A Long Month

Hello again. It's only been a month (not an unprecedented lapse in time between posts), but it feels like I haven't written on my blog for a year. A lot has been happening in my life in the first month of 2011. I've been sorting through emotional changes and decision making.

But I'm still a freegan. :)

The biggest change in my personal life is that I am planning to leave the LACW at the end of my second year commitment, which puts my departure around the beginning of summer. It's time for me to hit the road again. I am grateful to the LACW, my many friends and the city of Los Angeles for the fantabulous two years I have lived here. But I have to move on.

Another big change is that one of our hospitality guests, Michael Cooksey, passed away last week. It was the first close experience of death for many of our community members, including me.

I will expound upon these points soon, I promise. But for now I had to merely touch base.

Until next time,

And may the dumpster gods bless you. :)

Today I sit at this magical screen after almost a week of no computer interaction. It was actually quite wonderful, doing other things and forgetting for a while about my addiction to the "information superhighway" (remember when people actually called it that?). After a few days of computer-less time, you begin to avoid it on purpose, saying like an old friend of mine, "It's too much to bother". But virtual reality gets us all sometime...

Unfortunately, I have been sick in bed these past two days, and so I wasn't able to do much more than read a couple books (including the wonderful "People's History of American Empire"). It does, however, give me an opportunity to brag about the fact that I have never been ill from eating dumpster food, to my knowledge (that's always one of the first questions I am asked). My sicknesses usually come in the sneezing, running nose, deep chest cough and itchy throat variety. They seem to be more a product of community living than of my food lifestyle. If you just use the same common sense you would in your fridge, dumpster diving won't make you sick.

I've been wondering what to do for Eric for Valentine's Day, since: 1. I've ended up on House Duty for that day and 2. We don't buy each other stuff (I couldn't even if I wanted to). :) And so I must lend myself to creativity...

Another random musing for the day is in the bummer-ness of having to cancel our last two dumpster bike rides due to rain, in Los Angeles. Oh well. We'll try again tomorrow; wish us good weather and a good turnout.

I'll leave you with a great video inspired by the late, great Howard Zinn and narrated by one of my favorite actors (if only because he portrayed Aragorn in the LOTR movies).

Kenyan Reflection

Today has been a day of memories. Monday is my day of rest, and my favorite thing to do on such a day is to stay at Eric's apartment by myself after he goes to work and the kids have gone to school. I bustle restfully around the place cleaning up after a week's worth of busy people on the go, listening to Internet radio and frequently sitting down to the computer. Often that time results in contemplation and reminiscing (and blogging!).

During my breaktime browsing I found myself looking up Takatifu Gardens, the beautiful Quaker community in Kenya at which I spent three months earlier this year. The official website has new pictures that blew my mind. When I was there, we worked very hard on the compound (community/volunteer center)'s garden and grounds. So to see pictures of less than six months after the work was really gratifying. The garden is flourishing, the baby rabbits I raised are full grown (and having rabbits of their own).

I also read blog entries from other international volunteers who have worked at TG at times when I was not there. It is inspiring to read of other lives that were touched by the very work that touched me so deeply.

The local schoolchildren are a big focus at Takatifu Gardens and I thought that this post from a fellow blogger was a beautiful capturing of that.

I still feel that my trip to Kenya was the best thing that I have done in my life so far. How I would love to go back.

Gone Too Long

I don't know if anyone reads this blog enough to have noticed how long it's been since I last posted, but it has been a long while. I was on vacation to spend time with my family in Oakridge, Oregon. I tried to make a post during the visit, but due to slow internet connections (my parents still use dial-up!) and a busy time connecting with as many people as possible, I was never able to finish that post. A few things have happened since I stopped posting regularly, including the locking of Eric's and my favorite new dumpster spot here in LA.

An Oregonian at Heart

My visit to Oakridge was lovely, complete with swimming in the cold North Fork of the Willamette River and ending with a small town wedding for a cousin I hadn't seen in years. It was also the first time in almost two years that my three siblings and I (I am on the left of the age-arranged photo at left) have been together in one place.

One of the best things about being in Oakridge was the natural beauty. Somehow when I was growing up, I had taken for granted the scenery I had been placed in. The town of little over 3000 people is situated in the feet of the Cascade Mountains, on the edge of the Willamette Valley (about an hour east of Eugene). Mountians coated heavily with evergreen trees (mostly cedar) are so close that you can almost touch them. My parents' home is a minutes' walk from the river, which you can hear flowing at night from my old bedroom. Now that I live in Los Angeles, the landscape of Oregon is a treasure I will never forget. I do hope that someday Eric and I can move north, out of this city to crown all cities (also called "Hell-A" by some).

