Up Bear Creek 8dec26013

Freckles

Photo by Sara Mae Friedberg

 

“The friendship of fools is sweet as wine.

But the tastelessness of the wise

brings true affection.”

-Thomas Merton’s The Way of Chuang Tzu

No, it wasn’t your tattoos that drew me to you, Mary

Faery, though your will blazed a fierce rainbow blue

amid galaxies discrete as your Scorpio purse of balm

& obsidian. Hailing from a long lineage of Dakinis:

Guanyin, Green Tara, Our Lady of Guadalupe

Privy to angelic transmissions beyond my ken

You embodied for me Kali & perfect sweetness

Giggling between greetings. Turning intractable

stone. A girlish smile. Indigenous traits learned

at Nagponi where you waged bureaucratic aikido

peace-corpsed in the Philippines & through

high drama, death threats, Marcos & Aquino

found your band of Ati title to the village plots

they called home. More Kennedy than Friedberg

But precise. And no, lass, ‘twas not for your warmth

tale be told, I pursued, for you were sharp as a dart

shot in the quick of the hunt. If need be, you spoke

goddess truth, regardless of icy consequence, &

calmly apprehended even tongues not known

under stress, in a mob, knife at your throat. And

though my internal Nagasaki obaasan didn’t like

the fist in your mama’s gypsy brogue, I admired you

for your brazen gracelessness. Unabashed. ‘Specially

when it cost me in argument – a price most dear for

brothers like Jimbo & I who prize disputationem -- that

rational Western Civ badminton, crucial for male coming to

understanding, but which you despised, favoring the blink

of gestalt. Of channeled voices. Of silence over sophistry

So, yes, be-rainbowed, I fell in love with your kindness

& the wild poof of your hair. And we made haste

in our kindnesses. Called them children. Danced alone

As a couple. Around fairy mushroom rings. Drummed

& ommed together -- even unto your last breath

A candle. Hot wax. Freckles of lavender & myrrh

Up Bear Creek 29nov26012

Reading a history of the Vatican

[Ed. Note: I'm starting to post all the columns that I didn't put on line after Mary died. Forgive the hiatus, but it's taken a while to get my life back into some semblance of order ]

MEA MAXIMA CULPA … Interesting to the see the Holy Mother Church of my childhood disintegrate into scandal, repression and recriminations. The ex-seminary listserve that I belong to from a California long gone (circa 1963) featured a Maryknoll priest last week (their seminarians walked down the hill to study with us diocesans at St. Joe’s, Mountain View, before the ’89 Loma Prieta earthquake rocked the campus apart at the seams) by the name of Roy Bourgeois – a well known peace activist of the Berrigan brothers’ wing of radical Catholicism. Father Roy has been excommunicated by the Vatican and kicked out of his order for advocated for women priests … And this week there’s a damning review of Alex Gibney’s cinematically documented exposé of the scandalous pedophilia tolerated by the Church’s all-male hierarchy, Mea Maxima Culpa … Often that phrase is translated as “through my most grievous fault” and was an incantation, the Confiteor (“Confession”) that altar boys had to make during one section of the old Latin mass, where -- on one’s knees before the stairs to the altar – an acolyte had to bow over, just short of prostration, beside the priest, and repeat, two of us in unison, “Through my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault.” Quite dramatic … The film has no less drama, and a lot of induced revulsion over what the Church has allowed and sometimes even tolerated (in exchange for money). And while shocking, and quite disturbing to modern sensibilities (let alone ethics), it fits a pattern … I just finished studying (one’s education should never end) British Canonical scholar J.N.D. Kelly’s The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford Univ. Press, 1986). It’s a fascinating read, from saints like St. Victor the First (189-198) who excommunicated churches in Asia Minor for celebrating Easter on a day different than the Romans did and Christians and Gnostics for suggesting Jesus was a good man but not god and St. Damasus the First (366-384) who hired gangs of thugs for rampages against supporters of a rival for the papal robes that left hundreds dead on Rome’s streets, to warrior popes who rewarded their sons and nephews with cardinal hats, maintained lavish palaces with mistresses and/or young boys and employed flagrant bribery, like Julius the Second (1503-1513) and Paul the Third (1534-1549). It’s a tainted history that makes mincemeat of any foundation for papal infallibility … So, while sad, the current state of spiritual disarray at the Vatican, is, quite frankly, nothing new.

