Day 128-131: San Francisco Green Festival

Flying home from Oahu, we felt torn - sad to leave such a beautiful place, worried for its preservation and ready to get back to the mainland.

We were picked up at the airport by our friend, Michael, and brought back to his place, where Rachel Carson waited for us in the garage. Funny how attached we become to material things, and how we anthropomorphize them - I actually apologized to our dashboard lemur for leaving him home instead of bringing him to Hawaii with us to ride on the rental car dash...and patted Rachel Carson on her Y...

Next morning had us up early, repacked into the car and headed to San Francisco's Green Festival - a major green marketing event sponsored by Global Exchange. We parked, got badges at Media check-in, and Mark went to find our contact people...and then we were off into the mayhem. There were booths selling everything from independent media to hempfood to hanging bamboo baby hammocks to CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture) to the local PG&E to our good friend Andy at Chicobags. It was like a giant overwhelming Eco bazaar, throngs of people milling around making contacts and buying alternative holiday gifts...It was a bit difficult to step out of the consumer mindset...but I got out of there only buying my husband a back support for when he is editing all night hunched over his computer...

We interviewed people every day, and were even a part of the Green Festival team that followed Deepak Chopra. (His book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, was at one time my "Bible," and may be the closest thing I have found to the kind of universal spirituality that I can relate to. But he has many many others.) Ben walked with Deepak, asking what gives him hope. Deepak's answer, that hope implies despair so he does not hope, was referenced in his audience address later that evening to 5 balconies and a full floor of people, and I squoze Ben's hand for having planted a seed.

My favorite interview was with a young man named Ryan Mlynarczyk, (who i don't have a picture of, cause sometimes i forget the most important things). Ryan is gearing up this month for his cross-country trip, by bicycle, documenting sustainable communities (his favorite green way of living). We had been hearing of Ryan for some time so I was eager to meet him, and when I finally found his booth, and he saw the YERT on my media tag, he held out his hands to me and hugged me right away. The boys arrived and we took turns interviewing each other in the Sustainable Communities booth, totally joyful meeting like-minded fellow travelers out to see the world change! However, Ryan, unlike YERT (which had a few years of savings to draw from), is starting his trip on a few dollars, a happy prayer and the clothes on his back. I hope that people all over America will visit Ryan's current website, bookmark his coming documentary website, and offer him all the comforts they can afford!!! YERT vouches for him as a genuine beautiful soul...

Other thing I really liked about the Festival was the amount of free organic food samples that were offered all around the inner section. I wasn't feeling all that well for about the whole festival so being able to fill up my mug with orange juice at any time for free was a boon.
Also, a girl named Echo gave me a pair of wings on Friday when I admired them, so Sunday I was wearing them all day. People smiled except if we were really crowdy and they bumped someone.

Next stop: Nevada. No offense, but I wished we could skip it and head straight to Arizona, Ben's family and Thanksgiving...