Been feeling a little unsettled today after yesterday's posting - not sure why. Maybe because I had such a strong reaction to Jose Antonio Vargas' story, the human side of it, and for me maybe, the humanistic side of it, without really having a lot of knowledge about some of the things I was talking about - factual knowledge. Has that ever happened to you? I mean, how much do I really know?

What I know - or think I know...

• First, I need to learn more about immigration and immigration policy.
• Immigration - documented or undocumented - is a complicated subject.
• Our nation was built on the backs and with the minds and hearts of immigrants. We often forget that white Europeans who settled the US were originally immigrants.
• Sometimes it feels like the brouhaha about immigration now is related at least in part to the reality that many of the people who want to enter our country and become citizens have dark skin.
• It also feels like the tension is related to fear about the future, about the economy, about what might be ahead. We often react with fear when faced with the unknown.
• Immigrants, of both types, contribute to our economy - as workers, consumers, and often taxpayers.
• Whether or not we want to acknowledge it, our economy depends upon the labor of immigrants, of both types.
• Immigrants of both types also use public services.
• We have policies that are supposed to support and oversee legal immigration.
• These policies are far from perfect, and are cumbersome, costly, and confusing.
• There are passionate arguments on both sides, some carefully researched, some rising from strong feelings ... browse through these three web-sites:
•         Drum Major Institute for Public Policy - Contributions of Immigrants
•         US Illegal Aliens - The Dark Side
•         Pappy's Ponderings - Illegal Immigration

If you have been reading my blog, you might know that I have biases - arising from a combination of my values, ethics, experiences, profession, politics, faith, and education. I have a world-view that some, but certainly not all, share. The lens through which I view the world is that it is a world of abundance, not scarcity. There is more than enough for all, though that might mean that for all to have enough, things might have to level out a bit. I know that others may have had experiences, terrible experiences, that have led them to view life through the lens of scarcity. Yet I have known people who have had terrible experiences, lives of devastating unfairness and fathomless losses, who are still able to view the world as abundant, who are still able to hold out hope and to act with generosity. What allows this to happen? I don't know. Most of the time, I believe that we have a choice about our lens, but I don't really know.

When I think about Jose Antonio Vargas and others like him, I see adults, but I also see the children within the adults - who they used to be - the kids whose parents wanted them to have lives better than theirs. I have children - I get this.

When I read Pappy's Ponderings and the site US Illegal Aliens, tears come to my eyes - I sense so much anger and fear in those words. It makes me sad. I believe that listening to, understanding, getting along with people who are different from us is important. We need to do this for the good of all of us who share this home called earth. 

It is complicated, and I want to learn more.

Why have I not thought about this before? Why have I not ever thought about how sustainability and immigration issues might be related?

So, according to the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the APA Climate Change Task Force, and other reports, human behaviors over the last two centuries, particularly in the last 75 years, have contributed significantly to global climate change. Particular aspects of human functioning that have contributed to climate change - known as human drivers - include patterns of increased consumption/materialism and increased population. These two primary drivers result in an increase in emission of green house gases, which then leads to global warming and other kinds of climate change. Climate change is currently viewed by many as the biggest threat, on a global level, to health and security.

Unless climate change trends are reversed, or its effects significantly mitigated, there will be several negative consequences across the world. Among these are increased severe weather events, food and water insecurity, increased spread of disease, and patterns of mass migration with the goal of obtaining access to decreasing resources.

Migration trends are changing as more and more people try to gain access to the good life -- in the US, for example, we have many residents from poorer countries who have immigrated, who have crossed our borders with or without documentation, for a chance of access to better health care, better education, safer living conditions. This trend obviously affects our nation's population size -- as have migration/immigration trends from the time that our nation was born.

Immigration - in particular, what to do about individuals who have moved to and established lives in the US without documentation - has long been a hot issue in the US. In the last few years, it has been intensely debated at state levels. Arizona is one state that has been in the news related to its efforts to deal with "illegal" immigration by seeking out those who are here without documentation and finding ways to deport them.

