The Airplane Fast ends

Can you believe it's been a year?

A year of no flying. A year of sticking fairly close to home. A year of settling, grounding, growing roots, growing a bit of moss.

I began the fast because I could no longer pretend that the benefit to the earth, life and the future of my flying was equal to the cost. In other words, I was out of integrity. I was a hypocrite. I was a fat-footed Western Boomer exercising the privilege that comes with being white, educated, American and still somewhat in demand.

I also began the fast because I realized I was now unaware of what needs were being filled by flying, but knowing my identity was somehow tied up in getting up up and away.

I wanted to be down and here. I wanted to know myself without the dazzle of travel. I wanted to belong where I am, be part of someplace and not just a someone, anyplace.

After a few self-conscious months of twitching and itching as the identity of traveler flaked off I stopped completely thinking about what i WASN'T doing and enjoyed ever more the finer things in life. Finer as in seeing finer details of the life I am in - the growing season, the neighbors, the village, the buzzing of the community, the morning light and winter skies, the plays and events. In doing that, I also seemed more settled in myself, seeing deeper in with the surface a bit less roiled. Mind you, "settling down" for a person whose life metaphor is 'on the road' was never appealing, but I had no idea that letting the surface settle would reveal in so much alluring detail the contours of the infinite facets of a single day.

One beautiful long meditation on Orcas Island centered on the classic spiritual question, "Who am I?" The deeper in I went the more I was aware of a self-congratualtory and incessant narrator who is constantly interpreting and evaluating and delightfully chatting and theorizing about my life. I stopped to listen and, like a thief caught red handed, the voice skulked away. In its absence I became aware that I am quite thoroughly a figment of my imagination. That I am nothing, and that nothing is the doorway into being "it all". I became a big motherly surround holding everything within my embrace effortlessly. Who, I asked, do I think is listening to my merry chatter? Who am I trying to impress? For whom am I reshaing through words my raw self into an entertaining persona? For hours I could shuttle back and forth between ecstacy and ego. It became crystal clear that relinquishing ego wasn't good, wasn't virtuous, earned me no brownie points in heaven. Surrendering what isn't real (though entertaining) is the ticket to heaven. What a joke! (of course that voice loves blogging - if you ever read this it has secured it's greatest pleasure... someone listening).

I think who traveled was that voice - the entertainer seeking an audience. I was looking for the echo of myself to know I am somebody. This year has been like a vacation from the demands of the public self so the private self could hang out and have a good time. I'm not fundamentally different, only I am more aware of myself, living at a deeper layer of myself and not so into myself. jeesh. what a joke.

The airplane fast has certainly not been limiting me. Instead it's been limiting a habitual behavior so I could live more in reality. I don't know if the fast did this, but I am more aware, as i appreciate life's finer things, that I am now in the autumn years. I've definitely rounded a bend. Cancer whipped me into the curve and in this year - the fifth since diagnosis - I've slowed enough to make it around the bend. The tasks of the Autumn years are so different and delicious. In my Summer I couldn't imagine how what interests me now would be any fun. What's here, though, is a concentration of the juice of my life, a simmering to blend the flavors of all the many adventures, an asking, "What is this really that I've been through? What are the tasks now? What does it now seem I landed here to learn and have I learned it? What do I do, if anything, with all I've accumulated?" I call myself a "baby elder" because I sense I'm in preparation for another phase and quite awkward in this new skin.

This year has, as well, been productive and challenging. I took on to rewrite Your Money or Your Life and helped produce the second global conversation week and found myself, by the end of the Summer, on a fast track to being out in the world again with the update arriving just as the market finally lost its footing and began to tumble. Looks like my five years of cancer and healing, my five years of getting planted and rooted in self and community, my five years of becoming a thinking feeling body rather than a head with something hanging off it, my five years of fitting back in to life after a big wild ride out there as a 'player' - those years are done and i'm again saddling up and riding out.

My year just ended with a flight at the end of November (last flight was November 2007) to SF to, in part, meet with my colleagues on this new edition of Your Money or Your Life. And in January I'm on the road for real speaking in Denver, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Portland, Vancouver, San Francisco, Seattle and environs.

