Category Archives: Awake to Earth

Rain

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RainI woke early in the morning, anxious about yet another radon test at our old house, as the rain was coming down and the wind was all stirred up. We’ve had two failed radon tests, before and after upgrades to our mitigation system.  The other day, the mitigation folks were checking on why the radon levels had doubled after their upgrades, but everything  seemed fine, and their instant test meter was showing no problems.  They suggested that perhaps it was an anomaly, and we should retest.

I had read online that radon tends to be at its worst in the winter and/or when it is raining. So I wondered whether that had affected the tests.  According to the mitigation folks, it shouldn’t matter that much.  But both of the tests happened during stormy weather, the last one including a rare winter thunderstorm, with an inch of rain and high wind levels. Now, here we are again, testing, with the rain pouring down, and the sale of our house to these buyers resting on the outcome. Why was it raining once again?

But then my heart took me to a deeper place this morning. I realized that deep in my subconscious I was still attached to that old myth–that when good things happened it was a sign of blessing or favor from the great Mysteries, the Spirits, the Divine benevolence. And its counter:  I believed that when bad things happened it was a sign of abandonment or disfavor.  So I was troubled with the Rain and Wind, the Thunder–Why are you not helping us? I thought. I was wondering if the Rain and Wind were angry with us.

But then, they brought me to a deeper reality.  That myth of blessing or abandonment is the quintessential American myth.  But it is not really true.  Otherwise, what does that mean for the people who have faced many troubles–so much bigger troubles than radon or house sale troubles–are they abandoned or in disfavor with the spirit?  What of every child who has lost a parent, or parent who has lost a child? What of the people who lost lands and cultures to the genocide of the early explorers and settlers? What of the people who were torn from their own countries in chains? What of those who are torn from their homes today, in the wake of war and terrorism? It is not the Spirit who has abandoned them, but perhaps their fellow human beings.

The Spirit remains present with us through everything.  Whether we face happy outcomes or troubles.  Love enfolds us in its widest embrace.  That is the truest reality.  Whether we pass or fail the radon test, the Rain and Wind and Thunder are still our guardians. I have to let my small heart open wide, to move beyond the idea of prayer as an attachment to things going my way, or the easy way, into prayer as an entryway into perceiving that all-embracing Love.

And in the light of that Love, don’t we want the best for the people who are hoping to buy our house?  Don’t we want them to be safe and have the best possible outcome for their home search, even as we hope it for ourselves? If there is a radon problem in the house, don’t we want it to be solved for them? And radon, or a house sale, are so small in the great scheme of things. There are so many bigger challenges that are facing our world today.  Challenges of water and air for all people. Challenges of climate change and war and xenophobia and oppression.

This journey is rooted in an intention–to live in a more beneficial relationship with the earth and all beings. Each step of the way can be imbued with that intention, and can bring us closer to that vision. Along the way, reality will be reality, and if that phrase, “all will be well,” means anything real, it is not dependent on test outcomes or house sales. Now it might be time to take a walk in the rain.

 

 

Water is Life

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Water HearingToday, Margy and I took a break from unpacking at our new house, to join with over one hundred other people who packed the Maine Supreme Judicial Court hearing of oral arguments in an appeal against a 45 year contract for water extraction between Fryeburg Water Company and Nestle (for their Poland Spring bottled water brand.) You can find out more about it at https://www.facebook.com/events/905328636212245/

After the hearing, we stood outside the courthouse with signs, which is when I took this photo. Water is utterly basic to life, and should be treated as sacred, not sold to a corporation that has a horrible track record in so many endeavors around the world. I remember most recently, Nestle was continuing to extract water in California, during the worst drought in its history.  We can’t let these giants trample the common good of the earth, without raising our voices.

It was good to be with other human beings who get it.