What does this have to do with "sustainability," with learning to live today with the needs of future generations in mind? I had not connected the two ideas - sustainability and immigration - until today. Stay with me - I am getting there.

Driving home from work, I listened to an NPR interview with Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who just this week "came out" as an "illegal immigrant" in an essay in the New York Times Magazine. Read Jose's essay for yourself. Draw your own conclusions about his life in the US, his decisions about how to portray himself throughout his life, his contributions to his adopted country.

My interest was piqued as I listened to Jose speak about his efforts to become an open activist who can foster recognition of contributions of undocumented workers to our country's well-being. I had recently come across information about a group in Minnesota called "Minnesotans for Sustainability" - the group defines a sustainable society as one that "balances the environment, other life forms, and human interactions over an indefinite time period." Good definition. The group accurately describes population growth as a contributor to problems with sustainability. One of the strongest recommendations made by the group to deal with population growth, however, is to deport "illegal aliens" who are using valuable resources that are needed by legal citizens - the presence of the "illegal aliens" threatens sustainability of Minnesota and the US.

My first reaction to this is - I hate, hate, hate the term "illegal aliens" - the term is so derogatory, and calls to mind a bizarre image of criminals from Mars. When I listened to Jose Antonio Vargas, and learned more about his contributions as a working journalist who pays taxes (though under an illegal SSN), I felt so frustrated. He had come here at age 12 from the Philippines, sent here by his mother to her parents with the hope that his life would be better in the US. He described loving the US - school, music, culture - he described his efforts to learn to speak English without an accent by watching Golden Girls and other sitcoms over and over again. He didn't even know that he was not here legally, that his documents had been falsified, until he was 16 and tried to get a learner's permit to drive. His story is compelling, and his courage great - his coming out this week threatens his livelihood and well-being, but he did so as an effort to support the millions of undocumented workers in the US who want to become citizens. Hard to envision him as a Martian criminal...

My second and stronger reaction -- Well. I think a lot about what "sustainability" and "sustainable health and well-being" mean - about what we need to do to ensure the health and safety of us and other species and of our earth. Last time I looked, these issues involve the whole world. Even when we are talking about sustainability of the economy - we live on imported goods, and send goods elsewhere. 

To my understanding, if we are talking about sustainability in terms of the environment, climate change is a global issue, and the threats to sustainability know no borders. Air is air - dirty air is dirty air - it drifts across the globe with no regard for human made borders. Temperature, water, weather, birds, butterflies, seeds, soil -- no borders. If the wind picks up the sand from a desert in one nation in the middle east, and carries it to a nation in Asia -- well, can't do anything about it. Our control of things like this is quite limited.  Similarly, when the economy hits the skids in another nation - we are affected.

Is it even possible to have one part of the world (like Minnesota) be "sustainable" by moving some people out, without affecting other parts of the world? It is complicated - while decisions to live sustainably are made by individual and communities, in the end these multiple decisions have ripple effects all over the world.

It is pretty well documented (see sources above) that the per capita consumption of energy of residents of the US and Europe is much much greater than the per capita energy consumption of the rest of the world. We are consuming more than our share of what the earth has to offer, and thus we are contributing more than others to global climate change. Our choices may be negatively affecting other parts of the world. As I have said before, I do not say this in an unappreciative voice, nor do I speak from an unpatriotic position. My stance is that, as one of the wealthiest nations in the world, we have much to gain, as do others, if we would take the lead in trying to reduce our consumption and energy use. What would happen if the US loudly and visibly embarked upon a journey toward more sustainable living, which would require international and intergovernmental collaboration and community-building? Would the BRIC nations - Brazil, Russia, India, and China - emerging economic and technological leaders - follow suit? Could all of these wonderful and creative and innovative nation-forces move together toward healthier and more sustainable living?

Jose Antonio Vargas made a decision at some point, when applying for a job, to lie. He had to choose - check the box that indicated he was a documented immigrant or check the box that indicated he was a citizen. He says that he thought about this and, as he made the decision to lie by claiming to be a citizen, he also made the decision to live his life in a way that would earn the right to that title - to be a hard worker who contributed economically, socially, and culturally to what he thought of as his home country, to be a grateful person who could do his part to help those who did not have his advantages. Yes, he lied, and each of us will need to decide what to think about this. I have to think about it as well.

