moab : a short hike to see a view of this vast wilderness

the desert has been good to us this winter--although i worry our lack of snow will lead to draught.

i've probably mentioned my worries about this pitiful winter here in our mountains a few times,

but i am really, truly worried. i'm hoping that we will get the message, and change our energy-using ways of old. here's to riding bikes more, keeping the heat/ac down, buying/consuming less,

and spending more time in the great outdoors on our own two feet. there. there's my rant.

back to the beauty. i think i will always be a westerner at heart. there is something quite liberating

and awe-some about having the ability to see for miles and miles and miles,

the grand red-rock cliffs against an open blue sky, with night skies that will truly make you wonder and your heart will soften to a pace that allows you to worry no more. this is life. this is the earth.

currently our local government is trying to obtain ALL federal land for their own use--

that federal land is all of ours, even if you live outside of the state. we're fighting to keep it federally managed/owned so that these lands can stay open to public use.

so what do i do? i go and sign up to be a delegate in my local precinct in hopes my voice will make a difference. long live wilderness!

i cried with joy when i listened to this interview with this beautiful author about her new book...

democracy now/amy goodman interviewed alice walker today about her latest book.

it sounds so amazing, powerful, and inspiring.

this is just what i've needed.

go here to watch the interview...it's at the end of today's broadcast.

what a beautiful and powerful woman she is. love her.

will be reading this book soon!

manifesto monday: facing unsavory realities with hope

this is one of the more difficult and personal manifestos i've made...it is hard to be bold, honest, and open. i have deeply wanted to share so many things with you, but have been afraid to expose ugly realities here. i am trying to find an empowering way to include all of you in what is most important to me.

ceej and i spend a lot of our free time reading books, watching documentaries, tuning in to the news, listening to scholars and activists, analyzing articles, watching the actions of civic office holders, etc. we feel compelled to be informed and to act according to our conscience.

often, people don't want to hear about what we've learned. it can be uncomfortable to hear about the unfair things in this world. i hear people telling me that they just want to concentrate on the "positive" things in this world, as if i am always doom and gloom.

however, i truly have hope in humanity. i see what a difference one person can make. i see what true joy comes when we face corruption and tragedy with courage, optimism, and action. i see that there are many of us who want to alleviate suffering and greed. we can overcome. but we must be informed. we must take action. i cannot imagine experiencing a fullness of joy unless we have first faced our demons, unless we change ourselves into beings that are awake, deliberate, and compassionate.

i also believe that i cannot change you, and you cannot change me. somehow, we have to come to a place where we are willing to change on our own. this is where my hope comes in. i have hope that people will urge me to be better...even when it is painfully uncomfortable...and that i will hopefully find courage to change. and i hope that somehow those around me will listen to what i have learned, take action, or correct me if i have overlooked something.

if we are to turn unsavory realities into true joys, we must face them. we can and will do so...even if, in the end, we only change ourselves {but if we change ourselves it is hard for those around us not to be changed on some level}. we can find and make beauty in a broken world.

this i believe.

{i would love to know about your cause, about your fight...please inform me on more ways i can change and make a difference}

some recommendations: a documentary about martin luther king, jr.'s 'beyond vietnam' speech, a documentary about corporations, a documentary about food, a documentary about a brave man who changed the course of a war, a book about u.s. history, these may be difficult to watch...but the good news is we can take action and change these things...no matter how big the problems are. let's leave this world as beautiful as we can.

if i asked you to sign a petition, join a voting block, write a letter, or make a phone call...would you do it?

all of us have causes. all of us have concerns. some dedicate their lives to helping refugees and the homeless. others dedicate their lives and efforts to education and health. can you guess what my cause is? it's the land. it's wilderness. it's mother earth. she is my passion. she is my heart. she can make me laugh. she can make me sigh for days at a time. she can teach me many mysteries. she is not mine. she is her own. if we harm her too much, she will return with a vengeance.

