Why Some People Steal

Addiction,habitual lying, stealing and all other types of human on human predatory behaviour are extreme symptoms of a type of post-traumatic stress disorder so pervasive we don't often recognise it in ourselves or each other.

I call it refugee syndrome. Refugees have to steal and lie and make it through the night how ever they can in a war zone. The survival behaviours become habitual after awhile, then they become part of the self image. Then, even when these behaviours are no longer necessary for survival, many refugees will continue to lie and steal to get whatever they need to make it through the nights. Even when surrounded by people who love and care for and value them, many will take years to learn to trust enough to be honest even with their own families. Some will have residual patterns of dysfunctional behaviour for the rest of their lives. All will have some sort of scars, physical, emotional or both.

Rules of the road-
Tempt not, lest ye be lifted from
Locks don't keep out thieves, they help keep honest people honest
People who look out for each other works better than locks, but both together are better yet
Poverty both breeds thieves and teaches the value of cooperation.
A junkie may save your life, but he will rarely wash dishes unless he needs to steal from the kitchen to feed his habit.
People locked in both apathetic and predatory behaviour patterns are equally really suffering from depression. Caring and trust heal this kind of depression, but neither can be forced and both take time and patience that just might not be available for you with this person this time.

To Anyone Who Wants to Support the Occupy Movement

If you want to participate in the Occupy Movement, come to our encampments and participate as an equal, without expectation of greater access to the podium based on your privilege, experience or skills. If you wish to help guide us, first serve with us and get to know us. We are a young movement, and all of us need time to grow into this.

If you are not able to put in the time to participate as an equal, you can still contribute to this movement and support us in other ways. You can give us your words on the Internet and in print. You can contribute financially to the encampments. How about paying for porta-potties and medical supplies, or a few hundred pairs of socks for the homeless kids with blisters on their feet? You can use your influence to help protect us from over zealous and misguided law enforcement. You can, in short, do everything in your power to create and maintain space for this conversation we have started to continue.

We need space, physical, cultural and emotional space to discover ourselves and each other as human beings. Within this space, we can discover what we are for, and how we can accomplish it.

The Internet is not enough. Some of the people whose help we need the most to solve the problems the Occupy movement is bringing forward are those with the least access to the computer world. People who know how to survive and even thrive on next to nothing have the skills that the newly disenfranchised need the most. Farmers cannot leave their farms untended for long, or the land suffers and we all go hungry. You can find a lot of information online about how to grow food, but you still need soil and helping hands.The Internet cannot make you a cup of tea, or hold you while you cry.

We need shelter from the storm. We need places to rest, heal, talk, work, play and grow together. Most of all we need places to get to know our neighbours as well as the travellers dancing through our midst. Support us in having the space to grow. help us build the world we can all live in. Please and Thank you.

Millions of Homeless Elders #occupy

We are looking at the very beginnings of almost an entire generation of homeless old people. Many of the boomers have just lost the last middle income job they will ever have. If their retirement savings were in the market, most of them lost out. Those a bit younger are likely even worse off. Even younger people with no hope of a job in their field for years to come will be hard pressed to drive an economic resurgence from near minimum wage service jobs. Social Security means little to those who don't make much money to begin with.


Occupy Foreclosed Houses. Demand an end to homelessness.

Comfort Circle

Comfort Circle is a working title for a way of providing and receiving helpful nourishing touch.
It requires two or more participants. One person asks to be touched in a place of their choice. They can then ask to be touched in as many more places as the number of available hands in the circle. Those doing the touching maintain a gentle, non-moving contact until the person receiving touch requests that they release contact or move to a new location. Available time is usually divided in such a way that each participant gets an equal chance to receive touch, but this is not a rule.

What this is good for: Simple human touch where and when you want it feels good. It stimulates your immune system and relieves pain. It also provides feedback your nervous system needs to improve motor function, dexterity and reduce clumsiness.

Touch Without Technique

"No more oil painting, I just want to draw in the dust with my fingers." This is what I said to a friend when I was trying to explain the direction I want to go in teaching.

I am a bodywork professional and teacher watching the population of those who can afford my services as a bodyworker or an instructor shrink as the economy continues to crawl towards the edge of the world. Thousands of my former potential clients just lost the last middle class job they will ever have and/or the majority of their retirement savings. The amount of paid work available in my field is still expanding but the rate is much slower, and not nearly enough to keep up with the number of professionals available to do it. Unless a new Massage Therapist is part of a community that already wants to, and can afford to support their work, or is skilled in niche market development, they will not be able to make much of the income they need from doing massage.

Yet the population of those who are in need of caring helpful touch continues to grow at an incredible and increasing rate. As life and the economy get harder, more of us need more help and can afford it less. We need to be able to do for ourselves and each other.

I want to help people learn to use the innate benefits of simple human touch and movement to help themselves and each other to improve their lives, no matter what their circumstances. This is explicitly about empowerment.