Cats Exploring

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Cats ExploreI woke at 5 a.m. to a cat scratching at a closed door, and decided I’d better get up for cat duty, so Margy could get some sleep. I was glad they were finally exploring the house.  It was so upsetting yesterday to see how traumatic the move was for Billie and Sassy.  We had started them off by sequestering them in the basement bathroom where their litter boxes will remain.  Sassy went into the cabinet and hid there, and Billie huddled behind the toilet.  Margy and I took turns being with them and letting them be alone.

After an hour or so, we opened the door so they could come out at will.  Sassy relaxed soon enough and started exploring the house, but kept hissing at Billie.  Billie stayed behind the toilet for hours, until I finally took her by the scruff of her neck like a kitten and carried her upstairs, and helped her to hide under the covers of the bed.  At least that would be warm and familiar to her–she loves curling up under the covers–and it seemed to work.  She stayed there for several hours, and when I got under the covers, she cuddled with me for a long while and then finally jumped out. So exploring the house is a good thing. And hey, 5 a.m. is only an hour before I usually get up.  But I decided to forego my sunrise walk today and follow them around to make sure they didn’t get into too much mischief.

Cats Explore

Billie loves high places.

But they hate those pesky doors that they can’t open. At our old house, the closet doors slid open and the bottom of the door wasn’t attached, so they had complete access to the closets. They also knew how to open cupboard doors. Here, the closets pull out and fold–that is frustrating to kitties.

Cats Explore

Sassy:  I know if I keep scratching I can open up this door!

We’re Here!

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Boxes in the kitchen

Yesterday, the movers came and lifted our boxes and furniture into trucks and over to our new house.  I directed traffic at the new house.  Margy and I slept here last night, exhausted and aching in every muscle, but happy to be really living here.  I woke early in the morning with moonlight shining through the windows.  Then I took a walk at sunrise, starting by circling the perimeter of our land from north to east to south to west–and–I heard a cardinal singing!  This bird reassures me that all will be well, and offers such beauty and joy.  I am so glad to know that the cardinals will be our neighbors here.  On that happy note, I walked through the neighborhood over to the Evergreen Cemetery trails.

After breakfast, I started unpacking boxes in the kitchen, and immediately began doing more downsizing. As I put things away into fewer drawers and cupboards than we had before, it became much clearer that some things just aren’t necessary.  We didn’t have time to actually sort through most things before the move.  And we didn’t actually move all of our possessions.  There is still the whole basement, and outbuildings.  But we have a few weeks before we have to vacate the other house, so we are doing it in two stages–and that’s a good thing.  There is no way everything would fit here, and we hadn’t finished sorting in the basement.  As it is, our basement here has a lot of boxes in it already.  I think it will be easier to sort back at our old house, now that we are in this space.

The evening before the move, we sent our cats to stay with our favorite cat-sitters.  The cats have never been away from home before, but we figured it would be less traumatic to be off site while everything was being carted away. They arrived at our new home this afternoon, and are sequestered in the downstairs bathroom, with their litter boxes.  They are feeling rather scared and cranky.

Meanwhile, back at our other house, after $1000 of radon remediation work, the radon was tested between Wednesday and Friday, and came back WORSE than before.  That certainly didn’t make any sense, and our realtor has been in touch with the company who did the work, and they are returning to the house on Monday to see what is going on. This has us rather scared and cranky because radon levels are a deal breaker for our buyers, and we don’t want to have to start over in the process of selling our house. Plus radon will likely be an issue no matter who we sell to. If anyone knows any magic or practical tips for dealing with radon, let us know. Until all of that is settled, we feel very vulnerable.

It helps when I remember that our move isn’t merely a move from one house to another–it is part of our search for greener housing, and that change is more difficult than we might expect.  Our whole social system is currently set up to exploit the earth.  Margy and I have been really lucky to be able to undertake this search, and yet it still depends on our being able to sell our old house at a decent price, so we can afford solar panels for our new house.  But, I remember that we are among hundreds (thousands?) of people who are trying through our personal actions to live in greater harmony with the earth.  Each step is a part of the great shift in the human relationship with with our mother earth.  Beings of the earth, help us on this journey!

