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Trebbe Johnson's Newsletter
October 2009
Odd Jobs, New Missions
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Dear Questers, Friends, and Seekers of the Beloved,
The theme for this month's newsletter was inspired by a recent conversation I had with a friend and also by an exercise that Eugene Hughes and I created for our program, What Now?, in the North Carolina forest a couple of weeks ago. It explores professional niches, deep-seated missions newly unveiled, and unexpected teams.
To those who are receiving this newsletter for the first time... welcome! Here you'll find news of upcoming Vision Arrow events, reflections, profiles of extraordinary people, and stories of transformation that occur when we accept, in small, bold, startling ways the invitations that the world is always sending us.
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ANCIENT MISSIONS NEWLY UNVEILED
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 Eugene Hughes's and my new program, What Now?, for people who have been on a vision quest or been committed to bringing a vision into the world, took place in the beautiful old-growth Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest in western North Carolina September 11-18. We had a small but outstanding group of participants, who were determined to clarify in themselves that critical meeting place between what theologian Frederick Buechner called their own "deep gladness and the world's deep hunger."
During the first five days of the program, the questers made a mandala of the passions and callings in their lives, spent time with the giant 400-year-old trees, sacrificed something for the vision ahead, and did a 24-hour solo, among other practices. On the last full day of the program, we introduced an exercise based partly an epiphany I had with a community of joshua trees when I was on my own vision quest solo a year ago (see Newsletter November 2008) and partly on work with human constellations that Eugene does with clients in his London company, People Brands.
The exercise took place in a dense grove of hemlocks, beeches, and oaks close to our camp. The trees at each of the four directions represented a certain group of people who had yet to enter the lives of the questers: mentors, collaborators, friends and supporters, and the mysterious others who will be drawn to the work they do. We then asked each person to choose someone from the mentor or collaborator group and make a very specific request or proposal to that person. Another member of the group played the chosen person, and everyone gave feedback.
The exercise started out slowly. For a while I had my doubts that it would even work. Some people seemed to be reluctant to pluck a specific person out of the realm of potential or to make a definite request. And then, suddenly, it all began to flow, and each person helped forge the way for the work of the others.
A retired business executive who is starting a consulting business realized that he wanted to offer his skills as an organizer and maker of patterns on a charitable basis as well. A woman who had had many beautiful insights but few concrete directions announced that she had always dreamed of working as a legal advisor to elderly people. A gifted young poet and songwriter realized that his primary responsibility was to be true to his abundant creativity in every aspect of his life.
This exercise affirmed for all of us the conviction that the "vision" that awaits us is not some mysterious revelation disclosed to us in a spectacular way, such as a midnight visitation from Crazy Horse. Instead, it is our own buried inner treasure that patiently waits to be found. The treasure may lie unrecognized or covered with dust for years, perhaps our whole lifetime, until we devote ourselves consciously and imaginatively to, first, finding the dust, then groping at the shape beneath the dust, and finally lifting out into the daylight the crystalline structure beneath.
Eugene and I will lead another What Now? at Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest September 10-17, 2010.
Photo by James Samanen
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SMOKE JUMPERS IN TREES
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 Recently, over dinner in a restaurant on New York's Upper West Side, my friend Stephanie Blackwood and I were talking about interesting jobs we'd heard of. Stephanie said she had been to a party where she met the woman who monitors the elm trees in Central Park for Dutch Elm Disease.
I was enchanted to learn that such a job exists. What might this person's title be, I wondered? Elm Tree Guardian? Keeper of the Elms? Central Park is a true treasure trove, or rather treasure grove, of extraordinary trees, and I have long loved the grand corridor of elms that march proudly along the Mall. I had often wondered how they managed to stave off the beetle-borne disease that began killing these magnificent trees all over America in the 1930s. Every time you hear of an Elm Street somewhere, you can bet that it was once lined with these stately trees with their straight trunks and upswept canopies.
While researching the story of the elm caretaker, I learned of an even more delightful Central Park tree-related job. It turns out that some of the park's trees are administered to by a team of smoke jumpers! Every two or three years the park is the destination of a team of eleven men and one woman, people who normally use their aerialist acumen to parachute out of helicopters and fight forest fires out west. Their temporary job is to scramble around on Central Park trees in search of invasive insects, like the Asian long-horned beetle, that can only be detected up close. Tossing a throw line over a high branch and then using it to anchor their weight, the arboreal acrobats crawl around the branches like insects themselves, doing microscopic work on an intimate person-to-tree basis.
In this world where so much of what we do in the world is invisible and abstract, I love knowing that fire-fighters are crawling around the great trees of Central Park and saving their lives.
