Set Your Soul Free -> What's the Use (Part 2)

The Journey Home

Sometimes, the more serene emotional landscapes of my life have come after great internal stresses and tensions. Entheogenic journeys are like this, too. Untying the Gordian knot inside one's head is no easy feat. Sometimes, entheogens prove to be like Alexander's sword, severing the blockages with the edge of Occam's razor. Earth-shattering epiphanies can be as simple as the realization that one need only be grateful for health and love.

Still, we sometimes create our own hells. Trey was eager to remind me of this on night two in Berkeley, opening the show with Olivia's Pool. Whatever transgressions against self and universe had taken place, they were in on the emotion and poked my eye. However, the healing had already begun thanks to the previous night's journey (and a little help from my friends). Some time after 11 am–fortified on the still good New York bagels Jeremy brought from Staten Island–we headed up the hills to find the Nimitz Trail in the Tilden Nature Area.

This walk was inspirational, and, as an East Coaster, mind-boggling. Yes, we all know that West Coasters have access to amazing public parks right from their doorstep. Little, however, prepares an Eastie for the vast expanses of public land available. Just a few miles from my Air BnB, here was terrain that stretched for miles. The areas were vast enough that it is conceivable that a broken ankle or wrong turn could prove costly, very costly. Signs warned of mountain lions and spotty cell service, and the amount of public land surrounding us easily exceeded the size of Catskill Park or the White Mountain National Forest. Nice.

Tilden Nature Area astonished this Eastie.

The wet winter made the hills verdant. Wildflowers dotted the meadows, and I had a moment of acceptance. I could have made a life for myself on the West Coast back in the 1990s. Portland, OR was home, and Mt. Tabor provided a wee taste of what Berkeley was now flashing. Still, the walking and the air and the sun all helped me relax and flow. The vast expanses of the Western landscape can be reassuring, a good reminder that "[t]here are more things in heaven and earth . . . [t]han are dreamt of in [our] philosophy" (Hamlet.1.v.). We are but small players on that stage.

By 2:30 or so, Jeremy and I were itchin' to hit the line. We thought that maybe there was a chance that the mad rush had died down a bit. After being dropped off, I walked back down La Loma to find that I was situated rather closely to the Greek. Not bad. I found Jeremy waiting on the corner of Hearst and Piedmont, a long, long way from the gate. At least this afforded time to pop down the hill and grab a bhán mì. This was both lunch and dinner, and the line was slow. When we started moving in, at least the feeling was more relaxed, having been sated the previous night. The nitrous mafia was out in full force, and (naturally) there was copious cannabis smoke. Folks were not shy about drinking, either, and at one point, I bought myself a Heady Topper. It had come all the way from Vermont in a cooler.

It's difficult not to be impressed in Berkeley.

Having chilled and hiked and gotten our ya-yas out the night before, the upper bowl lawn seemed fine. No need to clamor for the rail. There isn't a bad seat in the Greek, anyway. Seriously. By the second set, we were at the "rail" of the lawn, a perched vista taking in the whole scene. The Campanile poked above the skyline, and the Bay was visible in bits and pieces, reminding me of an old Greek poster from 1983. We were free to boogie, and the songs were imbued with the very reflections I was still mulling from the previous day. After Olivia's Pool, the serene Seven Below from my favorite LP Round Roo, helped open and calm the heart. The messaging is in the pacing and temperament: reminding one to keep it all on the down low. Trey's and Page's interplay defined this as a distinctly 2023 sound, and my chest was the cavity in which it echoed. All heart.

A classic view of the Greek with the Campanile.

Never one to simply leave calm resolutions, Maze was up next, another reminder of my angst, abuses, and thinking traps. Spinning round and round, stuck in a labyrinth of my own making, the message here is clear. You won't get out, so why not let all obstructing emotions go? Easier said than done, and Berkeley has been at the center of such healing arts for more than half a century. Somewhere, in a backyard down that very hill, Japhy Ryder extols the virtues of Zen Buddhism and meditation. Somewhere, in a backyard down that hill, Japhy Ryder prophesied a backpack revolution of Dharma Bums seeking enlightenment far from the material ladders their 1950s peers obsessively climbed. 

I thought of the Ishmael Reed poem I had stumbled across in the midst of my angst despair on Saturday on Addison Street, not too far from Ellsworth St.

East meets West.

Though it had little to do with the poem, the sentiment made me feel content for having chosen to go back to Maine all those moons ago. East. And just as I'm letting these thoughts go on the breeze, Mountains in the Mist appeared. Linked to an ineffable longing connected to my summer 2021 break from previously locked thinking, the Trey and Page December release both saddened and reassured me. Pandemic grief, my own slow growth, the fits and starts. Like a puzzle piece, it kept the meaning flowing.