Helpers!

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Our moving date is Feb 26.  Yesterday we began packing in earnest.  I rarely take the Monday holidays off work, but I was able to this time. Surveying the situation felt overwhelming, until two wonderful helpers came over and started putting books and record albums into boxes.Empty bookcase

Their energy gave us energy, and between the four of us, we packed over 35 boxes!  Today I am back to ministry work, but next week I will be taking unused vacation days from February 23rd to March 2nd in order to do the final packing push.  Other folks have offered to help us during the three day packing spree before the movers arrive.

This help is such a marvelous thing!  There are so many moments when we feel overwhelmed by the weight of all we have to box up and carry to a new home.  We did a fair amount of sorting and recycling and giving away, but at a certain point–and I think we have reached it–we just have to put things in boxes and not worry about the de-cluttering project until we arrive at our new place. We will have a few weeks overlap, so we can leave some things here that we want to go through more carefully, or give away.

Painted closetMeanwhile, at the new place, Margy has been painting the closets and cupboards, so that they’ll be ready for us to fill with our clothes and dishes. (She took this picture after her work on one closet.)

AND we still have more radon mitigation work to do in our old basement.  The tests came back too high, so we renegotiated with the buyers, and we are paying an air quality company to come this week to expand the current radon mitigation system.

Our realtor also made an important discovery. Our boiler has a barometric damper, and he noticed it was in the wide open position, even when the boiler wasn’t running. This means it would have been constantly drawing air from the basement up into the chimney, creating negative pressure that could literally be sucking radon into the space.  He also noticed that the weights were positioned incorrectly for the type of damper, so we shifted the weights, and adjusted them so that it closes when the furnace is off and opens a small amount when it is on. At some point, we may have someone come out to calibrate it more exactly, but for now, we hope this will help with radon mitigation. We have heard that the buyers are planning to replace the heating system, so it doesn’t make sense to put a lot into it now. It is a bit of a catch-22.  If we can’t get the radon levels down to acceptable numbers, the sale of the house won’t go through.  So, fingers crossed.

A colleague who has moved a lot suggested I might think of moving as a spiritual practice. There are so many ways that this makes sense.  There is so much outside of our control.  And yet there is so much work that we have to do to make it happen.  This balancing act between vulnerability and effort is such a metaphor for all of what is important in life.

I come back to Gratitude for the helpers who enter our lives, and enable us to keep on this journey.  Some of the helpers are those we enlist professionally for a fee.  But most are kindhearted souls who we are privileged to know, who make such a difference.

Paper

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Innu Ally Work filesIn my sorting and packing and decluttering quest, I was all set to start tossing old file folders from the basement into the recycling bin, but it is proving harder than I first expected. I haven’t looked at these papers for at least ten years (since we moved into this house). Because of my allergies, I would have to wear a mask and gloves to go through them.  So the simplest thing would be to just toss them out.  But when I start to take a peak, they are like windows into the history of my life as an activist.  Here is a whole file cabinet about ally work that I was involved in, related to the struggles of the Innu of Nitassinan in Quebec, most of it from when I lived in Boston.

Boston Political workThen there is the box I haven’t opened in over 16 years, with this evocative label: “Boston/and Peace Camp Time: Political Groups /Resources/Issues/Conferences.” I am guessing I threw stuff in there as I was packing to leave Boston, but I don’t even know what it might include.

I also have a box from over 30 years ago, simply labeled “Politics, Etc.” from the time I lived in Grand Rapids and Chicago in 1980 to 1984.  I’ve moved it so many times.  My intention to simplify is crashing into my interest in the older stories of my life.  When I look at these artifacts, I remember activities and connections and struggles that I had almost forgotten.Grand Rapids Political work

I think about moderately famous authors and activists whose collections of papers end up in libraries and archives.  But I am not famous, and who knows whether any of this would have any value for anyone besides me.  Do I really want to carry around boxes and boxes of old paper? I want to live in a small house, and keep doing activist work in the present rather than to document the activist movements of the past.  But I just recently read about how one of my favorite authors, Octavia Butler, saved everything.  Her papers are now available for research use in a library in California, I think.

