ecoyear

I attended the Transition Training this past weekend.  The stated objective was to "set us all on fire!!". So no surprise I now want to get on with all the things that have been on my "wish I would do" list for a year!  Write in the blog more often, spend more time on the ning site, review the "Where There is No Doctor" book, finish and make available my "50 steps to local food" guide, launch the dry goods co-op, start a neighborhood group and a school group, become certified in permaculture, and of course, cut down my own energy use drastically.

Why, oh, why, do we only have 24 hours in a day??? (Then again, if there were more, we might have done destroyed the Earth by now...)

Transition Training starts slowly the first day, easing participants into the themes behind Transition, and introducing us to the skills we need to be leaders and active agents of change in our communities.  We need a basic understanding of Peak Oil, Climate Chaos, Population Overshoot - and the economic crisis (Chris Martenson's Crash Course was recommended).  Another important point is that we will need to keep learning, as there will be more to know as more issues come to the fore, and as these issues change over time.  Also we might want to get comfortable presenting these issues and discussing them with an interested group.

Lynette Marie Hanson led us all into a meditation imagining that "a miracle had happened" and we wake up after the "crash".  We explored the images and feelings that came to us.

Then Transition Training gets into the theory of Behavior Change.  Now that is much more difficult to convey than Peak Oil.  There is something of a paradox in giving advice on how to change behavior, as that involves changing the "behavior" that comes most naturally to people - advice-giving.  OK, you are confused.  What am I saying? Behavior change relies on trying not to strengthen people's natural tendency to resist advice.  So one "should" not advise, exhort, berate, insist, etc. etc...  How then do you change behavior? By not trying to change it? What does that look like?  Worth pondering.  This was the centerpiece of my work with addicts (otherwise known as people with "chemical dependency") and other unhealthy "health behaviors" in the community health centers where I practiced for 20 years.  In retrospect, I am convinced that my effectiveness was related to my "giving up".  Only when I understood that it could not be done, did I "inspire" the change I had been seeking, and only several years later was I able to see what had occurred.  Along the way, I came to admire and respect my patients.  So bring on the Hummer-drivers!!

Our group of 25 Transition students bonded and got to know each other during breaks.  We inspired each other by our comments and our plainly visible dedication to a lifetime of worthwhile causes.  And then we went on to the second day of the Training.

We listed the assumptions underlying the industrial society as we know it, discovered just how tenaciously they have a hold on us, and what that might mean when we try to come together to design a better way to live, while using a lot fewer resources.  The aha! moment for me was the idea that when we feel our power, we also acutely feel our doubts, revisit whatever childhood shaming we experienced, and act in accordance. Pondering the phrase "I am powerful and whole" makes me feel anxious. Wondering what I would accomplish if I "knew I could not fail" initially brings a flurry of excitement and ideas to mind, eventually makes my head spin and my body want to hide under the covers. We all need a lot of support, a lot of the time.

That is a quick and dirty summary of Transition Training.  Michael Brownlee's parting quote was very "Peak Oil" - he said something to the effect that building a fire would keep a man warm for a day, but setting him on fire would keep him warm all his life.  Gallows humor... That's  kind of like saying that humanity is at the edge of the abyss, and Transition could help us all take a great leap forward.  On the other hand there is a song (listen here) that goes:

"Be like a bird, who halting in her flight

On a limb too slight, 

Feels it give way beneath her,

Yet sings, sings,

Knowing she has wings.

       - Victor Hugo

That song always brings a bright smile inside my soul. Maybe it's the music...

So let's get to work.