Silence in the Snow

I was standing on the roof of my bakery in Santa Fe as I saw a man approaching in the snow, dressed in a long black robe, a little black cap with a red cross embroidered on it. Long white beard, old, but obviously full of live/light. After I had descended from a narrow and long ladder, I learned that his name was Father Elias, living as a hermit of a Greek Orthodox Monastery in Northern New Mexico, south of Abiquiu lake.

He was collecting some of the day old Cloud Cliff bread, even monks go hungry these days...I gave him what was on hand, and then he asked me for a little bit of the sourdough 'mama' culture from which all the Cloud Cliff artisano nativo breads come forth. The sourdough culture is about 35 years old now, and it goes back to my own days living as a lay monk in the Tassajara Zen Monastery, the place where I started to understand bread baking. Without further thinking I gave him some of the sticky and moist live mother dough.

A few days later I started to worry. In a way, a 'self-made' healthy sourdough culture consisting of at least 5 different micro-organisms (some say it is more like a hundred or so), that lives on for many years (as long as it is nourished properly) is the most prized possession for a baker. Inadvertent destruction of the culture is nothing less than a disaster.

I wanted to make sure that my brief instructions for the care of the mother dough, the 'Levain', en francais, were clear enough, so I tried to call Father Elias, and when that was unsuccessful, I impulsively announced that I would make the trip up North and bring some supplies for baking bread, in particular rye, and of course, inspect the mother dough.

Shortly after I arrived at the tiny Greek Orthodox chapel --about 2 hours north of Santa Fe in an intimate New Mexican valley with a year round river, Indian ruins, cattle and forests -- it began snowing..... hard.
Meanwhile in the comfortable guest kitchen, Father Elias and Father Cristian, and myself were addressing the fine points of bread baking. In a glass jar, the sourdough mama seemed happy, bubbly and very alive. I had been worried for nothing.

My car couldn't make it out somehow -- it just went up a little ways on this frozen incline and then it would slide backwards, towards the monastery entrance. There were a few other distractions that I won't go into here, but to make a long story short.... I got stuck two days.

Over time I gathered all kinds of excuses.... to see some beautiful Greek Orthodox Icons and to find silence in the snow.

Coral: Bones of the Ocean

Stay Posted, I will do some entries about my experiences on the Heraclitus Explorer Ship in the Carribean soon.

I found some coral on an island beach (Mustique) and was fascinated by its structures. I took a series of photographs of the inner stuctures of coral with up to 200 times magnification.  Corals are the bones of the ocean:  they give shape to habitat for so many diverse species.....like trees...

Oh Oh, a lot of Morgellons here --whatever they may be... look for them on the close ups: they look like hairs, long fibrous strands of filament, sometimes black, sometimes white, or even rust colored. It is very unlikely that my samples here were contaminated by hairs --so what are they?
I found these filaments as well in the closeups of my mycelium and mushroom footage. Any ideas ? 
Let me know.

I used a rare track by Madredeus --enjoy!

Haiti on my Mind 2: The Future

--Re-establish flour mill in Haiti, owned by the people of Haiti (state)
--Establish local state bank (how ? all salaries first go into this bank) 
--Re-institute grain and rice growing and re-invest in rural infrastructure
--Study local and other Carribean island traditions. attain food self sufficiency within 5 years

--Re-vitalize local grain production, and bakery/tortilla processing locations, at least one per 75.000 people
--Impose tarrifs on imported foods which will provide the taxbase and stimulus for local growing.

--Start re-forestation programs, establish water catchments and 'condense rain' curtains in the      mountainous areas. Employment/school tree planting programs.
 --Form alliances on healthcare and energy with immediate neighbors, 
including Cuba (doctors) and Venezuela (cheap energy).

--Architecture: forget about concrete, whether imported or local, from now on, start growing building    materials. Bamboo is relatively quick.

--Introduce technologies for solar cooking and pv decentralized energy production.
--Establish a government of the people, for the people, by the people

Pressure other governments, the French and US in particular, for some kind of historical reparations that can then be used in large scale environmental improvement and economic self sustainability. Resist further economic colonization.

Of course nothing can happen until the immediate suffering is alleviated. Our thoughts are with the doctors, the nurses, the Hatian people..... and all the ones that are distributing food and hauling water.....hats off.....

