The Eyes of the Buddha Holiday Shopping Guide – UPDATED

Buddha’s eyes are shown to remind us to have compassion towards all living creatures. Hither and Yon

Look around, these are hard times.  People who never in a million years thought they would be out of a job, are looking for work. Those lucky enough to have a job are still reeling after a year of gas prices that can best be described as obscene.  Now winter is upon us making it even harder for families to make ends meet.  To top it off, it is the holidays.

How can we celebrate this season, however we celebrate it, in the midst of all this suffering?

The answer is – we celebrate mindfully – with open eyes and an open heart.

First we look, without turning away, at what our neighbors and communities are experiencing – then we do something within our celebrations, however small, to make a difference.

How to share your celebration

Shop mindfully – support those merchants and artists who give back to the local and global community.

Give your shopping dollar twice the impact – buy from merchants who share the wealth and resources this holiday season. Closest to my heart is Cleveland Heights merchant City Buddha (the first presents my youngest son gave me were from City Buddha’s Ohio City Store – one particularly lean year he gave me a Buddha Sticker with an offer of a free meal on the reverse side – I never redeemed it) who is sponsoring a month long food drive. Bring a nonperishable food item and not only will you get a 5% discount on your purchase, City Buddha will deliver the food and match that 5% with a cash donation to the Cleveland Foodbank.  Get the details here – City Buddha’s Buddha’s Bowl Food Drive

Think outside the gift box with certificate for services. You may not realize how big an impact you can make with a certificate for a hair cut, beauty services or massage and healing to someone in need.   More importantly, you probably don’t realize how much the service providers give, sometimes anonymously, to the community. You know they are top on your list when you need a donation for your silent auctions and raffles.  You can thank them, and make sure they will be there the next time you need them, by buying gift certificates.   It’s time to give back.

My recommendations:

Lorna Richman, craniosacral therapist, licensed massage therapist and Reiki master.  Lorna is a gifted healer, craniosacral therapist and teacher. You can make an appointment with Lorna by calling 216 371 2321. Be sure to check out her free classes this January at the Coventry library.

Neal Szpatura, Tarot Reader, Shamanic Practitioner and  writer.  Neal is more than a psychic, he is an intuitive life coach, a law of attraction teacher and all round mensch. You can contact Neal at 216 371 3433 or by email to nealdragon @ aol.com. Check out his website – Shamanspath (Internet Explorer only) and his Shamanspath’s blog (be sure to sign up for his daily inspirational email). For a special holiday treat listen to Neal’s original radio play “Alexandra, the Christmas Imp” on WKSU.

Sarva Natural Soaps are exquisite works of practical art created by local artisan Michelle Gilbert.  Made in small quantities with the highest quality ingredients  everyone on your holiday list will feel blessed by these treasures – I know I do.

Cut Hair Studio – a friendly and hip neighborhood shop offering quality service with kindness.  An hour spent at Cut will make you look good and feel good.

For the readers on your list, choose local writer and activist Christopher Barzak’s new novel – The Love We Share Without Knowing. Double your local impact by buying it (and his first novel – One For Sorrow) at Jospeh Beth Booksellers.

Thanks to Web 2.0 sometimes the community that sustains us is global. I have been blessed with kindness from Ophelia Chong over this past very difficult year. She is an artist whose visual and written work is stunning and a reflection of her magnificent heart.  You can see more of Ophelia’s work on Flickr.

Additional suggestions:

Bazaar Bizarre – Indie crafts from local artisans

Buy DIY for the holidays and support local artists! Bazaar Bizarre, Cleveland’s fabulous original indie craft show takes place Saturday December 13th from noon to 9:00 p.m., and Sunday December 14th from noon to 6:00 p.m. You may remember the building complex (former home of 1300 Gallery) from the first Cleveland BazBiz shows, but the entrance is in a different location this year: 78th Street Studios: 1300 W. 78th St to 1305 W. 80th St., North parking lot, North entrance — accessible from W. 78th OR W 80th St.

Cool Cleveland publishes a northeast Ohio holiday shopping guide  – check it out here before you head to the big box stores.

Thank you to Jill Finlayson from Social Edge, a program of  the Skoll Foundation, for dropping by and sharing another unique gift guide – the Holiday Gift Guide for Social Entrepreneurs 2008.  From the gift of Transparency to the gift of Social Return on Investment, Jill offers the perfect wish list for all social entrepreurs. Whether you are in the nonprofit arena or engaged in change through advocacy in the for profit world, Social Edge should be in your RSS feed.