 SETH … Denver’s Open Ranger maestro of music & spoken word has published his collected, A Black Odyssey (Mercury HeartLink, Albuquerque, 2012). As friend and Western Slope Poet Laureate, he asked me to do a backcover blurb -- de rigueur in the world of published poetry (a small niche world composed of paper, dreams and metaphor) … “Every day it’s that blank page / a smooth flat placid white man / of a face” … ός μάλα πολλά … Here’s what I wrote for him … “SETH has always been an experimenter willing to push the cultural boundaries, happy to take the Apollonian crowd on tour of society’s Dionysian underground. His improv poetry jams at Denver Merc are legendary. Poetry plays. Performance art. Expect to be surprised.”

NORWOOD … I love living in a town so small that the teller at the bank knows where my lost wallet is because her daughter clerk at the market told her about it, and a checker at the same market alerts me to my photo in the current issue of High Times that I hadn’t seen yet.

WEEKLY QUOTA … “Every now and then an astronomer needs to leave the office behind, travel somewhere remote, away from an urban hullaballoo, preferably somewhere with high elevation – and confront the night sky in all its naked beauty.” – Anna Frebel, assistant professor of physics at the MIT, “Four Starry Nights.” Scientific American (December, 25012)

WHITE DRAGON SOCIETY … I don’t know if it exists, but one almost wishes it did. National socialism or Reagan/Bush capitalism -- where the Fed and industry run government -- seems an unwise version of democracy. I think of myself as a Green farmer/democrat, or maybe a Jeffersonian citizen politician (though I have to ask myself, how could a lover of freedom own slaves, or run a carpenter nail business on the whipped backs of young black boys to finance his colonial Monticello lifestyle?) … Rather than count on any White Dragon deus ex machine saving us from our world leading military industrial complex, I’m shooting in my small sphere locally to nudge the middle over to the left, ever so gently … Radical change, done quickly, rarely sticks, and only invites a disastrous pendulum swing. Luckily this last election it swung left, and gives us a chance to work beyond spinning conspiracy theories.

THE TALKING GOURD

Amid a Storm of Clear Skies

Wilson Peaks (photo by Carl Marcus)

 mf danced off

last night

in my arms

as i ommed

to an almost full moon

above a raging sea of mountains

Telluride Daily Planet obituary

Mother and spiritual figure Mary Friedberg passes away

Photo by Rio Coyotl

‘She lived life in a magical way’ 

By Katie Klingsporn
Editor

Published: Friday, December 7, 2012 12:28 PM CST

Mary Friedberg, a deeply spiritual woman and friend to many who lived in Telluride and Norwood for several years, passed away on Nov. 25 at her Wilson Mesa Home after battling cancer. She was 58.

Friedberg, whose was called Mary Faery by loved ones, was a mother and friend who is remembered as a deeply spiritual woman with a gypsy streak and boundless generosity. She was passionate about Tibetan Buddhism and dakini dancing, and she had a special light about her, friends say.

“Mary was a wonderful, kind person,” said Art Goodtimes, her husband. “I think her kindness touched everybody, and her spirituality was inspiring.”

Friedberg was born in New York City in 1954, and went to elementary school in Wisconsin and high school in New Jersey before heading to college and ultimately graduating from Evergreen College. She studied environmental sciences and went on to work as a botanist for the U.S. Forest Service, including stints at fisheries in Alaska.

But it was her time in the Peace Corps, Goodtimes said, that was a defining experience in her life.

Friedberg was sent to the Phillipines and was assigned to work on a forestry project with the Ati tribe on a small island of the archipelago. But when she got there, Goodtimes said, she saw that the assignment was bogus and asked the tribe instead what they wanted her to do. They answered that they wanted to own the land they lived on. She set out to accomplish their request, and worked through two different regimes to obtain title to the land for the people, Goodtimes said.

“It was a stunning achievement,” he said.

During her time there, she learned the Ati language and had some amazing and life-changing experiences.

Friedberg returned to the United States and worked for the Forest Service, and soon had a daughter, Sarah. She then moved to Hood River, Ore., for another Forest Service gig. It was at a Rainbow Gathering in Oregon 15 years ago that she met Goodtimes. They began a romance, and she ended up moving to Norwood when they had a son, Gregorio. She later lived in and around Telluride when the couple separated, working at Society Turn Conoco and for Dave’s Mountain Tours.