(Anastasio/Marshall)

© Who Is She? Music, Inc. (BMI)

several times unconsciously I've stumbled on the path

and seen a mountain in the mist

rain falls on my shoulders, sun rises in the east

I'm worn and bruised but I am here at least

I guess I'm just an obstacle, a thing to overcome

if I can sneak around myself again I'll know I've won

the moment seems to hand and float before me with no end

till I'm released, awaken beast, I'm on the road again

but now I'm soaring far too high

A speck of dust up in the sky

where tiny clouds go sailing by

pull me down today

pull me down today

woven in the fairy tales we fabricate each day

are little golden strands of truth that glimmer in the light

the colorful material you hold a certain way

can keep us from the cold and help to get us through the night

but now I'm soaring far too high

A speck of dust up in the sky

where tiny clouds go sailing by

pull me down today

. . .

The last line of the first verse shatters me, and I can rebuild my understanding about sneaking around myself and tricking the soul (no matter how deep that fallacy). It's a beautiful melancholy that I feel as though I can live with for some time. Hike, mist, view, water, respire, accept. Is it possible? Did Han Shan reach a state of stasis and contentment? It is daily practice, daily practice, daily practice I repeat, muttering on repeat. Letting go of desire.

OK, it is true: I am among those "who love to take a bath," and the goofy joy of Bathtub Gin makes it all fun. Afterall, that's why we're here right? It's a dance party everywhere you look. The Greek doing what the Greek does best! Bliss. Friendship. Warmth. Movement. Knowing through kinesthesia. Smiles. Scattered bits of talk and laughter. A stray clap. The sounds of feet in dirt. Sun setting. This is why we came. The rest of the set simply works that way.

Set two night two continues my ruminations. The Kill Devil Falls-> Fuego-> Light trifecta carries meaning, more than may meet the eye at first glance. The first song, a reflection on the consequences of binging and lacking enough empathy to see its impact on loved ones, propelled me into a joyous letting go in that I'm not alone in experience. Many of us have traveled these pits. Trey has traveled these pits, dragging skin and soul across the broken glass barnacles of self-induced despair. We heal, too, though. Fuego, for me a celebration of all good things 2014 and my evolving version of adulting, takes a nice journey into the Light. It's something to be mindful of, to step into the light, to walk the bright side of the road.

In the end, for many, this can be a Lonely Trip. Mind meld. The show and my mind are one at this point, and it's mostly the dancing that congeals the experience. Phil gives me a big hug on Numberline (we're logging 40 years of friendship as of this year), and it feels like celebration. We've pushed through darkness and travails, and here we are: stars, lights, color, happy feet dancing in the grass. It's a great reminder, too, how the athletic side of the dance is sometimes enough. And I don't know how I hear it, but Ghosts of the Forest sounds are echoing all around the bowl. The Greek catharsis is mourning loss and celebrating life all in one.

Day three, we all woke late. I ate a huge breakfast and drank coffee while overlooking the Bay. (I could do that every day.) We walked around the campus. Waited on line. Read. Soaked in the sun. It was finally warm, the weather I'd been hoping for from California. Met up with people from here and there. Sneered at the balloons littering the beautiful streets. Ate something, nothing too memorable, and found our way back to a similar spot on the lawn far earlier than we had been on previous days. I think that they started opening the gates earlier and earlier each day. By now, we were in the zone, spaced and patiently waiting for whatever would happen. The band opened with I Never Needed You Like This Before, and it was an expression of truth. I needed the scene: the fans, the smells, the sounds, the circus, friends, and music. 

The second set was equal parts joy and reflection. I was feeling the contentment that comes from a sense of not needing. Anything. So when I heard the first strains of Beneath a Sea of Stars, I pinched myself. It was a song I had predicted, oddly, and it delivered what I needed. It's an expression of our gathering, spinning off on that cosmic dust of whatever it was that exploded outwardly in 1965 from this very land, Muir Beach a mere 25 miles to the west, and the Harmon Gym a snowball's toss away. We were Emerson's transparent eyeball, the wavelengths passing through, feet grooving. Dust between the toes feels like a good filth. Earth.

Searching for life.

Weekapaug grooving got me fired up all over again, sweating away the night with the right tempo. Abandon. Joy. But wait, Cool it Down comes next, a standard favorite from the Velvet Underground's Loaded. This is a song that I never thought I would see, and yet it was perfectly placed. Emotionally, cool it down, man, bring that energy down. They were speaking to me, "lookin' for Miss Linda Lee," needing "to use up the night." Still, man, you got to slow down, "cool it down," hide your love away, one could say. Put that desire and wounded need back where it belongs, even though "it makes no difference." 

Does this make me a "genuine asshole," or just someone struggling to keep up? "Unhead the knee!" Sometimes, even the absurdist humor hits pain. It's like throwing darts or seeing what sticks to the wall, but this first hearing of Don't Doubt Me felt like a celebration of all things modern Phish. Absurd and poignant simultaneously. Sadness imbuing psychedelic mind-meld with confused nostalgia. What year is it? Where am I? And just like that, a switch is flipped, and I'm being admonished to Set Your Soul Free. Damn. It's a sober message. Let go of desire, the root of all suffering. While I wasn't hearing a message about the Eightfold path, Japhy Ryder was nagging me about the four noble truths.

“I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures . . . ” Jack Kerouac

"The darkest hour is just before the dawn."

