A Sign of the ...

We’ve had a storm front moving through and up the Fraser Valley.... it’s the Pineapple Express, bringing unexpectedly warm air, but with a wicked velocity that whips our dream-Hawaiian smiles off our faces, before we even have them. And last night, in the howling gale, the forces that be, neatly excised our Yarrow Ecovillage sign from its frame. 

And it’s totally vanished.  I’m guessing it’s stuck in a fir tree halfway up Majuba Hill.  Or ...   it could be on the freeway, battling rush-hour traffic.

Lois and I had been deliberate in our building methods when we put the sign up a month or so back.  We used a shoe-maker’s hammer and tacks to put the thing up (ie. We ‘cobbled’ it together).... only intending it to be temporary, meaning it to give us a sense of how big, within which sight-lines, how high, and what style a permanent sign should be.

“The ‘temporary’ becomes the ‘permanent’ in a quick snooze, doesn’t it?” we mused.  Let’s do a really bad job, we said, so that we can still have a nice, permanent, a better sign in the foreseeable future. 

I had been hoping that the terrible construction (I refused to use a level, for example, even though I have one)   would grate on the nerves of the really good carpenters who frequent our premises, and then inspire them.   No such luck, but then, a good wind!

I’ve been working up a little heat recently ... and it isn’t only from raking leaves ... and there are a lot of leaves!   As I’m not yet in my house, and there’s been delay after delay, (through no-one’s fault, I hasten to add ... an ecovillage is a complicated beast, let’s face it!) I’m getting a little warm under the collar.  I can see a little blush of heat on other people’s faces too.

It’s not surprising.  We have a lot on our plates. 

But what I notice in myself and others, too, are the stories we tell about ourselves.  About how YES is confused and disorganized ... has made a series of mistakes...has meetings that go around in unproductive circles ...  is bad at conflict resolution or holding individuals to account ... and isn’t good at being a landlord.  (I’m only hitting the highlights, aren’t I?  There’s a lot more, isn’t here?  But you get my drift.)

Of course, we make mistakes.  And have done many things badly. 

Of course.   

Get over it.

We’re humans, doing our best.  I don’t want us to believe that stories are the ‘truth’ about us.

There are a great many things we do well. The greatest, in my view, is that we care for one another. 

  I’m taking the loss of the sign as a Sign.

Let the wind blow away those tired old stories we tell.  Let’s construct a bright, new, permanent sign with new stories attached. 

And I’m not saying that we forget the past.  I saying we make our stories tell of what we have learned from the past.  And we tell stories of the future that are about what we are building.  Our Shared Dream.   

The festive holidays are coming soon ... let’s fill them with glowing lights and yummy food and special treats and invite our friends, new and old, to join us.  We have many accomplishments this year.  Let’s collect those stories and share them, and then let’s celebrate our being together.

Ah! women,

Amen