A Freegan Birthday Party

Now I will go back an entire month to make mention of my fantastic birthday party because I want to thank all the people who made it such a great time. We called the event "Bikes, Beer and Dumpster Diving" because it was spread over the weekend of August 14th to include a dumpster ride that provided the meal and snacks for the actual party. A lot of friends, new and old, showed up to mark my 21st year of life. I felt that it was also a celebration of a new direction in life and my "settling down" in Los Angeles. Friends from the JCs, Hippie Kitchen volunteers, my Riverside friends from the Rainbow Gathering and members of the Catholic Worker community all joined in on the fun, as representations of different journeys I have taken. And of course there was Eric, my Freegan partner. For more pics of the event, click here.

Freeganism and Dumpster Diving Meetup

Eric and I continue to host freegan meetups, such as potlucks and dumpster dives. Over the last few weeks, Eric has shown a few freegan-friendly documentaries at his place after potluck dinners, including "What Would Jesus Buy?", "The Story of Stuff" and, as of last night, "The Corporation". All three are worth taking a look at, and I recommend the book, "The Corporation", as well.

There is more, but I will save it for later. Don't we all love the leftovers? ;)

A Rainbow of Diversity

Last week, I got back from a week-long adventure at my first Rainbow Gathering. This year, the festival was held near Cuba, New Mexico, in the mountains of the Santa Fe National Forest. It was a week of camping, hanging out, meeting new people from everywhere, eating a lot of good food (and coffee!!), and imagining a more permanent world of unity and nature such as I was experiencing.

"Rainbow Gathering" means different things to each individual who hears the phrase. To me, it means diversity. In that place and time, I saw and met people from every different persuasion, from punk kids to college students, hippies to school teachers (or some who are both), truckers and travelers, and many folks who work a normal 9-5 during the rest of the year. There were families and sweet kids running around, particularly around Kid Village camp and the Main Meadow. Drugs were present, but so were people who stay far away from such things (like myself).

Rainbow meant new friends, like Will, Sam and Lachlan, the three of whom I was lucky enough to camp with the whole time. Will and Sam (at left) gave me a ride to and from the gathering, for which I am grateful. Will had attended 5 other Gatherings, but for the rest of us, it was our first experience.

Speaking of friends, I got to meet up with my moneyless friend Suelo, who spent the last few days we were there hanging with my new friends and me. It was very good to see him and to speculate about future travel plans together.

Another memorable moment was on the 4th (a day of particular celebration at the Gathering), we were treated to the most beautiful double rainbow I have ever seen.

A lesson I learned from Rainbow was that there are so many different types of people in the world, and our job is not to persuade all to think the same way, but to learn how to work together and to learn from one another. We are the Rainbow.

"We love you!!"

(PS: check out Rainbow Gathering videos on Youtube)

The Month of May in a Freegan and CW Nutshell

Well, it's been over a month now since my last post. I never meant for that to happen. ;) In the meantime, I have been busy and having a great time doing it. Hopefully, I can get myself to make weekly posts from now on, if there's something worth writing about every week.

The Los Angeles Catholic Worker and "Hippie Kitchen"


For the last three weeks, I have been working and staying with the Catholic Worker community in East Los Angeles. A quick sum-up from the LACW website tells us this about the community:

The Los Angeles Catholic Worker community is part of the lay Catholic Worker movement founded over seventy years ago by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to "feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner" and offer a gospel-based critique of the dominant culture within the Catholic tradition but outside the institutionalized structures of the church.

Founded in 1970, the Los Angeles Catholic Worker is a lay Catholic community of men and women which operates a free soup kitchen, hospitality house for the homeless, hospice for the dying, a newspaper, and regularly offers prophetic witness in opposition to war-making and injustice.

I am not a Catholic, but I truly respect and admire Dorothy Day in her activism and her faith. From my perspective, she was a sincere individual, trying hard to reconcile her belief in God with the injustice that she saw religion doing nothing about. The result: Catholic Worker hospitality homes and soup kitchens across the world. :D

The way I see religion now, is as a tool. Someone's spirituality can be used to encourage that person to improve themselves and the world, and yet like any tool, it can also be used for ill. We have seen religion used as a manipulative instrument, as a means of power and control and for the gaining of wealth.