In a very peculiar fashion, WTU? basically suggested the cut of both sides. What's the use in sobering up? For what? For whom? What is all this cosmic joke? On the other hand, what's the use in trying to escape the inevitable? It's all right there in front of us. Maslow knew. Our needs are simple. We can be whole with very little as long as we change our minds. Waste your time, why not? It's not like someone's going to give it back to you; "you don't get a refund if you over pray." Come out and play. And it's not a waste, really. Remember, it's all about love, and we don't need that much. "Just one drink, and I'll fall down drunk." Doesn't take much.

Such a lovely place.

On Thursday, we were weary, happily weary, and we drove to Outer Sunset. Again, my East Coast defenses were down, and I could see how absolutely magical this neighborhood is. Phil's cousin had a house with a view of the surf. When the waves are right, just amble on down. Wow. I know of nothing like it. "Unhead the knee," indeed. And just like that, SFO looms. An afternoon of airport ambling, feeling far less fancy than all the tech nudnik's buying lattes. Unable to read or process, a stunned sitting and waiting, Chicago, and from Chicago, Bangor. It's like a study in contrast.

Bangor, like a glorified bus station, embraces the 70 or so passengers who arrive. The TSA guard monitoring the exits says, "Welcome to Maine." Clearly, I don't look like I belong. It's mid-morning the next day, one of the first warm mornings of spring, and the ground is greening up. The trees, bare, look so different from California that it's difficult to process. Winter has been here but not there? The mud at home is thick, and the recent construction is finished on our foundation. I inspect every inch, celebrate the return by sitting in the sun and reading Blitzed by Norman Ohler. There's a WWII elective on my roster for the fall. Sleep is elusive.

Friday, wide awake at 5 a.m, I need to psych myself up for the coming crush that is the end of the school year. The barber up the hill, Stacy, has an open seat. She kneads my scalp a bit and asks, "The regular?" All I have to say is, "Yup." We chit chat as she trims, and then she slows and pauses. "How well did you know Drew?" Suddenly, it's back to me, the world I left before stepping on that plane one week ago. Drew. Dead. Suicide. "Really well," I try to say. And then the tears come.

It's been one week since I left home to visit friends for some shows in California, and I'm sobbing in the barber's chair. It all flushes out in one grand push, and she's astonished but not surprised. "That well, huh?" she asks. When I compose myself, she shares the manner of death, the time, what was happening between Drew and his wife, their families. It all came out, and I went home and showered, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I was ready for students to return.

Conservative, in a Good Way

This blog post originally appeared on the Island Oasis Farm website, now decommissioned. Not sure if it translates over, but I did want to preserve some of that writing (2020-2024). 

February 19, 2022

Mainers are conservative, in the old school, practical definition, by design. We reuse bits of lumber scraps for shelving or hodgepodge pieces of furniture. Cut ends whittled down to little pieces make for good kindling in the wood stove or maybe even a birdhouse or boot scraper. We already reduce and reuse.

Beyond that basic practicality, many of us also wonder, What will cause the least amount of damage? We love our lands. Plus, it's a legitimate question to ask for many an endeavor in the twenty-first century. It's a question that is not unlike the Hippocratic Oath's proclamation to do no harm. All of us share this earth, air, and water. Doing no harm would do us all a favor.

It turns out that hemp plants can sequester the PFAS chemicals found in Maine's soil and waterways. According to research being conducted with the Aroostook Band of Micmac and Upland Grassroots, hemp plants are capable of sequestering toxins lodged in soils. As with the nutrients they take in, the plants can draw chemicals from the soil and store them away in the heavier fibers of the plants' stalks.

While many of the plant's medicinal uses have been touted lately, this added layer of soil cleansing provides further evidence that Cannabis sativa needs to be a staple agricultural product in North America. The uses take off from there. One of the most tangible products, one that most Mainers have a stake in, is lumber.

Used in composite flooring, layered timbers, and even as the fiber in "hempcrete," there are all manner of applications for this amazing plant. Maine still has a thriving timber industry, employing nearly 1 in 25 working adults, but that has been on a gradual decline for decades. Why not give a boost to our builders and wood product manufacturers by expanding this industry right here in Maine? As the fourth coldest state in the nation, we could even be brainstorming ways to make biomass pellets for our stoves!

None of this technology is new, per se. Their production, however, is the result of a shift in mindset. If we can keep that shift going, give it light and air, we could see new growth in these industries. As the pandemic has shown, there is no end to the demand for homes in Maine. Lumber isn't getting any cheaper, either, and we definitely need alternatives for heating our homes. Why not go all in on hemp?

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, coal was the primary source for heating homes, either in stoves or boilers. We couldn't imagine walking around a river valley town under a weather inversion packed with coal smoke now. Perhaps some day, we won't be able to imagine chimneys belching out effluents from non-renewable resources. Perhaps, some day, the smoke would issue from something a bit sweeter.

A familiar New England scene.

We're only one small piece of the puzzle here at Island Oasis, but the picture is coming together.

Prohibition Fears: When Will They Subside?

This blog post originally appeared on the Island Oasis Farm website, now decommissioned. Not sure if it translates over, but I did want to preserve some of that writing (2020-2024).