Haiti on my Mind

"It's not culture or curse, but a difficult history of occupation 

and environmental degradation that explain the country's woes".

woman 'baking' mud cookies to still the sense of hunger...this practice has been happening for a long time already

Haiti is on my mind.....in so many ways it is a test for our civilization. Are we still able to 'put things back together?'
The history of colonial dominance shows itself now even in the approach to so-called assistance. Never looked assistance so much like an invasion with soldiers.... carrying the guns but unable to "deliver the gauze", as one  Haitian doctor said.
The desperate but non-violent Haitians are being thrown bread from helicopters. They feel humiliated once more. Many are going hungry now. No search and rescue equipment was delivered to the communities, let alone doctors, anesthesia and such. Bare hands are not enough to remove tons of concrete, bare hands are not enough to amputate limbs. The stench of death must be unbearable by now.

Once the dust of the concrete settles, which may take a long time, it will be time to take a hard look at Haiti's history, and try to understand how it became so vulnerable and so poor starting with the land itself: when you look up Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Google Earth, the first thing that strikes you is the border: On the West side, Haiti is brown mostly(=desertification) while the East of the island the Dominican republic is green (=trees). Why is this ?

Kim Ives, who writes for Haiti Liberte, sums up Haiti's history with brevety and insight:  


"We can say, first of all, there was the case of the two coups d’états held in the space of thirteen years, in ’91 and 2004, which were backed by the United States. They put in their own client regimes, which the Haitian people chased out of power. But these coups d’états and subsequent occupations, foreign military occupations, in a country whose constitution forbids that, were fundamentally destructive, not just to the national government and its national programs, but also to the local governments or the parliaments, the mayors’ offices and also the local assemblies, which would elect a permanent electoral council. That permanent electoral council has never been made—it’s a provisional—and hence Préval, and just before the earthquake, was running roughshod over popular democracy by putting his own electoral council in place, provisional, and they were bringing him and his party to domination of the political scene.
And Aristide, in both cases, was taken from Haiti, essentially by US forces, both times. The first time he ended up spending it in Washington, but now he’s presently in South Africa, where he’s been for these past six years.

But along with this political—these political earthquakes carried out by Washington were the economic earthquakes, the US policy that they wanted to see in place, because Aristide’s government had a fundamentally nationalist orientation, which was looking to build the national self-sufficiency of the country, but Washington would have none of it. They wanted the nine principal state publicly owned industries privatized, to be sold to US and foreign investors.

So, about twelve years ago under the first administration of René Préval, they privatized the Minoterie d’Haiti and Ciment d’Haiti, the flour mill, the state flour mill, and the state cement company. Now, for flour, obviously, you have a hungry, needy population. You can imagine if the state had a robust flour mill where it could distribute flour to the people so they could have bread. That was sold to a company of which Henry Kissinger was a board member. And very quickly, that flour mill was closed. Haiti now has no flour mill, not private or public." 

Closing the local flour mill...?? As a baker I am of course appalled....but...what a masterful capitalist move --truly worthy of Kissinger's international insight and statesmanship. Of course it forced the Haitians to buy flour from overseas (guess where & from whom?) and destroyed the local market for grains and farming. This story is happening all over the world now and it is leading to hunger and unbearable conditions. Then when globalization has taken foothold and infected the nation,  food-prices go up and the countries such as Haiti have become totally dependent and thus vulnerable to further disempowerment. Even leading to slavery conditions.

The empire behaves most despicable in the face of the powerless. I guess that is the worst consequence of a culture of torture, war and meaningless violence. A culture of torture and violent mind programming disables people (and possibly  whole new generations) to respond in an appropriate manner to emergencies. People call for bread --governments will deliver bullets --it is that dysfunctional.


Just as happens elsewhere, the Haitian peasant majority was the first casualty of globalization.

 The heart of the problem of course is a type of 'agricultural' shock doctrine (to apply Naomi Klein's thoughts): First one undermines the rural economy, by offering cheap imports of large quantities of staples. Then, as the local economy weakens, try to destroy local infrastructure and resources, such as mills, bakeries, storehouses, etc. Give emergency handouts of food aid, so that local farming looses incentive......etc. Such destruction of a vital agricultural community and economy, also leads to a movement of populations to the cities ("where the food is")  for work --of course leading to cheap labor conditions.
Now when you look at what Bill Moyers says the whole economic picture becomes clear:

Every president from Ronald Reagan forward has embraced the corporate search for cheap labor. That has meant rewards for Haiti's upper class while ordinary people were pushed further and further into squalor. Haitian contractors producing Mickey Mouse and Pocahontas pajamas for American companies under license with the Walt Disney Company paid their sweat shop workers as little as one dollar a day, while women sewing dresses for K-Mart earned eleven cents an hour. A report by the National Labor Committee found Haitian women who had worked 50 days straight, up to 70 hours a week, without a day off. If that doesn't impact the tradition of child rearing and lead to social distrust, I don't know what will.

for more: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01222010/watch3.html

This is what happened to Haiti. Plus the wrath of nature in the form of 4 mayor Hurricanes.

