Moments of Insight • Vol. 1 Issue 14 • September 25, 2020

A Note from Anna, our Founder & Director Send us a Letter We know we cannot be there in person Hi All - Are we actually in Autumn? I hope you’ve all been holding up okay with all with you, but wanted to encourage you the craziness, especially those of you who got evacuated due to smoke and fires. to check-in with us like we do when we By all accounts it sounds like it wasn’t easy. We were thinking about you all. I hope are together. You know how Anna you are all back safe and sound and doing well despite the stressful circumstances. But my heart goes out to all those who lost their homes and suffered due to this. I usually asks us to state how the week hope all your families are safe and doing okay. has been and share something we've learned? We'd love for you to write it I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned about the fires and watching how it down and send us a note. was affecting so many people, animals, homes, communities and forests. This was a first for me, to have a bag packed and ready to evacuate should the fires get any Send us a poem or artwork closer to Portland. Luckily that wasn’t to happen, but the smoke was hideous (as you all know) and it was really hard to breathe at times. It did have me thinking We would also love for you to share any about the recent events and seeing the common thread of - ‘I can’t breathe’. poems, artwork or insights you've had

that we can include in one of our next Starting with COVID and its impact on the lungs and people's ability to breathe. Then George Floyd died from lack of breath as an officer had his knee on Mr. volumes of 'Moments of Insight'. Feel Floyd's neck. And the wider issue of systemic racism and the metaphor of not free to share ideas of what you'd like us being able to breathe. Then, the fires and having to stay indoors due to the to include in this newsletter as well. hazardous air quality and not being able to breathe. The lungs of the earth (the trees) burning all around us, and consuming so much oxygen in their path. And All letters, art and ideas can be sent to: then last Friday, the tragic death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg - a fearless champion of The Insight Alliance gender equality and civil rights who said, “But I ask no favors for my sex. I PO Box 820214 surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their Portland, OR 97282 feet off our necks." This quote is originally from Sarah Grimke who was a strong advocate of the abolition of slavery and women's rights. Again, the reference to simply being allowed to breathe. And then today, I went to a body worker as my shoulders feel all contorted due to hours a day on the computer. He said everyone he has seen since lockdown is so tight in the diaphragm. He said it’s like everyone has collectively been holding their breathe.

Before starting the Insight Alliance, I worked in the field of Chinese Medicine. I found myself wondering about possible connections to all these recent goings on. In Chinese Medicine all the organs have emotions connected to them. And, all organs are paired. So the lungs are paired with the large intestine. It might not seem like it, but they function similarly. They both take in and release. The lungs absorb oxygen and release CO2, the large intestines absorb nutrients and release the rest. Energetically they connect to boundaries - who/what we let in and who/what we don’t; what we say yes to and what we say no to.

THE INSIGHT ALLIANCE PAGE 01 CONTINUED FROM PG 1. WITHOUT A SOUND The emotion of the lungs is grief. Some would say there is collective grief during BY CORRISSA BARNETT AT CCCF this time. Grief for those dying of COVID, grief for the people of color dying on the streets at the hands of our police, grief for all that’s lost to the fires and grief My shadow is full of thoughts for planet earth as we see the effects of climate change before us. And grief for constantly following me around the loss of our trees that give all of us our ability to breathe. and when I think I'm lost I feel like I’m being invited to pay even more attention to all that’s going on. I’m Somehow I'm always found. curious if any of you have had other thoughts or reflections on all that has been going on? Miniature movies playing Flowing without a sound The Insight Alliance did our first Voter Registration drive on Tuesday. We My body is just a vessel partnered up with Victory Project PDX, an organization that feeds our houseless My soul is simply profound neighbors in Portland. So we set up in two locations, offering food and the opportunity to register to vote. As I parked my car, ready to unload, the very first person I saw was a familiar face from CRCI! A gentleman who I had the pleasure of The grass says I'm okay meeting a couple years ago in one of our groups. He was doing well, but he was as my feet hit the ground houseless. We gave him a meal and registered him to vote! It was lovely to see We all have our spot him. like a pitcher to his mound. It was really great to meet so many people. It also makes me realize once again how we all live in our separate realities and have very different ideas about voting. We are always in motion I had the very unconscious assumption that given the opportunity to exercise ones As the earth stays perfectly round right to vote and be a part of our democracy, people would indeed want to vote. We're like tiny ants marchin' Many people had no interest in voting, saying that their vote wouldn’t matter heading towards our mound. anyway or they don’t like any of the candidates, and nothing changes.