January 24, 2022

Maine has had a medical marijuana program for 22 years now. The state has enjoyed legal, recreational marijuana since the close vote on Question 1 in 2016. While that measure only passed with .6% of the vote (a difference of some 4,000 votes), it was enough to seal the deal. In 2012, when Martin Lee published Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana–Medical, Recreational, and Scientific, it was stunning to many Americans that both Washington and Colorado voters pulled for total legalization. Now, ten years later, only 14 states remain where both medical and recreational marijuana are illegal.

Reading Lee's book ten years after publication, it's amazing to consider how much ground medical and recreational marijuana efforts have gained. Already, in three of those 14 prohibition states mentioned above, marijuana possession has been decriminalized, a step toward a humane treatment of cannabis users. People of a certain generation can be forgiven for being absolutely flabbergasted by walking into a store and hearing the spiel of a seasoned budtender. It's a sea change. But one thing that Lee documents which is difficult to forgive? The years U.S. law enforcement agencies spent ignoring science at the highest level. 

Lee makes the war against marijuana seem clearly ill-considered.

Lee's project draws the reader in with a great rendering of Louis Armstrong's life as a dedicated jazz performer and "viper" (1920s slang for someone who puffed). Satchmo's story is compelling no matter what, but what makes this angle work here is that Armstrong smoked gauge his whole life without suffering ill effects. His personal physician, Dr. Jerry Zucker, publicly signed off on the trumpeter's good health, and Armstrong took to calling his daily doob his "medicine." Having grown up with tonics made from dandelion greens and tinctures of nettles, this other plant medicine made sense within the pantheon of home remedies.

“It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics. . . . It’s a thousand times better than whiskey – it’s an assistant – a friend,” Louis Armstong.

One of the more disappointing threads leading to outright prohibition following the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is the issue of race in America. Pushed onto Congress by Harry Anslinger, the zealous leader of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), the 1937 act set a tax rate so high on the creation and sale of medical or recreational marijuana products that no one could rightly produce this medicine without being afoul of federal law. In addition, by this time, 24 states had passed prohibitions of their own and temperance wasn't the only thing on their minds. 

These state's prohibitions followed in the footsteps of El Paso, TX, "which passed the first city ordinance banning the sale and possession of cannabis in 1914." The city had seen an influx of Mexicans following the Revolution of 1910, people in search of steady work and a quieter, safer life. They followed a long-standing tradition of cannabis consumption in the New World: laborers seeking a break from the tedium of their lives at the end of the day. However, in the context of early-20th century America, anti-marijuana and "vagrancy statutes, in addition to legally sanctioned segregation in housing, restaurants, and parks, comprised what [UCSD historian Curtis Marez] described as 'a web of social controls' that were 'mobilized to police Mexicans.' "

Meanwhile, the fact that marijuana and its derivatives had been used as a home remedy for centuries was willfully ignored. As early as 1860, an Ohio State Medical Society cataloged the various maladies cannabis helped patients manage and made recommendations to physicians accordingly. These maladies include, but are not limited to, bronchitis, rheumatism, postpartum depression, migraine headaches, nausea, menstrual cramps and insomnia. And yet, the federal government relied primarily on the testimony of FBN chief Harry Anslinger, who "fed titillating tidbits [of depraved pot crimes] to reporters, who wrote articles that the FBN chief would then cite in making the case that society was in imminent danger of moral collapse because of marijuana." Mostly, Anslinger was afraid of the FBN losing funding, and fear of racial mixing in the Jazz Era was an easy card for him to play.

Harry Anslinger inspecting a big haul.

The only authority in Congress back in 1936 who challenged Anslinger's fear mongering of miscegenation and deviance, was a doctor. "Dr. William Woodward, the legislative counsel for the American Medical Association (AMA), . . . challenged Anslinger's claim that cannabis was a dangerous drug with no therapeutic value." Thus begins a 70-year-cycle during which the federal government repeatedly ignored, suppressed, and even buried the very studies that they, themselves, had commissioned. The continual pattern throughout this period is that when the feds would commission a study that would purportedly make weed look bad, and when the medical community and scientists would offer evidence to the contrary, law enforcement and members of the executive, legislative, and judicial branch would ignore said study.

Here are a few examples:

In 1944, the New York Academy of Medicine published a report commissioned by then mayor of NYC Fiorello La Guardia studying what, if any, threat cannabis use posed to New York City. The report found that not only did cannabis not pose a threat, but instead "Americans had been needlessly frightened about marijuana's supposed dangers." Moreover, the report noted that "marijuana is not addictive and it does not cause insanity, sexual deviance, violence, or criminal misconduct." 

As a result of the La Guardia commission's report, Anslinger tailored his marijuana narrative to meet the needs of Cold War fear mongering about communism. In 1948, he testified that " 'Marijuana leads to pacifism and Communist brainwashing.' " This came some nine years after he had testified that marijuana was " 'the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.' " Not satisfied with that assertion alone, Anslinger went on to beat the drum of the "gateway drug" theory–pot smoking leads to the injection of heroin or cocaine in a few simple steps–a theory that the La Guardia commission had handily debunked.

