Ask for help. Whether you're currently walking upon a spiritual path or not, it's never too late to start.

Use humor. Kind humor transforms crummy att.i.tudes.

Remember your survival priorities. If you need to get out of dodge to avoid the full brunt of a disaster, do so. No possession is worth more than your life or the lives of those you love.

Controlling Fear in Others Be a positive example. Maintain a calm presence and keep control, even if you feel out of control; inspire courage, hope, faith, and the willingness to keep trying. This is especially important around kids.

Maintain discipline. Work toward finding and maintaining order and harmony within your family and throughout your neighborhood in a gentle yet firm manner. Search out people's strengths and a.s.sign them focused tasks to a.s.sist the group. Giving people things to do lessens feelings of helplessness and takes their mind away from the current situation, while giving them a sense of control regarding their destiny.

Exercise positive leadership. Be firm, determined, confident, compa.s.sionate, decisive, honest, and humorous.

Stay alert for early signs of fear in others and, when recognized, deal with them immediately. Knowing how the people in your family react to and deal with stress is priceless. Be intuitive to the needs of others and offer whatever support you can. Remember that one rotten apple can spoil the bunch.

Cultivate teamwork and mutual support early on. Perhaps no other experience on Earth will require such a tightly knit and supportive family for success than the survival situation. The group that initiates and maintains a positive mental and emotional outlook, putting all of its efforts and concerns into the welfare of the entire tribe, is an extremely powerful force for staying alive.

The Art of CREATIVE COOPERATION and PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY: Daring to Think for Yourself with an Open Heart

al-tru-ism [al' troo iz' m] n. unselfish concern for the welfare of others -Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary Recent natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina in the United States, have proven how far we have to go in the realm of emergency planning, cooperation, and, most importantly, taking personal responsibility for our own welfare. Local, state, and federal agencies couldn't seem to pa.s.s the buck quickly enough for the initial embarra.s.sing, inept response to the hurricane. As people lay dead and dying, some of my finer countrymen and women were busy arguing about who should have done what. People in the midst of the devastation were quick to hand out blame as well, as if taking personal responsibility for their welfare were an alien concept. It was painful to witness.

Over the years, Americans in particular have been all too willing to squander their hard-earned independence and freedom for the illusion of feeling safe under someone else's authority. The concept of self-sufficiency has been undermined in value over a scant few generations. The vast majority of the population seems to look down their noses upon self-reliance as some quaint dusty relic, entertained only by the hyperparanoid or those hopelessly incapable of fitting into mainstream society.

Many people demand outright that someone else think for them, practically throwing themselves at individuals and organizations who will act on their behalf so as to avoid making a personal commitment to their lives. Taking responsibility for oneself has been sacrificed upon the altar of dependence upon others, and insurance companies, corporate health care systems, politicians, banks, and anyone else who stands to make a profit are all too willing to keep up the illusion. This is not holding to the spirit upon which our dear country was founded.

The Rainbow Family: An Example of Selfless Service

without the Hierarchal Headache

"WE GOVERN OURSELVES, RATHER THAN EACH OTHER, BY OBSERVING THE CONSENSUS OF PEACEFUL RESPECT.".

-RAINBOW FAMILY MEMBER Through the haze of self-induced conformity and powerlessness, there have always been those who have bucked the trend and refused to give up their personal power, ideals, and freedom. We typically call them rebels or other labels thrown about by the mainstream media.

One such group is known as the Rainbow Family of Living Light. My rationale for using this, at first glance, "fringe hippy group" as an example should be obvious to those versed in the art of true survival. Unless you have ample altruistic planning and cooperation to complement your preparedness, you are not prepared, and a Lord of the Flies-type nightmare scenario can quickly come to fruition. Unless you are willing to toe the line and do your share in a group crisis-possibly much more than your share-for the benefit of the whole, you might not survive your emergency. Unless you are committed to the welfare of your tribe by having a healthy respect for taking care of your own needs, you're dead weight. In tribal societies the world over, if you were repeatedly a pain in the b.u.t.t and refused self-correction and responsibility, you were either killed or banished. Centuries ago, going it alone usually meant death. In a strict survival sense, if the single foot protests and will not move and walk forward at the expense of the body as a whole, it must be cut off to save the organism.