Thankfully in Dorothy's case, God was a motivation towards the light in her and in others.

Another inspiring, "enlightened" individual I have been reading about lately is the old lady who went by the name "Peace Pilgrim". She was also someone that let God use her and the spirituality she sought to work towards peace in the world and goodwill towards all people. More about her and about religion in some later post. This is supposed to be an update.

So, I have been staying at the community house (a beautiful, old Victorian three story home shared by as many as twenty people) and spending most of my time working with the Catholic Workers either in the house or at their colorful soup kitchen (aka "the Hippie Kitchen", at right, featuring my friend Martha) in Skid Row. I have begun to feel that I have found a niche here at the CW house and that the work we are doing is something I am "called" to be a part of. It reminds me of working at the community volunteer center in Kenya, and of the satisfaction we all feel when doing something that has a strong sense of purpose to it. (And of course I would be thinking of Kenya when David, our young Kenyan friend here at the house, made us chapatis and sukuma wiki for dinner tonight...)

Freegan Fun

When I am not spending time at the house or the kitchen, I am likely to be in a dumpster (or at some bike or freegan related event).

Last Friday, the Los Angeles Dumpster Diving meetup had our first "Dumpster Ride and Freegan Meal" event. It was a lot of fun, and attracted a nice little group of people, many of whom were new to dumpster diving and had never heard of Freeganism.

The idea behind the ride was to be an educational event, combining the social bike riding crowd with the dumpster divers and to see what happened. What came of it was a 12 or so mile bike ride that stopped at five or so dumpsters, and a large and delicious (and free!) meal cooked up and enjoyed by a diverse group of people. The event was a success in any way I would use the term. To see more pictures of the night, click here.

Not only did we have fantastic fun, we also rescued a lot of good food. What 15 or so people had for a late dinner that night was only a fraction of the food we pulled from the dumpster on our ride. Our haul consisted of a bag of potted plants (in need of a little love, but beautiful nonetheless), lots of good meat (including incredible salmon and barbecue pork), a case of hummus (minus a cracked container, of course), a mountain of blueberries, some nice bread, lots of tomatoes and eggs and so much more...

And my plans keep changing...

I have been trying to pin down what I want to do this summer, but I have discovered that life doesn't want to be pinned down! But that's just fine with me, since the unpredictability of life is something beautiful that many people miss out on in our current system of doing things.

It's still that same old lesson of learning to not be attached to anything. If we can take it day by day, each thing that happens (whether planned or not), can be greeted with a contented smile and a sense of newness and surprise.

With that in mind, I think I will stop saying what I hope to do this summer and just review what has happened after the time has passed. Well, let me just say, I think it will be fantastic fun...

See ya next time!

Lessons in Attachment, Memories and Faith

Attachment is a Cause of Blindness

On Monday night I had a moment of emotional weakness when my hopes of staying with my sweet friend Paloma (at right) fell through after her landlords changed their minds about allowing it. During that emotional storm, I let go of the child-like optimism that helped to earn me my funky nickname. I allowed myself to forget about the kindness of people that I have met in LA, I forgot about the reasons that I live this way and about the opportunities that come in the winds of change. Do you know what my problem was? I was too attached to my previous plans and hopes for the city of Pasadena.

You see, if we hold too tightly to anything, be it material possessions, people or even ideas, we blind ourselves to the options, opportunities and blessings that surround us. When I live by emotions, I tend to live only in memories, always reminiscing about the great times I have had in the past, instead of trying to create new memories in the present. The lesson is to keep memories as reminders of the good times, but to be able to move on from them in order to live a productive life in the "now". The goal is to dwell on things I like about what is happening now, while still cherishing the experiences I had in places I may have liked better (e.g. Kenya).

Thankfully, I awoke to new hope the next morning, and reminders of the blessings in my life greeted my better attitude. Possibilities of my next move came up in my mind, and I began the day with a new vision. My sense of purpose and my faith were renewed. And so we have another demonstration of the fleetingness of human emotion. :)

Memories of Pasadena to Cherish

There are a couple of nice experiences of my time in Pasadena that I would like to share, while I get ready to move to a different part of this huge "concrete jungle".

