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Joan Schaefer Richmond's discussions
Genpo Roshi's Big Mind / Big Heart Process
Replied Aug. 13, 2007
Genpo Roshi's Big Mind / Big Heart Process
Replied Aug. 2, 2007
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Profile
- Hometown:
- Bellville, Ohio
- Relationship Status:
- Married
- About Me:
- I teach and I grow organic vegetables for a number of families. I grew up in Ohio, lived in Texas for about 20 years, then moved back home. You can't step in the same river twice, but you really can go home again.
- Website 1:
- http://web.mac.com/joan_richmond
- Website 2:
- http://www.localharvest.org/farms/M8651?ul
- Favorite Music:
- Anything piano. Jazz. Rock.
- Favorite Books:
- Too many. Not enough. I notice that I'm referring to some as I blog. I'll list them as I do that, since they're usually my favorites and shaped my thinking in some substantial way, even if I don't still embrace everything in a work. Plus doing that reminds me of other authors and works that I like, and so that may be the easiest way to make a list, a list in process.
Wendell Berry (anything)
Jacques Derrida, _Of Spirit_
George Bataille, _The Accursed Share_ Vols. I&II
Heraclitus, various translations
Martin Heidegger (much, esp. _Being and Time_, _Parmenides_ and _The Basic Problems of Phenomenology_)
Friedrich Nietzsche, (anything)
Michel Foucault (anything, esp. _The Order of Things_ and _Language, Counter-memory, Practice_)
Hélène Cixous (anything)
Roland Barthes (anything after his structuralism phase)
Gene Logsdon (anything)
Eckhart Tolle, _A New Earth_
Bill McKibben, _Deep Economy: The Weath of Communities and the Durable Future_
Riane Eisler, _The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics_
Riane Eisler, _The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future_
Merlin Stone, _When God Was a Woman_
Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor, _The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth_
Marija Gimbutas, _The Living Goddesses_
- Favorite Movies:
- I always flounder at these kind of questions. Generally: westerns, old timey stuff, heroic action movies, epic mythic stuff, most of the comic-book hero remakes, Monty Python incarnations, baseball movies, Jane Austen and gothic novelists remakes, LOTR, space operas, and the like. Anything but gore for gore's sake.
- Favorite TV Shows:
- No tv. I used to watch a lot of news. Accused of being addicted to The Weather Channel. Had my HGTV phase. One of those STNG fans. Loved the short-lived Firefly. Into watching old movies. Not too much, though. Guess that's why we ditched the tv. No political or moral agenda.
- What do you do to make a living?
- Teach and farm. We have a small market garden farm where we grow food organically for our local farmers market and group of 17 families (in a CSA -- Community Supported Agriculture).
- What kind of hobbies do you have?
- Reading, gardening, singing, old and new movies, rudimentary web design, knitting, cooking/preserving food, yoga, biking
- In a world where you were pursuing your deepest, most heartfelt callings, what would you be doing?
- Just farming. And writing.
- What is the most important thing you have learned in your life?
- Hold onto the both/and.
- Describe a belief that you previously held and then subsequently changed. What caused you to change your mind?
- I was a traditional (though not fundamental) Christian. I grew weary of redescribing the Apostle's Creed every time I recited it. There's nothing in there about what happened after "born of the Virgin Mary" and before "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried."
I've stepped away from Christianity and hold open what the life of Jesus means, for now. I'm attending a UU church and exploring.
- Who do you admire most in the world (past and/or present) and why?
- [I first thought the question said "what" vs. "who." But I think I'll just stick with my original answer.]
I want to say hope. But hope presumes the existence of despair. Without sounding (I hope) maudlin, I admire the unfounded expectations of the founders of the United States, who established a form of government that specified a few rules and left open the possibility that humans would act with a mind and a conscience.
- At this turbulent moment in history, what do you think is the most important thing a person can do to help humankind (and the rest of the planet) survive the many dangers that confront us?
- The most important task is to work toward one's own inner development and to work with others to connect with each other and the planet. That means having compassion with one's self, others, and the culture that brought us all into being.
And also, you don't cite the level of turbulence in the question. In some senses, we are not living in any more turbulent times than ever before. Millions died in the 500-year Inquisition horror. However, I do think that on a higher level, we are experiencing a clash of world views. I mean, there are people I can't even hold a meaningful conversation with because they are not yet open to where my head is. They are not dull or stupid or dense. Just not at the same place. And then there are the extremists who feel so threatened in their world that they're willing to blow up the planet. So in that sense, yes, we live in turbulent times, and compassion is still my call. Especially when it is most difficult.
