February 2003
Work Passion
by Bobbye Middendorf
It’s always the right time to find inspiration for renewal, to discover role models, to learn how people live in alignment with their values. The growing number of people who work to consciously "walk their talk" and live their values of concern for the Earth and its environment, for peace, social justice, personal growth, healthy and holistic lifestyles, and spiritual development are part of an invisible groundswell. Dubbed by sociologist and researcher Paul Ray, "Cultural Creatives," they are creating a new "integral culture." They hate sound bites because they always want the deeper story and are attuned to learning via a "whole system" approach.
Maybe that essential antipathy toward easy categorization is the reason that they resist sound-bite-like definition for themselves. According to Ray’s research, there are an estimated 50 million people in the United States who have made this conscious choice to live by values that are not supported within the dominant consumerist "more, bigger, better" success and growth-oriented culture. Because there isn’t a mirror within the major media, these 50 million people all think they are forging an emerging culture all by themselves.
Paul Ray makes some interesting observations in his book Cultural Creatives. "As they step away from the mainstream assumptions and values of modern culture, they are piecing together a life they passionately care about.... In the midst of a society with compartmentalized values, they are doing what they can to weave a coherent and integrated life. They don’t claim to have all the answers. Picking and choosing what matters most to them, each one is trying to create a new synthesis of value and meaning." These are people who have been willing to discover their own truth, and have learned to trust it. (Paul Ray’s research into this cultural cohort is explained in the book, Cultural Creatives and on his Web site.)
Meet Those on the Front Line
Six local Cultural Creatives in diverse disciplines agreed to talk about their healthy, green and/or spiritual values, and the challenges they face, for even in the most values-aligned lives, there are always issues to address. Connecting their values to their everyday lives, these individuals are examples of local Cultural Creatives "walking their talk," even when things aren’t perfect. With authenticity as one of the key Cultural Creative watchwords, you can resolve to connect with their services or products and find kindred spirits.
Laurie Pentell: Reaching Out to Like-minded Cultural Creatives
To provide the context for this discussion, I spoke with Laurie Pentell, founder and leading light of Sageheart Alliance, the nucleus for the local Chicago community of Cultural Creatives. She recalls, "In the mid-90s, I was working in a conservative corporation, and had a chance to hear Paul Ray talk about his research on what he was calling‘Cultural Creatives.’ The essence of the energy in that room told me I was with my people. It was a rare experience for me at the time. I made a commitment to‘come out’ as a Cultural Creative. Paul’s research provided a larger context to what I had been experiencing my whole life."
Says Pentell, "It can be a real challenge to be pulled forward by a vision of something better, by hope, and loftiness. Usually we fall into one of the many fears we face. As Cultural Creatives, our mission is to evolve our way out of the fear. We are learning to allow ourselves to expand beyond the assumed limitations. I believe we’re headed in the right evolutionary direction, but it’s still a challenge to address questions like,‘How is my spirit optimally expressed?’"
Pentell explains the founding of Sageheart Alliance as a way to address difficulties she faced. The gift of those difficulties is that they are the ultimate source for new creations and healing. "I created Sageheart to heal my own sense of feeling disenfranchised from the dominant culture. I wanted to bring people together from all corners of the integral culture in Chicago. Now I’m asking more,‘What do I and my work bring to the healing of the planet?’" At the same time, acknowledging the real challenges, she notes, "My leading edge ideas aren’t supporting me in the existing structures at the moment." She faces the ongoing challenge of drawing tired, overbooked people out of their cozy nests to attend events. And yet creating that in-person community is one of the keys that Paul Ray considers critical to Cultural Creatives finally recognizing each other and their power.
"We’re the ones dancing on the edge," says Pentell. "We don’t know what the new paradigm will be, but when it arrives, Cultural Creatives will have much to offer. This movement is a connecting point for people of like mind." To that end, Sageheart is hosting Maureen McCarthy, founder of "The State of Grace" document. At this "New Underground" gathering, local Cultural Creatives will discuss alternatives for existing systems and structures. (Visit www.Sageheart.com for event particulars.)