The Lending Crisis

This election season the sheer amount of information available is overwhelming. After my morning news update I head over to Brewed Fresh Daily and Psychobilly Democrat to get a read and concise summary on the hot issues of the day. It should come as no surprise that predatory lending is often at the top of the list.

It is also not surprising that this issue is on Obama’s radar. Mark Alexander, Senior Adviser to Obama’s campaign, will attend will attend the City of Cleveland’s Fighting Foreclosure and Abandonment Forum the day after the debate. To bring home the importance of this issue Psychobilly Democrat points us to photographs of a devastated Slavic Village on erieblu’s blog.

The photos are grim to be sure, but what caught my eye was erieblu’s very poignant “TOTAL DISCLOSURE”

i myself have lost my house, although not in a cleveland urban area. IN 2002, i bought my dream home in Lakewood after saving for 10 yrs and steady work history for several years( not easy for an artist in cleveland) one yr after 911, six months after buying my home my spouse & i found ourselves laid off and scrambling for jobs with incomes we had worked so hard to achieve…after yrs of working EIGHT different jobs since then, we finally lost it to the sheriff exactly five years from the day we got the key..

you cannot work with the bank or a nice nonprofit to help save your home with payments you can’t make with no income….no job-again, today i am laid off, homeless with no prospect of a real job for a college educated white kid who busted her ass trying earn a slice of pie from this american dream flavored dessert.

i have two cokes left, a borrowed computer & a busted painful ankle……so,right now i feel for this neighborhood, these people who also left what they had because you got nothing

She tells the story that proves that this is not just a “lending crisis.” Subprime lending is not why erieblu no longer has her home. She no longer has her home because she and her husband no longer have jobs. And that is the problem.

When jobs move offshore everyone suffers. Years ago in a bar in Youngstown, Ohio a friend of mine predicted that NAFTA would be the downfall of the middle class. He was right. He reminded me of this last week as he a related an even more chilling tale. We had been talking about, what else, jobs. I am looking for one. I told him about an advertisement on Craigslist directed to lawyers, selling offshore legal work done by lawyers – in India. I told him I was stunned that what I studied, paid dearly for and was licensed to do by the State of Ohio, could be replaced by lawyers not licensed to practice law in the United States.

He told me he had an even better story. He had been to the Emergency Room late one evening. He needed an X-ray. When he was told that the radiologist left at 11 pm. He asked when the xrays would be read; the nurse casually replied, “oh, we transmit them to India electronically and they are read there.” I checked and it is true; hospitals have been doing this for years.

I was dumbstruck.

So what are we, the educated middle class, to do? We did all the right things, we studied hard, worked hard, paid our taxes only to find our daily work gone. The desperation in erieblu’s post is heart wrenching and she speaks for many of us.

Poverty is working it’s way up our society. The middle class, the innovators, the men and women whose work provided the daily beat of life to this country, is disappearing. What is left is a rarefied class system. If you get to the top you hold onto it at any price, and if you fall from grace for whatever reason, getting out is almost impossible.

I read once that it takes a first class intellect to bring change; you must believe both the absolute gravity and hopelessness of the situation at the same time you believe you can change it. I want to believe Obama possesses this quality of intellect.

So Obama, if you are listening trade, bankruptcy, credit reporting and banking reform must be accomplished in short order, all while convincing American business to bring the jobs home. We are dying here in the rust belt.

And to erieblu, I applaud your courage in putting it out there. Thank you.

This post is also available on mybarackobama.com.

The Web’s Secret Stories

In 2007 story teller and internet anthropologist Jonathan Harris premiered his newest graphic interface, Universe, at TED. One in a series of works constructed by mining data footprints we leave on the web, Universe is dazzling and poignant, showing both the unique and mundane nature of life -everywhere.

It got me thinking about the footprints I walked in this week – mine and others – and how what was shared affected who and what I am. Here is the recap.

I learned what a meme is and what it means when it “jumps the fire line.”

I learned that my life is lived both in the real, and virtual, dimension.

I learned that job searching is a full time job and that no one website can search for me.