In 1951, Congress passed the Boggs Amendment which raised the stakes on the casual user. Dealers, users, opiates, cannabis, no distinctions were made. All drugs (except for alcohol and tobacco, naturally) were painted with the same broad brush, and anti-American, international communists were to blame. All this despite the fact that America's #1 anti-communist, Sen. Joseph McCarthey, was himself a morphine addict. By the time the Kennedy administration commissioned yet another study of drug abuse in 1963, "the White House Conference on Narcotics and Drug Abuse concluded that the hazards of smoking marijuana were 'exaggerated.' "

The social upheaval of the 1960s led to an even sterner federal approach to marijuana. J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon sought to rein in any social dissent through the prosecution of narcotics. Marijuana was an easy target. So, as part of the Controlled Substances Act of 1971, the federal government initiated "a National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse . . . to establish the dangers of cannabis." Much to Nixon's chagrin, the "Shafer Commission," as it came to be known, "found no evidence that marijuana causes physical or psychological harm or any tortuous withdrawal symptoms following the sudden cessation of chronic, heavy use–no brain damage or birth defects, no compulsion to use hard drugs, and no evidence that a single human fatality has resulted solely from marijuana intoxication." Nixon never even read the commission and forged ahead with stepping up federal law enforcement. He enlisted the benzodiazepine and opiate addicted Elvis to be his pop-culture icon to boot!

Despite Jimmy Carter's attempt to backpedal on the federal law enforcement approach to marijuana, Reagan fired up the war on drugs, taking federal interdiction to a whole new level. In an effort to eradicate cannabis cultivation throughout the nation, "Reagan broke with long-standing legal tradition, which forbade the U.S. military from engaging in domestic law enforcement." In keeping with many of his predecessors, Reagan also ignored the findings of the National Academy of Sciences six-year study "which found 'no convincing evidence' that marijuana damages the brain or nervous system or decreases fertility." This did not stop SWAT and CAMP teams from terrorizing rural landowners from Maine to California every fall.

Dennis Peron, pioneer of the California Buyers Club and promoter of Brownie Mary’s healing edibles.

When, in 1988, the DEA's chief law judge pronounced that there is no reason why marijuana should remain a Schedule I substance, he was ignored. After having commissioned a rescheduling hearing on the matter, and after hearing testimony from cancer, HIV, and epilepsy patients, the Reagan-Bush team ignored the findings of their own study. George H.W. Bush also ceased the Compassionate IND program (the federal government's initial foray into medical cannabis with 8 patients), favoring instead the potential uses of the recently patented pharmaceutical Marinol (a THC pill).

From here on out, Lee's exhaustively researched history follows two lines. The first documents the rise in marijuana use for medical purposes through Buyer's Clubs and finally California's Proposition 215, which effectively legalized medical use. The other documents the federal government (often in secret collaborations with local law enforcement agencies) arresting, harassing, and targeting medical cannabis users and caregivers. We have come a long way.

The long shadow of this era of demonization, though, is still with us. It is reflected in the fact that Maine's vote to legalize came down to less than 1% of the vote. It is reflected in the fact that in many towns and counties, opposition to legalization constituted more than two-thirds of the vote. The anti-marijuana tactics of fear mongering, ingrained into several generations of Americans, will take time to overcome. 

In this manner, maybe then Maine's slow roll-out of legal, recreational cannabis is a good thing. Mainers may begin to recognize that this is not a demon in their midst, but perhaps a new opportunity to develop better relationships with our own scientific community.

Climate and Change

This blog post originally appeared on the Island Oasis Farm website, now decommissioned. Not sure if it translates over, but I did want to preserve some of that writing (2020-2024).

August 20, 2021

In February of 1977, the United States was facing an energy crisis spurned by a cold winter, wasteful habits, and dependence on foreign oil. Then President Jimmy Carter suggested that "[a]ll of us must learn to waste less energy. Simply by keeping our thermostats, for instance, at 65 degrees in the daytime and 55 degrees at night we could save half the current shortage of natural gas." This was not a popular sentiment. He then pledged that by 2000, 20% of all US energy would be from renewables.

Market complexity and pricing issues aside, one of President Ronald Reagan's first energy policy changes was to deregulate the fossil fuel industry and to roll back EPA enforcement. The free market would weed out inefficiencies. True to form, that administration immediately cut research and development funding for alternative energy by as much as 85%. R&D for wind was all but eliminated. After all, in regards to the California Redwoods, this was the guy who famously said "you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?"

Policy-wise, we are a nation that has been teetering between these two, polar-opposite approaches to environmental concerns ever since. One administration implements strict CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards; the next administration cuts them. This has been our dance for quite some time. However, the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is striking. Climate change is real; and humans' love for all things carbon is largely to blame. What is an American to do? More specifically, how can Maine's entrepreneurs adapt to a rapidly changing future?

Katahdin obscured by wildfire smoke from the West (August 2021).