a real-life story. happened last night. ceej and i happily found out that we could view ken burn's documentary on america's national parks via the world wide web (since we are sans tv). the first episode. john muir. we need another john muir to sing the song of the beauty and the importance of wilderness. we are in desperate need of an elegant, passionate, knowledgeable spokesperson for wilderness. after we watched that first episode i was oh so grateful for people willing to fight for the land...which in the end has saved us all. i also cried. because i have not done enough. this is my love, but i have neglected it. resolved to return to my efforts like never before.

this morning full of anxiety. watching a congressional hearing concerning "america's red rock wilderness act." this wonderful act, if passed, would protect 9 million acres of beautiful and important land as "wilderness." i listen to utah senators and other utah elected officials...words are flying out of my mouth: "liar," "manipulative," and "corrupt." my knees are bouncing with anxiety. then, an angel. a representative from another state talks about how much utahns, not elected officials, support this wilderness bill. he tells the truth. he says what the people of utah have said. we want wilderness protected. i have a moment of hope. but, senator hatch and senator bennett then give false information, and twist things to fit their wallets. they talk about how land could help fund education if we don't protect it...since when do they care about education? when the state had a $1billion surplus, the people of utah wanted that money to go to education...well, our reps ignored the people, as usual, and put the money elsewhere--in their pockets and their friends' pockets. they yell and raise their voices to try to prove they are right. breaks. my. heart.

anyway, yes, i'm venting. not very "professional." but, i write all of this because i want to know if my utah friends would take a few moments to call their representatives to tell them they support bill HR 1925 (america's red rock wilderness act). in saying that, know that i will support you and your causes. i know we cannot take on every cause there is. each of us has our passion. i will do what i can to help you. you help me. a community of friends, yes?

i tried to keep this short. wanted to rant more, but realize no one really cares for ranting. thanks for indulging my anxious heart.

photo by cj. harris wash...in utah. 2008.

the obama wars...

manifesto monday will come later today. in the mean time, read this article here. very, very good.

when i finish her book i'll stop quoting her...at least for a bit. but for now i can't get enough...

she uses an analogy that i thought i had heard too much. but i like it. see if you recognize the analogy...

"we should always, especially when it is difficult, exercise our freedom of speech and assembly, and i mean the word exercise. Rights are like muscles: they atrophy and aren't there when you need them if you don't use them. The First Amendment is in trouble not just because of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and the USA Patriot Act, but because of a pall of self-censorship--some have spoken up with great courage, but many have been silenced not only by the acts of the authorities but by the prison of their own fear. Still, if people could stand up to Pinochet, if the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo could march in Buenos Aires during the time of the generals, if people could speak up in Prague in the 1980s, we can here, far more than we do. An atmosphere of repression exists speicifically because people don't speak up against it. When you speak up, you are not repressed--you might be supressed or punished, but you have freed yourself. Too, a tyranny can rise more easily by shutting up a thousand people than a million, and that's a reason to speak out." -rebecca solnit

rights are like exercise? sound familiar? it should. i hope we all resolve to use our rights daily.

photo by karin nussbaumer

world refugee day

take some time today to do at least one of these things:

01. take the IRC's quiz...for every person who takes the quiz a generous donor will donate $1 for each quiz taken to the IRC's work, up to $15,000. this one's so easy. please do it.

02. donate money to the IRC (or another organization you trust) so that refugees can have food, water, shelter, and education.

03. sign up to volunteer to help refugees in your area.

so sad what war does to the people on the ground, yes? too bad our leaders think that war is good for their wallets.

poor nevada...poor west

photo by me. january 2009. I-80.

i am learning so much from Solnit's book of compiled essays. i wanted to tell you what she tells us about mining because i want you to know what it does to the earth and to the people who live near it. hope you find this information useful, and i hope it moves you to action.