- What are your answers to the big questions: Who are we? Where are we from? Why are we here? Where are we headed?
- Hm. Answering those big questions is why I'm here. Provisionally, I am here on a journey to create the answers to those questions. In one sense, I am We. I am that which is. And I am Thou. And I am every name in history (as Nietzsche said). And so are you. I'm trying to learn how to hold that in my mind each moment as I also always just live my life -- brush my teeth, feed my chickens, cook supper, drive, read.
I finally came to a realization in the middle of an argument about abortion -- that there is no point arguing when life begins because life has always already begun. So, in relation to the questions above, wherever I'm from, I'm still there, and here, and that's where I'm going. The hardest struggle is to know that, on one level, and on another to get over the Big Ending scenario that I rather expected until recently. Because now I know I don't really have to die to solve the Big Mystery. I think maybe that if I haven't real/ized it by then, dying won't help much.
- Why did you decide to join this community?
- I do want to have an opportunity to see what other people are thinking, where they are in this experience. I need to get out of my own head once in awhile or I'll get lost in there.
Also, while I can fork over $22.95 or so for Ken Wilber's recent Integral Spirituality book, I can't really afford ten times that much for the ILP program offered on his I.S. website. The site, as I've been able to navigate it so far, seems to consistently bring me to opportunities to participate through buying products and programs. So I'm kind of exploring on my own. Maybe I'm just missing other types of pages on the website.
I read Integral Spirituality, my first Wilber book, yesterday, and I think my first reaction was delight. Here was postmodernism presented fairly and knowledgeably. So rarely do I find anyone talking about it, in most texts, who nails it to any satisfactory degree. I have done a lot of work in postmodern studies, rhetoric, and critical theory. So I've read many of the works he references, though of course by no means all. It was fun to sense the works shining through Ken's words -- for example, the Heidegger in "being-in-the-world." Heidegger, too, recognized the problem with givenness in metaphysics, though sadly he wasn't able to escape it and its effects, theoretically or politically.
As I was surfing around and googling things, I came across this NHNE community site. So I'm kind of hoping that people here who have read Wilber are those rare individuals that can share discussion on this stuff; not just all the theory and philosophy, yada, yada, but also the spiritual end of it. Because if you want to find something rarer than a Nietzschean/Heideggerian/Deleuzian conversant with Barthes and Bataille and quantum physics, look for one on a spiritual journey. :)
Articles and Websites I like
If our world is to survive in all its contradiction and complexity, it needs more people who are capable of loving it in its entirety.
By Robert Hardies Summer 2007 5.15.07
New Urbanism
NEW URBANISM is a planning movement about creating a better future for us all. It is an international movement to reform the design of the built environment and raise our quality of life and standard of living by creating better places to live. New Urbanism is the revival of our lost art of place-making, and is essentially a re-ordering of the built environment into the form of complete cities, towns, villages, and neighborhoods - the way communities have been built for centuries around the world. New Urbanism involves fixing and infilling cities, as well as the creation of compact new towns and villages.
Pandora
Pandora is a free online radio site featuring the "Music Genome Project" that enables you to create your own personal music radio. Pandora broke music into hundreds of musical attributes or "genes," including melody, harmony and rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and singing and vocal harmony. You type in a favorite artist or song and Pandora plays that and music that matches it. You can give it thumbs up or down to literally fine-tune your station. I have one for jazz, one for rock, one for mediation music, one for uplifting mood music, and one just for piano. If you'd like to listen to one of mine, email me and I'll share it. But create one yourself! It's great fun.
Local Harvest
Trying a "100-mile diet" to eat locally? Visitors to Local Harvest can search for a farm or farmers market nearby. Farmers list their products, from apples to zucchini, from wool fiber to gooseberry syrup to organic heritage breed turkeys. Includes locations and maps and contact information. Many are organic or naturally grown farms, though not all. Even so, locally grown is better than Chinese organic any day. Also listed are CSA farms (Community Supported Agriculture), where members sign up to join a local farming family. Members pay early in the season and the farm delivers a share of whatever is ripe and ready all summer long.