One thing Downeast Mainers know to be true is that increasing temperatures to our south (combined with COVID cabin fever) has ratcheted up interest in the Acadia region. To meet the demand, more locals are adopting innovative ways to capitalize on this increase via AirBnB, VRBO, and HipCamp. There is a more subtle force that continues to draw people to our region, though, and Island Oasis Farm believes that it is this: Americans crave small-scale authenticity and a healthy environment. And our region has no shortage of locally sourced food, spirits, and crafts, not to mention the experience of unplugging in a quieter corner of our busy country.

The connection to climate change may not be all too obvious at first glance. However, as we continue to witness the effects of heat, drought, and fire out West, excessive flooding and heat in the Southeast, we cannot help but question what is and what is not sustainable. According to the USDA, 70% of the 76 million acres of the US soybean crop was used for the livestock industry. Without even examining the farming methods used for such output, it is safe to say that this is not an industry focused on slowing the process of climate change. The acreage involved is mind-boggling. But what if there was a 30% reduction in meat consumption meant that much of that acreage could be devoted to small-scale, local produce for human consumption? What would that look like?

Looking west toward Number Four, Lily Bay and Prong Pond Mountains with wildfire smoke (August 2021).

Here in Hancock County Maine, we have a pretty good idea. On a given summer day, residents of MDI, alone, have several local farms to choose from for sourcing their food. Whether one opts in to a CSA (community supported agriculture) share from the Bar Harbor Farm or purchases brisket for the barbecue from Brown Family Farm, that consumer choice cuts a lot of transportation out of the equation. Yes, some of these farm organizations are non-profits or dependent on financial backers, but aren't big agribusinesses (not to mention the trucking industry via federal highways) also subsidized? We have to start somewhere.

Locally, our small-scale farmers, often certified and supported by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), provide an incredible bounty. Hancock County boasts farmers' markets in almost every substantial town with a central gathering place: Blue Hill, Bar Harbor, Ellsworth, etc. They are a great place to make CSA connections, too. Most people bring their own produce bags, and large-scale models of trucking and distribution are all but eliminated. This is not a panacea, of course, but it is a step down the road of changing the way we think about production, consumption. and emissions.

The scale of American agribusiness is staggering. Is this the only model? (Rural Indiana, August 2021.)

While cannabis production on a large-scale can often involve questionable practices, especially regarding CO2, on the small-scale significant changes are possible. Adding solar to run lights, exploring regenerative soil practices, using hoop house methods, composting hemp stalks, eliminating the need for large-scale transport (aka "food miles") are but a few possibilities. Closing the loop on waste is a start. It is the local farmers and fishermen of our region who have provided the steadiest examples of how buying local is possible. Now, even Fogtown Brewing is providing a model of reducing food miles and supporting locals by sourcing ingredients from Maine.

Could any of this mirror Jimmy Carter's adage about lowering thermostats? We believe it does. Island Oasis is just beginning this journey, and we are committed to maintaining high standards for quality, locally sourced medicine for our patients.

Community

This blog post originally appeared on the Island Oasis Farm website, now decommissioned. Not sure if it translates over, but I did want to preserve some of that writing (2020-2024).

May 25, 2021

Community is something that has been lacking these 14 long COVID months. It’s a subtle thing, too, community. It takes time to grow, and like aging, one hardly notices it happening until it has arrived or there are drastic changes. The absence of community can creep in the same way. Once COVID began to settle in, and we adjusted our lifestyles to being more solitary, that became the norm. Now that we are gradually returning to making more face to face contact, we can experience what had been missing.

Island solitude

Just recently, folks were gathering for a night of glass blowing at Ken and Linda Perrin's Atlantic Art Glass in the heart of Ellsworth, Maine. They live the example of building community from the ground up, gradually, over time. Their studio had long been home of an annual winter solstice fire gathering and a variety of other art glass events. Little by little, they built a thread of community where like-minded folks can gather to appreciate the craft of glass blowing and art, in general. Their love of the art emanated outward, drawing in others with similar passions. In turn, their studio became a cross-roads that seeded inspiration and ideas for newer, blossoming projects like the Fogtown brewery below, another place where the like-minded gather. In Belfast, the Three Tides has been reawakening in similar fashion.

Our first live music since March 6, 2020 at the Three Tides in Belfast.

Building community is part of what such projects are all about. Likewise, Island Oasis Farm is not just a grow operation distributing “weed.” This is not a business driven by profit or market share or "crushing the competition." This is a small operation devoted to a type of quality that weaves like-minded folks together in a larger fabric of common pathways. Medical cannabis is a product, yes, but it is more than that. It is reaching out and making deliveries to patients during a pandemic. It is taking the time to talk shop and compare notes with other farmers. It is the hub of one wheel within a community of many wheels, overlapping and Venn diagramming.

Many Americans lack the town square or open air marketplace that so many cultures around the world enjoy on the regular. We are car culture, rural Americans anyway, and we are dispersed. COVID made that clear for many of us, and it is a welcome change for things to start opening again. We thrive on that connection, even if it's non-verbal. Isn't that why many of us are drawn toward farmers' markets? We can connect produce with the actual farmer, and there is a closed loop. There, we can bump into other folks who share a similar mindset seeking small-scale, organic, products from the heart.