~ by 1857, California gold miners had extracted 24.3 million ounces of [gold], but they left behind more than ten times as much mercury, along with devastated forests, slopes, and streams. Today, there's a new gold rush underway on the other side of the Sierra Nevada, and it too is racking up huge bills for the public, bills that will be coming due for centuries to come, bills that we will pay in taxes for restoration, and bills that can never be paid, for pure water, cultural survival, wildlife, and wilderness. (page 115)

~ the California Gold Rush wasn't an anomaly; it was the beginning of modern large-scale gold mining, which is still going on. In America's new gold boom in Nevada, the dimensions are staggering...Nowadays, Nevada produces nearly 10 percent of the world's gold and three-quarters of the nation's...The first big new open-pit mines came in 1965, but it was the rise of gold prices in the 1980s...and the invention of cyanide heap-leaching that made mining such low-grade ore profitable. (page 119-120)

~Gold is now mined on a scale none of those men in the sepia-tone photographs could have imagined, from ore far more low-grade than they could have considered worthwhile. The Mary Harrison mine, which opened in 1853 in Coulterville, near Yosemite, yielded about one-third to one-half an ounce of gold per ton. In 1997, the Toronto-based Barrick Corporation's Betze/Post mine, in the center of the Carlin Trend, mined 159 million tons of rock and earth to produce 1.6 million ounces of gold--about a hundredth of an ounce per ton..."invisible gold" leads to mines that can be seen from space. [talk about extortion!!!] (page 120)


photo by tom schweich

~One way to describe modern gold mines is to say that they are displacing earth and water on a gargantuan scale and producing and dispersing toxins in smaller quantities, with gold a proportionally minute by-product of this disruption...in Nevada water is being both contaminated and used up...A deficit of 5 million acre-feet is being created in the Humbolt Basin, 1.6 trillion gallons, the equivalent of twenty-five years of the river's annual flow. (page 121)

after reading her essays on mining in Nevada, i was oh so sad for Nevada. not only is their land and their health being destroyed by mining companies (many who are foreign companies), but they have had to put up with decades of nuclear bomb testing. it is oh so frustrating to me that people think a desert is a wasteland; that there is nothing worth saving there. they are dead wrong. it is a fragile landscape that has intensely beautiful spaces of mountain ranges and sagebrush fields.

it also made me very glad i don't live in the Salt Lake Valley development known as "Daybreak." I've always been suspicious of how that land has been contaminated by the mine that has developed the land. i've also always despised the eyesore of that huge mine. it's ugly. it makes me ill.

and another thing, utah is a place, too, where people think they can dump nuclear waste...and we even named the sports arena after a nuclear waste company: "energy solutions arena." that makes me very ill.

i hope you learned a little something. i hope you want to buy and read Solnit's book. it's got so much varied information about so many important issues. you'll love it. you'll feel more motivated to take action. to make this earth better.

"it's time to take the obama t-shirts off"

yes, it's that time...time for my soapbox. perhaps some of you enjoy this, but i probably enjoy it more. i truly do think it's important to have discussions about these things so that we can pressure our leaders, who are supposed to represent us, to take action as we hope they would.

well, as i suspected, obama isn't all he sold himself to be. watch this bill moyer's interview with jeremy scahill. he wrote that infamous book blackwater. it's a fascinating episode. here's a couple exerpts from the conversation:

"Well, I think what we're seeing, under President Barack Obama, is sort of old wine in a new bottle. Obama is sending one message to the world, but the reality on the ground, particularly when it comes to private military contractors, is that the status quo remains from the Bush era. Right now there are 250 thousand contractors fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's about 50 percent of the total US fighting force. Which is very similar to what it was under Bush. In Iraq, President Obama has 130 thousand contractors. And we just saw a 23 percent increase in the number of armed contractors in Iraq. In Afghanistan there's been a 29 percent increase in armed contractors. So the radical privatization of war continues unabated under Barack Obama."
"Well, I mean, we have two parallel realities here. We have the speeches of President Obama. I'm not questioning his sincerity. And then you have the sort of official punditry that's allowed access to the corporate media. And they have one debate. On the ground though, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, you hear the stories of the people that are forced to live on the other side of the barrel of the gun that is U.S. foreign policy. And you get a very different sense. If the United States, as President Obama says, doesn't want a permanent presence in Afghanistan, why allocate a billion dollars to build this fortress like embassy, similar to the one in Baghdad, in Islamabad, Pakistan? Another one in Peshawar. Having an increase in mercenary forces. Expanding the US military presence there."
interesting? the status quo continues. boo. boo. triple boo.
indeed, it is time to take off the obama t-shirts and remove the bumper stickers. it's time to put pressure on our president to end our military and empirical presence in the middle east.
no war is a "good" war.

i'm finally having a good hair day and there's no one to even witness this rare event, and i can't even take a picture because ceej has both cameras

this is big. i've got j-crew sexy waves today. it only took me four days of patiently waiting.

two weeks ago i had 8 inches of my "guinevere" hair chopped. i didn't ask for it. i asked for 4 inches off. no more braids wrapped around my head for a while now. but i've discovered my hair is now east coast, jcrew, "i'm a professional grown-up" length. perhaps people will stop guessing that i'm only twenty-years-old.

though my hair length should now make me look more sophisticated, it might actually only work to my advantage once in a blue moon. here's why: i only wash my hair once every 7-8 days (gasp!). i refuse to use a hair-dryer or flat-iron or anything that will blast my hair with scorching heat. this means i wash my hair, put giant rollers in it, stay inside for one day to avoid being seen, take rollers out after 8 hours, put hair in bun for one day, braid hair for two days. after four days of all this i finally have decent hair.

but no one will see it. ceej is out with the boys this weekend climbing mt. Rainier (a bit of a big deal). i just got off the phone with a longtime, dear friend, and felt confident enought to tell her that i now have 0.5 friends in Sacramento (why 0.5? because i'd like to call her my dearest Sacramento friend, but i'm pretty sure that she only thinks of us as acquaintances. so i'm stickin' to 0.5). My point is this:

how does someone who likes to watch bill moyer's journal for entertainment invite the neighbors over for the latest episode?

how does someone who wants to talk about Mother God one second and cupcakes the next second find people to relate to?

how do i convince people that discussion night is really fun?

in need of Sacramento friends. i admit it. we moved here a year ago, but i've only lived here for 6 of those 12 months. i'm quiet--mostly because i don't want to scare people away with my ranting about re-usable toilet paper, real food, government corruption, and preserving wilderness. sigh. what to do? perhaps i'll start bribing people with those delicious cupcakes. "You're invited to the Whittaker's home for an evening of CUPCAKES and we might just watch a documentary called war made easy. Maybe."

for now, i'm just sitting here with my jcrew-perfect hair, drinking a british milkshake and listening to jolie sing "darling ukulele."


photo via j.crew

i'm used to people getting up from the table and walking away when i want to talk about something "serious"

i have friends and family members who roll their eyes when i get passionate about injustices. i have friends and family members who are supportive and great listeners. i am compelled to study and research politics and human rights. it is a dark thing to learn about sometimes. but this i know: that in order to understand the light, we must experience the dark. they are linked. even if we ignore the horrible things that happen in this world, they still affect us...so we might as well look them straight in the face, and do whatever we can to bring light to the dark. a couple things i want to mention that i found interesting in my morning readings:

1) an excerpt from "destructive emotions: how can we overcome them?" a scientific dialogue with the dalai lama. i find this paragraph very interesting...i neither agree nor disagree with it. i'm still grappling with it in my head.

"I think when Kant said that it's one thing to be happy but another thing to be good, he thought first of all that the demands of being a good person are so hard--that there are always temptations. The demands of living a morally good life are such that you might have to sacrifice all the things that would bring you happiness. You might have to give up your life. You might have to ask your children to give up their lives for some important cause.