Friedberg was very interested in Tibetan Buddhism and all colors of spirituality, Goodtimes said, and was a very independent spirit. She held dakini dances at her yurt in Norwood, loved to dance and was loving to all in her circle.

“She had a bit of gypsy in her blood,” he said. “She was a spiritual person who took eclectically from different religions … She lived life in a magical way which is hard to do in our society.”

Friedberg is survived by Goodtimes, her daughter Sara Mae Friedberg, son Gregorio Rainbow Osha', father Harold, brothers Bill and Bob and sister Jean Friedberg Ozler.

The Mary Friedberg Memorial Fund for the benefit of her children has been established at Alpine Bank.

Saying Goodbye to Mary Faery

Mary Ellen Friedberg

(1954-2012)

Mary and Art in front of the Sheridan Hotel, Telluride

Forgive the hiatus in this blog, but we lost Mary between Thanksgiving and the end of the Mayan Great Cycle of 26,000 years.

Here’s what the Katie Klingsporm of the Telluride Daily Planet wrote in the paper's 2012 Year in Review:

Mary Friedberg, a deeply spiritual woman and friend to many who lived in Telluride and Norwood for several years, passed away on Nov. 25 at her Wilson Mesa Home after battling cancer. She was 58. Friedberg, who was called Mary Faery by loved ones, was a mother and friend who is remembered as a deeply spiritual woman with a gypsy streak and boundless generosity.

Up Bear Creek / 22nov25012

Giving thanks for what we’ve been gifted

TURKEY DAY … The wild Turkey should have been the American animal totem, if we hadn’t been so enamored of military might that we chose the Eagle instead. But then we are a nation born in revolution. If it hadn’t been for military might, we might not exist as an independent nation. We might have stayed a British colony, part of the English Commonwealth, toasting a queen or king instead of sticking stubbornly to a Constitution that, for all its faults, upholds our Declaration of Independence with its championing of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness … Yes, the Electoral College is an anachronism unworthy of any modern democracy. Yes our winner-take-all elections often leave minorities (and always minor parties) disempowered. Traditions like the Senate’s filibustering allows the few to thwart the many … I love quoting President Obama, “We are an imperfect union.” But our job as citizens, as Jefferson would have admonished us, is to keep advocating for change, and to work towards “a more perfect union,” as Lincoln envisioned … We’ve done that in many ways. Ending slavery. Extending suffrage to women. More recently, legalizing gay marriage in some states. And in Colorado, even legalizing cannabis … These changes have been slow, and yet on the scale of human history amazingly swift. Race equality, like gender equality, isn’t achieved, but we’re working towards it, and we’re getting closer … This Thanksgiving there is a lot to be thankful for. Re-electing Obama may not have seemed so momentous or invigorating or even hopeful as his first campaign for office. But, in my mind, it’s far more important … I’m a Green. I have lots of disagreements with both political parties. But I voted for Obama this election. Yes, Dr. Jill Stein was far closer to what I truly believed. I think her GreenNew Deal was a far better road map for our future than what any of the other candidates offered, including Obama … But I also understand our clunky electoral system and its imperfect workings. There may have been 17 candidates running for president – but only two counted. And the Romney/Ryan vision of America, with its Reagan/Bush war-mongering foreign policy and its domestic war on the middle class, women, gays and drugs was not a very hopeful vision for my children -- from my perspective … As I’ve stated in this column previously, I’ve reserved criticizing Obama until his second term. One term presidents can’t change much. The next four years will really determine what Obama can do to change and improve this nation. That he won a second term shows me – a long-term thinker – that he got it. He understood that he needed to balance his supporters’ hope for change the first time around, with enough moderation to appeal to independents and allow him a second term. That’s the great secret to being successful in politics – thinking strategically … This term will be the time to criticize and agitate (as Jim Hightower would say) and see if we can move the national conversation towards a Greener vision of America, and the world.

Sec. Ken Salazar and Commissioner Pete McKay of Silverton

KEN SALAZAR … I know it wasn’t politically correct (threatening to punch out a journalist for ambushing him in a press conference) and it might have soured Ken’s chances for higher office, but maybe I’ve lived in Norwood too long or maybe it’s my deep Italian ancestry. As I’ve written in one of my poems, my neck keeps getting redder, even as I try to hold a green course forward through a blue county … I had to secretly admire Ken for losing his cool. How many times have I wanted to say exactly that after a public meeting? … Ken’s a true Westerner, not just because he continues to wear his cowboy hat in D.C., but because he sometimes lets his emotions get the best of his razor-sharp mind. Personally, I love both those aspects of him (and yes, he did apologize for the inappropriate behavior).