It's good to belong where you are before being somewhere else - and now i'm ready.

Did I say I was prescient?

I undertook my fast when a barrel of oil was about $80. I did it when no one but the peak oil cognoscenti were anticipating a massive shift in air travel. All year, though, the reasons for not flying have sunk from a noble experiment, a spiritual exercise, an eco-lenten public virtue to just plain smart. Read this from the NYTimes:

May 21, 2008

Airlines' Cuts Making Cities No Fly Zones
By MICHELINE MAYNARD

Earlier this decade, city officials in Hagerstown, Md., started making the case to build a longer runway at their airport to lure service by regional jets, instead of the turboprop planes that provided its only flights.

Several years and $61.4 million later, the city opened its concrete welcome mat, a new 7,000 foot runway, last November — two months after the airport lost scheduled air service altogether.

Despite its costly investment, a dogged marketing effort by local officials and even help from Congress, the airport has had no luck attracting a new carrier, as the industry struggles under soaring fuel prices.

“Could we pick a worse time to go out and get commercial service? Probably not,” said Carolyn Motz, director of the Hagerstown Regional Airport, which had 10 daily flights a decade ago.

The airports have grown quiet in many other communities, too.

Financially strapped airlines are cutting service, and nearly 30 cities across the United States have seen their scheduled service disappear in the last year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Others include New Haven, Conn.; Wilmington, Del.; Lake Havasu City, Ariz.; and Boulder City, Nev.

Over the same period, more than 400 airports, in cities large and small, have seen flight cuts. Over all, the number of scheduled flights in the United States dropped 3 percent in May, or 22,900 fewer flights than in May 2007, according to the Official Airline Guide.

And the service cuts are far from over, as jet fuel prices rise, airlines shut down and companies consider mergers, like the Delta-Northwest deal.

For American travelers, the shift means that they can no longer bank on scheduling flights to reach their destination within a single day, said Robert W. Mann Jr., an industry consultant in Port Washington, N.Y.

“Everybody expects frequent, convenient, high-quality service with great connectivity to the rest of the world,” Mr. Mann said. But given the steep rise in fuel prices, which are up 84.5 percent from a year ago, airlines have to make difficult choices on service.

Fewer passengers are expected to fly this summer, traditionally the peak season for air travel — partly because of the soft economy, of course, but the difficulty of traveling may also be a factor.

The Air Transport Association, an industry trade group, predicts 211.5 million people will fly between June 1 and Aug. 31, down more than 2 million passengers from last year’s record of 213.5 million.

Flights seem to be disappearing by the day.

Last week, Mesa Air Lines, a regional carrier based in Phoenix, said it would shut down Air Midwest, a regional subsidiary, on June 30. The move will eliminate service to 16 small cities in the 10 remaining states where Air Midwest, which had already cut flights, still operated.

Eliminating flights is the latest move by the airlines in a cost-cutting drive that also has led to ticket prices climbing 10 times this year and new fees, from charges for checking extra bags to changing itineraries.

Almost every major carrier, from American Airlines to Delta Air Lines and US Airways, is crossing cities off its list, leaving passengers with fewer choices than a year ago.

Some travelers have no choices, but it is not for lack of trying by city and state officials. After Hagerstown briefly lost its eligibility for a government program called the Essential Air Service last year, Maryland’s Congressional delegation helped win an extension that allowed Hagerstown, as well as Lancaster, Pa., and Brookings, S.D., to remain in the program until Sept. 30.

The Essential Air Service program was created in 1978, when the airline industry was deregulated, to ensure that communities in rural and remote areas would be linked to the nation’s air system.

Under the program, the government provides subsidies of about $100 million a year to the airlines, resulting in service to 102 communities.

But the subsidies have not risen fast enough to cover the jump in jet fuel costs, and passengers have resisted paying higher prices for plane tickets, prompting carriers to pull out of a number of cities, including Hagerstown.

Now, some lawmakers are pushing for more money for the air service program as part of a broader funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration that is before the Senate. The House passed the measure last year.