"Kant went so far as to think that if you performed a moral action because you were emotionally pushed to do it, it had no moral worth. For example, he thought that although the love between parents and children is natural, it has no moral worth--because morality has to involve struggle against the self.

"He [Kant] thought that if there is a kind of happiness you have to give up when you stand by an important moral cause, that is a price you should be willing to pay."

at the moment, i think i believe that being good and being happy are inseparable. but, this is interesting, nonetheless. think about it.

2) am obsessed with piero ferrucci's book, "the power of kindness." your heart and soul will devour this book. will be reading it over and over again. here's an excerpt from the final pages:

[in reference to global problems: hunger, war, injustice, pollution, the waste land] "No one can ignore these difficulties because they touch us every day in many ways. But they are so big that we cannot imagine even scratching their surface by ourselves, except a few exceptional individuals who have the capacity to act and inspire others on a large scale.

Yet each of us can take a stand internally against such disasters--which implies choosing how we want to be. It happens anyway. We have to coexist with these enormous troubles, and we all take some attitude toward them. Perhaps we ignore them to defend ourselves against the anguish they arouse in us. Perhaps we feel guilt. Perhaps we make social and political commitments. Being kind is taking a stand...

Just as important is to realize that microcosm is macrocosm: Each person is the whole world...If we can bring some relief and well-being to just one person's life, this is already a victory, a silent, humble response to the suffering and pain of the planet. This is the starting point."

now,i want to ask you to do something. first, become informed. second, take action. so instead of watching "wife swap" or "super nanny" tonight, take some time to watch some Bill Moyers episodes online. below are the topics and their links.

1) Healthcare--Single Payer. Bill Moyers talks with David Himmelstein, a medical doctor who teaches at Harvard, and Sidney Wolfe, a medical doctor who works for Public Citizen. Interesting to see how Obama supported single payer healthcare as a senator...not any more. interesting, yes? can't resist saying it, Obama is a brand.

2) Learn about consumerism and the fantasy of "green" products. Moyers interviews Daniel Goleman who recently wrote "Ecological Intelligence."

3) Torture. A gruesome topic for sure, but revealing of what goes on behing closed doors in our government. This documentary is incredibly informative and well put together.

take action.

1) tell everyone you know about single payer health care, and be loud about it. AND write your government representatives that you want single payer health care.

2) go to good guide and modify your shopping list accordingly. may i suggest you start by simply cutting your shopping habits in half...do you really need all that stuff?

3) pay attention to what government officials are doing...is it really what the american people want? raise your voice...write letters, talk to neighbors and families. let your representatives know that you are watching them closely and will vote them out if necessary.

though i am used to people walking away from me when i have something i want to really talk about, it doesn't mean i enjoy it.

please leave your comments here about your thoughts after watching some of these clips. and tell us how you took action.

amen, amen, amen

been listening to Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. this is a MUST READ. i've learned about certain events that he mentions throughout his book in some of my history classes. i think it's a fabulous book for anyone who wants to know our history. it's essential, and it's cheaper than spending thousands of dollars to get a degree in history to get this perspective. below is an excerpt that i thought was especially poignant:

"It is very important for the establishment, that uneasy club of business executives, generals and politicos, to maintain the historic pretention of national unity in which the government represents all the people and the common enemies overseas, not at home, where disasters of economic sole war are unfortunate errors or tragic accidents to be corrected by the members of the same club that brought the disasters. It is important for them also to make sure this artificial unity of highly privileged and slightly privileged is the only unity, that the 99% remained split in countless ways, and turn against one another to vent their angers.

"How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation.

"How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods in a violent exchange of impoverished schools while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, held onto stingily where children need free milk, is drained for billion dollar air-craft carriers.

"How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system.