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RADICAL JOY FOR HARD TIMES NEWS
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October 24, 2009 is an important date for the entire world. It is called 350 and it is an international day of Climate Change Action. The name comes from the parts per million of carbon that scientists have determined to be a safe level in the atmosphere. Currently the number is over 380 ppm. However, scientists believe that if carbon emissions can be reduced to 350 by the end of 2012, we have the chance to reverse the course of global warming. The environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben came up with the idea of urging people all over the world to join together to call attention to this urgent crisis and opportunity. Prospective actions include 350 divers going under the sea, scientists placing flags that say 350 around the great stone heads on Easter Island, local fairs, and thousands of other events. My friend Daniel Dancer, whom I wrote about in my June 2007 newsletter, is now in Holland creating one of his Sky Art projects, a windmill, with scores of humans as the medium.
Radical Joy for Hard Times will be participating in 350 in New York, Colorado, and California. We will be holding Earth Exchanges in front of coal-fired power plants, not to protest, but simply to sit in reflection of our collective use of energy, share our feelings and stories, and give back to the site of the power plant some Act of Beauty.
The other day I drove out to AES Westover in Johnson City, NY, just outside Binghamton, to take a photograph of the plant where we'll be doing our 350 action. The guard told me I could not enter the gates, but could only photograph the plant from the outside. As I did so I felt like an intruder, a suspect, and after I taking a few shots, I spent some time driving and scrambling around, trying to figure out how I could get closer.
Then I recalled part of our own mission statement: Radical Joy for Hard Times is not about protesting or blaming. Its goal is to bear witness to the reality of Earth's predicament and the feelings it ignites in us, the people of the Earth. And I realized we need to invite employees of the power plant to join us on October 24. If all of nature is interconnected, as people are so fond of emphasizing, then we must face together what our presence on the earth has meant, means now, and will mean in the years to come. We want to cross lines-not in protest, but in fellowship.
I have called the Public Relations manager at AES Westover, but he has not yetcalled me back. Stay tuned.
 My article, "Rituals for Wastelands," in the current issue of Spirituality and Health, is a discussion of ceremonies for wounded places. There are stories from a woman who created a ritual for her childhood home that had been devastated by clearcutting, inspiration from Oneida engineer and entrepreneur David Powless on how waste is really "an orphan from the cycle of life," thoughts on why damaged nature requires our attention, and suggestions for creating ceremonies of your own.
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COMICS IN NIRVANA
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 Visiting my stepson Jared Gardner (now writing on the media for the Huffington Post) and his family in Columbus, Ohio is always an educational experience. Jared and his wife, Beth Hewitt, are both professors of literature at Ohio State, and they and their two boys, Eli 12 and Gideon 7, invariably have many new and interesting media experiences to introduce to my husband Andy and me.
During a visit in August I discovered the remarkable graphic novel series, Buddha, by Osamu Tezuka (1928-89), a Japanese artist who pretty much invented the Japanese comic, or manga. The 8-volume series interweaves real details of the life and teachings of the Buddha with fictional characters. An intelligent visual depiction of Buddhist philosophy is mixed with contemporary jargon ("Try and get me ya snakes!" taunts the magical slave boy Tatta). Simple, cartoony people journey over strikingly realistic landscapes. Perspective shifts from ground level to eye level to aerial level, depending on the impression the artist wants to make. Diving into these books is an adventure into childhood comics and adult spirituality. Both Eli and Gideon have read the series several times, and Gideon makes drawings of the Buddha. My husband finished the whole series in about three days. I myself get engrossed in the drawings. Read the books in your own way; they are remarkable.
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BOOK AND WORKSHOP NEWS
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My book, The World Is a Waiting Lover, with a foreword by Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul, is available from Amazon.com or from your favorite bookstore.
See my article, "Without Heart You Have Nothing" in the current Parabola. It's about the ancient paths that the nomadic Tuareg use to move through the Sahara and the inner path of Ashek, Tasaidert, and Ull that guides their ethical lives.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS
Winter dates to come!
Upside of the Downturn
Our fourth round table session, to explore your relationship with money, is now underway. The next session will take place in late November-early December. Details to come soon.
January 2-23, 2010
Sahara Camel Caravan and Vision Quest
Southern Algeria
If you're interested in the Sahara camel caravan and vision quest, it would be a good idea to sign up now. We take a maximum of 12 people, and we already have nine paid registrations. For a registration form or to get more information, contact me.
March 9-21, 2010
Bali From Within
Next year our one-of-a-kind trip to Bali is timed so we can participate in the three-day Balinese new year, Nyepi. Nyepi begins with everyone in the village chasing huge papier maché monsters out of town, continues with a day of reflection, and ends with an evening of mingling with friends and eating on the street. The trip, as usual, also includes visits with Balinese artists, a gamelan musician, village priest; hikes in the forest; a blessing ceremony at the sacred spring Tirta Empul, and many other events visitors rarely have a chance to engage in up close.
Call 570 727 4272 or email Trebbe if you have questions or would like to talk about any of these programs.
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