And each of us may have to think, if times do indeed worsen in the future due to the effects of climate change, about whether or not the value of one person's life can be seen as greater than that of another - if one person, or nation, is deserving of greater resources and access to resources needed to live, than any other person or nation.

Whoa. It has been too long since I have written. Even though I was in West Virginia for only a few days, it took many more than a few days after I returned to absorb all the experiences I had and to get back on track.

As you can see from my picture, the march on Blair Mountain was both exhausting and exhilarating. Friends have asked questions about the march and issues related to it, so I have tried to continue my own education.

For example, I have been learning more about what the process of mountain top removal (MTR) actually involves - how it is done and what happens to the nearby environment and people during and after the MTR. There are several steps to the MTR process: 

• clearing all topsoil and plants - that alone sounds painful and bleak
• blasting through 500-800 feet of mountain surface to reach the seam of coal 
• digging and removing coal and debris with a huge machine which actually does the work that in the past was done by people
• dumping waste, known as overburden or spoil, into valleys and stream beds - typically filling or burying the streams
• processing - or washing and treating - the coal, creating waste water, known as slurry or sludge, which is then stored in impoundments that are often open, poorly supported and unstable ... slurry is made of a mixture of water, coal dust, clay, and toxic chemicals including arsenic, mercury, lead, copper, and chromium
• reclamation which is supposed to involve stabilization of the land and revegetation ... a not very closely monitored or regulated process

Below is a photo of an Appalachian mountain - followed by a photo of the mountain post-MTR - followed by a different "reclaimed mountain." What do you think?

What are the effects of this devastation, really? 

The drastic changes to the landscape increase flooding (which includes runoff that contains toxic chemicals). The ongoing blasting associated with MTR damages the foundations of homes, property values, and quality of life. Blasting also randomly sends boulders and debris down onto yards in the communities below the MTR sites, creating safety risks. Slurry and sludge poison drinking water and increase realities of disease in nearby communities. These are immediate and short-term changes.

Let's look to the past, then far into the future. In 2009, the Smithsonian Magazine reported that...

Since the mid-1990s, coal companies have pulverized Appalachian mountaintops in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee. Peaks formed hundreds of millions of years ago are obliterated in months. Forests that survived the last ice age are chopped down and burned. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that by 2012, two decades of mountaintop removal will have destroyed or degraded 11.5 percent of the forests in those four states, an area larger than Delaware. Rubble and waste will have buried more than 1,000 miles of streams.

The rate and scope of this destruction is incredibly short-sighted. Centuries of work by Mother Earth gone and, on top of that, toxic substances introduced into what is left. Without extensive intervention, this threatens much needed biodiversity (all of life is interconnected and interdependent for survival) and causes harm to the health and well-being of plants, humans, and other animals for hundreds of years to come. 

And no intervention can truly re-create what has been destroyed - particularly the culture of the mountain people in the communities affected by MTR. I witnessed the strength and integrity of the people from Appalachia at the march - outspoken, impassioned, but respectful and honest.

Hazel Dickens fought MTR - she was one beautiful voice rising from Appalachia. She was to have performed at the Blair Mountain March but, sadly, passed away in April before the March.

More later... in the meantime, let me know what you think.

From March on Blair Mountain:

We march to preserve Blair Mountain, abolish mountaintop removal, strengthen labor rights, and an investment in sustainable job creation for all Appalachian communities.The March on Blair Mountain is a peaceful, unifying rally involving environmental justice organizations, workers, scholars, artists, and other citizens and groups. The march commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, when 10,000 coal miners rose against the rule of the coal operators and fought for the basic right to live and work in decent conditions. Currently, Blair Mountain is threatened with obliteration by mountaintop removal (MTR) mining, and it is here that a new generation of Appalachians takes a stand.

In the spirit of the original march–which consisted of mountain peoples, African-Americans, and immigrants from all over Europe–we reach out to a diversity of groups to march in solidarity for the workers, communities and mountains of Appalachia. If you stand with us, you are one of us — a true mountaineer.

