Patch's Diary
January 3, 2006
Happy New Year! Thanks to all of you who made 2005 so wonderful. It felt like a year of reaping. We got more five figure donations than ever before. We joined the School for Designing a Society and Gesundheit to create (now) a 5-day intensive called Health Care Delivery System Design. Susan Parenti, of the school, gave birth to something that I think will increase quickly. In September Susan set up a 3-day intensive for 40 people (check it out at "Inside My Heart But Outside the Box: Thinking, To Change the Health Care Box") to look at their desires and provide designs. Everyone loved it and now three 5-day events are being planned. Our presence in West Virginia is so beautifully done by Frank and Bonnie and hosts of volunteers. They host many groups for work and exploration. We are all so lucky.
I last said hello in October, when returning from Australia, which since then has led to a 6-7 city tour in nine days for Susan and me at the end of January. And in 8 days before Russia, we had 4 stops, which included a day at Guilford College, a Quaker school in North Carolina, where my son Lars has started as a freshman. I had a great time doing three presentations and meeting so many new college friends including Emma. I have missed having him around and I see he loves school.
This was the 21st Annual Russia Clown trip November 1-16, 2005, with 40 clowns from 12 countries, ages 10-83. There were no whiners—all wanted to work for free. Maria, Ilya, Marina, Masha, Zoya, Olga, Kolya—so many friends doing well. Both Maria's and Marina's work with orphans is thriving. We had two auctions of their paintings and raised $50,000. We went to many hospitals, orphanages, and we were almost arrested again on Red Square (to much delight). All the kids are looking good—tons of hugs, lots of squealing babushkas!
Then Susan and I went to Santiago, Chile, to do a workshop ("What is Your Love Strategy?") with 900 medical students and proposed a health care delivery system design intensive. The exercises in the workshop are a big stretch for a lot of people. Then we went to Holland to be part of the christening ceremony for a new hospital and had hilarious clowning with Dutch clown friend Adrianna. Then to Rome for romance—a gift. We went to opera, museums, and had constant intense conversation, around antiquity. It is magic to have this kind of time with Susan. We coordinate so well.
I then flew to L.A. for the every-five-year meeting of the Ericksonian Psychotherapists. All this was set up by my brother in foolishness, Carl Hammerschlag, who studied with Erickson. They had created a pre-conference all-day event with me doing "Living a Life of Joy" in the morning for 3½ hours and "What is your Love Strategy" for 3½ hours in the afternoon. Eleven hundred (1,100) people attended it. It had to be one of the best groups I can remember. The next morning, I had written a 1-hour show for the opening keynote address. I titled it, "The Emperor's New Clothes." I have felt compelled to at least once fully show my anger and sadness for what I see in the world of man’s inhumanity to man. I study extensively the fate of the human world and the environment and feel our extinction near (not as a pessimist, rather as a reporter). Seeing the horrors around the world and knowing they could be changed and are not, makes me want to rebel. We need a massive love revolution. Love is the answer. We must love all people. I opened the piece with me naked (in an authentic-looking costume Heidi made) with the worst possible photos of starvation in Africa from James Nachtwey's Inferno projected two stories high behind me. I came to the audience of 8,300 psychotherapists naked—human to human. I said something is wrong. I gave a hint of my extensive research, recited T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock," to emphasize that I don't come to them except as a concerned citizen. In the third part I laid out some of the environmental and social horrors facing the world, and then gave my personal world experience in violence and injustice both raging and weeping for our collective bad behavior. I ended it lying on the floor. In the last section I lifted my head and asked "When does a person decide to stand up against the horrors?" I emphasized that love is the answer. I gave a history of when I called for acts of rebellion for love. I pointed to capitalism as the cause. It felt good to put the depth of my concern public. Is yours public?
As I enter 2006, I have been feeling assured that major building will begin this year on our hospital. Six incredible donation leads follow me into the year; three have said they were definite. The Austrian hospital builders have contacted us to meet in January about creating three of our hospitals in Austria, Romania, and Indonesia. I know old friends have watched my optimism for decades, when I have said that this is the year, and they have smiled. We surely feel close. Follow these pages. You can be part of that generosity.
I leave tomorrow with 40 clowns to go to El Salvador to clown and build a clinic in a village near the Honduran border. JetBlue is providing free transportation, so I had each of the 40 people put up $1,000 and gave $20,000 to build the clinic. Twenty-three of the people going are from Camp Winnarainbow (where I have worked 11 years) and the camp will get the other $20,000 for scholarships for poor kids to go to camp. Our teenage team and Airline Ambassadors will be the leadership. Both my sons are going. This is a microcosm of the kind of generosity and love that can end violence and injustice.
Please, dear reader, make love your value system. Consciously think about your love for all people everywhere and act. And act. And act. Make it fun.
In peace,
Patch
