Up Bear Creek 20dec26012

Learning the Ecosystem Services world

gift Spirit Wheel for Annie Johnson, retired county social worker

PES … Having successfully completed my Practitioner Fellowship project with the Center for Collaborative Conservation at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, I was honored to be invited to give a 20-min. presentation at the University of Florida’s annual ACES and Ecosystem Markets conference in Fort Lauderdale last week. I’d never made a scientific presentation at an academic conference before … The title of my abstact (and presentation) was “A Payment for Ecosystem Services Pilot Project Surveying for Rare Plants on Private Lands.” Almost everyone at these events does powerpoint, so I kind of stood out speaking extemporaneously about my project, tossing in some poetry for good measure … My fellowship award from 2009 covered the cost of travel, hotel and the conference, so it didn’t cost county taxpayers a cent. And I probably would have enjoyed Florida’s beach, pool and amenities – except for my first cold in several years which kept me in bed for the first two or three days of the conference. But then it’s been an exhausting couple months, and I probably needed the sleep more than the workshops I missed … But I did make a lot of great contacts and got a lot of new ideas so as to start working on expanded county PES projects for 2013.

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES … As a poet, I know that language constantly re-invents itself. Every generation renames things to suit the moment’s tastes. “Ecosystem services” sounds pretty scientific and modern. But as Carol Hasburgh, a Haudenosaunee by birth and an environmental scientist with the Yukon River Intertribal Watershed Council by profession, explained at the Plenary Panel Discussion on “Native American Views of Ecosystem Services and Markets: Challenges and Opportunities,” it’s a very old concept. It really means “Nature’s gifts” … As Hasburgh and Diné elder Steve Darden noted, traditional people have long recognized and honored the gifts that the natural world provides to humans. It’s only been in the last few hundred years that Western cultures that have lost their connection to the natural world, and have ignored natural inputs into their systems of “economics” and taken these gifts for granted. Now, by giving them this new name, folks are beginning to recognize the value and importance of these gifts, and their foundational worth to maintaining the health and balance of the entire ecology of the planet … It’s about time that we as a culture attempt to quantify the value of these services within the framework of our capitalist economics and begin compensating those who provide them. I’m not sure how we can kickstart that idea in San Miguel County, but I’m really interested in trying over the next four years.

GENERATION R … I hadn’t heard this term used for the upcoming crops of leaders and followers, but – overhearing it in a conversation at the ACES conference -- I think it makes sense, and I sure hope it’s true, because the future depends upon it … Out with Generation X and in with Generation Responsible.

SHROOMFEST & KOTO … Kudos to the Town of Telluride for resolving the festival scheduling impasse between two of our best local institutions. Rather than blaming anyone, I think Pamela Lifton-Zoline hit the nail on the head – we have a structural problem … If we really want to be a Creative District, we need some entity to step in and become the table of trust where the arts community can come together to collaborate, and craft a festival season with the most impact and success for everyone … And I don’t think that’s CCAASE. They have their hands full administering the town’s arts and community funding grants.

CRIPPIN … I have to say that I was very, very impressed with Greg and Julia Crippin and the funeral home they run in Montrose along with their son. They were so absolutely helpful and accommodating, so gracious and respectful, I have to admit being overwhelmed. Mary had some special wishes that could have made things difficult, but with the Crippins, they found a way to make it work for everyone … I would highly recommend them to anyone needing sensitive and kindly undertakers to deal with at that vulnerable moment right after losing a loved one.

$100 CLUB … Sheep Mountain Alliance mounted spirited testimony at the Colorado Department of Health and Environment’s Piñon Ridge Uranium Mill hearing in Nucla’s Moose Lodge last month. I was privileged to hear retired Economics Prof. Thomas Power of Montana University, and give my own testimony as Colorado Green Party co-chair outlining our group’s problems with the nuclear cycle – suggesting that if we have to have radioactive energy it could be more wisely obtained through thorium energy, which has a much shorter radioactive danger period of only about 200 years … But it cost Sheep Mountain a lot of money to do this, and all the local governments see shrinking revenues and can’t really help. So, how about if some of us who believe the nuclear industry is the wrong answer to the real problem of our carbon footprint, join a $100 Club, and donate that to Sheep Mountain earmarked for their Piñon Ridge campaign? Who’ll match my $100?