LOTS TO COME ABOUT THE MARCH ON BLAIR MOUNTAIN...

Lots of good stuff is happening in West Virginia as I write. Visit these sites for current news about the March on Blair Mountain:

• Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
• Kentucky Rising (on Facebook)
• March on Blair Mountain

We have had beautiful weather in Pittsburgh this week - great for hiking, walking, and biking, and just sitting and listening to the birds. It is raining heavily today - hope the marchers in WV are staying dry.

I am planning to go to the last two days of this event - going for a training session on Friday and the march up the mountain and rally on Saturday. In preparation, I have been reading the 2008 Silas House/Jason Howard book - Something's Rising: Appalachians Fighting Mountaintop Removal - through interviews with and stories of many mountain people, I am learning and remembering a lot. 

My brothers and sisters and I used to spend some weeks each summer in Lynch, KY, the site of the highest mountain in KY - Big Black Mountain - where my parents grew up and my grandparents lived. Half of Big Black Mountain is in Lynch, KY and half is in VA. The half that is in VA has been decimated by mountain top removal. The people of Lynch and nearby Cumberland and Benham are fighting the forces of A and G coal to preserve their part of Big Black Mountain.

I think about Lynch a lot. I remember the smell of coal dust - not unpleasant, but what did I know? - and the rattling sound of coal-carrying trains, and the sights of the miners clomping up the road in their heavy boots at the end of a shift, white eyes in coal-darkened faces, some as young as 14 or 15. I also remember, back in the mid-late 1960s, seeing the separate bath houses labeled for "colored" and "white" miners. 

Although my older brother and I were born in Lynch, our family moved away from Harlan County when my father entered the University of KY to study engineering, funded by the GI Bill. Lexington was a big city compared to Lynch. I often wonder what this change was like for my mom - who eventually was the  mother of five children. I wonder what it was like for her to move from such a small town, far away from her home, friends (who are close friends to this day), and parents - to a city with bluegrass and softly rolling hills, a city that was so different in culture and topography than her mountainous home. 

In my childhood, the only way to get back to Lynch for a visit was over twisty mountain roads, torture for this little girl who was prone to car-sickness (particularly when adults smoked cigarettes and cigars - oh, how times have changed! no seat belts then either - all five of us climbing back and forth over seats, elbowing and stepping on one another). 

In college, I came across Yesterday's People: Life in Contemporary Appalachia (1965),  by Jack Weller. This was written about Appalachia pre-cable TV -- actually, probably, pre-access to much TV at all - the signals just couldn't come in. This was written when many people actually did live up in the hollers. It was fascinating to read Weller's ideas about tendencies of children in the mountains to express stress and anxiety psycho-somatically - through tummy aches and headaches - particularly when the worry was about separation from home and family. 

Makes sense when you think that many of the people had not ever traveled much outside of their small community or county. I could certainly identify with that. Our homes, where we have grown from deeply-planted roots, really shape who we are. 

Makes me wonder about what it would be like NOT to have deep roots in a particular place. Do you then root yourself into something that is different, that you can carry with you wherever you go? What or where would that be?

Oops - off track here! I am really looking forward to my trip later this week, and I will let you know how it goes. Hope to have stories and pictures to share.

I love the print posted here, called simply Work. Ford Madox Brown, an English painter, depicts English folks at work during the mid-Victorian era (~mid-19th century). What strikes me about this scene is the people - work involved bumping up against, talking or arguing with, sweating beside people.

I browsed Google for other images of work -- so many of them were focused on computers, desks, chairs - and often there were no people included at all! I looked at several dictionaries for definitions of "work" - the first definition in most volumes was about effort - "activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result" from Merriam-Webster. I guess computers and other machines "work" - but to me, effort is a purposeful phenomenon, complete with choices and behaviors, most often done by humans or other animals. What do you think?

I remember something that my anthropology professor at Transylvania University said -- that, throughout history, most of human effort has gone toward figuring out how to work less. True or not? 

