Temple of the Twelve: August Token Exchange

Here's where we talked about this token exchange idea in greater detail, but this is the official sign-up for students in their Temple of the Twelve year to exchange tokens of achievement and recognition with each other. If you haven't read that original post already, please do for more clarification of our exchange intentions.

By signing up, you are agreeing to send one token of the color listed to another student no later than Tuesday, August 24th. Because of shipping times and study schedules, this will only be open to members of the United States. (If you're studying in another country and love the token exchange idea, I hope you'll start your own local group!)

To participate this month, please complete the following questions in the comment section below by Friday, July 13th. Partners will be assigned and emailed shipping information on Friday or Saturday. Please make sure, before you commit to signing up that your schedule and finances allows you to fulfill this special task in the 10 (or so) days allotted. :) Comments below are screened so nobody else can see your personal information.

Sign-Up:
1. Full Name:
2. Shipping Address:
3. Email Address:
4. What color token are you working to earn this month?
5. Do you have allergies or specific product restrictions? (Vegan, unscented, etc?)
6. If the author of Temple of the Twelve (elfinecstasy) felt called to send you an additional color token, may I share your mailing address with her?
7. Is there anything you'd like to share with your partner about your color journey this month?

I hope you'll let the Divine guide your hand as you find the perfect small token of your fellow student's achievements this month. It should be something small, of the color studied, and selected with heart. Only you will know what you're meant to send! :)

Stuff: By the Numbers

I've spent about three hundred and thirty eight hours bedridden the past sixteen days, recovering from surgery, listening to the sounds of my family going out on adventures to the park, the grocery store, the gelato stand, the bathtub without me. If my LiveJournal output is any indication, it has given me a lot of time to think. This is, after all, a Hanged Man year for me. This year, 2010, has also been a lot about Earth. Gaia spoke and I heard Her for the first time. I started reading about our nation's garbage and that affliction of plenty, Affluenza. Sarah (mermaiden), Shaun (radshaun), and I talked about it a lot, our own issues with stuff, and it dredged up a lot of my unconscious assumptions and emotional connections to shopping and having. All that reading, all those late-night conversations crystalized what I've long found disturbing about the intersection between earth-based spirituality and a consumer-based lifestyle. (Does. Not. Compute.) I haven't done much about it, though, and laying in bed and watching the hours of my life disappear, literally, I figured out what I needed to do to boldly reinvent my life.

Dave Bruno is the latest in a company of bloggers and simple living advocates I've read who is addressing the issue of his own affluenza by counting (and then limiting) the personal items he allows to exist in his life. I read an article the other day in the NY Times about a couple in Portland who cut down their possessions to exactly 100 (including toiletries!) for the two of them. The accompanying photo of their down-sized loft apartment was sparse, to say the least, without window dressings and rugs and artwork and all that other detritus of shopping that I'm used to viewing as "normal".

For two years now, my 1800 square foot Chicago condo has been on (and off and on) the market. Personal possessions and clutter are sorta taboo in real estate, so we've spent two years keeping our material lives boxed up and penned into closets and a 10' x 10' storage facility two miles away. Every six months or so, we take a few more loads of acquired-but-not-necessary things (in our SUV, no less) to drop off and shamefully stash. Now, we've changed tactics and are looking to rent our place out and move to a larger, single-family home up in Evanston. That means, sometime in the next eight weeks or so, I will have to box everything I own up and then pay to have it hauled to our new home. The mysterious contents of our stuffed-to-the-roof storage rental will also be kindly dropped off at our feet and we'll be faced with the task of finding a home for all of it.

The idea of having only 100 (or less) possessions is so alien to me. My kitchen counters, where I'm set up with my laptop, currently have the following items upon them:

1) Bamboo coaster set. (Does this count as one whole or nine pieces?)
2) Marriott hotel ink pen.
3) Purple gel ink pen
4) MacBook Laptop
5) iPhone charger
6) iPhone
7) Bunch of bananas
8) Wooden knife block w/ kitchen shears, 4 knives, and steel. (Is this seven items?!)
9) Box of disposable tissue.
10) Legal-sized notepad
11) Daily planner
12) Copy of Witches & Pagans magazine
13) Toaster
14) Coffee Maker
15) Electric Tea Kettle
16) Bottle of wine
17) Glass floral vase.
18) Dish-scrubbing brush
19) Bottle of dish soap
20) Sponge
21) Sink Drainer-Stopper
22) White Bowl
23) Giant Candle
24) Plastic Microwave Cooker Cover
25) Bottle of Shampoo
25) & Conditioner (for those sink scrubbings since I haven't been able to shower since my surgery)
26) Bottle of hand soap
27) Dish towel
28) Small green plate
29) Divided tupperware container w/ lid
30) Butter Knife
31) Steak Knife
32) Dinner plate
33) Plastic water cup
34) Copy of Pretend Soup cookbook for kids.
35) Salt Shaker
36) Pepper Grinder
37) Unused Get Well Card
38) Marble Pastry board
39) Portable Phone Charger/Answering Machine Hub
40) Wireless Router

Now granted, it could use a little picking-up, but this is just the stuff that is sitting on my kitchen counters! This doesn't include the appliances or the mass of things hanging out behind all the cabinet doors and drawers or the little things magnetized to the fridge front. I've reached 40 without even having to get up and look around. How many items do I own? Thousands, certainly. Tens of thousands, possibly. One hundred might as well be one. I don't know how it is even possible to get there but I can sort of imagine how fulfilling, how freeing, how utterly transformational it would be if I could. So I've spent a few weeks laying in bed, thinking about it, and I think the first step for me is to really understand what I have. I need to count it, one little junk drawer at a time. I need to make a list and then start striking out those things that I don't absolutely love and need and cherish. Sentimental value isn't enough--I want to get to where the things I own are each beloved and life-enhancing. I want to get to where I could make a list of my belongings and know, without a doubt, that it would be impossible to forget any of them because they are such an enriching part of my daily life.

The limits, 50 or 100 or 150, I think are pretty arbitrary. But if I am playing, for real, that proverbial game of "You can only grab x things from your house because it is on fire" then I'm forced to prioritize what I think I need and what I think I love. Do I say, "Oh, but I love that!" because I *love* that object or because I am holding onto the myth of its importance? I say, "I had to buy it, it was so awesome!", so was it awesome enough to replace one item on my limit list?

So I'm not committing to a limit, yet, but I am committing to the counting. I will know what I have and I will face it and I will then have the power to start shifting items up and down the list until I know exactly what it is that feeds my soul and what only weighs it down.

I do not want my lifestyle to be a burden upon the Earth. Every last *thing* is the product of intensive agriculture, logging, drilling, and mining. It looks like a plastic doodad or an extra-cozy jacket or a bucket of fun Play-Doh, but it is made from the body of my Mother, at the expense of our world's finite resources. Who am I, to feel entitled to such a disproportionate, wasteful, silly amount of possessions, of owning? It is an artificial safety net--sapping my energy, my attention, and my finances away from the direct experience of my life.

Imagine the power for good I'd have in my hands if, instead of all this stuff I never use, I had the money it had taken to buy it all.

Pretty thrilling, huh? :)