Tom Spaulding: Embracing the Earth, Your Food, and Community
A dirt lane winds past electrified fences holding chickens and modest coop structures, ducks, goats, and draft horses. Heading away from Angelic Organics’ pristine fields toward woods and savanna restoration areas, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members, urban youth, and farm interns enter a space of awe and wonder, reconnecting with the land in all its richness at the CSA Learning Center at Angelic Organics.
Founded and run by Tom Spaulding, a long-time Angelic Organics shareholder, the Learning Center, located in Caledonia, IL — about 90 miles northwest of Chicago, was conceptualized in autumn 1998. At a week long meeting, the farm team, Spaulding, and other volunteers committed to creating the CSA Learning Center to host ongoing education programs focusing on "renewing relationships with land, farmers, and community." While the farm is about growing vegetables, the mission of the Learning Center is about "growing people," says Spaulding, "providing experiential learning, and making the farm accessible."
Spaulding came to create a farm-based nonprofit after fifteen years’ work in international humanitarian social development. Crystallizing for him all that was amiss with the status quo attitudes, was a comment from the U.S. Ambassador at the Rio Earth Summit, insisting that, "The American way of life is not up for negotiation." Spaulding notes, "I was shocked, even embarrassed, and realized that this is our shadow." That comment sent him searching for work aligned with his values. "This country has great strength and enduring values, but our level of consumption is not a good thing. We must be responsible for our consumption."
Spaulding took the leap that many Creatives long to take: leaving the city, air travel, long commutes. "It was a leap of faith that was aligning with my own inner joy," he acknowledges. He took to life on the farm, having experienced rural living growing up in California. Initially, he worked half time at the Learning Center. "I was renewed and fulfilled, working alongside adults, youth, farmers, interns, and kids, connecting with bounty, the wisdom of the land, with awe." For the first few years, he focused on home schooling his children the other half of the time. "Our cost of living went down. While there was less income, there were fewer expenses." He acknowledges that the transition to a rural life was hardest on his wife, who grew up in urban Caracas, Venezuela.
Even in this idyllic setting, creating a life in alignment with his values, there remain challenges. "I would have continued to home school the kids, but that wasn’t working out for everyone else." He also notes continuing challenges with making connections with surrounding farmers.
For the center’s guests, "there’s so much second-hand living," he says, "but once people connect with this experience first-hand, they move from audience to participant. We seduce them with joy." In addition, the challenges of running a nonprofit can be daunting. The CSA Learning Center started with $15,000 in seed money — hardly a lavish budget for creating a nonprofit organization. They have gotten grants, and continue to increase revenue from donations as well as selling handcrafted farm products in collaboration with other nonprofit partners. "We’re going into our fifth season," he says, as he is living his own commitment and teaching it to others. "We are all stewards of the land."
Monika Andreas: Aligning Your Body and Your Breath
Nestled, kiva-like into the earth, the Lakeside Yoga Center is a warm, inviting retreat all year round, with exceptional opportunities for ultra-deep relaxation. But in the dead of winter, with its fireplace glowing, its hot tub bubbling, its yoga students flexing around the clean and beautifully appointed space, this established yoga and massage center nurtures the soul as well as the body, and limbers up the spirit as well as tight muscles.
The benefits of a lifetime of yoga practice — strength, flexibility, stamina, centered focus — are evident in Lakeside’s founder, Monika Andreas. "Breath connects you with your soul over and over again. People start to feel who they really are and what their purpose is...yoga also helps people get in touch with feelings on deeper levels." She admits, "This can sometimes deter people." Andreas credits her lifetime of yoga practice with being able to continue to offer massage for 25 years. "Usually something wears out after ten years," she notes.
She practiced yoga for eight years prior to opening her Arlington Heights living room to yoga classes in the late 1970s. "I ended up selling the living and dining room furniture to have space," she recalls. While her three sons weren’t universally approving of the strangers in the living room, the youngest often crawled into her lap during the evening classes and fell asleep.
