A potluck for perilous times May 31, 2009
Posted by tracybarnett in : Sustainability, Texas , add a commentMy last trip was planned around a special event organized by San Antonio expressive arts facilitator and playwright Dianne Monroe.
“I know it’s a long drive, but I’d really like for you to be there,” she told me the last time we met. Now when Dianne organizes an event, I always want to be there. She brings together the wisdom of another age with a childlike sense of fun and wonder and creativity. And when she began talking about The Great Turning, author Joanna Macy’s name for the transition times we are finding ourselves in, I listened. This event was nothing more than a simple gathering, but designed to break the ice to allow us to begin speaking of the previously unspeakable, nameless worries about global climate change, peak oil, economic crisis and pending doom that darken the horizon.
The meeting was well worth the drive; the conversations were more uplifting than disturbing, and the concept is well worth sharing. So I invited Dianne to write a guest blog entry, which I will share with you below. Please drop her a line at dianne@diannemonroe.com and let her – and me – know what you think.
I give you Dianne:
by Dianne Monroe
I was born with a bit of an apocalyptic gene, so I’ve been watching this global economic unraveling, wondering just how far it will go – at the same time wondering just how much global warming will cause the oceans to rise and if oil will run out before our use of it will make the planet completely unlivable for higher mammalian species.
Actually, I’m an optimist. So what I really want to know is this – how do we, within this crisis, grow and nurture the seeds of new ways to live with each other and in collaboration with our planet?
I’ve been talking about this with my friends (Tracy among them) and wondering how many similar conversations are going on in living rooms and kitchens across the country – so I decided to invite some friends, and friends of friends to what I called “A Paradigm Shift Potluck – a gathering to vision what it may mean to be alive in this time and place”.
So after vegetarian lasagna, gazpacho and guacamole salad, we gathered to share our hopes, fears and the gifts we each bring to the flowering of a more just and sustainable world.
One person feared seeing her retirement fund disappear, another feared angry, hungry men with guns. One friend brought the gift of organic gardening, another brought knowledge of alternative medicine, still another brought the gift of listening.
People spoke of simpler times and places, of different ways of being and doing. A woman spoke of her mother who grew up on a farm during the Depression, where everyone grew their own food and traded with neighbors for what they needed. Others spoke of time spent living and working in Latin America, how different cultures recycled and reused so many things we routinely throw away.
I wanted to share an approach I’m developing, an easy way into talking about difficult things, that takes us out of our heads and into our hearts (away from our endless “to-do” lists and the hectic pace of modern life and into a place where we can really listen to each other and be heard by others). It’s an approach grown out of my studies in a field called Deep Ecology, that allows us to speak our truths, listen deeply to the truths of others, and seek ways to travel together through perhaps tumultuous times, carrying gifts we will leave for the generations to follow.
If you want to learn more about Paradigm Shift Potlucks, and a workshop I’m developing, called “Nurturing Seeds of Change in Uncertain Times” (I’m offering the first one on June 13), Please email me: dianne@diannemonroe.com.
Aventura en Potrero Chico May 30, 2009
Posted by Tracy in : Adventure, Latin America, Mexico, ecotourism , 6commentsPOTRERO CHICO, Nuevo Leon, Mexico – Less than half an hour from the crowded metropolis of Monterrey, the mountains rise in a spectacular series of limestone peaks that have come to be known as a world-class climbing destination. It started as a municipal park with a swimming pool and barbecue pits, but it didn’t take long for climbers to discover the pitted limestone face of these towering walls.
Today at the base of the mountains there’s a cluster of businesses catering to the climbers from as far away as Australia and Japan. We chose the cozy Posada Potrero, a picturesque retreat with houses and rooms for rent, grassy places to pitch a tent under the trees, a commodious pool with hammocks and a big communal kitchen that at night becomes a lively community of climbers from all over the world.
We arrived at about 6 p.m., leaving San Antonio at 9:30 a.m. and stopping at the border to buy Mexican car insurance and get car and tourist permits. We’d seen the mountains for an hour or more on the approach, but the hazy blue in the distance gave little clue as to what we’d find: a dramatic series of vertically layered cliffs, pointing heavenward like vast curtains of limestone. I couldn’t imagine myself scaling them, ever. But German and Marco had promised me there were beginner climbs, so I didn’t panic.
