Sleep

More healing than rest and relaxation is sleep. And so, in some ways, this post is way out of sequence. I pointed out under transportation that it was so much less important than eating and that was why it was so far from the beginning of this sequence. By that logic, this post, number 37, makes sleep sound really unimportant.

Actually, in many ways sleep belongs somewhere at the start of the needs segment, in the early posts where I was discussing physiological needs. What I did discuss there was the need for Shelter, both Temporary (5/19/09) and Permanent (5/31/09). One of the reasons for this need is to have a safe location to sleep. Indeed, people sometimes refer to this as "place to lay my head". We need to sleep and we need safe space to do it.

Both lack of sleep and too much sleep have been shown to shorten your life span. Sleep deprivation can cause multiple ill effects, including headaches, hallucinations, and hernias--not to mention traffic accidents in those foolish enough to drive while sleep deprived. According to Wikipedia, it is impossible to have complete deprivation over a long period of time because the body lapses into episodes of microsleep.

The average person needs seven to eight hours of good, sound sleep. Caffeine (from coffee, tea, sodas, or chocolate), nicotine, and alcohol can interfere with sleep--in other words, the stuff people usually use in this society. A great quote from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke claims: "The widespread practice of 'burning the candle at both ends' in western industrialized societies has created so much sleep deprivation that what is really abnormal sleepiness is now almost the norm." This is a good example of what our crazed capitalist society is doing to people.

There is a Zen story of a master being told of someone with miraculous powers and being asked what miracles he could perform. He answered, "My miracle is that when I feel hungry I eat, and when I feel thirsty I drink." And in this society, the miracle may be that when we are tired, we actually sleep.



Resources:
Dick McLeester, Welcome to the Magic Theater--Subtitled 'A Handbook for Exploring Dreams', this is a long out of print catalog of useful information about dreams and dreaming; you might find it in a used bookstore
MedicineNet, "Your Guide to Healthy Sleep"--A simply written guide to understanding the essentials about sleep and how to take care of yourself by getting enough
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, "Brain Basics: Understanding Sleep"--A more technical analysis of sleep
The National Sleep Foundation--Yes, there is a whole foundation devoted to studying sleep; this site contains lots of articles related to basics about sleep and new information being found out by sleep research

Also see the resources under Temporary Shelter (5/19/09) and Permanent Shelter (5/31/09)

Quote of the Day: "No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap." - Carrie Snow

Edward M Kennedy

I'm from Massachusetts. I was born here and lived most of my life here. We certainly know the Kennedys here.

They didn't bring us Camelot. They weren't the saviors some folks would like to make them out to be. They were a family of power and privilege. But the three Kennedy brothers, each in his own way, tried to make things better. And Ted Kennedy lived that legacy.

Ted Kennedy was far from a perfect person. Aside from his personal troubles, he sometimes allowed political expediency to dictate his senate votes. He opposed the Cape Wind project, apparently because it would hurt tourism on Cape Cod. He supported the war in Afganistan.

However, Kennedy more often took a principled stand in a progressive direction. He opposed the war in Iraq, opposed the Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, and has supported gun control, alternative energy, and same-sex marriage, as well as working on raising the minimum wage. And he made his dying years a struggle to make sure everyone got adequate health care.

I used to believe that politicians didn't make that much difference--no matter who is in power, the real work needs to be done in communities, building a new society from the ground up. I once said that if a radical leader was elected promising to change everything, I'd be scared, since I've seen what top down social change looks like. But Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and Dick Cheney have taught me the damage conservative politicians can do.

I now believe it's important to elect progressive liberals, if only to protect us from those who would try to turn back our efforts. And Ted Kennedy, with forty-six years in the Senate, was one of our strongest progressive voices. I often didn't make those calls to Congress or worry about influencing whatever bills were in Congress, because I knew Kennedy and my other Massachusetts Senator (John Kerry) along with my congressional Representative (Mike Capuano) would vote the way that was needed.

No matter who replaces Kennedy, it won't be the same. Ted Kennedy devoted his life to championing liberal and progressive causes. He will be missed.