I also saw in a very real way that people require food, water, and their basic needs to be met before they might even think about voting. I realized even having the ART BY JANIE LOWE bandwidth to vote is a privilege. Having the space in my life, with all my other basic needs met, voting seems like an important right to exercise. But on the streets I totally saw how that isn’t the case for folks who are just needing a warm meal in their bellies, or to engage in a decent conversation, or to get a fix. That is much higher on the list of needs for many houseless neighbors. Even though, to me, in my reality, voting is an obligation of citizenship, something I thought we all should care about. One more personal belief that I’ve had a chance to learn more about.

Until next time,

THE INSIGHT ALLIANCE PAGE 02 'Life of a Song' from the Financial Times UK TO CULTIVATE WISH YOU WERE HERE — ’S SONG OF SELF- BY TREI HERNANDEZ AT SRCI SCRUTINY HAS GAINED UNIVERSAL RESONANCE To cultivate is empowering - In 1974 Pink Floyd were finished. Or at least that was the consensus in the year after ONLY if we are heard and seen. The Dark Side of the Moon had transformed them from avant-garde psychedelic The work is often undervalued as rockers into one of the world’s best-selling bands. There was a feeling that they’d institutional and systemic racism achieved all they could. “We could have easily split up then,” Roger Waters said many oppressors dehumanize BIPOC (Black, years later. Indiginous & People of Color). These actions, behaviors have outraged many. The gnawing sense of inertia and self-doubt soon began to infect their live shows. One performance at Wembley Arena in was so leaden that it prompted the We continue to unpack our own lived and NME’s Nick Kent to pen this withering assessment: “The Floyd in fact seem so shared experience when it's safe to be proud incredibly tired and seemingly bereft of true creative ideas one wonders if they really of our intersectionality. care about their music anymore. Question the social construct - the social ”Things didn’t get better when they returned to Abbey Road Studios to start working conditioning that has been created on new material. At least not until they realized that malaise and disillusionment were, to oppress marginalized communities. after all, apt themes for a Pink Floyd album. From their torpor emerged Wish You Were Like - You - Me - US Here, an outstanding record (and the song of the same name) about being an indifferent bystander in one’s own life. To work within the systems many BIPOC switch to fit the status quo. Being BIPOC, For a song so introspective, “Wish You Were Here” is one of Pink Floyd’s most hard work is a must. We work within the accessible tracks and the closest they had come at the time to singalong pop. system and around the system just to be left Although we can trace the beginnings of the ultimately irreconcilable creative gulf behind by the system. between David Gilmour and Waters to this album, both have hailed the composition as one of their most complete, owing, no doubt, to its masterly simplicity. Gilmour Equity is the goal. Will I see it? Will you see came up with the beautifully unassuming country-influenced riff on a newly it? Will it manifest in our lifetime? purchased 12-string, while Waters wrote three gently aching verses about his desire to exchange compromise and stasis for action. Recently unearthed early tapes reveal Nonetheless you call me "A Change Agent". that the legendary violinist Stéphane Grappelli originally provided accompaniment but I don't take it lightly. It's a true the band decided, rightly, that less was more. Of course, this being a Pink Floyd track, struggle on the daily - and a calling. it’s still full of idiosyncrasies: it opens with snippets from a radio play and Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, while the guitar intro was recorded by Gilmour on an Verbal assaults - said or unsaid. Eyes AM radio to give it a crackling, homespun sound; at the end, a gust of swirling wind Piercing. Negative energy leads us out into the final parts of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. Results are slow with endless pushback From You - Me - The System. That 25-minute epic was famously written as an elegy for founding member Syd Barrett — who had suffered a drug-induced breakdown in the late 1960s — but his Giving up is easier. But the passion reignites descent into mental illness also haunts “Wish You Were Here”. Having disappeared for the energy to do more, to several years, Barrett arrived unannounced one day in June 1975 as the band were work harder. And reach the goal. recording the song. Once a charismatic livewire, he was now unrecognisably dazed and overweight. The shock of seeing their friend in such a dead-eyed state would To cultivate is empowering - paving new never leave the group; “We’re doing this for everyone who’s not here, and particularly lines of life for you, me, and all that will of course for Syd,” said Waters, introducing the song 30 years later at the almost follow unbearably bittersweet Live 8 reunion performance.