Even with the longer runway, and the federal subsidy, Hagerstown has not been able to persuade another carrier to take the place of Air Midwest, which discontinued its two daily flights to Pittsburgh last fall.

Ms. Motz says that is now unlikely to happen before the extension expires, given the time an airline needs to start new service. “With airlines going out of business and capacity being reduced, it is very difficult,” she said.

Lacking flights, Hagerstown residents must drive an hour and a half to Baltimore-Washington International Airport, or face even longer trips to Washington’s two airports.

Without passenger service, the airport’s revenue comes primarily from military and private aviation.

“We would love to have service here, especially since there have been millions of dollars in improvements,” said Lewis Metzner, a city council member.

Plattsburgh, N.Y., is also hoping to get more flights. And it has more than just a longer runway — it has a brand new airport, built on a former air force base.

The airport offers three flights a day on a nine-seat Cessna to Boston, via Cape Air, as well as three flights a week to North Carolina on Myrtle Beach DirectAir and four weekly flights to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando on Allegiant, a low-fare carrier.

Plattsburgh had a daily flight to Albany under CommutAir, a commuter carrier linked to Continental Airlines that operated 19-seat aircraft. But CommutAir discontinued service to Plattsburgh last year, before the airport moved to its new location.

Now, the town’s only current connection to a major airline is through Cape Air, which has partnership arrangements with Continental and JetBlue.

Cape Air service is provided under an Essential Air Service contract that gives Cape Air with a subsidy of $650 a flight, or about $73 a passenger for a trip that costs $94 one-way, said Christopher D. Kreig, the airport’s manager.

But the subsidies have not ensured stability. Cape Air is the third airline in a year to hold the contract. After CommutAir pulled out, Big Sky Airlines served Plattsburgh for just seven weeks, leaving in January, when the airline dropped service to East Coast airports.

However, Myrtle Beach and Allegiant came in without government assistance, attracted in part by the airport’s proximity to Canada, which Plattsburgh emphasizes in its marketing campaign.

Mr. Kreig acknowledges the service is an odd mix for Plattsburgh’s passengers.

But Mr. Mann, the industry consultant, sees only one way that small cities like Plattsburgh can attract new business — and it is probably one that passengers will not like. “You can profitably fly small airplanes only if the people on them pay very high prices,” he said.

Mary M. Chapman contributed reporting.

Ethics of Air Travel?

I'm not judging anyone else re air travel. I'm just doing an experiment - and it seemed extreme and quixotic when i started. A bit of hair shirt. Frankly it feels like that sometimes. It's revealing my low-tolerance for a no-thrill way of life. Couple that with just signing up for Senior Aerobics (really really cheap) and I'm in major self concept makeover zone. But read this from a recent Christian Science Monitor article... we're gonna have to find a way to make staying home really hot and sexy:

Sparks Fly Over Ethics of Air Travel

Why some say travelers should think twice before boarding.

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the April 28, 2008 edition

Correspondent G. Jeffrey MacDonald talks about environmental groups around the world that advocate a reduction in passenger aviation to cut down on greenhouse gases.

Travelers troubled by rising airfares, canceled flights, and overcrowded tarmacs are hearing yet another reason to reconsider air travel.

Some say it's unethical to fly.

Earlier this month, neighborhood and environmental activists staged events across Britain to dramatize concerns about commercial aviation. Donning masks of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and waving cardboard airplanes, they called on government to keep track of carbon emissions from planes and raise fees to discourage frequent flying.

Behind this action lurks an ethics-based argument that's trying to shame routine fliers in developed nations into flying less. The nub: The planet should not have to suffer the consequences of a fast-growing (if now troubled) air-travel industry. Hence, the argument goes, an ethical consumer should think twice before buying plane tickets.

"If we're going to reduce aviation's contribution to climate change, then the onus is on people in the rich world to look at their flying habits," says John Stewart, chair of AirportWatch, a Britain-based coalition to curtail flying and airport expansion. That's because most fliers don't live in developing nations, he says.

Estimates for significant growth in air travel are fueling today's ethics debates. The World Tourism Organization projects the number of international leisure travelers to nearly double from 842 million in 2006 to 1.6 billion in 2020. Most of those travelers are expected to go by air.