Quote of the day: "... the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die." - Edward M Kennedy

Recuperation, Rest, and Renewal

Recuperation, for me, is really about the healing aspects of rest and leisure. It's about recreation, play, and simply lying about, doing nothing, as methods of stress management. It's about taking the time to refresh the body and mind.

It's about the idea that we really need to take care of ourselves. We need downtime.

When I was in a political/spiritual community, we adopted the idea of Shabbat--even those of us who weren't Jewish. We really liked the idea, as workers and activists, that we needed a time to just be. While the spiritual aspects of this practice are important, the physical, mental, and emotional healing that occurs around being able to relax and just be, rather than doing all the time, is very important as well. We have to be careful not to burn ourselves out trying to change the world.

Relaxation is one of the main methods of recuperation. While there are some specific methods of relaxation (such as Progressive Muscle Relaxation and diaphragmatic breathing), just letting go and not giving into the compulsion to do something may be the most important way to do it. (I've heard the expression from meditation teachers: "Don't just do something, sit there.")

In a culture that emphasizes busyness (not to mention fear, tension, and stress), just letting yourself relax and recuperate and renew yourself is an important need.

Resources:
Kathleen Barton, "Stress-Busters: 12 Ways to Renew Yourself"--A short article listing some thoughts on how to recharge yourself
Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People--Covey's seventh habit is what he calls 'Sharpen the Saw' and subtitles: 'Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal'; he discusses physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual renewal and the importance of taking time to do it
Martha Davis, The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook--Step-by-step instructions on techniques for relaxing the body and calming the mind
Jeanne Segal, et al, "Relaxation Techniques for Stress Relief"--A good survey of a variety of relaxation methods

Quote of the Day: "Sometimes the cure for restlessness is rest." - Colleen Wainwright

Healing

This is my first post on what Manfred Max-Neef calls leisure needs and I am calling leisure/rest/recovery needs. I think we basically need leisure time/down time/recovery time to renew ourselves. In fact, perhaps everything in this section is about healing.

I have already covered a lot about physical healing in my sections on Emergency Medical Care (5/22/09) and Regular Medical Care (6/3/09), so while I think that physical stuff is an important part of healing, I want to focus on emotional healing here.

The two are intimately connected. I worked for a while in the admissions area of a psychiatric hospital (not directly part of a medical hospital) and one of the first things that they did was a full medical assessment, since many symptoms of emotional problems can be caused by physical problems. In the same way, emotional difficulties can lead to physical difficulties. We are vastly interconnected people.

Trauma is also intimately connected with healing, since many of us are healing from some type of trauma (a word that comes from the Greek term for a wound). There are many forms of trauma, even confining the term to psychological trauma. Another related type of healing concerns recovery from addictions. What ties this all together is a view of healing as a movement away from a state of dis-ease and toward health.

I can't imagine a future where there will be no trauma and no problems, therefore healing will always be a need for us.


Resources:
Ellen Bass, The Courage to Heal--A classic book on recovery from childhood sexual abuse
David Burns, Feeling Good--A basic book on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a respected method of emotional healing; while this book focuses on dealing with depression it gives good information about the cognitive distortions that cause a lot of psychological problems and outlines how to deal with them
Eugene Gendlin, Focusing--A method of going inward and getting in touch with what's going on within us as a method of healing
Stephen Levine, Healing into Life and Death--A Buddhist teacher who works with the dying, looks at what dying can teach us about healing and living
Starhawk and Hilary Valentine, The Twelve Wild Swans--A book on witchcraft that has a whole track devoted to personal healing
12Step.org--An online connection to an amazing variety of resources built around the Twelve Steps, a spiritually based self-help program that has done wonders for people trying to heal from addictions; they also include links to 'anti-12-step programs' and secular programs attempting to help others heal from addictions

Also see the Resources in my posts on Emergency Medical Care (5/22/09) and Regular Medical Care (6/3/09)

Quote of the Day: "...healing means more than seeking relief for a symptom or illness or family problem, although it may include all of these. Healing means becoming whole, a unique, powerful, aware, fulfilled person. ... It means living passionately, creatively, and joyfully.
"Healing also means becoming part of a whole, comfortable, connected, and intimate with other people and with nature." - Hilary Valentine

Trade

This is my last piece on the 'Participation and involvement needs'. Along with meaningful work and energy to accomplish it, organization to get the work done, and transportation to get to and from wherever, I ended by listing 'Trade (of some sort)'. Here we are getting back into the subject of economics.