Why do we work? Do we work primarily to earn money for food, clothes, shelter, medical care, and some extras? Is it one of the ways that we find meaning in our lives? Is it something that we do that contributes to the well-being of others? All or none of the above?

I love my work for which I am paid. I do find meaning in it, and I get pleasure and satisfaction from it. It helps me support myself and the family. And I believe/hope that it contributes to the well-being of others outside of my family. Most of all, I love (most of) the people I work with. We may not sweat much or bump up against each other, but we do talk, argue, and, thankfully, laugh a lot. I do admit that some of the time work is work - it is hard. But I am always grateful for the job that I have and the work that I feel called to do.

Do you feel secure in your work - your job or career? We are living in times when things don't feel so secure. Unemployment figures for the last month were just released a couple of days ago - and it wasn't good news. It's hard not to feel some anxiety or worry - or even anger - when reading news about the national work scene.

A different question - do you feel safe at work? Is your work setting physically safe? Emotionally safe? Does your work involve risks or dangers for you, your community, or society?

The March on Blair Mountain, happening today into next weekend, is in large part about work - people are gathering to advocate for safe, fairly-compensated, humane work that does not harm their homes or sense of well-being:

Hundreds of people from Appalachia and across the nation will embark on an historic march to demand an end to mountaintop removal, the strengthening of labor rights, sustainable job creation in Appalachian communities, and the preservation of Blair Mountain. 

Does your work nurture or threaten your sense of well-being? Work often requires people to move away from home, even though for many people being near family and loved ones, living in a place that feels like home, is central to a sense of well-being. Nathan Hall, a young environmentalist from Appalachia, left his Kentucky home to pursue bigger and better things, but kept feeling pulled back to the mountains. He came home and worked in deep underground mining, hoping to learn all that he could from this work so that he could, with integrity, challenge the status quo in his community - so that he could truly understand how mining work both fed and damaged his people. He will do his important work in his home-place.

Others are not so fortunate. David Bacon is a photographer and journalist who brings us stories about immigrants. In 2008, he wrote of "the right to stay home" or "derecho de no migrar," a human rights movement in which laborers in Mexico and other parts of the world that have been affected by globalization demand the right to be able to support themselves from work in their home communities. Immigration and migration are thorny issues, from any perspective. On the one hand, some Americans act as though those who migrate to the US, "illegally" or not, are "taking" something from them. Reading Bacon's words reminds us that, in some situations at least, those who come to our country might rather find meaningful and viable work at home.

Do you do work for which you are not compensated? How does that fit into your life? Most of us work in our families and communities to take care of one another - I would argue that this is the most important work of all, though it is woefully undervalued by many. I would not trade my years of being a mom of young children, taking care of Michael and Julie, for anything - and I would call it work - purposeful effort devoted to nurturing two little people toward becoming good family members, friends, workers, and citizens. Yes, I would call it work, and I would say that it was not always easy.

Dealing with the "grand challenge" of global climate change, as individuals, communities, and nations, is also work and it is also not easy. What is often easy, however, is denial of this challenge, a turning away from it, stuffing it into a dark seldom-visited corner of our lives. Coming to terms with the changes in our economy, natural environment, physical and emotional health, that are related to climate change and environmental degradation will be work - it will take purposeful effort, both mental and physical, to find new ways of doing things together. We must rise to this challenge for which we do not have ready answers and solutions. We must take on this work - we must be people working together.

A new bicycle! Who knew that today's bicycles are spiffier and speedier than the last one that I bought 18 years ago? 8/24 gears vs 7/21 gears, lighter yet sturdier, with blinky lights and saddle bags. I did my first commute to work today - what fun!

So. Shifting gears a bit.... I have been writing a lot about issues of energy production and consumption, and related impacts on the environment and people. I will continue with this soon - I think it is important and I believe that these issues will have an increasingly noticeable effect on our daily lives for some time to come.

But today, I want to talk about wellness - health and well-being - and about some ideas that my friend Leah is thinking about. Leah is a graduate of Chatham's MS in Counseling Psychology program - she is a very competent, bright, and energetic woman. When she introduces me to friends or colleagues, she refers to me as her mentor. A little secret -- this is kind of backwards, as I most definitely see her as my mentor!