Obviously, not everything in our lives can operate this way in our modern society. However, COVID showed us that the absence of such community leaves a gaping hole in people's lives. This is why there is such a high demand to return to live music in America: it is a place of gathering. Restaurants and pubs, too, are a part of that fabric. It is deeply wired into our DNA, a piece of what makes us human. Scurrying through the grocery aisles, grabbing products in a hurry, scanning them and checking out is not the same community experience. It never will be.

We choose to inhabit these spaces; and we rely on our friends.

While Island Oasis Farms may not have begun as community builder, we can now see that it actually is. Derrick's values about growing a superior product, regardless of the extra time and effort and detail, attracts patients who expect the same. His passion for doing it right is what keeps a steady roster of patients returning. The alternative, the transactional grocery store version of massive scale cannabis sales through large dispensaries is more akin to the grocery store transaction. The patients, here, want to know their farmer, to know their product, and to have that deeply personal connection. That is community.

Some months ago, this webmaster shared the Island Oasis blog with some acquaintances online for feedback. One critic wrote, “There should just be pictures of the buds with prices, and then show me how to buy it. Period. This website looks like an ad for a lifestyle or something.” 

While we would never act on this criticism, in part, we agree. It is about lifestyle, and that lifestyle is all about building a strong fabric of community.

No man is an island. We may inhabit them, we may need them, but we are not islands.

Let's Keep it Local

This blog post originally appeared on the Island Oasis Farm website, now decommissioned. Not sure if it translates over, but I did want to preserve some of that writing (2020-2024).

January 24, 2020

A new year and a new decade is upon us. What will the future bring? Of course, we're always hoping for great things, but there are always bumps in the road, too. 2020 was no slouch when it came to dealing everyone tough blows, and 2021 started on a few sour notes for some of us. No one among us can say that the Presidential transition was anything but usual. In the long run, most Americans want to know that we can continue pursuing our lines of work and creativity without anything more than the natural disruptions in our path. They are plenty. But, enter Maine's Office of Marijuana Policy (OMP).

Toward the end of the 2020 calendar year, OMP dropped a possible new set of regulations on the laps of Maine's marijuana caregivers. The onerous 80-some pages of legalese are no picnic to wade through, and these pages raise some concerning questions. Chief among them is this. If the US Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy reports that in 2019, 99.2% of Maine businesses are classified as small businesses, shouldn't we all be working tirelessly to maintain this diverse and vibrant economic ecosystem? Why would we want to make being a medical cannabis caregiver so onerous that the average Mom and Pop shop cannot survive? 

This is at the core of farmer Derrick's ethos, too (as covered in the August posting, "Know Your Farmer"). Island Oasis Farms is a small operation providing the highest quality organic product possible to patients, and it's local. From seed to cured flower, patients can know exactly what is in their medicine, not to mention the soils it grew from and who raised it. This is a healthy, reliable, and trusted way to keep patients in touch with a small community of like-minded souls. In our far-flung rural areas, these sorts of communities are an essential part of who we are, part of our fellowship and trust.

Why, then, would we want to open our medical market to larger, out-of-state forces who can set up and operate at a scale that Maine's homegrown industries will have a difficult time competing against? This is counter intuitive. Recent news that Massachusetts-based Nova Farms is buying up a 170-acre parcel in Thorndike might be welcome news to some, particularly to landowners and farmers looking to retire through land sales. However, this is a vertically integrated farm-to-retail industry that will siphon the majority of the profits to out-of-state owners. The product might be good, but that isn't necessarily supporting an independent, Maine economy knit together with small businesses.

A large, vertically integrated out-of-state business does have it's advantages. This means that a company controls everything from the seed to the packaged product. However, a cursory glance at their product line reveals a lot of packaging: prerolls inside cartons like cigs, pre-packed, disposable pipes and vapes, and every manner of edible imaginable. Power to them (provided all this packing doesn't end up on my lawn alongside the Fireball bottles, COVID masks, and food wrappers). Still, it is difficult to ignore the return address to headquarters: Attleboro, MA. All those profits will be heading out of state. In the aggregate, what does Maine gain in this new equation with recreational sales?

Island Oasis is not here to rail against business. Rather, we aim to encourage smart growth that is sustainable for our local communities. Much the way Maine is proud of its burgeoning beer industry, we hope for something that starts and ends in Maine. The lobster industry is another parallel. Ambitious entrepreneurs can strike out on their own, here, on the coast. The money they earn stays in our communities in the form of home improvement, land stewardship, boat building and marine services, not to mention spending in our local restaurants and pubs. Businesses that begin in Maine, powered by Mainers, invest in Maine.

"Burning of the Midnight Lamp"

 "Loneliness is Such a Drag"

In David Brooks's new book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen, he expends a great deal of energy extolling the virtues of community and looks askance at the nihilistic solitude of our new techno world. Technology, he argues, can be a great tool for building community. However, all too often, it reinforces a withdrawal from community. People inhabit echo chambers that do little to relieve their sense of isolation and being misunderstood.

