Pausha Foley's Blog (11)

I thought about "Avatar" last night as I walked my dog. I just saw the movie abut the beautiful paradise-planet and the wild, free people living on it, in it, with it, and I thought: if I could die now knowing that I'll be reborn there, I would do it in an eye blink. I felt homesick. Happy because I got a glimpse of home and ready to cry, because I wasn't there. Then I looked around me and realized that I don't have to go anywhere, that the paradise is right here and I don't have to die to ente… Continue

A man came to my house today. He works with my husband, I've met him a time or two before. We don't know each other at all, not really, our conversations are always brief, never go beyond a polite chitchat. It hasn't today, either. And yet during the few minutes I spent talking to him I could feel something definite, something subtle, something very different. He is a man with quite a remarkable life. He lives in London, has a job that hardly deserves that name, being way too much fun. He trave… Continue

I saw the movie "2012" few days ago. It was a story about fear, desperation and survival. A story about how very rich people get to buy themselves a way out of the end of the earth, while everyone else dies. It wasn't portrayed as a bad thing, it was simply what's so. "And it is what's so", I thought afterwards. "It is a picture of reality, but oh, what a reality that is! What a world to live in! " "This is not my reality", I thought in self defense, and then I read an article about a certain p… Continue

"Is anyone else having trouble sleeping with all these planetary changes?" asked my friend today. "What if planets have trouble changing because we don't sleep?" I asked, in response. "Well, if the planets are trying to align with me, they're in trouble." she answered, and I said: "The fate of planets is in your hands, and so the most important question in all of reality, right now, is: how are you doing?" It was a fun little exchange and yet it stuck with me. How would it be, I wondered, if… Continue

I walked in the mountains yesterday. There is a trail winding it's way up a mountain side. It splits at one point, a path goes on, following the mountainside into a valley, another leads up to the very mountain top. I wanted to stand at the top of the world yesterday, so I climbed up. The way up is steep and I was out of breath in no time, paying attention to nothing but my burning legs, my hammering heart, my lungs that were about to burst, and the annoying little flies trying to dive into my e… Continue

This is the wisest thing I've heard anyone say on the subject of "changing the world" so far: "Look at what realists have done for us. They have led us to war and climate change, poverty on an unimaginable scale, and wholesale ecological destruction. Half of humanity goes to bed hungry because of all the realistic leaders in the world. I tell people who call me 'unrealistic' to show me what their realism has done. Realism is an outdated, overplayed and wholly exaggerated concept." This guy's m… Continue

It is wonderful to be outside. I begin to believe that living in houses really wasn't such a good idea. It is so spacious, so open, so unguarded to just be out in the world where trees are, where birds are, where the sky is. Working in my yard today was such a pleasure. I was pulling generations of old, dried ferns out of the ground. It was not an easy task, they resisted, clung to the earth with all their might and did all they could to become slippery and fragile, twisting, bending and crumbl… Continue

I was holding space this weekend for the exploration of poverty and abundance. In a beautiful retreat center nestled in the hills of Montecito, with a view on gorgeous, sprawling mansions on the slopes below, with the ocean beyond, with mountains reaching up to the sky, I learned that 45% of the population of Los Angeles can not pay their bills and buy food all in the same month. There I learned that in some urban neighborhoods, within 15 miles radius, there are 45 active gangs. There I learned… Continue

I suffer from hypochondria. Whenever I collapse, fall, forget who I am, I start getting scared. I crumble, turn into a little girl and I am afraid. Really, really afraid that I will get sick and die. The fear takes over, terrible fear that makes me almost unable to function, the fear of death. It is irrational, it changes me. Who I am, how I see reality, how I function, changes. I learned to recognize it and see when it’s coming. I can see the signs: loosing myself, being distracted, lacking pr… Continue

"Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the capacity to maintain a certain process or state. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems. In an ecological context, sustainability can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future." This is a definition of sustainability published by Wikipedia. I read it today and it occurred to me suddenly: what if there is more? What i… Continue

I find more and more pleasure in the company of trees. Ojai, the place where I live, is something of a village, though it is called a town. Nature here is very powerfully present and I get to hang out with it every day. Every day I notice the presence of trees more strongly and distinctly, their personality, their energy is more palpable than that of many human beings I know. As I walked my dog the other day, down a deserted street lined with beautiful old oaks, I felt like I was walking down a… Continue