I learned that there is a woman who calls Obama – “Barack Obama Bin Laden” and Clinton – “Hillary Comrade Clinton.” I don’t think I will ever invite this woman to dinner.

I learned that a 26 year old mid-western woman lost her struggle with bipolar disorder and alcoholism. I know she was loved by her family and her friends. I know that she had children who are blessed to have a community who will tell them, when it is time, that their mother was a remarkable woman. I know that if I could, I would invite all these people to dinner and that it would be a rockin’ good time.

I learned that a baby was born into a family constellation that is both complex and scary.

I learned that a man lost family and friends in the storms down south and that he believes you need to tell your family you love them, especially if you haven’t spoken to them in a long time. I learned that my heart listened to his message and then broke a little bit because my family doesn’t play by those rules.

I learned that there are many women who have wonderful husbands who support them even when they are crabby and unreasonable.

I learned that I still dream about my husband and that my heart hurts.

I learned that an Illinois man took 5 people to their death and his own, while his elderly father was spending an unremarkable day in Florida. I learned, again, the lesson that pain has so many levels it is a wonder you can breathe.

I learned that criticism and angry words abound in the political arena and it is only February and my head hurts.

I learned that my mother watches CNN all the time, never misses Larry King, but that sometimes she forgets to call me even when she promises she will.

I learned that there are local folks who connect virtually and meet in real life to work for change and that it is the same as everywhere else – it takes time to belong.

I learned I still worry about people I meet being anti-Semitic.

I learned that a professor in New Jersey runs in the park, is multilingual and a kind person.

I learned that when you are unemployed, your friends tend to stay away, not because they are unkind, but because they are too kind.

I learned that the soundtrack to the new apple laptop commercial is a song by a Jewish woman who born in France.

I learned that my hometown, which I denigrated for years, is filled with remarkable people who do every sort of amazing thing and I probably should issue some sort of formal apology to the Mayor and my mother.

I learned that no matter where you live, you still are from your hometown.

I learned that I am not the only person who keeps their netflix dvd’s for three months.

I learned that I do not want to return to work that steals my soul, that there are plenty of folks doing things I would be a rock star at and they get paid, therefore, chances are good that I will find my dream job.

I learned that I am a “zero gravity thinker” and that this is a good thing.

I learned that I am grateful for all that is shared.

Thank you.

Explore Jonathan Harris – at TED -Number 27 -Universe – We Feel Fine

Marseille and Why French Rappers Can Teach Us About Community

Have a listen while you read – performing is Keny Arkana, a Marseille rapper of Argentinian heritage:

I blogged a few weeks ago in “I am a Clevelander” that there is no solution to urban violence without the understanding that whether you live in the suburbs, or in the city, you are a Clevelander. When you are invested and committed to your community, if problems occur you are more likely to seek conciliation, rather than confrontation. A recent New York Times article, In Marseille, Rap Helps Keep the Peace, offers a model well worth following.

The young adults of Marseille face many of the same challenges as their American counterparts in Cleveland (or any rust belt city). Unemployment (40 percent unemployment is some parts of the city, 13 percent citywide), racial tension, multicultural neighborhoods and a gritty history are the fabric of their lives, yet violence is conspicuously absent. When asked why, the residents talk about belonging to the city. The poor are not isolated and the affluent aren’t shielded.

Comparing Marseille to Paris, where youth violence is on the rise, one rapper observed:

the neighborhoods are rough … but there’s not violence here without meaning … like in Paris. I lived there for a while,” he said, meaning in the isolated suburbs outside the capital … “Here there is a culture of respect,” he said. “We’re all Marseillais.”

They may belong to different neighborhoods or gangs, but the rappers of Marseille put differences aside to share their music. It isn’t about getting out and getting famous, it is about belonging to the city. Respect is earned, and given, within a shared urban experience.

Police patrols will never create this sense of community. True community is lots of people, creating and sharing a variety of experiences in the same place, without the need for a neighborhood watch. The first step to restoring this true sense of community is to give the arts sufficient support, space, staff and funding, to take hold and blossom. If you build it they will come.

Art and music programs are often the first to go when school funding is cut. Neighborhood community centers struggle to keep their doors open amid the myriad of hoops they have to jump through to maintain funding. Current philanthropic wisdom targets preschool programs as most worthy of funding. There is merit to the wisdom, but without focused intervention and programming for this current generation of adolescents, what will be left?