There was time for one climb before dinner, so we packed our gear and made our way up to the area known as the Wonder Wall. It was so tall and so vertical that my neck ached from watching German make his way up, leading the way in placing the rope at the very top to secure us as we climbed. I tried not to think too much about it as I stepped into my harness and borrowed shoes.
Unlike Enchanted Rock, where I first learned to climb, Potrero Chico is a sport climbing site, where thousands of routes have been marked and bolted. The bolt fastens a hanger, or a steel loop, that allows a climber to insert a hook attached to his rope, securing his way as he goes.
German had reached an impasse in the climb, and he was retracing his steps to seek another way. I couldn’t see how on earth he was going to make it to the next hanger; it was two body-lengths up a sheer wall, even for a giant like German.
“This doesn’t seem like a beginner’s pitch to me,” I countered. “It doesn’t seem like there’s a way up.”
“There’s always a way,” Marco said, as German felt his way along the wall. “It’s just a puzzle, and you have to figure it out.”
Figure it out he did, and the next up was me. Face to face with the rock, I found my friends’ words to be true. This stone yields its secrets to those who persist. I climbed five pitches during my three days here, working my way up to a 5.9, an advanced beginner pitch, and this with an arm injured in my previous week’s beginner climb.
My guides were Andres and Karla, two young climbers from Monterrey who seemed as much at home on a rock face 100 feet up as they did on the ground. Andres began climbing at 12, and by the age of 19 had scaled most of Potrero as well as Argentina’s Aconcagua, the second tallest peak in the Americas. Karla, at 27, is the single mother of Samadhi, a winsome 6-year-old who carries her climbing gear in a little pink pack decorated with teddy bears. Samadhi’s name is taken from the Hindi word for enlightened consciousness, or, as her mother says, concentracion – an appropriate appellation for a child who began learning to climb before she learned to walk.
With the same care that she coaxed her young daughter up the limestone wall, Karlita coached me up a 5.8 and halfway up a 5.9, meaning I’ve progressed to the level of advanced beginner.
Samadhi and her mother taught me a great deal. After our day on the wall, I feel I’m coming to a sharper focus and a greater mastery of my fear — poco a poco.
Climbing is about more than having a good time, as Karla taught me. It can change your life.
Rite of Passage at ERock May 28, 2009
Posted by tracybarnett in : Adventure, Texas , 9commentsENCHANTED ROCK STATE PARK – Deep in the canyon between the two pink granite domes that give this place its name, there’s a world parallel to the one most of its thousands of visitors see.
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Jamie McNally and Kit Garcia, two veteran climbers from Austin, were my guides into the world of the climber, where this place is known as ERock. Climbing is a pastime I’ve been eyeing from a distance over the years, with various friends inviting me to accompany them. I’d always wanted to; I’d just never had the time. But now, as I approach the five-decade mark, I realize there’s no time left to procrastinate. It’s never going to get any easier. I’m never going to have any more time than I do right now. So I dropped my friend Jamie a line. And now, as I stood in borrowed climbing shoes, harness and rope, facing this near-vertical slab of granite, there was no going back.
A rope stretched from the knot at my waist, upward to an anchor somewhere beyond my view, and back down again to Kit’s waist. She was belaying me, pulling in the slack as I climbed, and gradually letting it loose as I worked my way down. She’d be my counterweight if I fell. Still, while the rope provided safety and psychological comfort, it wasn’t to be used as a climbing aid. For that, it was just me and the rock.
“You guys have heard about gravity, right?” I quipped, tipping my head back to assess the situation and stalling for time.
“These shoes are anti-gravity devices,” Kit reassured me. “You’ll see. It’ll be easy!”
I heard a titter behind me and looked back. A girl and a boy, both under the age of 10, awaited their turn. Great. Now I had no excuses.
“But… where do I put my feet? I mean, there are no stairs here,” I pointed out, somewhat lamely.
“Here, you can start with your left foot here. Then you swing your right foot up to this ledge,” Jamie pointed to a tiny black knob protruding from the pink granite. “It’s huge!”
I wondered if my eyes were deceiving me. Nonetheless, I placed a tentative foot on the left ledge and another on the right, holding with my hands onto the rock in front of me for dear life. But there was nowhere to go from there. I was sure that if I lifted one of my feet, I’d slide down the face of the rock, shredding my exposed skin. I was stuck.