"How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bread by economic inequity faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices.

there is much to be done. and it can be done.

image via here.

the beauty of the desert is like no other

cj and i spent a few days in the desert of southern utah,
courtesy of SUWA.
we met people from new jersey, illinois, idiana, wisconsin, minnesota, colorado, california, and utah.
all of them understand the importance and history of this land.
we want to preserve it for you
and for future generations.

i was oh so grateful to be able to walk through the dry, harsh landscape.
despite the land's tortured climate,
life manages to thrive there.
beating all odds.
it's truly a magical place.

you must visit this place
and feel
its heartbeat.

hasen and i played the guitar and sang around the fire.

the river stole my heart and my soul,
and returned them anew.

water. even in the "desert."
only here do we find gratitude for
such a necessity.

though we spent hours and hours
brainstorming
about how to save this place...

i felt lucky to be far away,
in a place where everything
is real.

best of all,
i was there with ceej.
he bleeds for southern utah.
it has given him life.

all images taken by me or by ceej. may 2009. canyonlands field institute. moab, ut.

"this is what is wrong with us, we are bleeding at the roots."

i have been falling in love with terry tempest williams' new book: finding beauty in a broken world. i have to share some of it with you. you're going to love it too--because you're all such lovely and compassionate people, yes? well, i think so anyways.

"It is not my wrist that bleeds, but my words. Blood. Bloodwork. Perhaps this is the act of writing, of conservation, of trying to make peace with our own contradictory nature. We love the land. We are destroying the land. We are eroding and evolving, at once."

"Our kinship with Earth must be maintained; otherwise, we will find ourselves trapped in the center of our own paved-over souls with no way out."

Q: "What will we lose if prairie dogs disappear from North America?"

A: "In 1950, government agents proposed to get rid of prairie dogs on some parts of the Navajo Reservation in order to protect the roots of sparse desert grasses and thereby maintain some marginal grazing for sheep.

"The Navajo elders objected, insisting, 'If you kill all the prairie dogs, there will be no one to cry for the rain.'

"The amused officials assured the Navajo that there was no correlation between rain and prairie dogs and carried out their plan. The outcome was surprising only to the federal officials. The desert near Chilchinbito, Arizona, became a virtual wasteland. Without the ground-turning process of the burrowing animals, the soil became solidly packed, unable to accept rain. Hard pan. The result: fierce runoff whenever it rained. What little vegetation remained was carried away by flash floods and a legacy of erosion.

"Most people are not comfortable making a connection between racism and specism or the ill treatement of human beings and the mistreatment of animals. We want to keep our boundaries clean and separate. But isn't that the point, to separate, isolate, and discriminate?"

Read this book, you'll love it!

image via here.

discussion nights...

this is the lovely ashley's little place...

for the past six years

we've gathered once a week

to discuss...anything and everything

some of my favorite nights have been:

slow food movement

the israeli-palestinian conflict

presidential powers

healing dialogues

vegetarianism

big box swindle

urban sprawl

art nights

dance nights

i thought ash's book collection was wonderful...

so i took a picture


don't you think she has a beautiful place?
i sure do!

here's her inspiration board

thanks, ash, for bringing us

all together to learn more

about each other

and our world!

(if any of you want to join us...email me)

The People's Bribe

photo by francisco kjolseth Here's what we did yesterday at the Capitol. It was so much fun! We had a lot of news coverage too! Hip, hip!

WATCH THIS VIDEO and read about it here.

This is what makes activism fun and interesting. It doesn't have to always be so serious and heavy. Hopefully you can join us next time!

With liberty and justice for some...

so i spent some time up at the capitol this evening...with the rest of the Visual Cacophony group. a little something called "the people's bribe" went down. i'll tell you more about it later, but for now here's a little taste:

I pledge allegiance to the money, and to the legislature for which it stands, one state, under corruption, with liberty and justice for some.

