 Watching I Heart Huckabees with my neighbors has inspired me to continue laying out my thoughts about the central importance of acceptance. In the previous entry, I talked about nature, humanity, and the human animal. If this discussion is not your cup of tea, please skip by any topical fish you sea :) Still here? Then let's dive on! While Buddha may have achieved enlightenment while sitting under the Bodhi tree, it's unlikely that any meaningful insight into the human condition arises from prolonged isolation. Meditating in a cave is more likely to lead to arthritis than to nirvana. Jesus took the pragmatic educational approach of living collectively with his disciples. Every monastery (and ashram) mirrors this approach. Or as Scott Peck puts it, we live together in spiritual communities (and marriages) "for the friction". I'll let you in on a little secret about Scott Peck, author of the well-published The Road Less Traveled. He, like Buddha, was a pessimist. I'm convinced the universe is human-agnostic. It delivers random events to our doorstep, some good, some tragic. It's not out to get us-- neither is it on our side. So in the spirit of existential neutrality, I'll change "for the friction" to "for the interaction". We live together spiritually for the interaction. Why? Because we human beings are really lousy at knowing what we look like to each other. O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.
[O would some power give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us.] -- Robert Burns It's especially difficult to see ourselves in an economic culture that depends on instilling inadequacies and then selling us fixes for them. Billions of dollars are spent by experts in convincing you that you are not complete without that car, that beverage, those clothes. Is it any wonder we view ourselves critically in a mirror, won't sing unless drunk, or invest a fortune in sunglasses/shoes to attract a mate? In addition, our new brain (the neocortex) is a marvellous instrument of threat analysis, and it's hard to shut it off. What are those people looking at/saying about me? Why is nobody joining me at this table? Is everyone avoiding me? Am I too old/ugly/noisy/opinionated/dumb/fat? If you want to know how you come across to others, you must surround yourself with family, friends, neighbors and/or lovers who - know you extremely well
- care enough about you to tell you how they see you.
You can return the favor. This is the principle of reflection. Without it, you're blind, or more likely, asleep. -- To be continued.
 Wish you could have joined us for a double family homemade dinner of turkey, potatoes, dressing, cranberry sauce, squash, etc. etc. Karen cooked the turkey and veggies, I made the dressing, and Lisa baked a half dozen pies. All four of my stepsons were there, along with Lisa's mother. Elsewhere in the community, families without family dinners joined together in the common house to make a fabulous meal for forty! The visiting and dessert sampling will continue all weekend. Tonight we've been invited to see "I Heart Huckabees" with some of the neighbors. Tomorrow night the three of us will attend a performance of Nutcracker by the Northwest Pacific Ballet. We hope you are enjoying the holidays as much as we are!
With this entry, I'd like to talk about acceptance. It'll take more than one entry to introduce this topic, and at times I'll be more than a little introspective. The connection to polygamy is simply that it'll take a lot of acceptance before polygamy becomes a common choice for raising a family. If this discussion is not your cup of tea, please skip by any topical fish you sea :) Still here? Then let's dive in! As a methodological naturalist (not to be confused with a naturist), I divide the universe into two domains-- the natural and the human. Let's start at the beginning. In the natural view, the universe expanded into its current state from a primordial condition of enormous density and temperature. This is called the "big bang" theory. From the human perspective, the gods and goddesses in their various forms had an enormous orgy, cultimating in a climax and ejaculate of galaxies and stars. This is also called the "big bang" theory :) Tooth and claws, camouflage, lures, stolen eggs and nests, and defensive rage are all very much a part of the natural world. In fact, many human "vices" can be found in abundance in nature. Honesty, fairness, justice and judgement all belong to the human domain, and make no sense at all when translated to nature. Is it "fair" when a large clawed cat catches and eats a tiny mouse?" Answer-- the question is meaningless. A long time ago, our ancestors developed warm blood, adrenaline, and emotions. The birdbrain was just a bump on the reptilian brain, but it had over 100 million years to integrate with it. Then we humans developed the neocortex, a much larger bump on top of the birdbrain. That was two million years ago, and the pathways between the emotional and the thinking brain are still minimal. Come back in 10 million years for a better integration. Until then, we are subject to several errors in "thinking"-- - time -- we cannot distinguish between fear, past fear (trauma), and future fear (worry).
- actors -- we tend to divide people into children, parents, lovers, and "us" versus "them".
- authority -- we believe that intellect trumps emotion, and that we own the universe.
