Kickstart a Revolution!

Constructing a garden dome with friends - a project only possible together! That's me in the yellow :-) 

         Hello! I would like to continue with the free-flow format for a while, especially as what I learn how to do, what I find inspiring, what I think about, and what is more personally going on in my life all begin to overlap, interconnect, and feed into each other. This week my theme is interconnectedness. It has been my desire for years to be able to see my social life, work, and daily living come together; and after my first month here in McMinnville, I can confidently and contentedly report that, that is exactly what I have gotten myself into! My current happiness and wellbeing is something that I've come to recognize irrevocably as deeply tied to the lives of others. For example, the friends, housemates, neighbors, and community members around me support me in so many physical, emotional, and intellectual ways; my family and friends back home have given me the inspiration, support, and lessons that I've needed to even make it this far; my body is able to become healthy and stronger because of the Earth and all of Her elements that provide the nutrients I need in my food, and the water that I gratefully pour through my body; my grandparents, great grandparents, and all who came before me have made decisions, generation after generation, that tried to offer the best they could for their children, laying down the foundation for my physical life and all that I am able to experience today. These are examples of glimpses of the ways that every layer of my personal health, happiness, power, vibrancy, and ability to love life and help others exists in relation to the lives of others. 

Together on the Beach! 

         Truthfully, this goes against what I have always believed about myself: that I must learn to sustain myself, provide for my own needs, and not depend on others. I think that there are many ways to look at this, and probably many different understandings of words such as independence, dependence, individual, and together. Rather than try to pick it apart intellectually at this point, I will just give a an example from my experience this past week that represents the kind of mutuality I have been introduced to: this last Thursday, our friend and neighbor, Ellie, hosted a huge party at her house so that I could give a concert of my music! I felt my interconnectedness as I helped her move furniture, wash and cut vegetables, and set out tea cups for the coming guests. She served dinner to 30 people that night! And of the thirty, there were people who also shared music, who shared their writing and their poetry, who brought food and artwork, who drove and bussed from cities an hour away, and who stayed all night to offer their smiling, attentive care to each other and to me. Ellie's generosity literally opened up the door for an entire community to get together and share a spirit of openness, abundance, honesty, and inspiration. It was so fulfilling and joyful to have my music draw people together like that, and it was such a beautiful encounter of how the means themselves were the meaning- that is, the experience we created could only have been accomplished together, because the very outcome was, in and of itself, the experience of our togetherness ~ 

This brings me too... 

Home Grown Food Products Kickstarter! 

                                                                        
                                                                 

Home Grown Food Products is the resident business in our household, spearheaded by these two wonderful fellows, David and Alex (a.k.a. Freedman)!  

          As you may have seen, I have previously posted a step-by-step process of how to transform fresh organic vegetables into a delicious, live-cultured kimchi that helps restore the healthy bacteria in the stomach- and of course, make any meal deliciously exciting! Kimchi, sauerkraut, pickles- these are some of the colorful, flavor-packed foods that I have had the pleasure of helping to make in our home kitchen and sell at a Portland farmers' market! I am excited to announce that this fabulous team has officially launched a Kickstarter project to raise money to support the thriving life of this great business! For those who have not heard of it, Kickstarter is a fundraising program that helps people to reach their goals and follow their dreams through the collective effort of many people giving small (or large) amounts of money. I first found out about this program when Lara Ruggles, a dear friend and talented musician, launched one last year for the production of a full-length album! It was super exciting for me to get involved in funding a promoting the project. I felt immensely inspired by the possibility for a huge crowd of people to collectively achieve something that, individually, would never have been possible. With kickstarter, we get 42 days to reach our goal of $13,000. If we do not reach this goal, we do not get any of the money, but if we reach or surpass this goal, everyone who participated gets a reward of their donation range category (this means that all of you New Mexico folks could get a taste of delicious home-made kimchi or sauerkraut from our kitchen for $25 or more!) AND they/we get to proceed with a fantastically successful young and local business. Please watch this BEAUTIFUL VIDEO to get a better picture of this important part of my new Oregonian life :)

        Not only is the kickstarter model itself an exciting way to distribute money to worthwhile projects, but Home Grown itself is a beautiful model of a local, responsible business that supports its community in both its product and its process (and if you happen to be around our house on production day, supports everyone with lots of joy, cabbage-chopping, and great music)! I am grateful to have such a direct way to share what I am doing with those who are far away from me, and use technology to support local movements both near and far... by helping each other, we help us all ~

Taco time for the ladies ^.^