Stuffing the Stockings with Less Stuff

It is easy to get caught up in holiday consumerism. It's not unusual for people to find themselves spending money on decorations, or rushing through thrift-stores searching for something, anything!, to get for friends and family. We like holidays because they offer us ritual, connection with people, and something to celebrate. But, even when the ritual involves buying unnecessary, excessive presents, we can find ourselves participating in that ritual—and it may not necessarily be a ritual we would have consciously chosen.


So how does one celebrate the holidays without breaking the bank, or giving in to the rituals of consumerism? Simple. Develop new rituals. This year, you don’t have to rack up credit card debt or get swept up in the season’s commercialism. Instead, consider creating holidays that instill more meaning into the season and encourage more sharing, laughter, creativity, and personal renewal.

According to the National Retail Federation, shoppers spent a total of $441.97 billion during the 2008 holiday season. 40% of Americans start their holiday shopping before Halloween. According to the Nilson Report, Americans’ credit card debt, by the end of 2008, reached $972.73 billion, up 1.12% from 2007, with the average credit card debt per household totaling $8,329. These numbers point to the urgency of our revisioning consumer habits. What if—instead of buying “stuff” for holiday gifts—we gave gifts of time, gifts of experience and gifts of charity?

Gifts of time include things like babysitting, car washing, a month of taking out the garbage, doing the dishes, shoveling the snow, cleaning the cat box, dog walking or pet sitting, or a hiking trip. When I was a young mother, my best friend always gave me one day of child-care a week. Oh, how I looked forward to that day each week when I could have “my own” time!—a respite from the demands of parenting two active toddlers.

Gifts of experience include things like an offer to teach a skill such as canning, ballroom dancing, knitting, or swimming. I often give my horsy friends a gift certificate for a dressage lesson. Or, I gift them with an afternoon of hiking and wildcrafting in the backcountry.

Gifts of charity might include a donation to a cause in the name of a family member. Some families make gifts to charities and then present family members with a coupon or card indicating the gift was made in their name. Or, you could support a homeless shelter or protect an acre of rainforest. You could designate an amount of money to donate to charity and let your children pick which causes will receive it. Older children can research organizations that match your family’s values.

And, of course, there is the option of homemade gifts. Homemade salsa, jam and baked goods all taste much better than their commercial counter-parts. Include, of course, the recipe. Or, you can mix tins of dried, wildcrafted teas such as lavender, mint or rose hips. Include a mesh tea strainer. One of my favorites is a mix of lavender, rose petals and clover.

Being creative and keeping your mind focused on the real meaning of gift-giving will help you keep the culture's "buy more" influence at bay. Keep in mind, too, that the efforts you make to curb your holiday spending now will free up more cash for the coming year. And that's the best holiday gift you can give yourself and your family.

The Good Life: Bridging Heaven and Earth

Making Friends with Vishnu

The concept of sustainability has always been there—right from the beginning. Every Wisdom Tradition has its own ways of reminding us to honor the Earth, to Love each other and to value the lives that we are given. Nonetheless, we, too often, have a “better idea” and rush headlong into unconscious, entrenched, egoistic patterns. Let’s take time out for a minute and see what one of the oldest Wisdom Traditions in the World has to say about sustainability. More specifically, let’s see what Vishnu brings to the discussion.

Brahma is the first member of the Hindu Trinity, Vishnu being the second and Shiva, the third. Brahma is the god of creation. Shiva is the god of destruction. Destruction and creation go hand in hand. They are like two sides of a coin. For example, the destruction of morning is the creation of noon and the destruction of noon is the creation of night. This chain of continuous destruction and construction maintains the day. Similarly, the destruction of childhood is the creation of youth and the destruction of youth, the creation of old age. In this process of birth and death the individual is maintained. Vishnu is the god of maintenance.

The gods representing creation, maintenance and destruction, are essentially one and the same. They, however, appear quite differently. We love to dance with Shiva. We are seduced by creation. We are excited by starting projects--feeling the surge of juicy creativity. We’ll work for a week to plant a garden and, later, fail to weed it.

We feel just as powerful when we are destructive. Destroying something gives us a sense of closure—of power. We’ll till that same garden, weeds and all, under in late Fall. We might even mumble something about “taking better care of it next year”.

So, we begin. And, we end. And, we begin. And, we end. It’s a cycle that is highly unsustainable. But, it’s also a pattern that is indigenous to our species. Our egos thrive on the excitement of beginning and ending. Maintenance is a whole different matter. It’s boring. No adrenaline. No bells and whistles. So, poor Vishnu—the god who holds everything together--gets forgotten.