The latter error leads to humorous situations where we stand on the edge of a high diving board and order ourselves to jump. Our emotional brain insists, "To hell with you! I ain't moving!" The same error leads to humorless situations where we believe we have a "divine right" to manage and mismanage the earth. We can convince ourselves (intellectually) we should diet, but in the next moment rationalize a donut "just this once" simply because our emotional inner child (another name for the birdbrain) is hungry. Who's really in charge? There is a good deal of nature in the human animal, although our intellectual self doesn't often believe it. Sudden anger and snarling, lies and deceit, instant gratification and overeating are all completely natural. So is nudity and fornication. Is polygamy natural? You bet it is! We are hurt when our friends or neighbors break their word, lie about us, or snarl at us unexpectedly. But such behavior is completely natural. We laugh nervously when someone streaks naked through a parade, or when our dog decides to make enthusiastic love with another. We try to be civilized and hide our natural selves, but we can't hide for long. Ignoring our natural bent can lead to erectile disfunction, frigidity, and suicide. But it's more likely to lead to disappointment, confusion, anger and frustration. It's not nice to fool with mother nature, and we are children of mother nature. I'll conclude with a zen/sufi story that you've probably heard before, but because it's central to this discussion, I'll present it here anyway-- A tortoise carries a stranded scorpion across a river. The scorpion stings the tortoise who demands indignantly: "My nature is to be helpful. I have helped you and now you sting me." "My friend," says the scorpion, "your nature is to be helpful. Mine is to sting. Why do you seek to transform your nature into a virtue and mine into villainy?"-- To be continued
 Karen likes to meet people-- on buses, in hospitals, at dances. In celebration of the end of her chemotherapy, when she spent a long time in bed, she decided to sell her memory foam mattress pad, which was no longer comfortable. She put an ad on Craig's list, and sold it to a nice gentleman who turned out to be an artist in metals. He told her of a new seafood restaurant in nearby Monroe that was displaying some of his art-- a school of metal fish. You can see them in the photo to the left. It was pouring rain when I dropped Karen and Lisa off, and by the time I'd parked the car, they were nowhere in sight. I was tempted to ask the hostess, "Have you seen my wives?", but I didn't. ------------------- Ads for ‘Polygamy Porter' Called Offensive-- so reads the headline in ABCNews.com. Re agan Outdoor Advertising refused to erect the billboard, which advised drinkers to "take some home for the wives" and "when enjoying our flavorful beverages please procreate responsibly." This is a win for polygamy-- a sign (joke) that polygamy has become mainstream enough that no one wants to see it slammed in public.
 Kamica from New York is writing for a class project-- Hello my name is Kamica and I am from New York. I am currently a student at a local community college where I am pursuing an education towards Social Work. For a Marriage and Family class I have been assigned a report. I was given the ability to choose any topic pertaining to "marriage and family". My mind led straight to Polygyny. You see I know very little about this topic and I am very interested in learning more. Any information given to me would be completely confidential and for learning purposes only. Please contact me at kamica@kamica.com.
----------------------------------------Livia from England is making a documentary film--
I'm hoping you may be able to help me. I work for a television production comany in London, England and am currently researching for a new documentary film about Polygamous relationships. We make high profile films for networks such as BBC, Channel 4 and Sky often about complex and sensitive issues, allowing people to tell their story.
Do you know of anyone who is in a similar position to you but based in the UK? I would really love to talk to and meet as many people as possible to help with this project.
I hope to hear from you soon. Many thanks
Livia
liviasimoka@fireflyproductions.tv
Tel: 0044 207 033 2306
 When I lived in Japan with my first (ex) wife Sumiko, I was much struck by the attention paid to the ordinary, like, um, toilets. In the early 1970's, I saw (and used) one of the first "modern toilets", the porcelein equivalent of a hole in the floor. Squatting to use a toilet is a skill that I'll wager most Western men have never learned. Your pants come down around your ankles (unless you totally remove your shoes and pants), and your wallet falls into the toilet. If you desperately try to save the wallet, you can fall on your unwashed butt. I was still getting used to the Japanese culture, especially the "mens room" doors in the Tokyo airport that opened into the same room as the "womens room" doors-- a concession to international culture? The women passed by the men at the urinals on their way to the stalls. Was it my imagination, or did the women appear especially interested in checking out what was by popular rumor the larger size of the Western male? Later in the 1970's the sitting toilets appeared. Comfort at last! But then I noticed the top of the toilet bowl, which is flat in the United States, was curved into a sink, and that the fill tube, concealed in our toilets, protruded upwards then curved downward. Every time you flushed, the water for the next flush would fall into the sink long enough for you to wash your hands. A perfect miniature grey water system! But wait! That's not all! And thereby hangs a tale--  Every year Seattle celebrates a "Street of Dreams". These are super luxurious houses built close together on extremely small lots. For two months, a constant stream of visitors pay $18 to see how the rich might live, if they lived in those houses. Karen, Lisa, and I generally forego this event on general principles. This year, when the street of dreams had seen its last visitor, all six houses went up for sale. We happened to see all the "Open House" signs and decided to give ourselves a free tour. I introduced each realtor to my "wives", who smiled innocently back, to see what the reaction would be-- it became a great game for us, and a novely for the bored realtor. We were touring one especially opulent house, when we heard a sharp scream from Lisa, who had gone on ahead. She had entered one of the bedrooms and rounded a corner, when the toilet lid suddenly opened as she approached it. It turns out this is a feature of the new Japanese paper-less toilet. This is a "smart" toilet with a handheld control panel that lets you select "wash front", "wash rear", "blow dry", and "deoderize". American toilets, eat your heart out! As I've traveled the world, I'm occasionally humbled by really great ideas that my own culture hasn't thought of yet. It wasn't just the toilets in Japan and the bidets in France! I had some of the greatest pizza in Japan I've ever eaten anywhere, and the traffic lights sing! They sing "Torianse", which is Japanese for "Go on down the road", unlike our Western traffic lights which, thirty years later, are just learning to sing "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!"
