Notes in Passing
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Notes In Passing by Paul Freundlich Five decades of ad/ventures in community and sustainability Published by The Fair Trade Foundation Copyright 2009 by Paul Freundlich All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the copyright holder. Requests for permission to make copies should be mailed to The Fair Trade Foundation, 52 Maple Avenue West, Higganum CT 06441. ISBN #: 978-0-9826103-0-5 5500 2 Publications and Projections A Tribute to Joan Bavaria, 5 minute video, CERES, 2009 Saving the Titanic: Strategies for Sustainability in a Global Economy, essay, 14p, 2009 Dance New England: In the Beginning There Was the Word, the Music, the Dance, 30 minute video, 2007* Deus ex Machina, novel, the Public Press, 2005-07, 337 p Dance New England; a 25th Anniversary Remembrance, 32p, 2004 Communities Joined in Action, 32 minute video, 2003 Access to Health, 27 minute video, M-CAP, 2001 CERES; For a Living Planet, 27 minute video, 1999; 13 m version, 2008* The Forest for the Trees, 16 minute video, 1997 Money Working, 27 minute video, 1996 A Model That Works: Community Health Center, 30 min video, 1993* Fairtrading, 27 minute video, 1991 Building Economic Alternatives, Editor, Co-op America, 1983-90 Communities Magazine, Co-Editor/Publisher, 1975-85 A Guide to Cooperative Alternatives, resource book, 188 pp, 1979 COMEX; The Community Exchange Cooperative, monthly journal of the New Haven alternative community, Editor, 1973-74 Questions Instead of Answers, 1 hr 20 minute film, 1970* Peace Corps Togo, 1 hr 15 minute film, PC, 1968 Beyond Agua Caliente, 16 minute film, El Salvador, PC, 1967* This Land, 15 minute film, Kenya, PC, 1966 The Great Dessie Marching Band, 15 minute film, PC, 1966* And What Did You See? 12 minute film, India, PC, 1966 A Choice I Made, 50 minute film, India, Peace Corps, 1965* The Middle Kingdom, 10 minute film, 1964 Downtown, Philadelphia weekly, Managing Editor, 1960-61 *Available on YouTube 3 Dedication: Whatever leadership or innovation I have displayed in the collaborative environments where I have spent so much of my productive life, nobody does it alone. I salute a sampling of my friends and colleagues: Joan Bavaria, Margaret Flinter, Millicent, Tim and Rob Freundlich,. Jim Gibbons, Judy Greene, Roger Neece, Pony Shea, David Thompson, Film and Photography: Harold Feinstien, Jim Furlong, Mort Heilig, Jean Hoffman, Pare Lorentz, Jr., Donald Wrye. Peace Corps: Dave Gelman, Mike and Shirley Furst, Roger Landrum, Tim Lavelle, Kathy Weede. Reston: Choo Choo Adamson, Elias Blake, Patrick Kane, Embry Rucker. New Haven Alternative Community: Ginny Bales, Karen Belford, Virginia Blaisdell, Lew Bowers, Marlene Cenotti, Don Chambers, Nancy Correll, Gail Eierweiss, Sandy Florstedt, Steve Gottleib, Marcia Grace Kenline, Susan Osborne, Denis Pearson, Ken Stokes, Donna Vanderheiden, Mike Vozick, Anne Walker, Pat Wells. Another Place Farm: Sandy Eccelston, Terry Mollner, Sydney Morris, Grace Parker, Marc Sarkady, Medicine Story. Communities Magazine: Chris Collins, Chip Coffman, Mikki Wenig, Co- op/Economic Democracy/Sustainability movements: Antuan Cannon, Paul Cantor, Anne Evans, Hazel Henderson, Anne Hoyt, Dyanne Ladine, Francis Lappe, David Morris, Ralph Nader, Wayne Silby. Co-op/Green America: Alisa Gravitz, Denise Hamler, Diane Keefe, Jeff Lang, Stephen Morris, Alan Newman, Deb Shacter, Lyn Thompson Dance New England: Bob Abramms, Steve Baumohl, Michael Beattie, Kevin Benjamin, Olivier Besson, Elizabeth Cooper, Neil Cowan, Davio Danielson, Alida Engel, Laura Faure, Robin Feld, Carolyn Fuller, Beth Garner, Anne Garvin, Padma Gordon, Mark Grossman, Amy Hannas, Mariba Jos, David Kahn, Rhonda Kaplan, Corin Kennedy-Spielman, Lisa Kennedy, Mitch Levine, Sanford Lewis, Dev Luthra, Candy Malina, Jay Mankita, Paul McCandless, Dick McLeester, Mona Naimark, Will Russell, Leslie Silver, Paul Spielman, Alisa Starkweather, Deb Steiner, Kenny Schachat, Christina Tucillo, Ben Silver, John Sprague, Zevi Steinitz, Stan Strickland, Danny Trenner, Deborah Watrous, Wendy Weinrich, Michael Wingfield. CERES Coalition: Bob Banks, Harry Fatkin, Norm Dean, Neva Goodwin, Denis Hayes, Art Harwood, Anne Kelly, Mindy Lubber, Bob Massie, Joan Shapiro, Tim Smith, Ken Sylvester, Joe Uehlein, Ariane VanBuren, Susan Vickers. Fair Trading: Richard Adams, Pushpika Freitas, Bobby Muller, Claire Smith. Social Venture Network: Jamie Babson, Ben Cohen, Paul Hawkin, Josh Mailman, Anita Roddick. M-CAP, CJA and Healthcare: Mary Lou Andersen, Kendra Ing, Mark Masselli, Diann Pertiller, Mark Redding, Katherine Schneider, Kayla West, Kristen West, Rick Wilk. GRI: Bill Blackburn, John Evans, Leontien Plugge, Ruth Rosenbaum, Hanna Thorsteindottir, Peter Wong, and Arnold Toynbee, Rowan Wakefield. 