All of our creation and destruction is wreaking havoc with the Earth. We are filling landfills with our destruction, depleting resources with our creation. We buy too much and we throw too much away. We are too industrial and too wasteful. It’s time for us to make friends with Vishnu, god of maintenance, to create a cycle of sustainability.

How sustainable is it to spend a lot of money on expensive seeds and bedding plants to build a garden and then let it be taken over by weeds—only to be tilled under in the Fall? Vishnu wants us out there weeding, mulching, watering, and tending. He wants the plants to be cared for so that they can grow into food.

Vishnu wants us to maintain everything. He wants us to maintain our lives: everything from our gardens to our interpersonal relationships. It’s time to make friends with Vishnu. He is the god at the very heart of a sustainable lifestyle! There are so many places, daily, that Vishnu’s presence would abet deeper sustainability. Let’s look at just a few:

· Mending: Nobody mends anymore. When we hear the word, it conjures up ideas of our grandmother, sitting in her rocking chair, darning socks. Grandma would be pretty shocked at today’s response to a worn sock—that is, to just throw it away and go buy new ones. Sewing on buttons, fixing small tears, and reinforcing frayed seams all extend the life of clothing exponentially. I know, I know. The argument against mending is that you don’t have time. A family of four spends an average of $2,850 a year on apparel and apparel services, according to the federal government's Consumer Expenditure Survey. Too many times people chuck a piece of clothing because of minor damage that can easily be corrected with a needle and thread. It behooves one to learn how to sew, as this simple skill can save you lots of money, even without owning a sewing machine. If learning isn't an option, even paying a seamstress to mend your clothes will save you money, as repairing clothes is cheaper than buying new. And, there is the issue of not supporting sweatshops—where so much clothing is currently manufactured.

· Garden Care: Here is some really basic gardening advice: don’t plant more than you can reasonably weed, water, harvest and tend. Garden plants are not knick-knacks. They are living entities that depend upon their caregivers for continued life. Well done, a garden is a work of art—a thing that is beautiful to behold. Badly done, it is tragic. Weed-infested beds, pest-destroyed leaves, dry and withered stems break Vishnu’s heart. There is a lot of hype out there right now about “growing your own food”. I do it. And, it means that I spend a lot of time with Vishnu. I weed. I water, I harvest. I tend. A garden is a great lesson in, literally, reaping what you sow!

· Menu Planning: This is an area that can save a family big money. And, a lot of time, as well. The simple act of sitting down and figuring out a week’s worth of cook-at-home dinners, where ingredients can be shared over the course of several menus is really economical. And, not running to the store daily to “pick up” needed ingredients for meals is a time, money and gas saver. Most people find that by planning, and shopping for, menus on a weekly basis reduces their grocery bill exponentially. Sure, it’s a little more time spent with Vishnu, but it reaps rewards on many levels. Grocery shopping with a plan limits pricey impulse purchases and return trips to the store for forgotten items. Planning ahead also helps avoid the 5 o’clock “what’s for dinner?” question that too easily leads to the answer, “let’s go out to eat.” You can also plan for inexpensive foods that take a little longer but save money, like dry beans that need to be soaked overnight.

· Consolidating Errands: Speaking of trying to eliminate those return trips to the store for forgotten items…! Vishnu wants us to consolidate our errands. He is a whole lot happier when we are not running back and forth to town to “pick up” this and that. Even if you bicycle to town and back like I do, it’s still not time efficient to run back and forth constantly. I try to advance plan my trips to town so that appointments, errands, shopping needs and so forth are all consolidated. A trip to the dentist gets combined with Farmer’s Market, mailing out my package at the Post Office, returning a Library book and picking up some green tea at the spice shop. This takes some forethought and some list building: the stuff that Vishnu thrives on! I’ve learned to rely on a little notebook that I keep shoved in my pocket to jot down “to dos” that can be consolidated later in the week. This also slows the pace of life. Not everything is an emergency! Things happen more organically and naturally—and, I often find that they happen exactly at the “right time” in the bigger picture.

· Day Planning: I have found that by sitting down in the morning with a piece of paper and pencil can save me a lot of time throughout the rest of the day. First, I make a master list of what I would like to accomplish that day (no attachment to the outcome, though!). Then, I move the items around into clusters that naturally go together. Can I combine a couple of “to dos” into a melded activity whereby both are getting done at roughly the same time through careful planning? Am I, for example, able to tele-conference with my editor at the same time I water some new transplants in the garden? Or, how about listening to an important podcast while filling the food dehydrator? The other day I experimented with seeing how many yoga asanas I could incorporate into my posture while weeding the garden. It was really neat! I cross things off my day list as they get done. Sometimes everything gets crossed off. Not that often, though. But, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I stay focused throughout the day, allowing more to get done with less hustle. With some practice and Vishnu’s guidance, anyone can become a master of time!