Jeff has kindly offered to share his family story with us for the benefit of polygamy-- My first wife and I had for many years been interested in alternative family styles. She had picked up her ideas from Robert Heinlein, while I had just kind of always felt like a big communal family was just the most natural thing in the world to aspire to. We had finally come to the unfortunate conclusion that the people we would have chosen to be our extended family were just not of a mindset to make a commitment to that kind of relationship, so we started discussing just adding a second wife and what would be the advantages and disadvantages of that.I was allowed a large degree of freedom to have a few extramarital partners over the years and one evening I re-met a lady with whom I had previously had only casual contact and we really hit it off. The rest as they say is history. I came home and asked my wife if she was really serious about taking on a second wife because I had found a perfect fit. We discussed it at length, we corresponded over email, I phoned her up in the evenings to listen in on the children's bedtime stories, and eventually we moved her in. At the time we had two children, one 8 years old and the other 6 months. I figured I would rather raise three children with three parents than two children with two parents. The new wife would help raise the current children, and have three parents for the child she births. Current wife wanted to have a baby boy but was done with having children herself, so she got the chance to try again for a son in the family. Everyone was happy when it was a boy, the wives because they both wanted a son, and me because I didn't want to be the only male with five females in my home. I have now been with my first wife for 16 years and my second for 7 years. We live in the suburbs and send our children to a small private school. We never "came out" to the school community, we just started bringing the "second mom" around to school events and eventually she had a baby and he calls me Dad and everyone pretty much just believes what they want. One father asked me once "just how many wives _do_ you have anyway?" Besides that, sometimes people assume one of them is my ex-wife and we're just on really good terms. At the boy's birth, the attending nurse assumed the wives were together and I was just the donor. Actually, now that I think about it, at the boy's birth I did overhear a different nurse talking to her friends about this crazy family situation and naming names and relationships that we had written on our check-in papers. I smiled and let them know that we are a big happy family and not to worry. In retrospect I should have had her job for talking about my family's personal details in front of a stranger, me, who she didn't realize was the person who she was talking about. Anyway, they sent a social worker in to talk to Mom and the guy took one look at us, shook his head and apologized saying "this is obviously not a problem situation, here's my card, sorry for bothering you." We have been "Out" in all of my jobs as a computer programmer, to our families and school communities for all of this time and that story is probably the only negative reaction I've ever gotten. I guess my mother was pretty upset when she found we were having another baby, but she was over it by the time I talked to her. My wives run a preschool from our home where there are photographs of me dancing with each of them and a large one with all of us together, and again, the school parents don't have a problem with it. The thing is that except for there being two wives, we're a really boring, typical seeming suburbanite household. When my second child started kindergarten I mentioned to her that it might be a little odd to the other kids that she has two moms. She said no, several of the kids have two moms and two dads. It was much later that she came home sad because she found out that some of the second parents lived far away and she didn't ever want her second mommy to live somewhere else. To me, besides the obvious emotional benefits, group marriage is about the economy of scale. When I am gone, my children have two stay-at-home moms. When two of us want to go to a movie, we can, and we have a mom or dad at home with the kids - no scrambling for a sitter. When we go on vacation as a family three adults cost little or no more than two for most things. I watch my friends struggle to juggle careers and children and I think Jeez, what a thing to sign up for! I try to point out the benefits they would gain by adding a second wife or husband and someone usually just glares at me. And then other people wonder what's so hard about being a single parent and I'm here thinking three of us is hardly enough. On the other hand, I've watched a few people get into polygamy or polyamory and have it wreck their relationship and then they end up taking children from their new extra mom and or dad. When there are kids involved, it is imperative that any relationship change that they are aware of is to a more, not less stable state. On this, (and probably nothing else) Dr. Laura and I are in complete agreement. Would I take another wife? is a question I hear a lot. I'd be open to another spouse of either sex but we've all said we don't want any more babies, and I think everyone is pretty wary of the additional emotional complexities another party would add. So we're very minimally open to the idea but not atively seeking anyone. Occasionally I'll semi-jokingly point someone out as a potential candidate and I've suggested a friend of the new wife's as a very real potential second husband if she were interested in pursuing that. If Drew Barrymore reads this and is interested in polygamy, I'm sure the wives and I could come to some agreement. Likewise for Christopher Eccleston, I'll have to add for fairness' sake. I will trust Martin to pass emails from them along to me. -- and we will. If you'd like to reach Jeff or his family, please send your email to us and we'll pass it on to Jeff.
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