One thing I have thoroughly enjoyed (and will continue to enjoy as I am able) is the dumpster meetups that my friend Eric has been organizing. We have had up to 9 people attend, with at least two people each time who had never tried the activity before. I feel great about being a part of getting people to become aware of the waste that our current society creates. The more people who know, the better. Then less people can claim "ignorance" and as more people opt out of this failing system, it will have to change. At least that's my hope. In the meantime, we are introducing people to free food and fun people. :D We have "rescued" so much food in the past three weeks. Countless bags of (organic) apples, more meat than you can fathom (including delicious Australian lamb cuts), so much bread, lovely greens, eggs and more eggs, two tins of fair trade coffee, white pomegranate tea and much more I have forgotten to list.

A related memory is that of Eric's 9 year old daughter Celina's incredible enthusiasm torwards her father's relatively new activity. She begged him to take her dumpster diving, and last week he finally took her to a convenient dumpster and asked me to meet them there. Celina and I worked side by side, digging through the plastic bags to pull out a multitude of mostly non-food goodies. Her excitement was contagious as the pile of toys and useful items grew. Celina had a paper bag that Eric was filling for her with her items of choice as we rescued them. The next day, three of her similarly-aged girl cousins came over, and Celina found the opportunity to show off her bag of dumpster treasures. It was a sight I will never forget: four girls sitting in a little circle, oohing and ahhing (and shouting, "You found that in the dumpster?!?") over each clean, perfectly useable item as Celina pulled it out of the bag. She had found two pairs of earrings, PEZ candy and a PEZ dispenser, many hair clips and other girly accessories, stickers, a wooden salad fork (I don't know why she liked that so much), birthday cards, "pop-it" fireworks and other fun things. Most of the items had been tossed because of damaged packaging, or lack thereof.

Meeting and sharing with people definitely creates the best memories. I have had a lot of good times on the campus of the local college, where I have spent hours talking with different people about the ideals of Freeganism and the bizarre practice of "food reclamation" (as the NY Freegans put it!).

But I will hold lightly to these memories as I move on back towards the city of Inglewood to begin to work with the Los Angeles Catholic Worker house and their soup kitchen (aka the "Hippie Kitchen"). I have worked with the Catholic Worker movement before (in a different city), and thoroughly enjoyed the sense of community and the opportunity to reach out to needy individuals in the area. This should be another great chapter in my ever growing book of adventures.

The Role of Faith in Freeganism (as I see it)

Freeganism is not a spiritually-based philosophy, and so the religious beliefs of those who adopt the name "Freegan" vary greatly. I personally think I am one of few Freegans who come from a Christian perspective (besides my friends in the JC community, of course). But with Christianity, I fully recognize that this is the conclusion that I have reached due to my cultural setting. Therefore, I can recognize letgitimacy in many different spiritual backgrounds, particularly if they are praticed alongside the ideals of Freeganism. But for me, Freeganism and Christianity go hand in hand. A simple lifestyle based on consideration of the earth and its inhabitants just seems to jive so perfectly with the teachings of Jesus Christ (e.g. "love your neighbor as yourself", or "you can't serve both God and Money at the same time").

I also believe that faith in something is essential to being able to actually practice a lifestyle such as mine or that of the JCs. Again, it's about letting go. It's about letting go of the things you worry about (such as financial support) and trusting, having faith, that God, the Spirit, the powers of the universe, or whatever you call all that is good, will work things out for those who try to live positively. I have found faith to be very integral to my spiritual and mental survival since my return to Los Angeles.

We need a faith, a hope, that things can get better in order to live lives that are separate from the system's expectations.

Introductory Thoughts

Well, hello and welcome to my blog. I never really thought of having a blog before, and all of a sudden I had this random thought the other day that I should start a blog. The reasons are many: I like to write, I have friends all over the country (and out of the country) who may be interested in what I am up to, and people ask me all the time to tell them my stories from my travels and to share my thoughts. So now I am creating a space in which to do that. I must also give credit for my inspiration to my dear friend Suelo (a.k.a "Zero Currency Man"), who has a fantastically interesting and engaging blog which I love to read.

There are so many things I could say to get started. I am probably going to have a lot of posts in the first week or so, to get things caught up to where I am now, and then I may drift off a bit.

The Short Version

Here follows the shortened version of my last few months. Let's back up to November... I had just spent a fantastic time traveling with my JC brothers around Southern California, and then we had headed north up the beautiful CA coast. We got to San Francisco in time for a kidney transplant - a donation involving me sharing my "extra" kidney with a young man who has become a dear friend. Most of you reading this have already heard all about that, but this is the starting point I have chosen. :)

Then the guys and I took a plane and spent the holiday month of December in London, England (which was cold). On the first day of the New Year, we landed in Nairobi, Kenya, where we spent three wonderful months doing all sorts of interesting, engaging and positive things. I will definitely share much more about my time in Kenya, as I see that as one of the best things I have done in my life up to this point.