“Once you get up just a little further, it’s easy,” encouraged Jamie.
The onlookers urged me on. Clearly, I had become the center of a spectacle. There was no way to go but up.
I saw another place to step up, but only by using my right knee – a no-no for a climber, and I quickly discovered why as I left layers of skin on the rock. But I had gained ground. And suddenly, I realized he was right. The shoes were holding me fast to the rough face of the rock. I saw another ledge further up, then another, and soon I was clambering up like a 5-year-old.
“You’re a natural!” Jamie called up to me, encouragingly. “Keep on going!”
I stopped to catch my breath and looked down. Below me, Kit, the kids and their father cheered me on. Above me was Jamie, who had shimmied up by another route and was waiting for me at the top.
Gradually, as I began to relax and trust the magic shoes – and more importantly, my body’s intuition – I began to notice something strange. Gravity didn’t have quite as much power over me as I’d thought it had. It didn’t feel quite so absolute. I worked my way up to where Jamie awaited like a proud coach, snapping photos of my first baby steps as a climber.
“You know what?” I gasped, taking my eyes from the rock to look up at him for a moment. “My body’s not as heavy as I thought it was!”
That’s not to say it was easy. The next route we climbed, called “Jacknife,” was more than twice as tall as the first one and required negotiating an inwardly sloping wall. Jamie coached me to straighten my legs and lean back, keeping my body’s weight over my feet. Fear of falling generates a tendency to hug the rock, which paradoxically causes the body’s center of gravity to shift forward, taking weight off the feet. This makes your feet more likely to slip out from under you. You have to let go of the fear to let your body work with the rock.
It was perched on a tiny shelf of rock atop the Jacknife, breathless, bloodied and bruised, that I began to understand why people endure what they do to enter this world. I looked across the canyon at the tourists toiling up the side of the main dome’s gentle slope and realized I had changed. What had once seemed a perfectly lovely, even strenuous outing climbing the dome now seemed – well, pedestrian. For a brief instant, I had become one with the rock. Now I realized that nothing would ever be the same.
Exhilaration!
Mision cumplida en Potrero May 25, 2009
Posted by Tracy in : Adventure, Latin America, Mexico, ecotourism , 2comments
Mision cumplida… Potrero Chico escalada…. ahora, casa y cama! (Mission accomplished, Potrero Chico clumb, now home & bed!)
Sneak Preview: San Antonio River Walk May 22, 2009
Posted by tracybarnett in : San Antonio, Texas , 2commentsThe long-awaited new River Walk extension is set to open on Saturday, May 30, and Steve Schauer of the San Antonio River Authority gave me a hard hat tour this week. Here’s a sneak preview:
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Steve Schauer has given this hard hat tour to dozens of visitors from around the world, seeking to learn about San Antonio’s experience as it has developed a long-neglected, weed-choked ditch into a world-class tourism destination. Still, with just a week to go before its official opening, he seems to get a kick out of showing it off to yet another journalist.
“It’s just been an awesome process to see how it’s changed,” says Schauer, communications director for the San Antonio River Authority. Indeed, the $72 million project has been in the planning stages for close to eight years, with the official groundbreaking just over two years ago.
The project has merged antique structures dating from the 1800s with the latest in lock-and-dam technology to produce a mile and a half of linear parkway laced with waterfalls and water lily pools, sculptures and art installations, sound recordings and other surprises guaranteed to delight fans of the famous attraction. This stretch of river, however, takes into account modern knowledge of conservation to create a friendly habitat for aquatic species as well as the landlubbing types.
“We didn’t design this with just us in mind,” Schauer says. “We want it to be a sanctuary for other species as well.”
He points out the fish lunkers built in under the walkway, a place for fish to get out of the sun on a hot day or to take shelter from the occasional storm. The more than 100 species of plants that comprise the landscape are drought-friendly, and a recycled water system has been installed for the irrigation.
The new stretch of River Walk begins downtown at Lexington Street near the Hugman Dam, named for Robert Hugman, the original architect of the River Walk in the 1930s and ‘40s. One of the first challenges was figuring out a way to preserve this historic stone structure while still allowing barges to pass through for riverboat tours.