We need to stay involved with the fate of the Haitian people. This earthquake may provide new opportunities for corporate colonialism --we need to help our Haitian brothers and sisters to resist. 

The shock policies are  similar all over the world: corporatize food production, start increasing prices by introducing scarcity and privatize water. It is happening in your community too.

The kind of massing of  poor people in this case to Port-au-Prince, with disregard of their self sufficiency and food security, an urban/rural nexus imbalance, and a warehousing the Haitian people in shoddy concrete  (imported by now as well) construction,  have  sadly contributed to the enormous losses of live and tragic injuries. Many urban Haitians now are returning to a totally impoverished country side: even though there is hardly any food left there either, it is better there than trying to stick it out in the capital Port-au-Prince, where the most basic conditions for survival are now collapsing.

Even now people are dying from hunger or infections associated with gangrene, a poisoning of a patient through the lack antibiotic or surgical treatment of crushed bones. I hear that more than 7 thousand American Nurses have signed up to volunteer in Haiti, yet the National Nurses United, a national union, has not been able to get through to the White House in order to prioritize them and arrange (likely military) transportation. What is wrong with this picture ? (listen to Michael Moore) 

To all of you who are out there on the line trying to make a real difference in Haiti. 

History is about people like you and the people you are serving.

As usual the best quick current education on Haiti comes from Amy Goodman and Democracy Now. Here are some links

On the situation, militarization, realities and history of Haiti: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/20/journalist_kim_ives_on_how_decades

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/22/security_red_zones_in_haiti_preventing

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/22/t_trembl_journey_to_the_epicenter

Xmas 2009: We are cut from one Spirit

I am sitting at the edge of Junin Pablo, a small tribal Shipibo village, 700 souls, way deep into the rainforest of Peru. There are no roads leading to Junin Pablo, everything travels by boat or an occasional missionary water plane. It is hot and humid, and it is easy to fall into a reverie listening to all the exotic sounds and bird cries.

Some Shipibo children enter my slow day dream, their voices quiet and curious. They look with large questioning and loving eyes, they touch with small and shy chuckles.....my blond hair is still a novelty.

They don't even fathom how they are bestowing gift upon gift so freely, every smile penetrating into the convoluted web of damaged relationships that is me, and slowly putting me back together, healing me inside. Forced to understand my humanity in their light, despite of being white, despite being born into  privilege compared to them, suddenly I realize that my wholeness depends upon my capacity to identify with them --not just in this moment, but in one's actions, in one's practice. Compassion, equality, communion, even enlightenment, they are just words, unless they are practiced -- they require bringing awareness to our way of live, our investments, our consumption, our (political) choices--our every move, and understand our impact on the global system.

If you are a buddhist, or if you want to walk any spiritual path for that matter, now is the time to realize that the children of the 3rd world, the poorest of the poor, are our teachers, and 'letting go' must be our path. As my dharma brother Baker Roshi once said in a lucid moment:"....detachment is our biggest gift....". We have to let go of what we are supposed to be (our families expectations and the endless barrage of media imagery and propaganda telling us who we are supposed to be), to become who we are. We are not the selfish, diminished, damaged charicatures that inhabit the census of capitalist' relations and the scorecard of rich versus poor. We are far more than that --we are equal humans beings, born naked on this earth, and paradoxically, we need each other to fully manifest ourselves. We are cut from one spirit and we breath the same air.

My attention turns back to the children. They embark a hollowed out tree trunk to go fishing in their still pristine lake, a far branch of what eventually becomes the great Amazon. In the current scheme of things:

At best their land will be monetized as a carbon off-set (so that someone else can pollute elsewhere) - at worst their lake will become another oil well. In either case they may have to move. This is the reality of one dimensional Capitalism.


These Shipibo children don't know that their fate is decided in Washington and in Wallstreet and in the offices of Climate Negotiations on Cap and Trade, such as just happened in Copenhagen. Their fate depends on how we in the developed world see ourselves....our willingness to share the earth's abundance realistically. That was really what was on the table in Copenhagen. We need to evaluate what these children are offering us, without exacting a price, fiscally or in climate debt. I am not talking just in economic terms here: They are the link to our original humanity, our authentic being, they are the caretakers of the forest, the garden. Tell me, at this point: what is that worth ?