Rock Creek Park 1989

I've always loved the opening track to Wilco's Being There, "Misunderstood," as it resonates with this emotional landscape Brooks is describing. It's a feeling of being around people but not being of them. It's a feeling of looking at the world through rain splattered window panes rather than being wet out on the street. Much as I try to describe it, the feeling is ineffable. While such emotion can be beatific at times and lead to great insight (see Kerouac), without a community to share one's epiphanies, such insights are empty ephemera. Thus, loneliness.

As a middle-aged, working stiff in Post-Truth America, my sense of loneliness can hit at the weirdest of times. The loneliness can hit hardest when surrounded by all sorts of people at work, home, or even going out. (How could I ever explain, for example, as Garcia once did, that psychedelics were one of the most formative and important experiences of my life?) Stubbornly, as a Mainer, alienation and isolation are not uncommon or even unwelcome feelings. My county in Maine is 60% larger than the state of Rhode Island with a population of 54,000 as compared to Rhode Island's 1,000,000. We like it that way. Still, emotionally, there can be dead zones, deep ones.

In various interviews, Brooks argues that one way to cross the moat between oneself and the community on the other side is to find like-minded people doing like-minded things. Well, duh, I've thought, for the 8th or 9th time hearing him say it in radio interviews. And yet, like Occam's Razor, the simplest solutions are often the most profound. Why wouldn't I be feeling bouts of loneliness in middle age? After all, I'd spent my teens and twenties immersed in the American hardcore and Deadhead scenes. (Yes, I see a Venn diagram overlapping Dead and punk.) From the time I started going to concerts, hung out on the streets of Portsmouth, NH, took my first stage dive, dropped acid with friends, and hugged a sweaty stranger at the Richmond Coliseum, I belonged somewhere.

In Amir Bar-Lev's brilliant documentary about the Grateful Dead, Long Strange Trip, the central trope is Jerry's fascination with Frankenstein. A freak cobbled together out of other dead body parts and technology, the monster finds gentle, earthly delights in a meadow inside a copse of poplars beside a stream. There, a young girl offers him a flower. It's basically the same trope that Jerry used to describe to Sam Cutler who the Grateful Dead were, when they first met around 1969. A monster, feeling like a social reject, struggles through a tight forest only to stumble into light, and warmth, and welcoming. A teenage, mohawked punk meets a skater kid and a Two-Tone skanker in an otherwise desolate town, and BOOM! Suddenly, there's a scene, a community.

How many of us felt this sense of relief and joy in community we'll never know for sure. My guess is that we number in the millions. How many people stumbled into that copse only to thrash about and run back to the main, paved road in fear, we'll never know. I bet they number in the tens of millions, though. Fear of being led astray is funny that way. Still, when the light shone down on me, and it all clicked, yet again, I'd felt a community. I belonged. My behavior wasn't aberrant or abhorrent. My dreams and visions and concerns didn't exist in solitude. Shouting my passion from the rooftop (or tailgate), I'd receive hi-fives and hugs in return. I could find my own brand of introverted solitude in the comfort of the crowd, not just any crowd, but my people.

Naturally, one's 30s come knocking. Some prepare for these transitions better than others. I was not prepared, and like a horse resisting the saddle, the bit, and the spur, I did every damn thing I could to resist the Puritan work yoke. Stubborn as a mule, economic necessity and the ever droning "get a job" reality of modern America stifled my wandering ways. On the other hand, that's a natural transition, too, and, as one Maine islander said to me back at the turn of the millennium, "Well, everybody's got to be somebody somewhere." Thank heavens I'd landed in a community of rummy fishermen and islander renegades. Community takes all forms. 

Way leads to way, and that chapter ended, too. Being on the mainland, entering into a "bigger job," dealing with more and more adulting by my 40s, finding connection and community seemed tougher and tougher. The feelings of isolation or being unseen crept in more and more. And why wouldn't they? The early 2000s Phil Quintet scene had dried up. My show experiences were catch as catch can. I was eternally grateful for the Gathering of the Vibes summer fests and the momentary presence of Furthur. Phish's reunion has been a revelation, too, but these are moments that I slip into like ice fishermen huddled around a hole, hikers sharing a camping tip or two; it's seasonal.

Fare Thee Well 2015

Connection to a like minded community should never be seasonal in the best of worlds. It should be an "everything." But unless you went all-in on a Mapleton or Walton, Oregon commune and spent all winter preparing for the Country Fair, unless you hitched your wagon to the music industry or vending in festival lots, unless you made a concerted effort to paint outside the American lines, you have probably found yourself longing for the community of like-minded Deadheads with whom you can grok up on music and psychedelic enlightenment, speechlessly, warmth in the eyes and tinkle of ankle bells and hugs and dancing and no judgment. Unless you have painted outside the lines, you have probably had the experience of driving home from work while an exhilarating Dark Star plays, wondering what would happen if you just kept on driving.

We were introduced to community and connection in such a profound way in our youth that it is understandable that we might not feel the same in middle age. Philosophically, David Brooks is late to the party (but we'll leave him a seat at the table if he so chooses). We know this, because we keep coming back, trying to connect and find one another in the dark, American night. Hoping, hoping against all odds, to "keep the mother rollin' / One more time."

Love you all. Happy Holidays.