This problem was resolved with an artful passageway to one side, preserving the best features of the old stone dam on the other side. A pair of crested night herons posed and preened for the cameras as we passed by, oblivious to the workmen administering the finishing touches.
“One of our challenges was to make sure the vision of the river reflects change over time,” explained Boone Powell of Ford, Powell & Carson, chief architect for the project. “We do our best to make sure there’s a timeless quality about it. It’s not like we just picked a few ideas out of a hat and tried to implement them.”
And to be sure, change over time is something Powell knows a good deal about. His firm’s historic preservation work reads like a who’s who of Texas’ most important historic attractions. Included among the accomplishments of his firm are in San Antonio are the design and restoration of the Alamo, Hemisfair Park, the Tower of the Americas and La Villita; in Austin, the Texas State Capitol; in Galveston, the historic Hotel Galvez, Tremont House and the Strand Street Theater; and in West Texas, El Fortin de Cibolo at Cibolo Ranch.
The first stretch of the new River Walk, beginning with the Hugman Dam, is designed to keep with the historic feel of the original River Walk, with the Works Progress Administration-era stonework, narrow canyonlike walls and tall buildings along the riverbank. At the upper reach of this section, Schauer stops to explain another historic structure that has emerged from the long-buried riverbed. As the construction workers dug their way up the river, he says, they suddenly hit a wall they hadn’t expected. It took some intensive research to figure out what it was: the dam for the old Alamo Mills, dating back to 1872.
It’s at about this point, looking out over the river and a restoration of this dam at the historic Lone Star Brewery – now the San Antonio Museum of Art – that the river begins to change character and open out into a broader, more spacious feel. Here the walkway begins to incorporate the yellow brick of the museum, hence the designation as the SAMA stretch. Around the corner, SAMA comes into full view in all its towering glory.
The towers and yellow brick are echoed one more time in a restored pedestrian bridge, once the bridge connecting the two towers of the Lone Star Brewery, converted to a glassed-in passageway by SAMA. The old steel bridge had sat neglected for nearly half a century until resurrected by Powell for the pedestrian walkway. The graceful span is bookended by the two brick towers.
At this point the river winds under the freeway, where a special treat awaits: a whole school of giant sunfish, suspended from the freeway over the river. It’s the creation of Philadelphia artist David Lipski.
But the piece de resistance from an artistic standpoint is surely the Grotto, the fantasmagorical creation of San Antonio artist Carlos Cortes. Seen from the river, the structure rises from the river like a bit of prehistoric Middle Earth, winding and twisting like the tree roots that seem to be the source of its inspiration. Moss-textured ancient faces peer from within and above, evoking other worlds. Stairways, waterfalls, hidden lights and passageways work a strange spell.
Dionisio Rodriguez, the legendary faux bois artist whose work has adorned San Antonio’s River Walk and Brackenridge Park for generations, must be proud of his nephew, who has carried on the family tradition in grand style. Besides the grotto, San Antonians will recognize a palapa-style bus stand Cortes created at the Cameron and Newell street River Walk entrance, similar to the ones in Brackenridge Park and along Broadway.
Here the character of the river shifts to a third style, based on that of the Pearl Brewery. The yellow brick is gone, and in its place, walls of pebbled cement. The look is more modern and industrial, but softened with the green of hanging plants – and of course, the river, which winds past an amphitheater that will seat up to 1,000 and reaches a series of waterfalls and small stone islands. One island is the home base of the Hardberger Tree, a young cypress named for Linda Hardberger, who presented her husband the mayor with the tree on the occasion of their 39th wedding anniversary.
The Pearl is rapidly becoming a focal point for an emerging scene, combining history with cutting edge design and a postmodern return to tradition. The new Farmers Market brings local growers and chefs together with musicians in a standing-room-only crowd on Saturday mornings that is carried through the week at Texas Farm to Table restaurant, and the New Urbanism of the project’s architects promises a thriving community with housing to compliment the culinary and beauty school and the shops that are springing up here.