· Home Repairs: This point speaks for itself. Doing home repairs saves money, time and eventual deterioration. This is the easiest place to see Vishnu in action. Plugged drains, loose shingles, sagging porch rails, peeling paint are all calling out to Vishnu. Without his intervention, they will soon be in rot and ruin. There is so much information these days, too, about “how to” do the various repairs. There is a Wiki on everything—many complete with video instruction! There is something incredibly liberating about fixing your own faucet. And, many times, it’s not that hard! Sure, it takes a little time. But, if you do the math, it actually saves you time. A plumber, for example, would easily cost you $150. to fix a leaky faucet. If you earn $15./hour, that means that you have to work ten hours to pay him/her. Did fixing it yourself take ten hours?

These are some simple, elementary ways to start making friends with Vishnu. You will find that the better friends the two of you become, the more Flow you access in your life. Things get easier. Time opens up. Money is saved. Resources are not wasted. Energy needs are reduced. Living well is spirituality in action. It is an integration of the spiritual principles of simplicity, integrity and mindfulness with day-to-day lifestyle practices. The bridging of Heaven and Earth!

Sherry L. Ackerman, Ph.D. is the author of The Good Life: How to Create a Sustainable and Fulfilling Lifestyle. The book springs off from her 22 years of living on a back-to-the-earth commune in Central Vermont and offers practical ideas for not only surviving--but flourishing--in today's challenging conditions.

Unplugging from The Man, Part 5

As we get deeper into Unplugging from the Man, we invariably come face-to-face with our addiction to petroleum. Sure, we like to sit around and do the "ain't it awful" with our peers, but we keep using gasoline. Classic addiction: I'll stop tomorrow. And, tomorrow never comes.

So, what's the solution? Stop pumping!! It's that simple.

The average American household spends $385./month on gasoline. That is almost $100./week. Even with the recent surge in gas prices, consumption has only reduced by 0.7%. We all know that we are past peak oil. We all know that our three wars are contingent upon our lust for oil. Yet, our societal behavioral changes seem to lag behind our knowledge. We are suffering from cultural cognitive dissonance.

Let's look at some practical things that we could do, easily, to stop pumping and start Unplugging:

(1) Bicycle: Get a bicycle, equip it with a basket for carrying groceries. You'll be getting heart-healthy at the same time you stop stressing about escalating gas prices. You'll slow down. You'll notice more things along your route. And, you will no longer be held captive by the oil barons. Bicycling is good for the Planet, good for your health and good for saving money.

We all think that we don't have time to bicycle places. It's just a head trip. Recently, my partner needed a large bunch of mint to put in his recipe for the evening meal. So, I hopped on my bicycle and went a couple of miles down the road to a large pond, where both peppermint and spearmint grow abundantly along the south shores. Within a few minutes, I had filled my bike basket and was peddling back home, enjoying the fragrance of fresh cut mints. My more conventional neighbors asked me, “How do you find the time to do these things?” Let’s take a look at this, though, for a minute. I can bicycle eight miles per hour even on a bad day. That puts my transportation time at roughly fifteen minutes. The actual wildcrafting takes about ten minutes, including the time spent watching some ducklings learning to bob for fish, bringing my total time investment to about twenty-five minutes. This is roughly ten minutes less than it would be to drive into town and go to the market. There are no hidden time costs such as parking, waiting in a checkout line, or having to go to a second store because the first one didn’t have it. My mints were super fresh, didn’t require any packaging or gasoline use, and didn’t create any auto emissions. So, we do have time to bicycle places!

(2) Ride Share: How hard would it be to share rides with others? Sure, it involves some planning, but that's about it. Planning means that you will be talking with your neighbors and colleagues. And, what's so bad about that? Wouldn't that be community? Have you ever gone to your son or dauther's sporting event and noticed that all of your neighbors are there, too--and that you all fired up your own, individual gas guzzling machines to drive down there?

Commuting just 15 miles each way to work can cost as much as $ 2,264 per year at current gas prices. Sharing the ride with just one other person can cut your commuting costs in half. Think of all of the more interesting things that you could do with that extra thousand dollars!