Science hasn't put the ethical issue to rest. Airplane emissions currently account for about 3 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions worldwide, according to Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. He says taking a train across the United States generates about 20 percent fewer emissions than an average cross-country flight.

But doing the trip solo in a car would produce about 66 percent more carbon per passenger mile than an average flight.That flying has a detrimental effect on the environment is widely accepted. The ethical debate hinges instead on such questions as: How much damage is acceptable? When is a flight justified? And when do the benefits of cross-cultural interaction, made possible by flying, outweigh the costs borne by the environment and those who live near runways?

Moral authorities of varied stripes have weighed in. In 2006, London's Anglican Bishop John Chartres said flying abroad to vacation is a "symptom of sin" because it ignores "an overriding imperative to walk more lightly upon the earth." Environmentalists have also framed flying as a moral issue since it allegedly causes harm in pursuit of unnecessary ends. "You can be an environmental saint – drive a hybrid car, recycle, conserve your water – and if you take one air flight, it actually blows your carbon budget right out of the water," says Elle Morrell, director of a green-lifestyle program at the Australian Conservation Foundation. One round-trip flight from Sydney to New York City, she says, generates as much in carbon-dioxide emissions per passenger as an average Australian would generate in an entire flightless year.

"We ask people to take this seriously," Ms. Morrell says, "and avoid air travel where they possibly can."

Against the prospect of vilification, the airline industry is pushing back. The Air Transport Association, a trade group whose members include most US carriers, contends the industry is constantly improving fuel efficiency and reducing noise. And employing some 11.4 million people may have some ethical value in its own right, says ATA spokesperson David Castelveter. "Would it be a logical or practical recommendation to suggest that people fly less, given the amount of jobs and economic activity that the aviation industry drives?" Mr. Castelveter says. "We say the answer is, 'No. Allow us to continue to focus on ways to reduce emissions.' "

Airlines aren't alone in making an ethics-based case for flying. Another defender is Martha Honey, executive director of The Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. She notes that nature preserves in many developing countries can sustain their missions only with support from foreign visitors who fly there.

"Of everything involved in tourism, airplane travel is doing the most damage in terms of climate change. That's absolutely true," Ms. Honey says. "But the movement in Europe saying, 'Stay home; don't get on a plane' is disastrous for poor countries … whose most important source of income is from nature-based tourism. It's also disastrous for us as a human race to not travel and see the world. The question is, 'How do you do it, and do it smartly?' "

Honey recommends taking other steps to minimize climate impacts. Once in a destination, she says, travelers may opt for energy-efficient ground transportation. They can also buy carbon offsets, which usually support either tree-planting initiatives or alternative-energy sources, in an attempt to neutralize the environmental impact of their journeys.

Some advocates for responsible travel, however, remind fliers that offsets don't neatly and easily remove the carbon generated by their jaunts.

"Offsetting is too often used as a bargaining tool [with one's conscience] to say 'Hey, I can fly, I just have to offset,' " says Tricia Barnett, director of Tourism Concern, a Britain-based advocacy organization for local peoples and environments affected by travel. "That's not necessarily a solution." She encourages fliers to also make extra efforts on their trips to eat locally raised foods, use public transportation, and limit water use.

At the Climate Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based group focused on climate-change solutions, Director John Topping feels no great need to make fliers feel guilty. He sees the marketplace as already driving some behaviors that ease pressure on climate change. Business travelers save money by hosting virtual meetings, he says, and short-distance fliers find they can sometimes spend less time and money on travel by riding buses and avoiding airports. Looking to the future, Virgin Atlantic airlines is exploring the use of biofuels in planes. For now, fliers are limited to those powered by petroleum-based jet fuels.

But since Americans generally drive cars more than they fly, some advocates suggest they fix their road habits first.

"What's the point of not taking a flight," asks Julia Bovey, federal communications director for the National Resources Defense Council, "if you're driving to work every day in a vehicle that gets 12 miles to the gallon?"

1

Couldn't be a better time to not fly

Was I prescient? Could I even gloat a little about my excellent timing to undertake the rigors of staying on the ground and out of airplanes?

