June/July 1983 RAIN Page 31 A Planetary Village Nearly two hundred people blended hearts, minds, and voices together in a participatory conference on “Building a Planetary Village" May 10-15,1983 at Chinook Learning Community on Whidbey Island in Washington. In a multi-faceted approach that covered everything from the legal and institutional to the sacred and the cosmic, the group made the connections between a variety of personal and institutional approaches to social change that have sometimes found themselves in conflict in the past. The connechons included: re-shaping the way we relate to land through creating a sustainable agriculture and putting the land into trust to protect it from the speculative commodity market; re-shaping our economy through creating an Earth Bank to make capital available to life/earth enhancing enterprises; re-shaping our built environment through participatory processes that conserve non-renewable and develop renewable energy; and re-shaping the ways we relate to each other through spiritual attune- ment, consensus decision-making processes and developing commitment, trust and vision. For more information about the conference and follow-up activities, write to the Chinook Learning Community, PO BOX 57, Clinton, WA 98236. 206/321-1884 —Mary Vogel Self-Reliance in Seattle YMCA's Metrocenter is planting new seeds of self-reliance in Seattle neighborhoods. Their support program now extends funds to six community groups for such efforts as the Neighborhood Greenhouse and Gardening Project, and Project Rebound which collects salvaged material for distribution to community projects, and low-income individuals. Last spring, with assistance from the Madrona Community Center, neighbors came together and roto-tilled two unused lots for garden plots. In the process, a scarcely used greenhouse was “discovered," repaired, and now serves several families. More recently, the Garden Project has gone from paid coordination to participant coordination. The group raises its own funds, assigns its own plots, giving preference to low-income applicants, and distributes ten percent of the harvest to those in need. For more information, contact Tony Nugent, 832 32nd Ave., Seattle, WA 98122. 206/325-6900 What happens to windows and frames in old hotels being destroyed? Ideally, they ought to be reused to capture sunlight and heat for three-season gardening in cold frames. At least. Project Rebound thinks so. Their salvaging warehouse collects such reusable materials and sells them at nominal cost to low-income neighbors. Volunteers can also work for credits on purchases. The organizers felt it holds profitable potential in other city neighborhoods and have published a manual on how to get one started. Though currently out of print. Rebounders are seeking additional publishing funds. Project Rebound, 151712th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122. 206/324-0802 On the Passing of Stupid Carrying out in real life the role of the fool—or the questionably sane but intriguing role of the eccentric, is something I've always admired. It is from such “lunatic fringes" that individuals and society in general, learn about their own limits, shortcomings, and curious contradictions. The fool challenges our earnestness about ourselves and our “causes." Stupid (the name he went by for the last years of his life) lived in Eugene and was one of those eccentrics. He was not stupid, mind you. He was an old-time labor organizer, around during the big days of the IWW and all of that. He was sometimes foolish and sometimes stupid, but he was also clever. He figured it out a long time ago: life is a costume ball; you can come as you are, or as you want to be. I met him first at one of those regional gatherings of social- change do-gooders. With his mile-high gray eyebrows, he was standing there, a carefully inscribed card hanging from a string around his neck. The card contained one of Stupid's wisecracks: “Wisdom is only the residue that you have left, after you've forgotten most of what you were taught when you were in school." His one to four line comments on life—and just about anything else—were eventually collected into two volumes, entitled. Comments by Stupid. I wasn't sure when I first met him, and later, and when reading his writing, if the man was operating with a full deck. Not that it mattered. He was free of many of those silly distinctions about smart and dumb, right and wrong, and other psychological traps, because he created himself as he went along. He carried out his self-created role to perfection. Eugene will never be the same without Stupid hanging out at the 5th Street Market, or elsewhere, passing out his pearls of wisdom. Eugene Producer Co-op Grows Organic farmers in Lane County, Oregon, face an economy that is dangling on the devasted lumber industry. Organically Grown, Inc. of Eugene, however, has created promising opportunities for growers and consumers alike. In its third season. Organically Grown serves as a central marketing cooperative for Eugene area organic growers. The co-op enjoys the benefits of a full-time Cont. on next page
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