After Kenya, most of the JC community flew back to England, to begin a three month spurt on the big island. But shortly after landing at Heathrow Airport in London, I made my journey back to the US, and I ended up back in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, to start a new chapter of my life on my own. That was three weeks ago.

That brings us to now. I am in a nice suburb called Pasadena, staying with a kind freegan friend I met in my first week of my return to Cali. I am very thankful for his hospitality, friendship and inspiration. On Friday, I hope to move in with my friend Paloma for a while.

So that's the short version. I will go into more details as I go along.

The Jesus Christians

First, I want to say thank you to the whole JC community for the three years I spent learning, traveling and growing with you. (to the right: a photo of the East Coast US team in Jan 2007) I still consider the JCs to be my family, and will always be grateful for the ways they have opened my eyes. I am now what I suppose they would call a "friendly ex-member", but I see it more like I am an independent member of their community, a traveler carrying out the ideas and beliefs that God planted in me through them. My goal is to plant those ideals in the soil of my surroundings wherever I go and in whatever I do.

The JCs are a small, radical Christian community that I joined when I was 18. They describe themselves like this (and I would say it's an accurate description): "A live-by-faith, work-for-God-not-money Christian community. We distribute Bible-based comics and other tracts, and do free (voluntary) work. Against hypocrisy and self-righteousness in the church. In favour of honesty, humility and love." (jesuschristians.com) They have about 30 members total in 4 countries around the world, but they have had a big (IMO positive) impact on the world around them. I send my love out to them all! (at right: US team, Jan 2008)

JC Music Videos

While I'm at it, I'll promote my friends further by posting the link to their Youtube page, which has 5 new music videos that they produced while we were in Kenya. All of the music is original, positive and deep. It's good quality stuff produced on cheap equipment. You can also listen to a large collection of their music here on Soundclick.

Life at the Holy Gardens

"Holy Gardens" is the name of the volunteer center where the JCs and I spent most of our time in Western Kenya. It is a lovely place situated across from the bustling open markets of a small village called Shinyalu in the remote rural area of the Kakamega District. The city of Kisumu (located on the shores of the famous Lake Victoria) is about 2 hours away on bumpy (treacherous in their bumpiness!) dirt roads.

Life in rural Kenya is much different to the materialistic culture we take for granted in the wealthy West. In Kenya, life is simple, almost nothing is wasted and dust covers everything. Being barefoot or wearing flip-flops is the norm, chickens, cows and pigs can be seen roaming the roads and children with no entertainment systems or video games are happy and have fun.

While in Kenya, my friends and I involved ourselves in several different projects that the center is engaged in. My favorite activity was the Easy English Program, in which we would go to the small, poor schools in surrounding villages to help teach English using a series of books and flashcards that my friend Dave created years and years ago in India. On the right is my friend Kim, having a student read one of the books aloud.

Another thing we worked on is a new permaculture garden that was beginning to really spring up before I left. Digging, planting and watering was a large and enjoyable part of my experience.

There are many, many things I could say about my time in Kenya and my thoughts on the poverty and way of life I witnessed. I have a lot to say about the inbalance of wealth in the world, too... which was clearly displayed in my mental comparison of the place I grew up (the US) and the place I have taken in my heart as "home" (Kenya). But I will share those thoughts another time.

Life in Pasadena

While in Los Angeles, I have been trying to get involved in different ways of sharing the dream of a better world. I pass out literature ("positive propaganda") with a Freegan/Christian bent and seek to volunteer my time. I have made many new friends and interesting people. One thing I have been really enjoying is the "Dumpster Meetups" my friend Eric has been organizing. We have been scheduling a time for people to meet at a certain place, and then gone bin-raiding. Often there are a few "newbies", which is always great fun. The events (there have been three since I have been here, I think) have been great sucesses, with every attendee getting a large share of the perfectly good food that we "rescue" from the wasteful clutches of the landfill-destined dumpsters behind our favorite market.

I have been brainstorming and have plans for more fun things to do to make people think. I am also contemplating going traveling again, possibly with Zero Currency Man. Tune in soon to see how it all plays out!