First there is inconvenience. Not only the long lines to check the shanks in our shoes and our toiletries, but the wiring failures that have grounded many airlines for days, leaving people stranded. Ha! One form of suffering I'm spared by going local.

Next there's the cost. Since it first occurred to me to undertake this fast, the price of a barrel of oil has gone up $40 - a 50% increase in 6 months. Some flights are simply more expensive now.

Finally there's those runway incursions... beep beep beep, news flash...

April 25, 2008

For Airlines, Runways Are the Danger Zone
By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — The recent groundings of thousands of flights have raised flags about skipped airplane inspections and botched repairs to wiring.

But what really worries aviation specialists? Runway collisions.

“Where we are most vulnerable at this moment is on the ground,” the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Mark V. Rosenker, said. “To me, this is the most dangerous aspect of flying.”

For the six-month period that ended March 30, there were 15 serious “runway incursions,” compared with 8 in the period a year earlier. Another occurred at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on April 6 when a tug operator pulling a Boeing 777 along a taxiway failed to stop at a runway as another plane was landing, missing the tug by about 25 feet.

I am slowly adapting to the limitation I set. I am slowly discovering little pathways and pleasures accessible by foot or car. I am slowly getting used to the idea that if I want to go further afield than a few hundred miles, I may be spending a few days on a train - and liking it. So I look on the madness of travel with some remove - and yes, a bit of immature disdain. These signs of decline in our air travel infrastructure aren't good, and I do feel for the inconvenienced travelers. But I can't help being glad I'm not someone whose plans are in a tizzy because I am subject to the airline industry.

Airplane Fast Month Three

It seems quite easy to not get into an airplane. It's much harder to stumble into flying than to break a food fast with a midnight cookie. But by not flying for a year I am forcing myself to look at what needs travel fills and how to fill those differently. It's not easy for a travel junkie to stop.

I'm seeing that travel - especially to distant places that require flight - fills so many needs that it's no surprise that I say yes so readily to invitations to go elsewhere. Here are a few:
stimulation (hear new people, ideas, languages)
a break from routines
admiration and respect (when I speak)
socializing (conferences are a big party)
aimlessness (reading novels, poking around)
perspective (i see my life through the eyes of a different culture)
inspiration (i often change direction from insights on my trips)
gratitude (for what i have at home)
new friends (the delights of beginnings and discovery)
learning (history, culture, language, art)

Getting all these needs met locally can be quite a challenge! Color me chuckling.

You see, my life metaphor has been "on the road". I actually lived on the road for 10 years in a motorhome and even after living in Seattle for 16 years I thought of it as temporary. I considered it a spiritual truth - we are all brief travelers on a journey from birth to death and all stability is an illusion since everything changes.

But it seems my signature is changing from "on the road" to "less, local and love" which are my guiding principles for the future when Climate Change and Peak Oil and Resource depletion will require us all to settle down to a smaller footprint. It's also, probably, a recognition that at 62 my will for novelty and adventure is being balanced finally by a desire for rootedness and stability. So this "airplane fast" is actually a crucial practice for this life shift.

As my stone stops rolling I'm gathering a bit of moss and it feels good. I live in a community where many friends have the means and the careers that send them traveling for work and pleasure. Being a homebody this year I notice how hard it is for community to become really solid, regular and predictable. The people here become all the more important to me when I am not out and about collecting new ones.

In this month I've started one new friendship and deepened some others intentionally. A group that was a work group has evolved into a monthly witness group, holding one another's journeys. I've come to appreciate even more those who host regular events I can attend and contribute to - my choir and ecstatic dance class - and have started with two friends what will become a regular local Conversation Cafe (thus becoming a source of stable quality connection for others). Over Easter Weekend I participated in several spiritual opportunities - all the more precious because they were on my doorstep and available. One friend hosted a Day of Mindfulness, others hosted a sweat lodge and others an Easter Service and I drank deep and appreciatively of them all.