Leah has a wonderful job teaching yoga to children K-8 in a laboratory school associated with a university in Pittsburgh. She is thinking about developing a Wellness Program for her students, so we sat down to talk about how to do this. Leah had done some preliminary lit searches, and found that much of the research on childhood wellness is actually limited to studies about how to address childhood obesity - a worthy cause, for sure, but not necessarily representative of all of the aspects of a young person's life that contribute to (or detract from) wellness. Other things we read focused on physical, mental, social, and emotional health - how to eat right, exercise, manage feelings, solve problems, get along with others, learn in school. 

Leah and I talked about our own childhoods and children, and brainstormed about what other domains of wellness, in the best of all possible worlds, might be worth presenting to kids. As we talked, Leah and I realized that we were both intrigued by a more comprehensive perspective of wellness that would embrace a child's ability to live a well-balanced life - weathering ups and downs in pretty healthy ways, knowing when and how and whom to ask for help, understanding one's own gifts and "growing edges" - in addition to the more traditional aspects of wellness described above. For us, wellness is not an end or a goal; it is a life-long process of making decisions, working with others, acting and thinking and feeling. Individuals who have the skills, knowledge, or wisdom to live (or try to live) in such ways will be able to sustain themselves through much of what life throws at them - not avoiding pain, loss, hurt, or mistakes, but thinking and adapting in pretty healthy ways, sooner or later, when they get off-track. 

So we have mental, physical, social, and emotional health, and more vague, but probably also very important, life-skills and self-awareness domains that might constitute wellness. I would probably add a couple of other domains to the mix -- one area of interest to me is that of financial health. What can we do for our children that fosters healthy practices and perspectives related to money, spending, and saving? I would also add something about self-in-the-universe -- that is really not a good way of saying it, I know - but I think it is very cool to parent or teach in ways that keep children's questions about their place in the universe active, that foster imaginings about their purpose in life. Do they feel connected to something much bigger than themselves? Do they have a sense of awe and wonder about life and its mysteries? And finally - probably related to the whole self-in-the-universe thing - I would add something about humans and nature - the place or role of humans in the non-human natural world - again, nurturing curiosity and questions more than providing easy answers.

How does this sound so far? What, if anything, would you add or take out? Is any of this the least bit relevant for you or your kids? Think back to your own early years -- what domains of wellness were you exposed to - directly or indirectly? In school or at home, or both? Did you figure out all of the important stuff on your own? Are there things that you wish you had been exposed to that you were not? Would it have made any difference?

I am curious about whether or not you think that adults (whether in the family, communities, or schools) have the capability of providing a wellness perspective to kids in a way that can be truly beneficial to them. How important are we as models for kids - models of what to be or what not to be? Or are we talking here about life lessons that must eventually be learned on one's own, through trial and error? From a larger perspective, does what we do or talk about have the potential of effecting change in a community? When I post something to my blog, can it make a difference? Or do we live by Darwinian principles, each struggling and adapting on our own, and sinking if we just can't do it?

So much of my identity as a citizen, a psychologist, a professor, and a parent is wrapped up in thinking about wellness, growth, and change in positive ways. I wonder about what helpful roles, if any, I can play in certain situations - by educating, providing feedback, modeling, listening, questioning.... OR by being quiet and getting out of the way - maybe just by being a witness from close-up or from far away. I know that my own wellness has ultimately been my own responsibility - and I also know that I have had witnesses and supporters who have helped me along the way.

So -- I can say with certainty that I learned much from my parents and other adults about health and well-being and the "good life" - working and playing hard, appreciating music and other of life's gifts, taking care of others - lessons that were enriched by my own life experiences, but rooted also in my relationships with these people. I can say with certainty that I learned from their courage and derring-do, and have thus been able to take important risks in my own life. 

And, more specifically, I can say with certainty that I benefited from my dad's time, patience, and energy as he taught me to ride a bike - much easier than learning on my own :) Wish me luck as I head back home on my trusty new vehicle!