In my post on 'Protection from Poverty' (6/18/09), I mentioned that our economic system isn't the be-all/end-all of ways to deal with our need to get things from each other. As a friend of mine pointed out, if we don't believe that we need to do everything for ourselves (and I hope anyone reading this has figured out I'm not advocating some type of pure self-sufficiency), then we need to figure out how to do some small degree of specialization--recognizing that some people so somethings better than others. And that's economics. You have some thing I want. There are much better ways of getting our needs met than simply taking what we want.

For one thing, as I mentioned in my earlier post, there is the idea of a Gift Economy. We could just give stuff to each other. I also talked about the Solidarity Economy and, in my post on Participatory Economics and Economic Theory (7/8/08), I mention the theory of Participatory Economics as well as Starhawk's 'minimal agreements for a new economic system'.

Another form of 'economics', that some subsume under the Solidarity Economy, is local currency, actual locally printed money, that is only good in a certain area, which helps keep the money in the community. Some of the 'Transition Towns' have encouraged this as an attempt at 'relocalization'. (See my post on Transition Towns (10/16/08) for more on the Transition Initiative.) There are also groups that simply trade time without any actual currency changing hands. (I mentioned this in my Protection from Poverty post.)

And, then there is good old fashion trade or barter. You have something I want, I offer something I think you might want. My point is that there will be a need in the future to be able to exchange goods and services. I'm not sure there will be a need for money.


Resources:
The Gift Economy--A website run by feminist thinker Genevieve Vaughan packed with information on gifting, including links to the entire text of her book For-Giving
Ithaca Hours--One of the largest local currencies in the US
Parecon--ZNet sponsors this website which will tell you all that you want to know about Participatory Economics; among other things it contains the text of four books (Parecon: Life After Capitalism, Looking Forward, Thinking Forward, and Moving Forward) that Michael Albert has written about Participatory Economics
The E. F. Schumacher Society Local Currency Program--Resources for creating local currency as well as information on BerkShares, a currency based in Berkshire County, Massachusetts

See also the Resources in the Protection from Poverty post (6/18/09)

Quote of the Day: "In a very real sense, we are the economy. The economy begins with the work we do... the often unpaid,'informal' productive work--like child care, housecleaning, bartering, and sweat equity--we do." - Susan Meeker-Lowry

Transportation

Food was my third post on needs, after air and water. This post on transportation is number thirty-three on my list of needs. Do I think food is a lot more important than transportation? Yes, and I think most people would agree, at least as long as we were talking about food for them versus their need for transportation.

But what if it was our need for transportation as opposed to the food needs of people in some far away country? This isn't an academic question. The early potential for biofuels has become an issue when it became apparent that we could either raise crops for food or for fuel, and using corn to produce ethanol may we mean that there is less cultivated land to grow food on--food that could feed starving people.

I saw a cartoon where a rich man is grabbing an ear of corn away from a poor mother with a crying child, saying "You think your baby is hungry? My SUV is starving!" It's a great example of believing that we can continue to consume as much as we want and, even if there's peak oil, high tech fixes will save us.

Of course, there is the rather clever use of waste vegetable oil as a fuel. While I think it's a trip have in a vehicle spew exhaust that smells like french fries and to the degree that it isn't going to be used for anything else I think it's good, there are problems. At one point, fast food restaurants were delighted to give the stuff away and whole buses were powered by it. But as it's becoming more popular, some restaurants are rethinking this--suddenly waste vegetable oil is becoming a valuable commodity.

But there is a need to get from one place to another. I think the best, most ecological transportation is human powered. The most sustainable method is walking. It's cheaper, healthier, and uses completely renewable resources (ie, food and muscle power). After that comes bicycles and other human powered vehicles. While they require resources for their manufacture and maintenance, they don't need any fuel (other than our bodies) to run. I live in a house where only one person (out of six) has a car. When I moved in I asked how we did large shops. It turns out that we have a bike trailer that all the cyclists (including me) use for shops and other things. It can hold more than six bags of groceries and is useful for many other things as well. I recently heard about someone gathered a small fleet of bikes with trailers and used them to move all of her belongings from her old place to her new place several blocks away.

