Canyon Country Zephyr page 17

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tains of southwest Arizona. More on that later.

The capacity of microrefugia to persist in adverse climates suggests, by analogy, that a fundamental strategy in seeking economic transformation in our culture is keeping alternative paradigms alive and healthy, especially when victory isn't in sight.

We Americans have a near-religious devotion to career and work. It may be why we blithely allow transnational corporations to run our government and shape our way of life, and why we don't shit in our drawers when they describe massive corporate subsidies as the "miracle of the free market." And it may be why it's so difficult to get meaningful change going in our economic system.

Here are Carl Jung's comments on this peculiarly American phenomenon, delivered in 1930 to his English-speaking students: "...the American [business] efficiency is...destructive...it is not only the psychological destruction of the individual, it is also physiological. Look at the men in Wall Street! At forty-five they are completely exhausted. Modern life in America is more efficient than in any place in the world, but it completely destroys the man...that is a monster, a dragon, which eats human life." (See William McGuire, Ed., Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-30 by C.G. Jung, 1984, pp. 621-622).

The first time I read this passage in the mid-1980s I felt like Jung had slapped me on the head. I realized that he had given me a crystalline explanation for the dumb anguish and confusion that had filled my professional life. There is nothing like a moment of clarity.

pening than the corporate-funded mainstream media is willing to give us. Second, we need that energy to hone our comic wits; there's nothing like a keen sense of the absurd to cut through the mono-cultural propaganda. And we need to read writers with fine poetic intuition: Edward Abbey, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, Jim Stiles, Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams, Bill McKibben, and others.

I believe an important cultural microrefuge has grown up around the Canyon Country Zephyr. The people involved seem to feel that wild lands are sacred and places of spiritual refuge rather than recreational playgrounds, and that the standard growth economic models are flat-ass unsustainable. You can find people with this outlook in most places, especially out West, although on a percentage basis their numbers remain small. That's because they've dealt themselves out of mainstream environmentalism, owing to all the corporate money within it, and because they've spurned standard political liberalism, given its reliance on cornucopia economic growth.

My kind of folks.

Back to the Big Sagebrush, as promised. After it survived for thousands of years in its refuge in the Ajo Mountains, the North American ice sheets finally melted and a warmer climate opened up. Big Sagebrush spread far and wide, throughout the Great Basin Desert and the Western uplands to the fringes of the mountain pine forests. (See Janice Emily Bowers, p.19). Here we have a classical example of a range shift, the other major survival strategy for plants and animals, which involves massively spreading from one locale to another, or, when circumstances permit, spreading damn near everywhere. Big Sagebrush is a congenial example because of the silvery sheen it casts across expanses of desert and sweetly sloped uplands and because, unlike Cheatgrass, it pervades a landscape without obliterating other species.

By analogy, the tradition of vigorous political activism that has emerged in Western civilization aims to spread enlightened and compassionate life-ways as far, wide and rapidly as possible. In the past century, this approach has been effective in altering key social norms. Examples are the civil rights and women's movements.

But in the realm of economic and ecological change - you can't separate them - there is little indication that conditions are favorable for a rapid expansion of the perspective we have. The public may think it is fed up, but it only seems keen on either continuing the corporate-sloshed Democratic agenda or plunging into a good ole right wing regression. In other words, more of the Cheatgrass Monoculture. Thus far, momentum has not been gathering for a serious effort to keep humanity from stomping across the global warming tipping points or even to reform establishment environmentalism.

A danger is that we can be so eager for social change, for good reasons, that we forget about its paradoxical nature. An example from climate change biology: even though it has spread far and wide, Big Sagebrush has spent relatively little time as a species rapidly expanding its range. Mostly what it has done is simply survive from one generation to the next, as it did in the Ajo Mountains during the last ice age. Without that vigor to survive, as modest as it seems, none of us would have ever seen one.