When we give ourselves to the work of social change, we are “one in the number” (as Ella Baker said) of thousands of ordinary people lending our strength to a new vision.  Are our ordinary activist stories an important part of a history that someone may want to write in a future we cannot yet imagine? Or will that future itself be the only record of our work that is needed?

I do have some boxes of paper that I have already labeled “Archives.”  I would probably sort things differently if I had time to do it today, but when we moved to Maine, I made some filing and sorting choices about what to save and what to toss.  It is just that that sorting never gets finished, and some things came along without that kind of careful attention.  The boxes I always feel absolute clarity about saving are the boxes of my journals and writings and poetry.  During our last move, I even purchased archival quality boxes in which to store my old journals.

When I go deep inside, I know it is okay to let go of some of this paper; but perhaps it is also okay to wait, to bring along some of these old boxes, stash them in another basement or attic, and revisit them in a quieter time.  I don’t know.  What do you think?

We are planning to move in two and a half weeks.

 

Sorting and Packing

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Packed in BasementYesterday I began sorting and packing in the basement.  Here is a pile of stuff all packed and ready to go to our new house!  I also made an area for things we didn’t want, and at the end of the day I put several boxes in my car ready to go to Goodwill.  But here is what is left to do:

Still to Go

It was a bit overwhelming to even think about how to get through all this, until I just decided to start in one corner, which happened to be our camping equipment, and do that, and then when that was done, to move on to the next area.  I guess that is a good remedy for many overwhelming things in life–start someplace and take it one step at a time.

Since I had the day off, it was a good chance for Margy and I to confer on various items–we got through Christmas decorations, and baskets, and pots for planting:  What can we get rid of? What do we want to keep?  Then, I would put them in boxes and seal and label and put them in the packed-and-ready corner.

Meanwhile, Margy was sealing cracks in the concrete floor.  When we first bought our house, the basement had tested too high for radon levels.  A mitigation system was installed–you can see part of it in the photo above–the white piping goes down underneath the floor to draw radon from the soil.  The piping goes up through a closet into the attic and out through the top of the roof.  A fan in the pipe in the attic creates a negative pressure to pull the radon gases through the piping, so it doesn’t seep into the basement.  But part of what makes it work is to seal all the cracks in the floor.

We haven’t been much concerned about it for a while.  Since we don’t spend much time in the basement, it has not mattered so much to us.  But our home buyers are having their home inspection done this week, including a radon test.  We are hoping the extra effort to seal the cracks will ensure the mitigation system is doing its job, and the basement levels will pass the test.

Radon is a big issue for housing all across the United States.  Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas, but if humans are exposed to too much, it increases our risk of lung cancer.  This can be an issue for very energy efficient houses, because they are more tightly sealed, which makes for less air flow.  Have you had radon levels tested in your home?

Heat Pumps are In

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Heat Pump Final TouchesYesterday, the final connections were made, and the heat pumps were up and running.  The outdoor unit sits 30 inches above the ground, so when it snows, it is up above the snow line.  But if snow blows into the unit, it is smart enough to know when to start defrosting itself. In fact, these machines are smart in many ways.  Our installer oriented us to all of their many features.  You can program them to sense a human being in the room, and either blow conditioned air toward them or around them.  Not that we need that feature.  But maybe on a hot day, when they are cooling the air?

You can also set them to efficiency mode, and they’ll figure out how to keep the air at a comfortable set temperature all on their own.  A wonderful feature of heat pumps is that they do both heating and cooling.  One of the symptoms that Margy faces from her chronic illness is a severe incapacity to tolerate heat. So it is a wonderful relief that our home will be safe and comfortable for her in all weather.  Heat pumps are efficient except when the outside temperature goes to 5 below zero.  For those very few ultra cold days, we have back up heat from the very efficient Buderus boiler that was already in the house.