THE TALKING GOURD

Haiti

Goats graze atop garbage mounds

by side of road

Egrets eat bugs from cattle

in rice fields

-Kyle Laws

Pueblo

Up Bear Creek 13dec26013

On a quest for a new kind of conservation tool

FLORIDA … Leaving Norwood last week to fly to Ft. Lauderdale, wouldn’t you figure I’d hit the second snowstorm of the season? Not that I was unhappy. Goodness knows we needed the snow. But it was white knuckles all the way to Montrose for my 6:20 a.m. flight, nobody else on the road, the wind whipping a blizzard up on Dallas Divide … I’d been planning this conference for six months – had reservations and flights all lined up. But wasn’t sure I’d get to go until the last minute … It was the largest national convocation on a project I’ve been working on for several years now – Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES). Hosted by the University of Florida together with ACES -- ACommunity on Ecosystem Services, Ecosystem Markets and Ecosystem ServicesPartnership, the conference actually brought together government agencies, environmental groups, scientists, foundations and private businesses to provide an integrated and expanded dialogue in the ecosystem services community, including the role of ecosystem service payments and markets for maintaining resilient communities … A paper I’d prepared with the help of Dr. Joshua Goldstein of Colorado State University (where I received a Center for Collaborative Conservation fellowship in 2010), his graduate assistant Shayna Brause and Botanist Peggy Lyon of Ridgway had been accepted for the public policy segment of what were eight concurrent sessions. With the help of County Open Space and Recreation Director Linda Luther and several advisors from the County Open Space Commission (notably Jim Boyd of Norwood), San Miguel County had managed to complete the first PES project on private land in Colorado. Six ranchers and landowners had been paid to allow a survey for rare plants to be conducted on private ground, and two sites had yielded newly discovered populations of very rare Colorado endemics … It was a pilot study. Perhaps not earth-shattering in its immediate effects, although the information of new colonies of a rare plant was a clear expansion of current scientific knowledge, but it was definitely a confirmation or proof-of-concept of the PES idea … For years, ranchers and large landowners have been providing some critical environmental services – clean water, habitat for rare species, and carbon sequestration (to name only a few) – but have not received any compensation from society in return. In fact, governments (including local governments) have responded to this good work by heaping new regulations on these same folks to “protect” resources, without rewarding them for what they’ve been doing right. PES is the start of an attempt to right that wrong … If we could quantify the worth of what ranchers and large landowners do on their private land – give it a fair market value, they maybe we could begin transferring some of the wealth of those who benefit from those services (society at large, industry, etc.) to those who are providing those services … It’s part of an overall strategy of true-cost accounting – to measure the cost of products and services in our lives from cradle to grave. And the upshot of this would be better environmental protection for the natural world and fair compensation and recognition for folks who are helping provide those services to us … Dr. Goldstein envisions a “farm of the future” that would not only produce food and fiber, but would be paid in some kind of market system for the ecosystem services they provide – adding a secondary source of income and making farms and ranches more sustainable into the future … Of course, having succeeded with a pilot project, I want to take on an even larger PES project in San Miguel County – to see if we could reduce Telluride’s industrial tourism carbon footprint by off-setting some of that climate changing carbon with carbon sequestration on range lands in the West End. Courtney White of the QuiviraCoalition calls it the “Carbon Ranch” concept … Which is why I find myself in Florida tonight, preparing to hear talks and learn what’s being done with ecosystem services and markets around the country – and listening to the Atlantic surf lapping at a white sand beach outside my hotel room.

Mary's unfinished painting, Wilson Mesa

HOSPICE YES … It was an amazing experience working with Alpine Hospice to care for Mary Friedberg as she slipped into the mystery. Letting a loved one stay at home, rather than in a hospital, as they make that passage into the bardo, is a beautiful experience. Not easy. In fact, quite difficult, exhaustive and sad. But also transformative … We’re certainly lucky, in San Miguel County, to have Alpine Hospice available to help family and friends provide that level of care for our terminally ill loved ones. I found all the folks from Alpine particularly empathetic and dedicated. But I’d be remiss not to single out Nurse Tammy Clifton who was such an incredible angel – competent, compassionate, and (like Mary herself) unbelievably kind … And for me, on a personal level, it was also inspiring to share the caretaking experience with Norwood family friend Marty Schmalz-Hollinbeck, who made it possible to give Mary the round-the-clock care she needed at the end … Not only is it a beautiful place we live in, but we are blessed with some extraordinary fellow-travelers in these mountains.

THE TALKING GOURD

Chickadee Moon

new moon hangs in the sky

near the big fat shiny glow of Jupiter

beaming love,

dissolving into the tide of light

french knots

at the tiny twig ends of the elm

glow with the fire of the rising sun

then turn iridescent green

jewels glimmer on barren branches of

the plum tree -- a gift from last nights rain

here and there frilly white ruffles of blossoms

grace her ancient arms

big rolling mist off to the south

swallows the mesa

to the north – Castle Peak, blue skies

drifting clouds

sparrows and grosbeaks share the feeder

and in the plum

a chickadee

telling nothing but the truth

-Cathy Caspar

Arvada

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