If our perspective is sound, it will survive in the decades ahead if we both cultivate it within ourselves and vigorously advocate for it. Given the self-destructive proclivities of the Cheatgrass Monoculture, there is every chance that it will eventually discredit itself. At that point, our perspective will have a chance to become the dominant point of view, assuming we've kept it alive.

A final thought. We can be grateful for the continuing vitality of the First Amendment. We are fortunate to live in a system whose founders were wise enough to understand the value of a diversity of ideas. It's what makes the microrefugia possible.

The public may think it is fed lip, but it only seems keen on either continuing the corporate-Sloshed Democratic agenda or plunging into a good ole

right wing regression.

After that I devoted myself to paradoxical goals in my work; On the one hand, to labor conscientiously, responding alertly to the needs of other people; On the other, to carefully keep a small packet of my energy, maybe 10-15%, free from the flow of work. Jung called this shift "detachment" or "quietism." He added that while it may harm our efficiency on the job a little, it's a much healthier way to live. Maintaining that balance has taken as much awareness and self-discipline as anything I have ever done.

Work hums along well this way, but...after awhile I noticed a kind of suction on that 10-15% packet of energy. Thanks to Jung I knew to resist, and that's where determination and the self-discipline were essential.

What is that suction? I've come to believe that in many cases it's the self-perpetuating, frenetic pace of the Cheatgrass Monoculture. It sucks our collective energy bone dry each work day, pumping it through various hands before emptying it into the super-sized golden hog trough. In 1930 Carl Jung was stoking his American students, hoping they'd wake up and appreciate how strange this aspect of our culture is.

It has been eighty years since then, and overall the driven-but-exhausted look on the faces of American working people remains unchanged. The gender, race, and ethnic heritage of many of these people are different, but making a living in our culture seems, if anything, more draining than ever. That's why the definition of a societal microrefuge begins with hanging onto that 10-15% pocket of energy. Without it, our minds will dry up and be blown right into our television sets.

We need that energy for a variety of things. First of all, for critical thinking: to study science and to read relevant experts in order to develop a sharper picture of what's hap-

Scott Thompson is a regular contributor to The Zephyr. Scott lives in West Virginia.