THE INSIGHT ALLIANCE PAGE 03 ART BY BIJOU KARMAN CONTINUED FROM PG 3. Despite being Pink Floyd’s most covered song, there has been a paucity of memorable renditions over the years. One exception is singer-songwriter ’s excellent, spare, piano-led version from 2005, which also features backing vocals by ’s . Sparklehorse’s whispery, tortured voice creates an altogether more sombre, distressed mood than that evoked by Gilmour’s warmer, nostalgia-laden delivery.

This song is a testament to how a piece of personal self-scrutiny became an anthem with universal resonance. Indeed, its enduring popularity saw it named the greatest Pink Floyd song in a poll conducted by Rolling Stone in 2011. Not bad going for a track written by a band supposedly “bereft of creative ideas”. Notorious RBG A TRIBUTE TO JUSTICE GINSBURG

Sixty years ago, Ruth Bader Ginsburg applied to be a Supreme Court clerk. She’d studied at two of our finest law schools and had glowing recommendations. But, because she was a woman she was rejected. Ten years later, she sent her first brief to the Supreme Court which led it to strike REST IN POWER, down a state law based on gender discrimination for the first time. And then for nearly three decades, as the second woman ever to sit on the highest JUSTICE GINSBURG. court in the land, she was a warrior for gender equality - someone who believed that equal justice under law only had meaning if it applied to every single American.

"Over a long career on both sides of the bench - as a relentless litigator and incisive jurist - Justice Ginsburg helped us understand that discrimination on the basis of sex isn’t about an abstract ideal of quality, that it doesn’t only harm women, that is has real consequences for all of us. It’s about who we are - and who we can be.” Barak Obama.

If you are a women and hold a job, you have Justice Ginsburg to thank. If you got to keep that job, even when you became pregnant, you have Justice Ginsburg to thank. If you hold a credit card or a bank account or a house in your name, without the permission of your husband or your father, you have Justice Ginsburg to thank. If you were able to marry the person you love, regardless or their gender or yours, you have Justice Ginsburg to thank. If you don’t even know the number of rights that you have, because there are too many to count, or maybe because you just take them for granted, you have Justice Ginsburg to thank. * Every single woman stands on the shoulders of this tiny giant, every second of every day; there are not enough thanks in the world for Justice Ginsburg.

THE INSIGHT ALLIANCE PAGE 04 Start From Here And Watch What Happens Lockdown Diaries (Inspired by the Willamette Week) BY BARB PATTERSON, INSIGHT ALLIANCE BOARD MEMBER

Where we come from, inside ourselves, matters. It shapes everything that happens afterwards. It shapes, what we see as possible; it shapes our choices, our understanding, our perspective, our communication, and ultimately our actions. Where we come from, is our starting point.

You can see evidence of this everywhere. When we’re more neutral, we have Robyn more perspective. When we’re more reactive, we are often more impulsive. Insight Alliance Board Chair When we see the world or ourselves as limited, our choices are limited. What we 1. Occupation: Producer, mom, dog-mom, choose to say from an upset mind is often different than what we currently re-thinking all of human existence choose to say when our minds are more settled. as we know it 2: Age: 53 Where we come from, inside ourselves, is shaping how we see the world. It is 3. How Many people do you live with? 3 shaping what we see as possible or impossible. Said another way, our internal humans plus a human-like pup climate, our quality of mind, has a direct relationship to whatever we are up to 4. What have you been eating? Changes in that moment. In the last two years, I have interviewed over a hundred guests daily. Got on banana bread making on the Real Business Real Lives podcast. Throughout these interviews there has bandwagon. been one powerful realization that many guests believe has been the single 5. What have you been watching, listening to most transformative shift in the way they move in their business. That realization is the absolute knowing that they are okay no matter what happens. or playing during quarantine? It was a puzzle- fest, then a movie-fest and starting back on a When they realized their wholeness, their well-being, was not dependent on puzzle-fest. circumstance or outcomes, it gave them an incredible sense of freedom. When 6. Have you picked up a new hobby or this became their starting point, they naturally were more creative, saw more resumed an old one? Working on learning options, were willing to take more risks and get in over their heads. This led to piano and music theory from a guy on new discoveries, more fulfillment, creativity and traction. YouTube (he’s good!), learned my way around iMovie, starting to journal to help makes Do you know you’re okay no matter what? What would you try or do if this was sense of this time. your starting point? 7. What's the weirdest thing you've done so far? Witnessed the toppling of a statue When we KNOW we are whole and complete AS IS; when we SEE that we (George Washington). Also, have celebrated are okay no matter what, we put our certainty in the right place. EVERY life rite of passage via zoom.