Andreas credits her early days of yoga as the foundation and inspiration for a whole life. "Yoga helped me to be strong and present with three growing boys as a single mom. It helped the body to open up and the mind to expand. It was what enabled me to be surrounded by a conscious community, people who introduced me to healthy, conscious eating. And it helped me to come into my own power."
When asked what seemed out of keeping for her as a yoga teacher, Andreas laughs. "I like to have a couple of Heinekens on Friday night after a long week of hard work. And there’s an inner athlete who wants to move faster than yoga allows." She dances, swims, bikes, and every five years or so, trains for the triathlon. From her perspective, it’s out of character for a yoga teacher to do triathlons, even just to prove to herself and the world the incredible benefits that yoga provides. At age 40, she trained for one month and ran a marathon just to see what it was like. Now she acknowledges that "While I love swimming and biking, I hate running, and dread training for that part of the triathlon." But that’s exactly what she intends to do come fall 2003.
In Evanston for the past seventeen years, the center currently faces the challenge of increased competition as yoga has gone mainstream. One attribute that sets Lakeside Yoga Center apart is that it honors numerous yoga traditions, to the benefit of clients. That too is out of keeping with some in the growing yoga industry. Says Andreas, "I care about people who like to move, and I want them to be healthy." To that end, new programs offer strength and flexibility for those who don’t consider themselves flexible enough to do yoga. With classes like "Therapeutic Back Care and More" and "Yoga for Golfers and Athletes," Andreas makes the case that yoga is for everyone. Her center is also one of the few venues to offer yoga for kids among a full schedule of offerings.
Dr. Kimberly Curtis: Bonding with Your Healthy Pet
A small woman with a large shoulder bag and a plastic tackle box rang our bell. It was home visit veterinarian, Dr. Kimberly Curtis, to give Diamond, our Anti-Cruelty Society puppy, her check-up. She graciously accepted the doggie kisses and got to work on the ever-squirming bundle of spaniel.
A licensed veterinarian, Curtis has made a life-long commitment to animals. She is founder of Handle with Care Home Veterinary Services and has taken additional education and certification to offer holistic medical services to dogs and cats. Early in her career, she happened on an alternative healthcare session at a national vet education convention. "I listened in, and I was hooked!"
Combining nutrition, homeopathy, Chinese herbs, and animal chiropractic with traditional veterinary medicine, Curtis aims to treat the whole animal. By serving her patients and their "companion humans" at home, she is able to view the whole context of the human-animal interaction, a broader picture than is available when animals are brought into a vet’s office.
She acknowledges, "As I got into the idea of home veterinary services, I found initially that this service worked as a great option for clients who were elderly or disabled. It’s also good for puppies or kittens, so you don’t expose them to problems before their immune systems are ready. Eventually I found that I developed a different relationship with clients, got a better view of the human-animal bond, and was able to look at the whole animal and much of its lifestyle to figure out why an illness is happening."
However, the vet faces her challenges. As a medical professional, Curtis bemoans the disposable medical culture, where needles for one time use come wrapped in numerous layers of plastic. She currently sees no alternative for maintaining the standards of care. "I’m not comfortable with other ways of doing things, especially related to the sanitation issues, although I’m always looking for alternatives," she says.
"One of the things I struggle with, and I know other holistic practitioners do as well, is putting a dollar value on these holistic services. Our goal is to help the pet (or person) cure themselves. I know some of these therapeutic measures can help pets," she says. "At the same time, it’s a challenge to create a reasonable fee structure to make a living."
In addition, Curtis is a vegetarian and has been for more than a decade. She isn’t vegan, but is moving in the direction of not consuming any animal products. However, her canine and feline companions are not vegetarian. "I made a decision to feed my little carnivores the diet closest to what they would receive if they were able to hunt and forage naturally. So I go to the store to provide them a raw meat based diet from organic, humanely raised animals. Raw meat is more suited to dogs’ and cats’ digestive systems," she says. "This is a decision I struggle with, and this is the compromise I have come to."