(3) Consolidate Errands: Again, a little planning can go a long ways. Instead of firing up your rig to run into town and back every day of the week, designate one day as "errand day". Train yourself to get sufficiently organized to do everything that you need to do in a single trip to town: groceries, errands, meetings and appointments. Make lists. Work around already existing commitments. If, for example, you have a weekly Wednesday afternoon appointment or meeting, go into town a little earlier on Wednesdays and also do your shopping and errands.

We are so incredibly used to instant gratification that this will make us uneasy for awhile. We are used to running into town to pick up a single lag bolt, right? Or, a bottle of olive oil? Once, though, the savings start to show up in the household budget, we'll be really excited about the whole list-making and planning process! There is real money (and time) to be saved here.

(4) Walk, Ski, Snowshoe: You will be surprised how fit you will get in a very short time by making this lifestyle change. When you feel like a trip to town just to "get a java" at the local coffee shop, ski in. Walk. Snowshoe. Or, bike. It makes the outing even more fun than it would have originally have been. Maybe you could invite a friend to share the foot-transport with you.

Of course, we keep pumping because we think, erroneously, that we "don't have time" for alternative forms of transportation. But, why are people in the most technologically advanced civilization in the world starved for time? One of the hooks that keep people locked into the consumer culture is the lure of convenience. We are told that convenience frees up time. This looks good on paper, but when inspected more closely, it doesn’t quite ring true.

Convenience does, superficially, create more time. But those conveniences are expensive and, in the long run, require people to work more hours to make more income to pay for them. In other words, people end up working more hours—thereby having less available time—to make enough money to pay for convenience. The final product of convenience is time famine. There’s something wrong with this picture.

Harvard economist Juliet Schor, in The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, argues from statistics what I have figured out from experience. According to Schor, American’s work increases by one day each year. Averaging only sixteen hours of leisure a week after jobs and associated travel and communication responsibilities, working hours are longer than they were forty years ago. This, in large part, traces back to our addiction to gasoline. It strikes me that by dealing with our gasoline addiction--which is really a "convenience addiction"--we will be freed up to enjoy more leisure. And, that's a pretty nice perk for Unplugging from the Man.

Author’s Note: This blogpost was the fifth in a series of articles about Unplugging from the Man. Stay tuned for more suggestions and ideas about achieving personal freedom.

Unplugging from The Man, Part 4

So, we've made up our minds to Unplug from The Man. We want to loosen the noose and pursue personal freedom. Our wrists are chafed from the golden handcuffs and it's time to shake them off. We are in Transition and we need to continue to hammer out our blueprint for liberation. In Part 3 of this series, I put forward some good preliminary ideas for starting to Unplug. But now, in this Part, let's go deeper:

* Get rid of your TV. It has to go. It's that simple. The TV keeps you shackled to the Establishment. It programs you as to what to buy, what to think and what to say. It's subtle, but it's there: the hidden agenda. TV watchers stop thinking for themselves. A slow, incremental exteriorization happens. The advertisements get to even the most vigilant. It is subliminal and insidious. Don't tell me, either, that "there are a lot of good programs on TV". For every "good one", there are a dozen "bad ones". You are just rationalizing. Take a deep breath and pull the plug.

* Park your car. Get a bicycle, equip it with a basket for carrying groceries and you've got your Transition transportation. You'll be getting heart-healthy at the same time you stop stressing about escalating gas prices. You'll slow down. You'll notice more things along your route. And, you will no longer be held captive by the oil barons. Bicycling is good for the Planet, good for your health and good for saving money. Freedom!

* Say goodbye to your phone. You read that right. Get rid of your landline. Nobody needs one anymore. And, nobody really needs a smart phone, either. Sure, they're fun, but they're also expensive (not to mention that they track your whereabout and, starting in 2012, will issue daily "terror alerts" from the White House. Seriously.) Try Google Phone for a pleasant--free!--surprise! You can get your own number. It has voicemail, caller ID and call forwarding. And, all calls within the US are free.

* Support alternative news. The US is currently among the most propagandized nations in the world. The commercial, corporate news sites don't really report "news" anymore. It's, instead, a steady stream of ideology funded by vested special interests. The independent, alternative news sites are the only operative venues of real, uncensored information. Support them! Let's not let them die from malnutrition. Without them, we will be proverbial sheep.

Unplugging from The Man is an essential component of our own personal versions of Power Shift 2011. It's going to mean adjusting to some changes, but the sweet taste of freedom is worth it!

Author’s Note: This blogpost was the fourth in a series of articles about Unplugging from the Man. Stay tuned for more suggestions and ideas about achieving personal freedom.