 

CANNABI-TOURISM … In these hard economic times, I think Telluride and San Miguel County have just been given an amazing economic opportunity (not without its perils but with great potential benefits) … If we can jump on setting up a reasonable licensing system, I could see San Miguel County becoming the Amsterdam of ski areas. Folks could flock from all over the country to come here to enjoy their recreational herb legally, while skiing our slopes and attending our summer season of festivals … San Miguel County was first in the state in percentage of voters approving Amendment 64 that regulates cannabis like alcohol (79%) -- followed by Pitkin (75%), Summit (69%), Gunnison (67%), Eagle (66.5%), Boulder (66%), Denver (65.9%), San Juan (65%) and Saguache (64%).

MOSHER EXPOSURE … I don’t know about you, but I’m upset with KOTO for yanking my favorite radio talk show off the air last month. I love Audrey and Erick and their banter. It’s radio with a little meat, some local color, and a great camaraderie … Every radio station has music. But only community radio has local talk show hosts who reflect the quirky, idiosyncratic, oddball humor and lifestyle of a place. It’s what made Telluride a mecca for the downwardly mobile in the Seventies … Have we gotten so upscale these days we can’t allow some diverse opinions and peculiar perspectives? Personally, I relish the show – it’s my kind of mustard on a great hot dog … Let our community station know how you feel. Bring back the Moshers.

THE TALKING GOURD

gifted

eating my hafiz of an avocado

you gave me after i

brought flowers

& we watched together

the pre-moon alpenglow on the waiting

peaks of Wilson Mesa’s overflow

that silky spiky cream green

beloved flavor, almost sweet

gift for gift

Up Bear Creek / 15nov25012

Singing the Blues

copyright Scripps Media, Inc. 2012

DOUBLE WHAMMY … As a newspaper columnist in Telluride since 1982 (30 years!), it was hard having to give up my freelance gig, at the same time my main job was in jeopardy. But I think the folks at the Watch wanted to be sure that my weekly opinions weren’t an unfair advantage in the election, and that was reasonable … Instead of a column, I did write letters to the editor (both paid and unpaid). But a lot of issues that I would have liked to have seen in print locally didn’t see the light of day. So, I’m grateful, now that the elections are behind us, that I’m able to resume Up Bear Creek.

BACK IN THE SADDLE … First of all, thanks to the citizens of San Miguel County for returning me to local elected office for a fifth time. With special thanks to those that worked on and contributed to my campaign, and those who voted Green locally this time around … Campaigning is tough in small communities. So many of the folks we call friends are not on the same political page as we are. And yet having real choices and going to the ballot box to reaffirm or oust elected officials is an important part of the democratic process in our country. I’ve long been an advocate for making the ballot box our term limits (a position this county has adopted). Elections become report card time … Greens have long pushed for Instant Runoff Voting – but Colorado statute doesn’t allow counties to use that system. With IRV (as the Town of Telluride has adopted as a home rule municipality), you vote your candidate choices in order of preference. Basically, it’s like having a run-off vote simultaneous with your first-vote, instead of afterwards. The calculations can get a little daunting, but the winner is always elected with the majority support of the citizens … As it was, once again I won office without gaining a majority vote, since in a three-way for commissioner in Colorado the one with the largest plurality wins. This time I got 42% of the votes cast county-wide – down 6 % from four years ago when I received 48% … Actually, checking comparisons from 2008 it was interesting that only 29 more people voted this time from four years ago in the District 3 Commissioner race (4,118 versus 4,089). Republican Kevin Kell scored the biggest increase by garnering 1000 votes this time (24%) versus Bill Wenger’s 813 votes (20%) in 2008. Democrat Dan Chancellor got 63 more votes (1375 / 33%) than Oak Smith did last time (1312 / 32%). And my numbers dropped from 1,964 to 1,743 (48% to 42%).

