Well, I'm finally here in Portland, about to start my new job. I'm really excited to start work as a real estate attorney, but I will miss all this extra free time. It has certainly been a summer of personal growth. More than once, I have referred to it as "the summer of my suspended disbelief." I feel like I have been through several "coming of age" experiences all over the last six months and have, at the ripe age of 33, finally transitioned from a post-adolescent into a man.
I plan on using this blog as a means to catalog and process through some of my experiences this summer, such as studying for the bar, relaxing and healing at Breitenbush Hot Springs, reconnecting with my wife, and evolving my interests in affordable studio condominiums (which I have begun to refer to as "micro-condos"), green development, and natural burials.
After I have told the story of my summer, I look forward to laying out some of my ideas about the work of Paolo Soleri. Since I'm in Portland, this is also a great opportunity for me to experiment with the idea of sustainable local urban living in a place that is very conducive to such a paradigm. I have been inspired many times over the last four days I've been out here.
My goal is purchase a four or five unit property here in the next year. My company, Enlightened Harmony LLC, will renovate the apartments using the ideas of miniaturization and compexity, which I have borrowed from Soleri. My wife and I will each occupy one of the "micro-condos," and rent the other units out. We also hope to include in the design both an indoor and outdoor communal space so tenants will be given a better opportunity to meet each other and form community within the building.
So, that means I have to pare down my stuff. I live a pretty spartan existence, but I am in no way ready to downsize to the same amount of stuff I took off to college. As such, I'm trying to brainstorm good ways for me to keep things without taking up as much space. For example, yesterday, I bought a folding bike called a "Tikit" (www.tikit2ride.com) to commute to work on. I wasn't planning on getting a folder until the 11th hour, but I am so glad I did. That's a post in and of itself. Another idea I have had is to get some external hard drives and a scanner, and use that as a means to get rid of most of my cds and a lot of paper memorabilia I don't absolutely need to keep but that I don't want to trash because of nostalgia value. Also, lofts are a great way to free up ground space, as are shelving running the perimeter of the ceiling. I'm hoping for comments from friends to help me live even more intentionally, ergonomically, and efficiently.
Cruelty-free existence is another idea I have been chasing down lately. My wife is a vegetarian, but what got me started down the path was slaughterhouse footage I have watched at websites like www.peta.org, and at the very end of the movie "Fast Food Nation" (a much better book than a movie, by the way). I came to the conclusin that I wasn't anti-meat eating. On the contrary, I have a weakness for Eastern NC chopped barbecue that I have indulged on many occasions during my 9 years in North Carolina. I decided I that what I was opposed to was the cruelty inherent to factory production of meat and dairy products. If the animals are treated humanely while they are being raised, and are slaughtered humanely (ideally, they had no idea it was coming), then I would consider it to be cruelty-free.
I aspire to living a cruelty free existence in as many areas of my life as possible, so I do not personally think eating non-cruelty-free meat is ethical. I feel the same way about dairy product and eggs. Ultimately, it is forcing me to be mindful of the origins of the food I am eating. I'll write more about this idea later, and as I find things out that I think would be useful to others, I'll share them here.
Reiki is another thing that has contributed to my coming-of-age-endless-summer. I have known about Reiki for many years, but had never really known any practitioners. My wife got her first-level attunement from our friend and Usui Reiki Master-Teacher Shaina in Chapel Hill. I had been exploring my wife's spiritual and New Age interests more over the summer as a way to deepen our common connection, so I decided to pay get attuned as well. I was skeptical, but I suspended my disbelief and tried to learn about how to heal others with Reiki energy. My wife and I got our second-level attunement about a month or so later, before I left for Oregon to take the Bar Exam. I was so busy at that point it was just another thing on my To-Do list, and I didn't really practice until after the Bar was over and we were at Breitenbush ("BNB").
At BNB, I started reading Danielle's Reiki Manual "The Healing Touch" by William Lee Rand, and tried to get into the habit of using Reiki energy as much as possible, while massaging Danielle, to cleanse and energize our food while saying a prayer of gratitude, etc. I'll talk about my transition from Reiki skeptic to believer to Reiki Master-Teacher over the summer later, but for now suffice it to say that Reiki provided me with a very productive way to organize the spiritual beliefs I had evolved over my lifetime. This in itself was such a significant gift to me because, since I'm not an adherent to any particular religious tradition, I lacked a foundation on which
Green Development
Affordable Housing and Community Land Trusts
Natural Burial Grounds, Conservation Easements, and Land Conservancies.
Minister
Publishing
and I will occupy a micro-condo
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