8. What's your secret to staying sane? Nature. We don’t put our certainty in a particular outcome or getting what we want, we Fresh Air. put it in our knowing that regardless of what happens, we are ok. We will find 9. What's the first thing you're doing when our way. this is over? I'm going to wonder if it's truly

over. Rather than stalling or hesitating because of the fear of the unknown, we understand that we have what it takes to handle whatever happens. We discover 10. What has quarantine taught you about we do well in the unknown. We are creative, adaptable and resilient by nature. yourself? 1. Working on a jigsaw puzzle is a We follow our inspiration, we stay present, keep learning and as a result access bit of a metaphor for my life. 2. I appreciate a new capabilities and potential within. slower pace of life. 3. I may be more introverted than I ever thought? 4. The life When this knowing becomes the foundation of everything we do, life opens up cycle of a butterfly holds a lot of wisdom. for us in new and exciting ways.

THE INSIGHT ALLIANCE PAGE 05 Meet the Formerly Incarcerated Software Engineers who Built a "There is a great insight which our culture No-Police Alternative to 911 is deliberately designed to suppress, WRITTEN BY TREVOR SCOTLAND AND EDITED BY ALEX QIN distort, and ignore: that Nature is a Our society has been deeply wounded by mass incarceration. The minded entity; that Nature is not simply way we will heal is by centering the skills, experiences, and work of those the random flight of atoms through that most intimately know its impacts. That’s why at Emergent Works, all our electromagnetic fields; that Nature is not engineering teams are made up of at least 50% justice-involved software the empty, despiritualized lumpen matter engineers. that we inherit from modern physics. But it is instead a kind of intelligence, a kind After the killing of George Floyd, we felt compelled to use our skills to of mind." respond to this critical moment. We asked our engineering team to build a vision for the change that they wanted to see in the world. And they —Terence McKenna did.

Not911 is a mobile app for resolving community-level issues without police involvement. Not911 allows users to choose from a variety of city, state, federal, and nonprofit agencies to address issues ranging from domestic violence to homelessness, without police intervention.

For Tomás, building Not911 was deeply personal. “Being able to circumvent the police and still get your needs met is a beautiful thing. The first thing that comes to mind is a person on parole. If they were to fall off a bike and need assistance and call an ambulance, the police would come and they could have their parole violated for police contact.”

Ross joined Emergent Works as a senior software engineer earlier this year. “Part of the reason I quit my job was because I didn’t think I was doing any good. I’ve liked my jobs, I’ve liked my teams, I’ve even liked my bosses, but at the end of the day I was always cognizant of the fact that I wasn’t making the world a better place.”

It has been incredibly meaningful for Ross to mentor Tomás. “I haven’t been in jail; I don’t know what that experience is like. But one thing I do relate to is this feeling that the tech industry is really hard to break into, and that the industry is for a certain type of person. There’s value in taking people that have been told that they can’t do this or it’s not for them and actually showing them that anyone can do this. This industry wants you to believe that it’s only for super-geniuses, but it’s really for anybody that wants to do it.”

We know that the circumstances that led someone to end up in prison do not define who they are and what they can do. And our clients agreed.” Ed Bear, Smallhold.

THE INSIGHT ALLIANCE PAGE 06 Insights From Outside Prison: Joe Clig DROWNING We often check in with past participants of Insight to Wellbeing who are BY RICHIE MILLER AT CRCI back in their communities to see how they're doing and offer support. My life's like I’m drowning, drowning in murky Anna: How’s your state of Mind.. You good? waters just before I break through to the surface I’m pulled…. Pulled down by my resentments, unable to let go and forgive. Unwilling to move Joe: Well, good now. I got bogged down for a bit, relapsed on heroin but forward at times… pulled myself back up. Thanks to you, I know that getting high comes down to a thought and a choice. Just because I did doesn’t mean I have to Just before I break through to the surface I’m continue until prison. I had a thought during that time that I am an amazing pulled… Pulled down to my regrets, some person who deserves to live his best life, so I called my parents and told too painful to stomach yet again unable to them what was up and had them take my phone and lock me in the house forgive. Forgive myself not quite knowing how while I kicked, and bam, been clean headed now for a few months. to. Lost in an abyss of self loathing…. Thanks to you, my parents and my thoughts LOL…. I seriously can’t tell you how you have affected my life in amazing ways. Thank you. It’s because of Just before I break through to the surface people like you guys that give us hope and strength. down I’m pulled….