And there is one more thing I want to say. People in the developed world often think that ultimately our problem is one of overpopulation --and who can't agree that there are too many of us ? Yet I would like to bring some sophistication to this notion.
As I mentioned before, Junin Pablo, the village deep in the Peruvian Amazon counts about 700 Shipibo and probably over 40% of those are children, at least 300 or so. The Shaman himself has at least 7 we know of. The Shipibo still enjoy making children (and no condoms around) and see children as the ultimate gift of Patcha Mama, the green, breathing & damp, pulsating and undulating, the hot moist 'Ronin Dragone', the magical snake singing everything into existence.

That is Great ! But looking at that a little longer we sober Dutch folk say:"WAIT ....that is too many children --that is bad for the future of our planet.." And that is true too.

                                      Katya in the rain forest

Bon visiting her chinese friend Bobo with Bobo's
Dutch mother Suzan in Amsterdam

I think back of that moment in the forest, closing in on the faces of the Shipibo jungle children and then my own one daughter comes into focus.  See how responsible ? -- I don't have 7 children --only one. She just turned 16 now.
Like all other parents we have tried to give our child the best. In her case that means that she has attended private and special education and has already travelled in Asia, Europe, Mexico and within the US itself with extensive stays in the Netherlands, in Bali, in France, Italy, Nepal, Mexico, Japan, New York, California, etc. All meant to give her a global awareness.

Then there is an even more sobering thought: my own one daughter whom I love and adore, already used up more resources, more 'carbon credits' --then all the children in that Shipibo village Junin Pablo will most likely use over their whole live times combined. And I am not even talking about myself and my carbon footprint....

What I am trying to get at here, is that it is not just a question of climate change or overpopulation or carbon. What humanity is facing is a question of justice and equality and solidarity. That involves all of us. It actually does....question the American way of live... and that should be on the table....

This is my Xmas message 2009 and my wish for 2010:  Happiness to all,
Willem Malten

Here are some videos with the Shipibo kids. In the first clip you'll see their Junin Pablo school with shaman Pancho Mahua thinking aloud about the role of Shipibo traditions and language in modern education and in the second one, our young friends go fishing in their abundant lake.
By the way --if you double click the pictures above (or anywhere in the vortex blog) they will enlarge.  Enjoy.

Copenhagen: Great Danger/The Plan....

A very dangerous gordian knot of illusions, expectations and emergencies is  quickly developing in Copenhagen. It is  becoming clear that the developed nations are not willing to commit to what is needed both in ecological terms and in terms of global justice and equality. The Americans are willing to commit to a 17 % reduction over the 2005 levels. It is like a bad joke, or worse a slap in the face of the vulnerable. They are the politics of genocide by starvation.


On the other hand there are the poorer nations and their representatives who think this may be their moment, now or never. They think the rich are still rich and Obama is a cool guy, and they are willing to fight for a real commitment. But the cards are stacked against them. Increasingly they have only a few tools left: civil unrest and demonstrations is one of them as evidenced in Copenhagen, but also in the more spontaneous and unpredictable food riots that have happened in the last few years. 


Once more some of the developed nations made a secret attempt to circumvent the international forum of Copenhagen (and the Kyoto Protocol). A memo was leaked out that indicates that the US, Great Britain, Denmark and others, agreed on (weak) emission standards for themselves, and make a 'grand' gesture of $10 billion dollar per year in wealth transference to make up for the climate harm done mainly to developing poor nations. 


The implication in this leaked memo is that inequality will be institutionalized, with people in the developed nations being able to consume twice as much energy than people in the developing nations, with poor nations expected to make the sacrifice.....this is a question of power. Obama will try spin this laughable farce as a victory when he finally arrives in Copenhagen......this is plan B......

The expectations of the developing countries and continents are so much higher. Why ? Because they have to deal with the immediacy of the global climate crisis and poverty all at the same time. Crisis are everywhere you look: Sub-sahara, Maldives, Philippines, Mekong Delta, Syria, the Amazon,  Bangla Desh, Borneo -- one way or another all these areas and so many others are suffering from Global Weir-ding.... The Erratic Times.....Or as Vandana Shiva calls it "Climate Instability".   Millions are on the run from hunger and desperation.

Unfortunately these emergencies are rarely seen and remain unacknowledged in the American Media and politics. Any deeper analysis of the 'Gestalt' of climate change -- droughts followed by floods-- is simply missing. People in America have to start speaking louder in solidarity with the poor and alleviate poverty and hunger.

What perhaps a lot of the delegates from the developing nations in Copenhagen don't realize is that Poverty and hunger are not just their fate. In the USA which still calls itself the richest nation on earth, there is a growing gap between "haves" and "have-nots". The  "North and South" divide is happening within America itself, with fifty million people suffering from hunger at times here, including 18 million children.