Seattle has become as exotic as it gets! I'm volunteering with a team of facilitators to host a "space of compassion" during a five-day Seeds of Compassion event during which the Dalai Lama will inspire and educate tens of thousands on the art and science of compassion, especially how to teach it to our children. Meeting with these people who've been on my radar, but peripherally, for years and planning how we will host the space is quite moving. I feel grateful to have such mighty colleagues within a short drive and want to give more energy to working with them. I'm also speaking at the Green Festival here (did it last year in DC).

For those of you who have stayed put most of your lives this must seem pretty ho-hum, but for me these normal activities like making local friends, going to local events and serving on local committees with the intention of my life belonging to a people and a place is quite radical. I get antsy and want to start planning my next trip - and then channel that energy into yet one more quality experience within walking distance or a short drive.

My friend Kurt Hoelting inspired me last Fall with his "circling home" intention to not get into cars and to bike or bus or kayak his intimate region. We are starting to compare notes, seeking whether we are learning similar things and have something to offer from the experiment. But we're only 3 months in. Check me out in November. Mossy. Maybe bored. Possibly pale as a ghost. Narrow minded. Who knows. How are you going to get them back to the farm after they've seen Paris... and Madrid, Sao Paulo, Moscow, Beijing, Dharamsala, Quito, Macchu Picchu, Cuba and...

It's also been a cold month - we had hail on Easter and snow two days ago. It takes a bit of endurance to stay put when the world closes in a bit and isn't hospitable to expansive outdoor play. So the pleasures I am finding are smaller and more contained. The stay-put-ness is actually digging my inner well deeper.

Airplane Slow...

Now the challenges begin.

I thought this morning that I should schedule a retreat after Conversation Week. Somewhere beautiful, relaxing, uplifting, surrounded by grand people.

This afternoon an invitation came in for all that - for free. The only hitch is... it's in upstate New York. I checked the train. It would be 3 days from here to New York City. Only $312. Sitting up all the way. I wrote the organizer, thanking him but guessing I might pass on it. He wrote back:
"i took a sabbatical earlier this year and to get to europe i sailed. let's just say that i will forego europe entirely before sailing there again!"

So where can I go closer to home? There's the Korean Spa in Lynnwood. No joke. It's total self care for under $100. I could organize a gaggle of girlfriends to take a day together there and maybe go to a show in Seattle. Then I checked out Breitenbush. Yep, I could take two days there ($100 plus gas and massage) before speaking in Vancouver, WA.

In the old days (and maybe the future) I'd travel if the destination, purpose and the people appealed and somehow it was 'free'. I hid from myself that it wasn't free to the earth and it wasn't free really as it took those two travel days and two pack/unpack days to make the days away happen. I was a tad enthralled with these unbidden opportunities for high play, good work and deep conversation. In the new days of this Airplane fast I'm discovering it's like most other 'diets.' You substitute one pleasure for another and discover tastes for things that formerly seemed ordinary or invisible. Like people who now vacation in their cars because flight and hotels and exchange rates are through the roof, will I gush eventually about all the beauties close to home?

I also recognize that this constraint is voluntary for me and imposed for most others. I understand that fasting in this way is as much an expression of my privilege as flying. We all live in the ambiguity of the times.

Airplane Fast. Part 2

What's so dramatic. I haven't gotten in an airplane this week either. Pretty soon it will be no news.

But here are some observations...

• A question for Conversation Week was submitted from Mauritius. Not sure where it was, I flew over there via maps.live.com. It's an island off the East Coast of Tanzania. Well, back in the old days two months ago I could have imagined myself putting Mauritius with it's beautiful beaches (I could see them in my Internet fly-over) on the "Bucket List" - somewhere to go before kicking the bucket. If my fast goes longer than a year, or if in this year conditions change such that the cost of flying goes into the stratosphere, I'm pretty certainly never going to Mauritius. By land and sea, it is probably 3 months away.
• A deeper sense of belonging is creeping in here on my island. I am becoming part of those who stay put, who make the invisible web that holds the life here while others come and go. I bumped into a woman who was in the Vagina Monologues with me last year and she said with surprise, "You're here!" I replied "I live in Langley." "But you are always off somewhere," she said, "You're never here." I am beginning to feel the difference between my friends who are here and the ones who travel a lot. I really miss my traveling friend... just when i want to take a walk or have a cup of tea, they're answer machine says, "Off to Mauritius (my new code word for far afield), back in two weeks for a week, then off on a cruise in Arctic, gotta see it before it melts."
• Today I realized I'm going to have a challenge in the Fall. There's a conference in Austin I've long wanted to attend, the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation. Is that when I do a road trip in my Honda Insight for a month, visiting friends all along the way? Do I go by train and treat myself to 10 books on tape for the journey? Do I by then figure our a way to attend electronically? Or host a regional gathering here for all the "left behinds".
• Thanks to Leif Utne's work on Conversation Week, I'm entering even more fully the world of Web 2.0, the internet swarms on Facebook, Skype, YouTube, blogs, surveys, webcams, virtual meetings and more. Here in cyberspace, the world is vast and within reach. The future is in the conversation, the infinite permutations and combinations. Decisions aren't made per se, they are born in one conversation and raised in another and become all stars or weaklings as people around the world starve them or feed them attention.
  

