Hi there! I am starting a new blog at a different address. Please email me if you’d like the new URL and I’ll be happy to pass it along. I’m quite excited to be starting up again!

The elections results are great. It’s such a pleasure for the first time in ten years to have everything I voted for win.

I’ve been trying to talk Ian into doing a podcast/audio blog either here or elsewhere for months now. He’s a great talker - hilarious, insightful and thought-provoking. He’s ready to start and I think we’ll set up the mic this weekend.

You may have noticed if you’ve stopped by in the past month that I’ve been tweaking the sidebar. I like my pared-down blog - less to manage than before.

Hi, Emily here. I just switched web hosts and will be back online shortly with a new blog and info. By the way, I just got engaged a few weeks ago - woohoo! Stay tuned!

This summer has been really intense and memorable. Ian and I are utterly in love (four months together now) and spend a great deal of time together. Our relationship is the absolute light of my life right now; I thank the universe every day for such a lovely, spiritual, sexy, brilliant, and open-hearted partner; it’s amazing how easy and simple it is to just be loving towards him. We’ve been watching a bit of Eckhart Tolle video almost nightly and Ian just finished David R. Hawkins’ Power Vs. Force, which blew things open for both of us spiritually (Hawkins’ work is about calibrating and transcending levels of consciousness).

Pictures of the two of us here on Flickr.

Oh, and for those who don’t know, I just turned 30 about a month ago.

“Our suicidal poets (Plath, Berryman, Lowell, Jarrell, et al.) spent too much of their lives inside rooms and classrooms when they should have been trudging up mountains, slogging through swamps, rowing down rivers. The indoor life is the next best thing to premature burial.”

This is interesting (Abbey again):

“Good writing can be defined as having something to say and saying it well. When one has nothing to say, one should remain silent. Silence is always beautiful at such times.”

Goes for talking too. I notice that the older (and wiser) I get, the more I’m silent when I truly have nothing to add. Seems when I was a kid and a teen, I use to inject words and sound all the time just to avoid silence.

That’s all for now.

PORTLAND PEAK OIL
POLICY WORKING GROUP
CONTACT: taskforce@portlandpeakoil.org
http://www.portlandpeakoil.org

MAY 10, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Portland Establishes Task Force on Peak Oil
Grassroots effort yields comprehensive look at oil crisis.

The threat of a peak in global oil supplies has received official attention from the City of Portland. A resolution to create a task force to investigate implications of peak oil was passed by City Council today largely in response to activism from Portland Peak Oil, a local grassroots group. “This task force will focus on preparing Portland for a local response to impending global oil shortages,” said Stephen Johnson, a volunteer with Portland Peak Oil.

The task force resolution was sponsored by all five members of the council and passed unanimously. The Office of Sustainable Development will continue its leadership in addressing the problems inherent with urban sustainability by taking the lead in staffing the task force. The Bureau of Planning and the Office of Transportation will also be cooperating with the task force along with the Oregon Department of Energy and METRO who will be providing technical assistance. The task force will be comprised of up to 11 people representing diverse community and business interests.

Portland Peak Oil participants have raised the level of awareness regarding oil supply and consumption by holding weekly Wednesday night meetings at St. Francis Parish dining hall. “Local governments must plan and implement important policy changes to address the imminent oil shortages and their impact on our local economy,” said Pam Leitch, a Portland Peak Oil volunteer in the policy working group.

The idea for a local task force began in January when Portland Peak Oil drafted a one-sentence petition urging the city to create a task force to investigate the implications of peak oil for the citizens of the Portland metro area. Volunteers in the group started circulating this petition and have collected over 600 signatures. After meetings with Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder, Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who oversees the Office of Sustainable Development, and other government officials, peak oil volunteers stepped up the campaign. Pam Leitch and David Cohan began drafting a resolution in February and reached a finalized version in cooperation with Saltzman’s office in late April.

“Portlanders’ support for this resolution is reflected in the tremendous growth of Portland Peak Oil over the past year,” says Emily Pollard, an organizer with the group. “We look forward to assisting the work of the task force and continuing to promote projects to educate the community.”

The task force will be appointed within one month and will then convene regular meetings throughout 2006. The policy recommendations to Council are expected within six to nine months and will be incorporated into the city’s global warming local action plan and other measures such as the city’s comprehensive plan.

Portland Peak Oil welcomes everyone to its regular Wednesday night meetings at St. Francis Parish dining hall at 7pm 1136 SE Pine in Portland, OR. For more information and to read the resolution visit www.portlandpeakoil.org.

Woohoo and life is a’movin’!

I broke my foot a week ago - three small fractures to be precise. I was riding my bike downtown with a good friend and got my front tire caught in a trolley track. I spilled sideways and my right foot caught the impact. I have crutches and am able to walk on the heel of the foot, which enables me to get around ok even without the crutches, which are more of a nuisance than anything. It’ll be about 4-5 weeks until I’m walking/running flat on the foot again, although I’ve come a long way in a week thanks to an herbal medicinal tincture called Boneset that a friend gave me. The biggest suck is that the weather is gorgeous and I wish I could be riding and walking all over the place. Alas.

I am seeing someone new and am walking on air (despite my foot, heh). We feel this is the beginning of something incredible for us both. Life offers such strange and funny timings. More later.

I’ll be posting a new Strangechord setlist over the next few days. Suggestions are appreciated. I have a quiet and relaxing weekend ahead of me and will start some container gardening, catch “V is for Vendetta”, catch up with a few friends, and hopefully sleep lots.

This is lovely:

“To trust yourself is to trust Silence. To trust your own heart is to trust the wisdom that is radiating and shining. All the thoughts, feelings, desires, and fears are just a superimposition that is called ‘myself’. When all that disappears, for at least a moment, your Self shines forth. Radiantly, clear, and empty. Needing nothing, nourished, and overflowing.”

- Eli Jaxon Bear