I have witnessed the greater Rainbow Family effectively manage more than 20,000 people, some with altered states of consciousness, within a remote wilderness setting, needing no outside a.s.sistance whatsoever. Perhaps even more astonishing, they did so using no formal inner hierarchy, as the Rainbow Family has no designated leadership.

According to the Rainbow Family's unofficial Web site, the Family didn't begin at any specific time and has never existed as a formal organization. To quote one source, "In many ways, it is a fundamental human expression: the tendency of people to gather together in a natural place and express themselves in ways that come naturally to them, to live and let live, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us." There are no membership qualifications or fees or dues of any kind. The gatherings are nonaligned both spiritually and politically. They are noncommercial, everyone is welcome, free of charge, and there are virtually no rules other than one of peaceful respect.

The Rainbow Family's unconventional leadership style was initially honed from hard lessons learned at the many megaconcerts and gatherings of the late 1960s and early 1970s, where skills for coping with and caring for the feeding of tens of thousands of people at a time were necessary.

Rainbow "leadership" has no individual leader. There is no leader/follower decision-making process or hierarchy. All decision-making power takes place at a main council that is open to all. All individuals hold equal power and all decisions are made only by unanimous consent. Although tedious at times, this method makes it impossible for authorities, individuals, groups on a power trip, or others with a self-serving agenda to intimidate or manipulate individuals to the disadvantage of the greater tribe.

The council works for the best interest of the whole. Decisions from past councils are weighed to carefully consider the effect of any new proposal, following the self-governing tenets of the Cherokee Indian tribe in eastern America, which made no decision until the effects of that decision were considered for seven generations into the future. The Gathering itself is a partic.i.p.atory workshop in self-government.

Individuals called "focalizers" take the diverse energy among the Rainbows and bring it into a sense of one-pointedness. They offer direction and get people working together. Focalizers are not placed over the group or elected in any way. They are followed, according to one Rainbow person, "because the people trust them, feel they have wisdom, find their own feelings expressed through them, and expect success from following them." If the people lose confidence in a focalizer, he or she is simply no longer followed. Although the focalizers try to facilitate the consensus of the Rainbow Tribes on a local and national level, things get done in the Rainbow world by the voluntary effort, personal responsibility, communication, and cooperation of individuals-altruistic partic.i.p.ation is the key.

Donations of money or goods come from individuals through kind offerings and elbow grease. Money required to purchase food, medical supplies, postage, photocopies, and other things comes from two main sources: the Magic Hat (direct donations on-site at a gathering) and Rainbow Benefits. For medical emergencies, CALM (the Center for Alternative Living Medicine) is always open and is also the Rainbow Family healing arts center. True to dealing with the cause and not simply the effect, their treatments focus on getting to the root of disease, not merely temporary remedies. CALM is staffed with people from diverse backgrounds such as ex-military field trauma soldiers to regular doctors, nurses, EMTs, and herbal medicine and touch healers.

For many Rainbow people, the following four attributes are hallmarks of the Rainbow way of life and are a matter of pride at gatherings: Be self-reliant.

Be respectful.

Keep the peace.

Clean up after yourself.

When things get out of control, the Rainbows have their own formal security force called Shanti-Sena (which means "peace doers" in Sanskrit) formed of individuals with much experience in the art of mediation. However, everyone is encouraged and expected to be Shanti-Sena. In other words, self-governance of human appet.i.tes and desires and a basic altruistic outlook for fellow Rainbow folks eliminates a lot of unnecessary drama in the first place. They work to deal with the cause rather than the effect of an issue. The motivation is for an individual or group gathered around an incident to focus upon and work toward a peaceful resolution for all.