Jim and Linda Parks: Choosing Movement, Light and Communication
Seeing Jim and Linda Parks in the same room is a visual equivalent of their recent compact disc (CD), "Journey into Light." Sparky, energetic, and clearly very much in love after 28 years, they are celebrating their empty nest as their youngest son recently departed for college. In a startlingly fresh and supportive dialogue with this husband-wife Cultural Creative team, the Evanston-based Parks shared insights on the work they do that looks like heaven to those still chained to the corporate desk.
Linda does work that is her play. As a life organizer and certified Feng Shui consultant, Linda provides clients with supportive nurturing, functional spaces, offering the benefits her tagline promises: "Clear Your Space, Clear Your Mind." Jim chimes in, "She’s a genius with space. I’ve watched her work."
As a youngster, Linda rearranged spaces. "It never occurred to me that it was a business. Eventually friends were paying to fly me around the country to help them organize their spaces," she recalls. About five years ago, she realized that it was indeed a gift that could be her livelihood, and she hasn’t turned back since.
Jim Parks lives his passion for communicating. With a voice that makes emotional connections with people, he has earned his livelihood as TV host, actor, and doing audio voice-overs. Currently he is host of "New Spaces" on HGTV. He explains his work, "As host, I see myself as the glue that holds the show together. My job is to be accessible, friendly, be the person who helps camera-shy workmen or home owners be comfortable." While his wife moves around things like furniture to create positive energy flows, he moves energy among the participants in the show doing his interviewing magic. "I’m a conduit. I interview people so they look good. The show offers a real service for people who want to improve their environments." He and the HGTV team are taking the learning opportunities on the road, where Parks will be moderator for a series of Remodeling 101 seminar-workshops at home shows around the country.
The challenge, as explained by the Parks, is for freelance people who have given up the regular paycheck. "When you choose a Cultural Creative lifestyle, you don’t have any security. We’re always catching our breath, asking,‘Now how are we going to make money?’ Our challenge is to keep going — doing what we love and trusting that the money will follow."
Linda Parks’ bouts of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), the winter blues and blahs, were the inspiration for husband Jim to create a CD, a labor of love that became a professional level CD with music by Ed Tossing. The guided light meditations were masterminded and narrated by Jim. "I made a series of visualizations focusing on light in many different ways. These are transporting, positive, life-affirming meditations for light and healing. We call them meditation vacations." With tracks like‘Tropical Spa’ and‘Shower of Light,’ there’s an unmistakable brilliance that resonates. The Parks also face formidable challenges in the realities of the music business as they seek distribution for their CD. Still, they continue self-marketing, adding online and retail venues willing to commit to a label with a solo CD.
Wanting to Choose the Path?
It is possible to live more closely aligned with your values, although be ready to face challenges of all shapes and sizes. But since you’ll face challenges anyway, you might as well choose to have fun, and do what you were put here to do in the process. Maybe some of these leading lights can help you along your path!
Bobbye Middendorf is a writer and Cultural Creative in Chicago. Connect with her at jasbjm@earthlink.net
Resources
Cultural Creatives are welcome to build a community together, check out events, read (and even listen to) cool interviews at www.Sageheart.com
To find out more about Paul Ray’s work, go to www.culturalcreatives.org
To find out more about yoga programs and massage for every body, visit www.LakesideYogaCenter.com
To connect with the land, buy farm products, or support the community of farmers, interns, volunteers, urban gardeners and others, check out www.CSALearningCenter.org
Have a healthy New Year for your pet. Call Dr. Kim Curtis at 312-458-0969.
Check out www.AJourneyintoLight.com for information on the Parks’ CD and how you can shine away SAD days this winter. You can also contact Linda via the Web site to learn more about getting organized.
Would-be remodelers can learn more about HGTV’s "New Spaces" hosted by Jim Parks by visiting www.HGTV.com
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