Anna: Wow! That’s so inspiring Joe. Can I share this? I don’t have to use Pulled down by those soul wrenching unrealistic your name. expectations. Always expecting those who love me to know what I’m feeling WITHOUT

communicating it to them. Not anyone's fault but Joe: Of course and you can use my name. I am proud to be me these days. my own for lacking the courage to speak up…. Just trying to feed those thoughts that lead me to happiness. Just before I break through to the surface down A Note from the Coast I’m pulled..... Pulled down by my beliefs. Beliefs BY ASHLEY PAQUIN that everyone should think and act as I do.

It was my 40th birthday. I was at the beach with my fiancé sitting on the When they don’t and they fail to react as I feel back deck of our hotel room trying really hard to see the ocean. It was they should I lose faith in them as resentments Sunday around 2:30 in the afternoon but the air was so thick with a mix of grow….. fog and smoke that nothing was visible except the ground below our room. Just before I break through to the surface down The few people and dogs we could see looked like characters on Mars. We I’m pulled… Pulled down by the boyz hanging out chuckled, not because anything about the experience was funny, but always comes with a price. When you claim the because it was so fucking eerie and odd. fame, all my boyz know there's only one way about it no matter the cost….

We've been to this hotel times before and normally you see a huge Just before I break through to the surface down rock jutting out of the sea that looks like a massive fin with a little smiley I’m pulled…. Pulled down by those detrimental face right in the middle. voices. Voices of those who’ve always doubted me, rob me of my happiness. Those voices I can Normally birds swarm and the resident whale and her calf can be seen never escape nor numb. No matter how fast I run, swimming beneath the shadow of this rock. Now? Nothing. they’re right behind me. The aftermath of horrendous plights suffered… We sat close to each other with a glass of bubbles trying to compartmentalize our sadness for the burning forests we cherish so deeply Just before I break through to the surface which was creating the conditions we were experiencing. down I’m pulled……..

We were trying to be OK for just a moment.

THE INSIGHT ALLIANCE PAGE 07 CONTINUED FROM PG 7. FOR THE LOVE OF THE WORLD BY Then, out of nowhere, the words rolled off my tongue…"What's the next CHARLOTTE TALL MOUNTAIN tragedy?” It was an uncomfortable admittance but a moment in realizing She went out on a limb. how worldly events have shaped certain ways of thinking. For the love of a tree.. In the next breath, I searched or listened for words that were a For the love of the sea.. bit more promising… "God's handwriting is on everything.” She rocked the boat. For the love of the earth.. It was a moment of connection or peace back to something greater. It She dug deeper. was a moment of OKness. God's handwriting is on everything - god's will For the love of community.. is what is at play whether we like this experience or not. God's She mended fences. handwriting is on everything- the smoke, the fires, the virus plaguing an For the love of the stars.. entire planet, the anxiety, the uncertainty, the hope, possibility and the She let her light shine. room for expansion and change. For the love of spirit.. She nurtured her soul. I was challenged in my thinking to actually accept this given all For the love of a good time.. the struggle yet grateful at the same time. These are difficult times for a She sowed seeds of happiness. lot people and things on planet Earth. When we're faced with challenge, it For the love of the Goddess.. can be hard to keep this from poisoning our ideas of what is or isn't She drew down the moon. possible. It can be hard to remain healthy or grounded in body, mind and For the love of nature.. soul. She made compost. For the love of a good meal.. It can be so damn hard to see what is right there in front of She gave thanks. you. And this is where a practice is so critical and needed. Meditation, For the love of family.. reading spiritual or religious texts, poetry, walking on the earth, resting She reconciled differences. when we "should" work- this is the stuff that helps us see god's For the love of creativity.. handwriting on the things so hard to understand. She entertained new possibilities. It's through the practice that we get to decide how to live if For the love of her enemies.. we're not just waiting for the next tragedy. Just like the whale and calf She suspended judgment. can swim very dark waters, we too can navigate ourselves through For the love of herself.. obscure, weird or hard times. She acknowledged her worth. And the world was richer for her It's through stillness or quiet contemplation that we get to hear, listen and to feel something bigger and more powerful than fear or "what if?”. The question I pose to us all- how do we live if we’re not just waiting for the next tragedy? What will we choose to do or not do?

If so much is out of our control, what is in our control to be made new, modified and renewed? The air did finally clear and we could see the monstrous rock that stands in the middle of the sea like a beacon of hope or a remembrance that although "it" can't be seen, it's still there.

THE INSIGHT ALLIANCE PAGE 08

I read an article from the Veterans