John Steinbeck wrote that redwoods, once seen, “leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always – from them comes silence and awe.” As we walked among them in several groves along the 31-mile long “Avenue of the Giants”, we could only echo Steinbeck’s emotion. It ‘s one thing to walk among the ruins of civilizations gone millennia ago amidst noisy shutterbugs and souvenir hawking vendors – it is another to touch the tallest and oldest living things in creation in a peaceful green gallery and feel time itself.

This is exactly what I feel when I visit these forests. My times in the Redwood Forest are some of the most memorable and inspiring I’ve ever had. When I am there I become quiet, realizing that my busy-ness and my striving to become important is not as important as I perceive it. My place in this world is not the center, and I am much less important than I have thought. But this is not a bad thing, it brings me to become less selfish, more caring, and more compassionate of a person. The joys of Friluftsliv.

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Some upcoming down-to-earth-science fiction includes the Leonid Meteor Shower, the utopian vision of Sam Adams Brewery and Jefferson State Brewery, and the Science Pub at McMenamins through OMSI.

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Microtopian ethos is where you sit back and enjoy life instead of striving for a larger utopian goal. Here are three examples: A quote from Henry David Thoreau work and leisure; an example from LOST about cultivating friendship; and a story about a meditation teacher who flipped someone off and wanted to feel guilty about it.

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A chess set depicting capitalist and socialist chess pieces, with a clear preference to the socialists. Also, pictures of street interventions that subtly proclaim generosity as a viable alternative economy.

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The motivation for utopian projects is the wonderful and enlivening stance that we are an active part of creating the world, that our actions can shape our life according to our most precious beliefs. But somehow following the path of creating utopia doesn’t work out the way people envision. Why have people’s attempts to make the world over in the image of their ideals not produced ideal places to live?

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Excerpt from A Call to Artists: Support Parecon where artist Jerry Fresia calls artists to create their own context and build a greater model for sustaining the careers and lives of artists.

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A list of all the science fiction (sci fi) movies I’ve watched this summer. Plus excerpts from Henri Lefebvre’s “Work and Leisure in Everyday Life” about vacation and work.

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