Stay tuned.

My 2008 Airplane Fast

Kurt Hoelting http://www.insidepassages.com/ last Fall told me his plan to not travel more than 60 miles from home in 2008, and not drive anywhere. I knew the minute I heard him that my goose was cooked. The worst thing I do in terms of Global Warming is fly around the world educating people on lifestyle change. I decided that in 2008 I would not fly - and promptly went to Brazil, then California, then Florida. Enjoying them all the more knowing that in weeks I'd be grounded.

I will still travel as the need or desire arises, but only by car, boat, train or bus. Mostly, I wanted to do this fast to see what would show up in by slowing down an activity I'd come to count on for stimulation, novelty, respite, a bit of admiration when I'd speak, and the sense that despite the evidence of daily life, I was making a difference. Not flying felt more radical in this era of excess than anything I'd accomplish by flying. Not only that but my average of 10 trips a year meant at least 20 days of travel and 20 more days of packing and unpacking. That's over a month i'll get back. For what? good question. Beyond that, those days are fairly mindless and increasingly uncomfortable. If I want to be mindless with less impact, there's plenty to do at home.

Will my apartment be cleaner? Will i write more? Will I spend more time with my local friends, developing those intimacies i truly desire? Will I read and learn more, seeking the stimulation of great and rich minds rather than mindless novelty of ... what? another airport, another rental car, another city with Green and White Interstate signs. Further, can i keep connected with the people and cultures I love through other means? More phone calls (I've got my Skype set up and the videocam is coming soon), more letters (with stamps?). We'll see.

When I bounced up and down in silver sausages with wings on behalf of YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE I used to do a prayer for take-off and one for landing. On take off I'd express gratitude for this great gift of soaring above the earth, viewing her beauties from on high. On landing I'd pray that every person on this plane would achieve their highest intent for travel - even if they are all self-canceling. Even then I knew I could stay home and if the guy beside me going to a sales meeting for marketing useless widgets that pollute the earth in each moment of their brief life from oil, to factory to WalMart to the dump would stay home. But his drive to make a living by making a dying for the earth seemed to require us to file together onto planes and do our work. I'm finally acting on that irony. Of course, I also don't have a best selling book to tout, but even if I did - or do in the future - is there a way to stay home physically while traveling electronically?

I'm just 7 weeks into the experiment. I've canceled one teaching trip, the result of which was the organizers "discovered" someone in their hometown who also teaches YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE. Hmmm. Does flying famous people around diminish our capacity to see the rich intelligences in our hometowns? I've declined to fly to CA to a quarterly meeting with a think/feel/be tank I've been with for 7 years. I'll go once on the train. But amazingly, at least one member of this group is going to be in my area and I've been invited to an afternoon of deep reflection with her. And I'll hang out with others more on the phone.

I've already been on the web and plotted my next trip to Brazil. A train to Miami and a boat to Rio will take me a few weeks, but then it's not 'traveling' in the dessicated sense of flying hither and yon, but rather a road trip, a cruise, an adventure all by itself. I'm even thinking of getting in my car a bit more and driving to vacation locally.

Pablo Neruda's poem applies...

KEEPING QUIET

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about...

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go