Peaceful Uprising

Last weekend my mom and I went to an event at the Salt Lake City Library presented by a new organization called Peaceful Uprising. We heard from Soren Simonson (a city councilman), Terry Tempest Williams (a naturalist and author), and Tim DeChristopher (student activist). I was deeply touched by their sincerity, their energy, and their passion. The thing that struck me most was their kindness. Activists are often envisioned as irrational and out-of-touch, but it was obvious that these people love the earth, love people, love the environment. They each told us ways we could get involved to bring about change in our world...especially an environmental change.

Please visit Peaceful Uprising's web site to find many articles about things like coal energy, civil disobedience, and much more!

I hope some of you will take action...I'm feeling discouraged these days, and would like some help in making the world better!

Friday Issue: For the Love of Money

Yesterday I finally got around to listening to this RadioWest program. Robert Kaiser reports on how lobbying has changed over the past 40-50 years, and what that means for politics. Basically, his argument is that money is central. Americans favorite passtime is making money (not playing baseball). He does not advocate for the complete anhilation of lobbyists, but examines their motives and tactics. Are they proper? Is it right? I have to admit that I would like lobbyists to continue to be part of politics...I'd just like a whole new breed of lobbyists. Maybe one day you and I could be lobbyists...we'd be honest and transparent in our dealings, and fight true injustices, and we'll do it all for beans. Go here to listen for yourself. Then let's all read the book.

In My Perfect World...

(photo by annabel mehran)

This post is more like a diary today. So many things on my mind. It will be long. I hope if you take the time to read it that it might just spark some questions of your own. I don't have all the answers. I don't think anyone does. We just do the best we can, and try to truly love everyone yes? I'd prefer you didn't comment here (but if you must, you must)...I hope this provokes you to blog your own "In My Perfect World" post.

1. There would be no "inflamatory" rhetoric...let me explain. People would not call women who get abortion murderers...because you have no idea what suffering that woman has gone through, or might have yet to go through. People would not make fun of each other for their beliefs--religious or non-religious...when it comes down to it, we're all human beings trying to do good deeds. People would not use words such as "liberal", "conservative", "socialist", etc to degrade each other...we should probably learn what all those terms mean anyway...you might find something you like. Do you follow me?

2. Environmentalism would be seen as the virtue it really is. We would realize that we truly are stewards of this earth...that the earth is alive...that it symbolizes so much...that consumerism is killing the earth and everything on it.

3. We would value true simplicity, and be more productive, rather than consumeristic. Health and happiness does not depend on how much we have? How many times do we have to hear it before we believe it? Oh, to live the simple life!

4. We would know our neighbors, and support them. We would take care of each other in times of need...bearing each other's burdens. How do we bear each other's burdens when we don't even know each other?

5. Everyone would have a garden, and a nice little house to live in. We don't need monster houses in urban sprawl areas. We just need small little houses, and food to grow.

6. We would welcome disagreement and discomfort in all its forms. Everyone would have a voice everywhere.

7. Lobbyists would disappear from politics and government. Will people like me ever have a voice?

8. We would all know who we really are, men and women, and that we could all live our dharma (life-path).

9. Crying would be encouraged. Anger and pain would be allowed. Silence would be revered.

10. Intuition would be valued more than intellect.

11. Emotions would be just as important as politics.

12. Stars would be more visible at night (no more light pollution).

13. Everyone would know what stage the moon was in on any given night (if you want to know, it's waning at the moment).

14. Our lives would be slower...we could go on casual walks, read books, and talk on the front porch.

15. There would be opposition..."perfect" does not mean without problems and trials. People would still disagree with me (but kindly, please), and people would want things differently than I would.

16. I could teach. I could write. I could sing. I could dance. I could laugh. I could cry.

17. We could all choose where we wanted to live.

18. I could disagree with you...with reverence.

19. Professors would listen to students, and listen to their hearts as well...and students would listen to their professors and their hearts as well.

20. We could all be part of a fellowship.

21. There would be lots of storms and change.

Your turn