We were chatting with the installer about the irony that, right now, with oil prices being so low, it may actually be less expensive to heat with the oil furnace than with the heat pumps which use electricity.  But once we have installed solar panels, we hope most of our electricity will come from the sun.  That is what will make these heat pumps an important contribution to our search for greener housing. For us, it isn’t just the price, but the desire to move away from fossil fuels that put too much carbon in the atmosphere.  For now, we set the thermostat to about 50 degrees, until we finally get to move in.

Heat pump in living room

Celebration!

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CelebrationWe have a contract to sell our old house!  We got an offer yesterday evening, and today we talked about it and made a counter offer and then they countered with a price we could feel good about, and now we are signing the paperwork. We read somewhere that the planet Mercury went direct on January 25 after being retrograde for a few weeks… according to astrologers now is the time to sign contracts and go forward with plans. I don’t know if that helped, or if it was the grace of the spirits who are guiding us through this search for greener housing.  But I do know that I want to say thanks to everyone who was praying for our house sale to go well!  We still have to go through inspections, and such, and the closing of the deal is tentatively scheduled for March.  But tonight we feel such relief and joy.  Now we can turn our attention to packing and getting ready to move.

Patience and Grace

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This week is I have been trying and failing at patience.  The carpenter and the heat pump installers are …almost… done.  Everything was theoretically going to be done by today, and now we are looking at Friday instead.  But, here are some of the beautiful results.

French Doors to PatioThis is not the best photo ever, but our French doors from the kitchen to the deck are installed–we just need still to get the keyed entry put in, since this will be our regular entry door.  It was a cloudy day today when I took the picture, but this is a south facing window, and brings a lot of light into the house, and links us to the back yard.

The door on the right is the one that opens, pivoting from the center–in our research we learned that it is more energy efficient to have just one side moveable, and we can swing it totally around to rest on the other side, with a sliding screen for those days we want a breeze.  It will also give us a 32″ wide pathway directly into the kitchen, for wheelchair access, when we install a ramp up to the deck.  In permaculture design they call it “stacking functions,” when one item fulfills multiple functions–so this one has entry and exit, beauty, access, energy efficiency, light, ventilation, and the cats will likely be sitting there looking out at the back yard, too.

French Doors to Office

We also installed French doors from the hallway to the office–once again, for access and for light.  The opening they create will provide a better turning radius for a wheelchair to get into the bathroom across the hall, and if either of us do ever need to use a wheelchair ourselves, the office can be converted to an accessible bedroom. Saturday, when we met with the carpenter, the bottom of the doors were not aligned when closed–but he fixed them so they align perfectly now.

 

 

Finally, here is one heat pump, sitting up in the corner of the back bedroom. Two are installed, and a lot of the wiring is finished, but they still have two more units to install inside, plus the outside unit.  You can’t really see it here, but the walls around the window have also been spackled and painted where they were messed up from the window installation.Heat pump in back bedroom

And if you are still reading all the way down, today our realtor did a second showing with a couple that had seen our old house last Friday.  This is the other place where patience is a challenge.  Now that the house is on the market, and we’ve de-cluttered and cleaned, and our realtor hosted an open house, all we can really do is wait.  But it felt very hopeful to hear the level of interest and inspection that they were engaged in.

To be in this process is such a vulnerable transition.  Perhaps anyone who had done a big move knows this feeling. So much is at stake, and this time of year isn’t the best for selling a house, but it is the time of year in which our own journey has unfolded. So all we can do is enter the process as fully as we can, do what we can do, and then wait.  It is very hard to have patience for all of these processes to unfold.  After feeling a lot of anxiety earlier in the day, for some inexplicable reason, I relaxed as we were driving home after visiting the new house.  I entered a space of trust in the unfolding of the universe.  Is that grace?