And if you do need to use vehicles with another source of energy, it's good to share them. Public transit, ride pools, etc, all use nonrenewable energy--but they use less of it to transport more people.

Beware of phony technosolutions. A few years ago, someone I knew let me use her all electric vehicle. It was amazing to drive--it purred along. But when I thought about it, while it didn't give off toxic exhaust, it was powered by electricity that was generated somehow. Somewhere fossil fuels or nuclear power were probably being used. As with other similar 'solutions', having an electric car simply moves the problem out of sight.


Resources:
the American Public transportation Association--A US based advocacy organization supporting public transit
Bamboo Bicycle Trailer--How to build a bicycle trailer using free plans;it uses no welding or tube bending, and can be made any size and from any material
The Bicycle Riding School--They teach anyone how to ride and specialize in teaching adults; they've taught kids as young as three and adults in their 80s; note: I am not unbiased here, Susan (owner and head teacher) is a friend of mine and I've helped out there at times
Green Grease Monkey--A Boston area "company that specializes in converting diesel vehicles to run on vegetable oil"
The Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance--An organization that claims to want to "create a better world through sustainable, community-based biodiesel"; they are working directly with farmers (and groups like FarmAid) and have a list of 'Baseline Practices for Sustainability' that includes energy conservation (ie, recognizing the need to reduce consumption) as well as 'Food Security'
TrailLink.com--The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's interactive map of bike and walking trails

Quote of the Day: "There is more to life than increasing its speed." - Mohandas Gandhi

Organization

Okay. Organizing and organizations as a human need. Sounds a bit strange. But really, if we are going to get anything done, we are going to have to find ways of working together and working together well.

In order to get any type of work done, we need energy. But, although there are many folks that prefer to work alone, when we work with others we get much more done. And if there is more than one or two of us working together, structure helps. That's what organizing is all about.
It doesn't mean we have to have bureaucracy. If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that I advocate decentralized structure. But structure, nevertheless. Organization to get the work done.

This also doesn't mean organization for the sake of organization. In fact, I think many organizational structures should be temporary. Just as I think we need to avoid bureaucracy, we need to avoid institutions--organizations that seem to exist primarily to perpetuate themselves. Organization exists to achieve certain goals. When the goal is met, often the need for the organization is over. I think the transition movement is smart about this. The steering group that helps guide the initial effort deliberately plans its own demise. (See my post on Transition Towns--10/16/08)

In spite of things like bureaucracy and institutionalization, organizations and organizing are an important part of life. Early on, in my post on Creating Social Change, I blogged on the motto: "Agitate, Educate, Organize". Organizing is part of the process of social change, part of getting work done, part of how we will need to live.


Resources:
Covey, Stephen, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People--Covey devotes a chapter to 'Principles of Creative Cooperation', outlining the habit he calls 'Synergize'; this is a way to build on the fact that the whole is more than the sum of it's parts, so as we work together new things can emerge; as he points out, 'All nature is synergistic'; our organizations should be as well
Jo Freeman, "The Tyranny of Structurelessness"--The need for structure, in fact the impossibility of 'structurelessness', and how those advocating for 'structureless' organizations are usually the ones benefitting from obscuring power dynamics
Steven Johnson, "Two ways to emerge, and how to tell the difference between them"--A chapter of a book on cybernetic democracy that I liked so well I devoted a post to it (see Clustering and Coping--8/13/08); it talks about two different ways that organization can emerge and what makes the difference
Bruce Kokopeli and George Lakey, Leadership for Change--A manual on the difference between leaders and leadership; organizations need leadership, they don't need leaders; this little booklet is available from Training for Change

Also see the resources in my posts on Communal and Cooperative Resources (10/12/08) and SLoDBN Resources (12/15/08)

Quote of the Day: "Don't agonize. Organize." - Forynce Kennedy