Meanwhile the government is financing it deficits and its bank buddies by printing money, some of it reluctantly underwritten by China....I say to the delegates in Copenhagen: you can do that yourself --print money all you want!  I don't want sound cynical, what I mean is this: Don't count on America to make any significant contribution --the value of money either comes from gold, from real economic activity or.....from military power. America is a military power  financed by borrowed foreign money and an absolute need to control resources for its insatiable appetite --the spiral of debt and military   aggression is rooted here.  The US feels vulnerable because it is.....It realizes, perhaps more than the rest of the world, that it has become what Mao called a paper tiger, more than ever before.

My recommendation is this: If the developing nations want a change in attitudes, they should strategize as an economic force. Hire a guy like Max Keiser, economist extraordinaire with lots of experience in Wallstreet itself, as consultant and get to work. The developed world needs the poor for all kinds of reasons I don't want to go into here. But trust me --in this situation there is all kinds of leverage ! It is like a house of cards. How did Jesus say it again about the "first" and the "last" ?

For now, with the economy in shambles, Obama has put all his eggs in the basket of military power and Wallstreet War profiteers, and goes all the way to Oslo to pontificate not about peace --but about just war. To my ears, Obama's words never sounded more hollow or Orwellian, and I hope that, after study of the facts, the Nobel committee will see the gravity of devaluating the Nobel Peace price by prematurely awarding it to Obama, and call him loudly on his mistakes and if necessary, take away his price. Things of that magnitude, The Nobel Peace Price, have to have meaning....

It is no wonder that Cap and Trade is the preferred option for the developed world. Cap and trade monetizes the Climate, and capital interests will see opportunities to make money --but this model doesn't do anything for the understanding of the real issues here.....the fulcrum of pollution, consumption, inequality and their relationship to environmental degradation (and vice versa). Climate change and it devastating economic impact, already is the primal cause of conflict. Access to water is in dispute everywhere --most likely even in your own city or state, and certainly between nations. To think that one can just walk away from Copenhagen without taking responsibility for the ensuing unravelling of civilization is naive.

The delegates of the developing nations want results: commitments on "climate debt", commitments on reparations and the financing of a green leap frog development program that puts developing nations on the very vanguard of new green technologies. Ten billion will not do that:"it will not be enough to pay for the coffins that will be necessary", as one of the African delegates remarked. They had been thinking that minimally 195 billion per year will do the trick. A sum like that could actually easily be raised in a very simple and effective manner, and here is the idea:


Tax Carbon (gaz, coal, oil)  at every stage it changes hands. And tax the oil companies and end-consumer most. Put these funds coming  mainly from the consuming nations -- the rich-- into an internationally administrated fund dominated by the interests of developing nations. The fund will provide for an equitable transference of wealth through restauration, conservation, and reparation of the natural world and the human habitat within it. It will address the needs of the many --not the few. 
(I don't know who could run such a fund, I would like to think it is the UN).

Technologies, and leap frog development into a green transformation of energy and sustainable agriculture practices, water management, etc., employing many -- they all need to come from this fund. The management of this huge fund will aspire to the values of equality and justice throughout, and its sole task is to make immediate investments on the local level in local communities --globally. The fund will dedicate its work to the 7 generations to come.

The responsibilities here would be awesome. We will be forced to widen our focus and invite religious principles here to avoid widespread conflict and lift the whole impasse out of its confinements. True religious leaders of all kinds should have a role in the vision of a good live for all and keep the discussions on track by infusing it with a spiritual calling. The Green patriarch for example has defined certain acts against nature a sin......   Now that is a new beginning..... A glimpse of a Post Capitalist World.

The model of directly taxing carbon at every transaction, could take away all the hocus pocus that will be allowed in the Cap and Trade model. It will cut the Gordian knot. Carbon Tax is simple, it is verifiable, and with enough awareness raised around the globe it is do-able.....Politically Attainable -- if there is enough populist pressure.

Lets face it: green transformation will not come as long as a carbon based economy is perceived to be "the cheaper way to go" by the people on top of the hill. It is not. In so many ways Copenhagen is about the true costs that have been incurred due to the Climate Instability this carbon economy has wrought. Now it is obvious that if one calculates the true ongoing costs, a green economy would be much cheaper and the developing nations should hop to it, enabled by such a fund.

Power versus the Masses are on a collision course here.....great danger....great opportunity.....

Here are some of the links to the great Copenhagen coverage of the issues and demonstrations done by Amy Goodman and her crew of Democracy now. Author & Journalist Naomi Klein: Fate of Planet Rests on Mass Movement for Climate Justice: 

Vandana Shiva speaks out in Copenhagen 

On the protests and arrests in Copenhagen 
On Cap and Trade versus Carbon Tax