GETTING BLUER … Our local election results were only a small part of a larger picture in Colorado that saw our purple status moving into a deeper shade of blue. And nationally, it was a delight to see Obama win (and great to see the president take Colorado, where Gabe Lifton-Zoline, a local boy I got to mentor in politics back when he attended the Telluride School, managed Obama’s state campaign) … As the Watch has reported, the amazing Lynn Padgett won re-election in Ouray County against a concerted Republican push to unseat her. Lynn won Colorado Counties’ Commissioner of the Year award in 2011, and is one of the Western Slope’s brightest political lights. Let’s hope she aims even higher up the political chain next time … Montrose County remained its arch-conservative self, although Dems gave both White and Henderson a run for their money (the two were architects of an unsuccessful water grab that saw Montrose County try to claim water rights and build a reservoir on Zadra and Skalla ranches in San Miguel County) … However, things were different in San Juan and La Plata counties … San Juan has been a rock red county for decades, in spite of the efforts of Dem Pete McKay (my buddy and one third of what Gov. Ritter termed “the ponytail caucus”). Yet, Pete ran unopposed for a third term this year, and long-time colleague Terry Rhoades lost to Dem challenger Scott Fetchinheir (239 to 274) – giving San Juan County a Dem majority for the first time in recent memory … In another blue upset, Dem challenger and long-time oil & gas enviro activist Gwen Lachelt appears to have beaten incumbent Republican Kellie Hotter. Dem Julie Westendorff took the seat vacated by term-limited Dem Wally White (the other third of the “ponytail caucus”). That means, finally, La Plata County will have a majority of Dems in control. And Dem Mike McLachlan beat incumbent Repub J. Paul Brown for the 59^th State House seat – a district Telluride would be in, except for a state Supreme Court nix … Viva la Blue! … However, it wasn’t a blue landslide, as Dem Sal Pace lost to Repub Scott Tipton in the U.S. 3^rd Congressional District, and Joe Miklosi lost to Mike Coffman in the 6^th.

County by county vote on Cannabis Legalization in Colorado

CANNABIS LEGALIZED … When I was a Haight-Ashbury hippie, I thought legalization was right around the corner. And yet it took 30 more years before Colorado and Washington led the nation in turning around the archaic and unscientific prohibition of cannabis (“marijuana” is a racist nickname as popularized by the Hearst newspapers and now commonly adopted in the U.S. for a kind of plant that has been used medicinally and recreationally for thousands of years under dozens of names – I personally refuse to perpetuate the racist term, and prefer its scientific name) … Imagine what Telluride would be like as a resort town if alcohol was still outlawed? How wonderful that we’ve begun to dig ourselves out of the expensive and socially disastrous pit that cannabis prohibition has been.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaking

FREE SPEECH SCANDAL … Without question, the Dems and Repubs ought to be ashamed that the Commission on Presidential Debates prevented Green presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein and her running mate Cheri Honkala from even entering Hofstra University for the second national presidential debate back in October, let alone participating. Stein and Honkala were arrested and handcuffed to a metal chair in a police warehouse in Long Island for eight hours, while Obama and Romney debated … It’s clear that a lot of foreign nations think our “free speech” laws are a joke, when the two major political parties are afraid to hold an open debate with all legitimate candidates and even have opponents arrested and handcuffed to keep them from speaking to a national audience … If you’re one of those that think our system of government is the best and most democratic in the world, think again … Gore wins the popular vote, and loses the presidency. The Supremes allow big money to pour unlimited funds into political campaigns. Stein tries to run as a Green, and is handcuffed to prevent her from debating with Dems and Repubs … Until America gets electoral reform, our version of democracy is truly a flawed system.

THE TALKING GOURD

San Miguel Election

Night Sky

contrails crisscross

pure cirrus

in streaked cacophony

against a deaf & dumb blue

all of it tinged orange

above the Abajos

Green Party State Co-Chair Re-Elected to a Fifth Term

This is an ad/poster that my daughter Iris Willow designed for my election campaign, along with a fetching photo by Carl Marcus. I took a break from my weekly column (Up Bear Creek) for a couple months after Shroomfest at the request of the publisher (being a weekly columnist was seen as too advantageous for me as a candidate). But I should be back in the writing saddle in a week or so.

And this is the campaign poster that my son Gorio Osha' created for me. We posted these around the county, although my Democratic opponent was a sign-maker by profession, so he had more and bigger signs for his campaign. Beth Kelly did a great decal, but the image is too big to post.

Anyway, we won. I got 42% (in 2008's three-way I got 49%), the Dem 33% (last time 31%) and the Repub 24% (last time 20%)