Tao
I live and work as co-director at Aprovecho, just outside of Cottage Grove, OR.
Homepage: http://www.aprovecho.net/
Posts by Tao
Tao Orion Testifies for Josh
Feb 5th
One thing I love about Josh is to find points of integration between seemingly disparate elements. In his time at Aprovecho, Josh was the visionary, the organizer, the grounding force, and the inspiration for so much that we did and continue to do to this day. He participated in many different elements of our organization, from curriculum development to teaching, trail building to consensus building, and I can testify that his work and who he is provides inspiration for every Aprovecho student, volunteer, and community member.
I remember once heading out for another day of work in the garden: weeding, watering, planting, tending. I knew Josh was working on planning the curriculum for the upcoming internship program, sitting in the office behind a computer. He saw me walking into the garden and asked where I was headed. I mentioned that I was going to plant the milpa: corn, beans, and squash that grow together in a bed, each of them providing something for the other and in turn receiving something that they need. Also known as the three sisters, this type of planting is traditional in Mexico and Guatemala, where Josh had spent time as an International Honors Program participant and as an Aprovecho stove consultant.
Josh was so excited to plant a milpa at Aprovecho that he dedicated time throughout the season, from digging beds to planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting, on top of the rest of his work, in order to learn about and participate in something that had a greater meaning for him. The milpa represented in a garden some of the basic tenets of a durable social theory also being worked on at Aprovecho: each person providing their unique insights and expertise in order to create a more abundant and resilient whole community. The harvests that year from the milpa fed us through the winter, and I look forward to the time when Josh can help coax the abundance from the garden and from our community again.
To imagine Josh, who gave so much to the people and the places that he loves, locked up in prison for 18 months is almost beyond comprehension. He wants to be out in the garden, out in the world, helping and inspiring people again. Everyone at Aprovecho and in the Cottage Grove and Eugene communities who knows him wishes him free with all their hearts.
Tao Orion
Co-Director, Aprovecho
DREAMING OF JOSH, BY TAO
Aug 1st
Aprovecho Garden
Today I walked along the trail that Josh built along the creek at Aprovecho. The cool evening air filtered down through the lush canopy of bigleaf maple, western red cedar, cottonwood, and vine maple. Things have changed since he worked on it two winters ago—trees have fallen in storms, patches of chickweed grow along the margins. The path continues to meander along the creek’s edge, providing space for reflection and contemplation of the beautiful space that we live in out here in Oregon. Josh loved this land, this project, this place. I imagine he thinks of it often from his cell in Evin Prison.
When Josh, Shane and Sarah were first incarcerated, I dreamed of Josh often. I dreamed I went to Iran several times and hugged him, cried for him, rescued him. Lately though I have been surprised every few days or so when I see someone who looks like him—in the way they walk past, in the clothes they wear. It is startling, it takes my breath away for a moment. It is as though I’m waiting to see him around every turn, which I am, in a way.
Making my way through the cool moist forest, I think about the weather in Tehran, how hot and dry it must be, how hard to be sitting in a prison cell. This past year has been a dynamic and interesting year for me and many others that I know. Josh and I, being of similar ages, had similar things going on in our lives when we lived and worked together at Aprovecho. Our idealism, our activism, our compassion, our land ethic, our abilities to communicate our hopes and dreams to the world had been activated, and we were learning together about how to live an intentional life in this world of that we have inherited. I think of Josh’s commitment to social justice, and his passion for understanding the roots of conflict, his desire to uncover a person’s inherent spark, the thing that makes them feel most alive, and help them to fan it to a slow and steady flame. All of this has been put on hold, in a way. All of this potential energy.
BRING THEM HOME
May 31st
FREE JOSH FATTAL, FREE THEM ALL
By Tao Orion
REPUBLISHED FROM THE EUGENE WEEKLY, 27 MAY 2010:
Josh Fattal
Josh Fattal is an avid hiker. During the years that we lived together at Aprovecho, Josh thoroughly explored the rolling hills of clear-cuts and Douglas fir plantations that comprise our backyard. One day, I remember looking up from my work in the garden to see his smiling face and dancing eyes, relating a tale of walking all the way to Saginaw on forest roads. Another day, determined to find a path from Aprovecho to Cottage Grove that does not intercept the paved road, he walked into town and back on the dirt roads that crisscross the forest between our property and town. Josh also spent the last winter he lived at Aprovecho expanding and improving the trail network on our property, creating new paths to formerly under-appreciated areas. Every time I walk the trails, I think of Josh, his creativity and his love and wonder for the world.
Josh is an articulate and principled member of our community. Josh led numerous groups of interns through Aprovecho’s Sustainable Living Skills Internship Program during the three years that he lived and worked at Aprovecho. He planned hiking and biking trips for the interns and encouraged them to engage in our local area by helping on farms and participating in community events. In Aprovecho’s business and organizational structure, Josh was a strong voice for staying true to our consensus process, working hard to find ways that everyone’s voice could be heard while still making progress and not spending all of our time in meetings.
Josh is a thoughtful and passionate citizen. Just before Josh left for his work as a teaching assistant with the International Honors Program, he helped create Aprovecho’s 100 Mile Diet Internship. Josh felt strongly that as a sustainable living education center, Aprovecho should endeavor to source its food needs locally and demonstrate our region’s potential for locally based economics. He believed that by focusing our organizational purchasing power into our local community, we could contribute to the creation of a more just, equitable and sustainable world.
Josh is in prison in Iran. I try to imagine what life is like for Josh at this moment, where he sits in Evin Prison in Tehran, with his friends Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd. I imagine him practicing tai chi, doing the poses that he practiced every Tuesday and Thursday morning in Coiner Park in Cottage Grove. I imagine that he is trying his best to keep centered, to keep healthy, as the days of his imprisonment continue to add up.
Josh, Shane and Sarah were taken into Iranian custody on July 31, 2009, during a hiking trip to Kurdistan, an autonomous and peaceful region of Iraq. As of the date I write this article, the hikers have been held without charge, without access to a lawyer and with extremely limited contact with the outside world. The Swiss diplomats who represent America’s diplomatic interests in Iran have visited with the hikers three times. Their most recent visit brought news of poor physical and deteriorating mental health.
Josh is a friend of many in the Cottage Grove community, and he is known and loved by people all over the world. We hope every day for the safe and speedy return of Josh, Shane and Sarah. They have been held for far too long, and we long to see their smiling faces again, to be inspired by them again, and to welcome them back to where they make their homes so they may continue to be appreciated as the kind, intelligent and passionate people they are. Please visit www.freethehikers.org to learn how you can help bring them home as soon as possible.
