 Thursday Sept. 22, 2005. Not the least of the benefits I have derived from my connection with The Monroe Institute is that I have begun so many friendships at programs there. The day after Michael and I return from Crater Lake, and he returns to his everyday life, my friend Dirk comes down to see Lost Valley and spend the day. Dirk, who lives in Salem, is a native Oregonian and very proud of it. He sees that I like Oregon, and is unsurprised but satisfied.
I cast my mind back and ask, what we do, that day? I know that we walked around the place, examining fields and greenhouses and trees, and that we sat by the pool that is all that is left (for the moment) of the river. I know that he and I did some energy work on his neck, and that we talked to various members of the community. And I know that he and I drove with Dave and Ben to pick up Karis at her bus stop. But details there are none. It’s as John Denver said, we spoke of poems and prayers and promises, and things that we believe in.
Dirk believes, as I do, that we’re in for a huge reckoning, and not in some distant future. Like me, he believes that it is for each of us to do our work on ourselves, so that we are as ready as possible for the time when all that is false will crumble, and people will need all the help that they can get.
Like me, he likes the idea of Lost Valley, and wishes it well, but belongs elsewhere. Our work does not primarily address permaculture or community or even physical sustainability. Our work is a lot less tangible and, perhaps, more inevitably solitary. Thus our friendships are that much the more valuable to us.