Unplugging from The Man, Part 3

Marcuse called it choosing not to participate in one-dimensional society. I'm calling it Unplugging from the Man. No difference. It's getting free. Seeking liberation from a system that is choking the life-blood out of our humanness. Once we've made up our minds to Unplug, we need to map out a blueprint for doing it. There's a lot to do and we can only do a bit at a time. So, jump in wherever works best for you--but keep at it. Keep Unplugging one step at a time until you start to feel free. Fewer bills, less rushing around, better health and more happiness!

Let's turn our attention to some super easy places to Unplug that will give you a lot of bang for your buck. Let's look at doing things at home (wave goodbye to commercial culture) and by hand (wave goodbye to industrial culture):

(1) Cooking. Marcuse, in his Essay on Liberation, says that if our lives were more aligned with The Beautiful (and I would say, therefore, Good Lives!), that art would recapture some of its more primitive "technical" connations such as the "art of preparing food". Cooking at home turns an otherwise sterile kitchen into the living heart of a home. The smell of a fresh pie, the sound of a stirfry, the sight of a quiche fresh from the oven all spell connectedness. It is the sensory experience of community. Stories are told, news is shared, gossip is swapped. We are a part of something bigger than ourselves. Homecooked food is more nutritional, more cost-effective, creates less waste and builds community. Dinner anyone?

(2) Cultivating. And, so much the better if the food that you are preparing was grown right outside your kitchen window. Take out your lawn and put in a vegetable garden! I have just returned from a tiny town in rural Portugal where there wasn't a lawn in sight. Instead, every single yard was full of lemon trees, orange trees, vegetable gardens and potato patches. The edible yards were really beautiful--alive with color and interesting layouts. Families were outside tending their gardens together to the tune of laughter.

(3) Crafting. Why don't you start with making some of your own clothes. You can go uber-creative and make "wearable art". Or, you can mix old and new school by knitting/crocheting some really unique, one-of-a-kind gladrags. This winter I cranked out a new pair of wool socks, a silk hat, an alpaca sweater and I'm halfway through a long crochetted cape. Good looking stuff, handmade by the fire with friends and family doing their thing nearby. And, once you're handy with a needle and thread, you can mend your existing clothing really quickly, also extending its useful life.

(4) Power Down. Have you tried turning off the lights for a night? Fabulous! How about designating one or two nights a week as no-lights nights, using only candles and/or olive oil lamps. It's romantic. It's beautiful. And, you'll find yourself shifting into a much more relaxed evening protocol. I often play my harpsichord with blazing candles on both sides of my sheet music. Baroque music, played with the feel of the baroque period! Once you get used to going without lights every now and then, you'll find yourself discovering other electrical appliances and/or devices that you, frankly, just don't really need. Things that you previously considered "necessities" will seem extraneous.

(4) Freecycle. So, then you can give them away! My area has an online forum of "stuff" that people want to give away. No strings attached--just given freely to others. I list "stuff" on there periodically and have made some really great connections with people here in my area. It makes me feel really good to watch someone get something - for free! - that they really needed and weren't in a good position to buy.

(5) Live! Finally, find more ways to actually inhabit your home. You own it. Live there! Some people own their houses, but are hardly ever home. Find ways to spend more and more time in your own castle. Enjoy it. Invite people over. Cook together. Cultivate together. Craft together. Power Down together (it's fun to have people over on no-lights night! How about a cozy little candlelight dinner party?). And, swap "stuff". Become co-heirs in freedom: the rawest form of succession. Liberated. Unplugged.

Author’s Note: This blogpost was the third in a series of articles about Unplugging from the Man. Stay tuned for more suggestions and ideas about achieving personal freedom.

Comments from a Reader

I found The Good Life, by Sherry Ackerman, an absolute must read, absorbing, and thought provoking. She sheds a ray of hope, through her grounded experience, into a world that is anything but stable. This is a book for those of us who live to work, racing to buy the `stuff,' that is sure to bring us lasting happiness, security, and prestige; only to find, once acquired, the magic is gone because these things were only fleeting desires, not sustainable necessities. Ackerman encourages us to question our values, and take a closer look at how we spend our time and energies. Must we rape the earth of all its resources to satisfy our selfish lusts to gain more stuff, stuff that has buried us in empty promises of pleasure, and left us with huge debts, foreclosed homes, lost jobs, and not enough time to know our loved ones? Wouldn't it be better to slow down and become at peace with the nature surrounding us, to share earth's bounty with all of its inhabitants, and be a responsible part of a restored balance that was intended all along? Yes, it's possible, with you and me, together, one step at a time. This book starts us down a path where each of us can lay down our own stepping stones, which together can pave a way to a new sustainable good life where we have everything we need and the time to enjoy it.

The Good Life: Part 1