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	tains of southwest Arizona. More on that later. The capacity of microrefugia to persist in adverse climates suggests, by analogy, that a fundamental strategy in seeking economic transformation in our culture is keeping alternative paradigms alive and healthy, especially when victory isn't in sight. We Americans have a near-religious devotion to career and work. It may be why we blithely allow transnational corporations to run our government and shape our way of life, and why we don't shit in our drawers when they describe massive corporate subsidies as the "miracle of the free market." And it may be why it's so difficult to get meaningful change going in our economic system. Here are Carl Jung's comments on this peculiarly American phenomenon, delivered in 1930 to his English-speaking students: "...the American [business] efficiency is...destructive...it is not only the psychological destruction of the individual, it is also physiological. Look at the men in Wall Street! At forty-five they are completely exhausted. Modern life in America is more efficient than in any place in the world, but it completely destroys the man...that is a monster, a dragon, which eats human life." (See William McGuire, Ed., Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-30 by C.G. Jung, 1984, pp. 621-622). The first time I read this passage in the mid-1980s I felt like Jung had slapped me on the head. I realized that he had given me a crystalline explanation for the dumb anguish and confusion that had filled my professional life. There is nothing like a moment of clarity. pening than the corporate-funded mainstream media is willing to give us. Second, we need that energy to hone our comic wits; there's nothing like a keen sense of the absurd to cut through the mono-cultural propaganda. And we need to read writers with fine poetic intuition: Edward Abbey, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, Jim Stiles, Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams, Bill McKibben, and others. I believe an important cultural microrefuge has grown up around the Canyon Country Zephyr. The people involved seem to feel that wild lands are sacred and places of spiritual refuge rather than recreational playgrounds, and that the standard growth economic models are flat-ass unsustainable. You can find people with this outlook in most places, especially out West, although on a percentage basis their numbers remain small. That's because they've dealt themselves out of mainstream environmentalism, owing to all the corporate money within it, and because they've spurned standard political liberalism, given its reliance on cornucopia economic growth. My kind of folks. Back to the Big Sagebrush, as promised. After it survived for thousands of years in its refuge in the Ajo Mountains, the North American ice sheets finally melted and a warmer climate opened up. Big Sagebrush spread far and wide, throughout the Great Basin Desert and the Western uplands to the fringes of the mountain pine forests. (See Janice Emily Bowers, p.19). Here we have a classical example of a range shift, the other major survival strategy for plants and animals, which involves massively spreading from one locale to another, or, when circumstances permit, spreading damn near everywhere. Big Sagebrush is a congenial example because of the silvery sheen it casts across expanses of desert and sweetly sloped uplands and because, unlike Cheatgrass, it pervades a landscape without obliterating other species. By analogy, the tradition of vigorous political activism that has emerged in Western civilization aims to spread enlightened and compassionate life-ways as far, wide and rapidly as possible. In the past century, this approach has been effective in altering key social norms. Examples are the civil rights and women's movements. But in the realm of economic and ecological change - you can't separate them - there is little indication that conditions are favorable for a rapid expansion of the perspective we have. The public may think it is fed up, but it only seems keen on either continuing the corporate-sloshed Democratic agenda or plunging into a good ole right wing regression. In other words, more of the Cheatgrass Monoculture. Thus far, momentum has not been gathering for a serious effort to keep humanity from stomping across the global warming tipping points or even to reform establishment environmentalism. A danger is that we can be so eager for social change, for good reasons, that we forget about its paradoxical nature. An example from climate change biology: even though it has spread far and wide, Big Sagebrush has spent relatively little time as a species rapidly expanding its range. Mostly what it has done is simply survive from one generation to the next, as it did in the Ajo Mountains during the last ice age. Without that vigor to survive, as modest as it seems, none of us would have ever seen one. If our perspective is sound, it will survive in the decades ahead if we both cultivate it within ourselves and vigorously advocate for it. Given the self-destructive proclivities of the Cheatgrass Monoculture, there is every chance that it will eventually discredit itself. At that point, our perspective will have a chance to become the dominant point of view, assuming we've kept it alive. A final thought. We can be grateful for the continuing vitality of the First Amendment. We are fortunate to live in a system whose founders were wise enough to understand the value of a diversity of ideas. It's what makes the microrefugia possible. The public may think it is fed lip, but it only seems keen on either continuing the corporate-Sloshed Democratic agenda or plunging into a good ole right wing regression. After that I devoted myself to paradoxical goals in my work; On the one hand, to labor conscientiously, responding alertly to the needs of other people; On the other, to carefully keep a small packet of my energy, maybe 10-15%, free from the flow of work. Jung called this shift "detachment" or "quietism." He added that while it may harm our efficiency on the job a little, it's a much healthier way to live. Maintaining that balance has taken as much awareness and self-discipline as anything I have ever done. Work hums along well this way, but...after awhile I noticed a kind of suction on that 10-15% packet of energy. Thanks to Jung I knew to resist, and that's where determination and the self-discipline were essential. What is that suction? I've come to believe that in many cases it's the self-perpetuating, frenetic pace of the Cheatgrass Monoculture. It sucks our collective energy bone dry each work day, pumping it through various hands before emptying it into the super-sized golden hog trough. In 1930 Carl Jung was stoking his American students, hoping they'd wake up and appreciate how strange this aspect of our culture is. It has been eighty years since then, and overall the driven-but-exhausted look on the faces of American working people remains unchanged. The gender, race, and ethnic heritage of many of these people are different, but making a living in our culture seems, if anything, more draining than ever. That's why the definition of a societal microrefuge begins with hanging onto that 10-15% pocket of energy. Without it, our minds will dry up and be blown right into our television sets. We need that energy for a variety of things. First of all, for critical thinking: to study science and to read relevant experts in order to develop a sharper picture of what's hap- Scott Thompson is a regular contributor to The Zephyr. Scott lives in West Virginia.

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