Clusterfuck Nation
James Kunstler, writer of The Long Emergency, writes a pointed, spot-on blog about current events. In "Forecast for 2008" he writes: "For the tiny fraction of people who actually pay attention to real events -- those, for instance, who know the difference between Narnia and Kandahar -- the final hours of 2007 leading into the fog-shrouded abyss of 2008 must induce great racking shudders of nausea. Has there ever been a society so exquisitely rigged for implosion? The whole listing, creaking, reeking edifice stands like one of those obsolete Las Vegas pleasure palaces awaiting a mere pulse of electrons to ignite a thousand explosive charges perfectly placed to blow away the structural supports." Read more at the link above.
Joan Schaefer Richmond's Blog
Meditation 3
I waited to add a new post for my meditation series because, well, something has to happen to have something to write about. Not that anything has "Happened." No white lights. No out of body experiences. No Voice, brushing wings of angels, astral visions, or other tingly events.
What has happened is more comfort, less rigidity. I'm finding I'm relaxing more into meditation, finding it a refuge, a restorative time. And less rigidity because I'm more willing to let the type of me… Continue
What has happened is more comfort, less rigidity. I'm finding I'm relaxing more into meditation, finding it a refuge, a restorative time. And less rigidity because I'm more willing to let the type of me… Continue
Meditation 2
It's a golden day, even with the gray skies and rain. Such a warm rain, for late October. The chickens and turkeys are outside, undaunted, avidly gobbling the large nightcrawlers that are near the surface on a day like this.
Inside, it's golden, too. My living room is painted a color called "Sunset Gold," with white trim around our uncurtained windows. We live in the country, so the wide windows don't need covering. For these few weeks of autumn, the outside golds, yellows, ambers, or… Continue
Inside, it's golden, too. My living room is painted a color called "Sunset Gold," with white trim around our uncurtained windows. We live in the country, so the wide windows don't need covering. For these few weeks of autumn, the outside golds, yellows, ambers, or… Continue
Posted on October 23rd, 2007 at 2:05pm —
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Meditation 1
I'm learning things about meditation, s-l-o-w-l-y. This week I learned about gaps. Like just about everyone, I have trouble stilling my mind. I'm reading Nisargadatta Maharaj's I am That, and received this insight: I'm not always thinking. In between thoughts, which for me are nearly always verbal, or a visual with captions (!), there is a silence. This silence is the screen, so to speak, upon which thoughts are projected. That screen is the I am. (Oh, I realize this is much more t… Continue
Posted on September 21st, 2007 at 6:57pm —
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Human scale farming and the question of profit
Recently, I was part of a discussion among women farmers (Promoting Ohio Women in Agriculture) about the new (or proposed) rules for safe handling of vegetables. New farmers are often intimidated by state and federal (or county for that matter) rules and regulations for so many aspects of a farming business.
Some food-handling trends disturb me. First of all, while I certainly don't want to be responsible for 3-year-old being on dialysis for the rest of her life from eating tainted sp… Continue
Some food-handling trends disturb me. First of all, while I certainly don't want to be responsible for 3-year-old being on dialysis for the rest of her life from eating tainted sp… Continue
Posted on July 29th, 2007 at 5:16pm —
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Local and global
I note that not a lot of people comment on each other's blogs. The forums seem kind of slow. Nevertheless, I like the aim and mood of this site. I like checking out people's profiles, seeing what they care about. My world is just fuller knowing other people like that are in it.
This blog space is good, I think, as a quiet, open space to think in. Sometimes you simply want to hash through a thought or a question. Maybe someone will respond, but if not, I can be in colloquy with myself.… Continue
This blog space is good, I think, as a quiet, open space to think in. Sometimes you simply want to hash through a thought or a question. Maybe someone will respond, but if not, I can be in colloquy with myself.… Continue
Posted on July 29th, 2007 at 5:15pm —
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This year I've had the pleasure of being a judge in the South Australian Food Awards - the environment and sustainability section. I was inspired by The Food Forest permaculture enterprise. Even though this is Australia and a bit upside down for you, you may enjoy browsing the website. http://www.foodforest.com.au/theFoodForest.htm
Thanks for the warm welcome! I've been receiving daily NHNE updates for many years. My main reason for joining the community now was to have access to the videos and the forum. Thanks for introducing yourself...it's a pleasure to meet you! Lynn