial service?

From where I stood, it seemed his church wanted memorial attendees to remember his smile and his wit and his love for video games. Maybe his parents preferred to keep the rest of the story private and I honor their need for privacy in this time of great pain. Yet his story and his pain is also ours. While I want to remember this young man for his wit and his quirks and his choice of socks, I also wanted us to talk about the wounding caused by cruelty perpetrated by teenagers toward their peers, and the real harm it causes, especially to those more fragile than others. There was no mention of the darkness and struggle he must have awakened to each day, no mention of the tension he held in his heart that found no relief, even in the love his family had for him. I wonder what this young man really wanted us to know about what it was like to live in his skin. Maybe he couldn't bear the thought of growing up and being out in this world where the competition leaves little room for those who cannot toe the line when the clock turns eighteen. And there is no medicine to change who one really is, gay or straight, addict or straight edge, black, white and every color in between, Christian, atheist, Jew or Muslim. And when there is no soft place to be who one is, no embracing of difference and diversity, the softest place to land is death. Even when the landing is solid pavement.

Really? You're going to F**k with me about this? More from "The Good Enough Mother"

She gets up at 4:30 to have her half hour on the treadmill in her living room. The house is still asleep, thank the good Lord (if there is such a thing). Then she has to get in the shower, get dressed and start making breakfast before her daycare kids arrive at 6AM. She took on more because they need the money. Some weeks they only have fifty bucks to feed a family of four and it just won't do at all.

In her sacred half hour, she dreams. Step by step, her shoes hit the strip of rubber on the treadmill and she breathes in a predictable rhythm. Her boy is a few months shy of eighteen and she knows she's in for a fight to get him placed in a group home. He is part of her, flailing arms, limbs that won't behave and big geen eyes fringed with thick black lashes. Seizures grip him in the night and she wakes up to make sure he hasn't bitten through his tongue. She tenderly changes the sweaty pajamas, cleans up the pee and slobber and tucks him back in. His clothes hang off a body misshapen by scoliosis and he struggles to stand up straight. When he's excited, he shakes his hands as if he might be ready to reach for the controls of his favorite video game. Sometimes, she wonders whether she wants her freedom from being a 24/7 caregiver or whether she feels she must give him up because her husband has threatened to leave her if she doesn't find placement for him the second he turns eighteen.
"Maybe I'll just take him and we'll leave. I handled him just fine before I married my husband. Seems like now I'm dealing with trying to make things okay for him and trying to take care of my son too. But I really am so tired..."

She fantasizes about leaving him on the doorstep of the government agency whose mission statement is to serve families with disabled children but whose actions fall far short.

"Here is is," she imagines saying. "You won't place him. Well fuck you. He's yours now. He's homeless cuz I got nothin' left." She says this to me while we sit on her sofa as all the babies nap to the sound of Sugarland on the radio. It's our little secret that she wants to run far, far away.

"He wet the bed three times over the last two days," she says. Her eyes fill. Then the phone rings and she picks up. It's the orthodontist's office calling about what they can't or won't do for her son who has a snaggle tooth that needs to be pulled or it will abcess.

"He is disabled, THAT'S why he's on Medicaid," she says rolling her eyes. She is used to fighting this fight day in and day out to get medical services, supportive services and other kinds of assistance for her boy. "We have really good insurance through my husband's work. But his secondary is medicaid. You don't bill them? Well then refer me to someone who will...You don't do that? Well who can...I have to call Medicaid to find a preferred provider? I already did and nobody...You're sorry? Really? Well why is this so difficult to bill the primary and then bill Medicaid for the difference? No I am not going to pay out of pocket...Can't you tell me who will just pull the goddamn tooth and bill the insurance? Yeah...okay. Fine. I will do it myself."

She hangs up and looks at me. "This is what I do eevery day every time he needs medical attention. You would think in this country that a child would not have to go without medical care. But it's always a struggle."

She dreams of days on a lake. She dreams of starting a business. She dreams of dressing up in leather and riding her Harley. "I have lots of ideas," she says. "But they die when my treadmill stops."

She has that frantic look again. "I am eating too much again," she says. "I once spent my days in the gym. I worked there and I worked out. I was so ripped. A guy with some big bodybuilding competition even offered to sponsor me and I said no. Can you believe I said no? How different would MY life have been."

I look at her and remind her that she is the most astonishing example of strength and patience I have ever witnessed. I could no more do what she does in one day than I could fly to the moon. We talk about hunger and how to feed it. Right now it's with food. So what...when her time comes, food will be the last thing she will feed that hungry soul with. But once in a while, she can feed that hunger by standing up and maybe issuing a definitive statement to her husband when he complains that the furniture is dusty or that there is a ring around the tub. That's when she rises up and puts her hands on her hips. She looks down at him while he sits on the sofa in judgment of her mothering, in judgment of how she won't have sex with him on account of her being tired all the time and how the tub needs a scrubbing. And she silently walks into the kitchen. And then the sponge flies across the room past his face followed by a plastic bottle of Soft Scrub. She breathes out and shakes that honey blond hair out of her face and moves like a panther through the living room and into her bedroom to her closet. She digs around way in the back and something rattles. It's the buckles, all ten of them. She puts on those leather pants and the matching jacket without a word. And when all ten buckles are buckled, she walks past him out to the garage where her motorcycle waits. And she mounts it like an Amazon and rides into the night.

Hanging On

I hang on
when I really need to uncurl my fingers
and let my self fall
like a red scarf in the desert wind
floating fearlessly against the sandstone canyon walls

I hang on the hook like an old pink coat
with a frayed neckline
where you put me
when you have something better to wear

I sway slightly when you walk by
hoping you might choose me this time
I lean against the wall
brushing my threadbare hemline
against the tops of your boots

Just noticing the rough leather
against the softness of cashmere
and remembering the smell
of your skin on my pillow

One day you will take me off the hook
and wear me as if it was our first dance
and for the moment I forget
that you will hang me up again

It's just the perfect dance
round and round like a red scarf
floating upon the trustworthy wind
toward the sun and the moon

Until you decide it is time to stop
and I dance on alone
upon those waves of desert wind
against the sandstone canyon walls