4 CONTENTS Prelude: God Position, p 7 Part one: The ‘60s, p 18 1. The Choices We Made, p 19 2. Getting Into Hot Water, p 43 Interlude: Probability and Intention, p 57 Part Two: The ‘70s, p 62 3. Goin’ To The Chapel, p 63 4. Training For Urban Alternatives, p 80 5. Where The Rubber Meets The Yellow Brick Road, p 95 Interlude: Lust and Trust, p 126 Part Three: The ‘80’s, p 143 6. Co-op America, p 144 7. Fair Trading, p 171 Interlude: The Nature of Reality, p 197 Part Four: The ‘90s, p 206 8. CERES, p 207 9. Dance New England, p 228 Interlude: Great Alternative Life Group In The Sky, p 255 Part Five: The ‘00s, p 269 10. Communities Joined in Action, p 271 11. The Global Reporting Initiative, p 286 Postlude: Homage To Catatonia, p 299 5 Look at the young man in the reflection. He is serious, but about what, except this self-portrait, is not yet certain. Definitely serious about making a print that in somewhat faded form will survive almost five decades. If he was looking back at how his life played out, would he be struck more by the coincidence of fate or the singularity of intention; bereft by the opportunities he missed, or amazed at those he seized? Would his small part in moving the human agenda seem more than likely or less than enough? Curiosity led him then: it leads him still. 6 Prelude: GOD POSITION Although I’m skeptical that deities exist who look like us, only better, and are concerned with our affairs, I have an abiding curiosity about choreography and flow. Einstein gave us the theory of relativity, explaining the relation of energy and mass, and said that God doesn’t roll dice with the universe. Heisenberg gave us probability theory, suggesting that straight-line projections are a comforting myth, and someone or something is shooting craps. The relation of energy to mass is constant, and in a perfect dynamic: it is always one off. The potential for conversion gives us uncertainty, mutation, change — and the existence of such bizarre beings as ourselves. The universe is a large and complicated dance. It’s no wonder that we all yearn at times for an exemption from learning the steps, and dream of a celestial partner who really knows how to lead. WE ARE ALL BUDDHA Visiting the extra-special, super-renowned Green Gulch Zen Center in Marin County for a Sunday morning service in the late ‘70s, escorted by a knowledgeable friend, I watched Richard Baker-Roshi make his entrance. A Bishop Fulton Sheen type, if you go back that far. You could see he liked his clothes and had cultivated a manner. Later it was revealed that besides being a confidant of Governor Brown and other captains of industry, he was porking a renowned parishioner’s wife. That scandal caused an om-entory grinding of gears and temporal realignment of roles. Not as serious as when the high Shaman of Shambala, the Nabob of the Naropa Zen Center was caught doing junior monks while suffering from AIDS, sure in the knowledge that his god-hood, holy light protected his minions from the — what shall we call it? Certainly not “contamination?” Nor would it have been such a deal in the days of Borgia popes, where sex and death were the waves that broke every day on the Holy See. Baker-Roshi seized the rostrum, the pulpit, like an Airedale shaking a rat. He surveyed us like an eagle, lining up targets far below. 7 His first story was about a famous Zen monk in the old country known as “The Tiger.” The Tiger, tiring of an acolyte’s repetitious questions, began beating him at every opportunity. “Oh you Tiger,” Baker-Roshi intoned fondly. My goodness, I thought, looking around the room, the hundred or so in rapt attention, what do we have here? Mass bondage? Community S & M? Shortly after, with his parting shot, Roshi, disdaining both audience and presumably himself, averred that, “Buddha is not in this room. He is not among us.” Oh you tiger. What a cynical pussycat you turn out to be. To the best of my intuition, Buddha was among all of us Siddarthas at that moment, riding down life’s highway; peering out from behind the karmic wheel of a 16 ton rig on a ride to nowhere, occasionally stopping to enjoy the view from some scenic overlook, or bemused by our attempts to collect tolls from passing vehicles. LIFE IS A FOUNTAIN The shaggiest of all shaggy canine stories has a man at the end of his life searching for its meaning. His travels take him over all the world at the cost of his fortune. Finally, he attains the high Himalayas, kneeling in the snow before an ancient, blind guru who reposes in lotus position, naked, and apparently several feet off the ground. In ecstasy, the supplicant gasps out, “Tell me, oh teacher, what I have sought. Tell me the meaning of life.” As if from far away, a voice pronounces with great calm, “Life is a fountain.” The searcher mulls this over for a few moments, then exclaims, “You mean I’ve traveled all over the world and spent my fortune to hear that life is a fountain? That’s the most simplistic, ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” Again, as if from a great distance, comes the voice, “You mean life isn’t a fountain?” GOD IN THE HOOD I was returning from a Miriam Makeba concert in Portland, Maine with two people, only Heidi knew me well.