This is the end of the road for the barges that will carry tourists from the downtown area, and for our tour today. But the project will carry on. To the north, another mile and a half of hiking and biking trails will wind their way up to Brackenridge park and the Witte Museum, hopefully within a year to a year and a half. And to the south, the city will restore the channelized river to its natural state in the Mission Reach. Some 24,000 trees will be planted and hundreds of acres of riparian habitat will be restored along the stretch of river that connects the four missions that are a more authentic, if less famous, representation of the colonial Spanish era than the Alamo.
“The ecosystem was essentially destroyed in the ‘50s and ‘60s for purposes of flood control,” says Schauer. “We’re turning it back into a natural river. Now we understand that you can have a healthy river and flood control at the same time. Back then, the answer was just to turn it into a ditch.”
From prayers to profits in Tanzania May 12, 2009
Posted by tracybarnett in : Africa , add a commentITHAWA VILLAGE, Lake Victoria Region, Tanzania — It was during a brief respite in a drenching downpour that Jonia Pastori greeted us, huddled under our umbrellas in the schoolyard. She beamed with pride, seemingly oblivious to the rivulets streaming down her face.
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For the children who clustered around her, on break from classes, it was time for tea – the only sustenance that most of them would have until they went home. For Jonia, it was time to do business.
The children lingered as long as they could, taking in the spectacle of two blonde-haired mzungus, or white people, taking pictures and speaking in a strange language. Finally their teacher appeared to usher them back to the classroom, leaving Jonia to tell her story – a story that winds its way back to San Antonio, Texas, and an extraordinary network of women created there.
Keep an eye on the San Antonio Express-News SA Life section for the full story. For those readers who don’t have access to the print edition, I’ll post the link here.
Art Car Parade Rocks Houston May 10, 2009
Posted by tracybarnett in : Houston, Texas , 1 comment so far“You’ll always remember your first one,” promised my friend Dwight. He was right. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much creative whimsy and automotive sacrilege in one place in my life. But where better than Houston, where local fortunes have been built on the fuel that powers them?
Click on “View All Images” for a tour of the 2009 Art Car parade. Without the sweltering heat - or the sunburn!
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Silvio Rodriguez for Michael Savage May 5, 2009
Posted by tracybarnett in : Latin America , 2comments[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXOJpXz8poM]
I awoke to the news this morning that one of Latin America’s most beloved voices, Silvio Rodriguez, was denied a visa by the U.S. State Department as he prepared to attend a celebration of folk music legend Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday gala.
Just when I thought we were about to put the nonsense behind us and accept Cuba into the brotherhood of American nations, this comes as a bit of a slap in the face. Generations of Latin Americans from Argentina to Mexico have grown up with Silvio’s classics, gentle and exquisitely crafted melodies like “Unicornio” and “Ojala,” the mysterious “Quien Fuera,” and passionate calls for self-determination and justice like “Cancion Urgente Para Nicaragua.” Indeed, one of his concerts in Chile drew more than 90,000. Take that, Rolling Stones.
Some of my favorite memories of times spent with my Latin American friends in Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina and Chile were times spent sharing the songs of Silvio, songs that bonded us at the heart. Beautiful songs that gave birth to a new genre, la Nueva Trova. I took a few moments today to reminisce, calling up on YouTube classics like La Maza and Sueño con Serpientes and Cancion del Elegido. I also pulled his only US-produced CD off the shelf, a compilation of his most famous works called Canciones Urgentes, produced by David Byrne of the Talking Heads.
I’m reminded of President Obama’s response to the criticism leveled at him by Newt Gingrich for having the audacity to shake the hand of another critic of US foreign policy, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Obama’s response: “It’s unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States.”
I think it goes without saying that Silvio’s presence at the 90th birthday of his US counterpart is unlikely to endanger the strategic interests of our country.
It’s ironic, too, that I awoke today to the news that Michael Savage, one of the great purveyors of hate in our times, was banned by Great Britain because of his propensity to incite violence and hatred against minorities and the poor.
Now, I’m not in favor of banning anyone because of their ideas. But if we’re going to do that, wouldn’t it make sense to choose people who present an actual danger to the peace and security of our country?
I’m dedicating this blog, and this day in my life, to the work of a musical master who has used his considerable talents to tirelessly promote social justice. I’ve created my own Silvio Rodriguez channel on Pandora and I invite you to do the same. You can also find dozens of his performances on YouTube. Meanwhile, here’s hoping we can one day see him face to face — on this side of the water.