Many other groups work for the common good of the Rainbow Family Tribe, including the Legal Liaison group, dedicated to modern legal matters; All Ways Free, the Family newspaper that compiles essays, stories, letters, poems, and art; Co-Operations, who conduct most of the day-to-day business; Supply, which takes in all food and materials donated to the many kitchens; Front Gate, the group that greets several thousand attendees with the common mantra, "Welcome home"; Bus Village, for those who come in campers or live-in buses or vans either part time or year-round; Kid Village, a place for children to find other children as well as for nursing moms and pregnant women, or those who need a babysitter; and the Trading Circle, where various crafts are traded for other goods-no money allowed.

Whew! And after the gathering is over, the amazing clean-up party commences, in which the camp is drawn inward from the perimeters to one central camp. Campsites and kitchens are dismantled, compost pits and latrines are filled and covered, logs, rocks, and branches are scattered, campsites are strewn with gra.s.s and leaves, fire pits are put out and cleaned, hard-packed ground is broken up with a pick and shovel, bare spots are reseeded, and potential erosion areas are sh.o.r.ed up. All traces of the Rainbow Family presence are removed and the site is returned to its natural state.

The Art of Consensus Decision-Making "IF YOU GET TO THINKIN' YOU'RE A PERSON OF SOME INFLUENCE, TRY ORDERIN' SOMEBODY ELSE'S DOG AROUND.".

-OLD COUNTRY SAYING True consensus decision-making revolves around an environment of trust where everyone suffers or gains alike from the decision. It's ancient in its design and hearkens back to our early ancestors who lived in small tribes or clans. In many tribes of many cultures, the head man or woman was the one who set the example by working the hardest and giving the most back to the clan out of altruistic generosity. Those leaders were "elected" and followed for their natural talents, honesty, and leadership abilities-not for how much money they could raise from self-serving donors.

While decisions will not always meet with everyone's complete agreement, many decisions can be made acceptable so that everyone is at least willing to go along with the choice. In essence, a single person's proposal will naturally change as it becomes everyone's consensus. Consensus decisions are based upon a willingness to drop individual "will" in support of the larger family or scheme of things. The individual agrees to get out of the way of the process for the greater good of the whole.

All partic.i.p.ants should pay attention and gently watch the process unfold. It's the duty of all to raise objections to a consensus that is not in the best interest of the family. Don't take things personally if someone raises an objection to your point of view. It's not the person raising a concern that blocks the consensus, but the concern itself, once all partic.i.p.ants recognize it as everyone's concern.

TYPES OF GROUP DECISIONS.

Unanimous agreement: All partic.i.p.ants agree with the decision.

Majority decision: More than half of the partic.i.p.ants agree or are willing to accept the decision.

Pure consensus: All partic.i.p.ants accept the decision even though they may not completely agree on the specifics involved. All are still willing to go along with the choice for the good of the group.

Working consensus: The decision is accepted by the partic.i.p.ants whose cooperation is necessary to make the decision work.

Consensus decisions enable the group to take advantage of all of the members' ideas, which in combination can create a higher-quality, better-thought-out decision, in comparison to hiding behind an unexplained vote or a single-person decision. As everyone present is a conscious part of a consensus decision, all are more inclined to own and honor the decisions made and act upon them for the betterment of the whole. Beware of people who actively try to find a decision that is acceptable to everyone, thereby dominating a group's discussion by trying to make everyone else go along with them. Watch also for individuals who attempt to cow you and others into saying you accept a decision, even when you don't.

The consensus decision-making model is most effective when pooling knowledge is desirable, and when the total acceptance of a decision is necessary to effectively implement a plan. Thus, consensus decision-making may not always be appropriate for the situation at hand. Often other kinds of decisions will need to be made based upon single individuals with the most pertinent experience or by a group vote. However, when a consensus-based decision is likely to produce the best result, people will need to know how it works.

Steps Taken to a.s.sist in Reaching a Consensus Decision "WE, THE PEOPLE. . .".

-PREAMBLE TO THE CONSt.i.tUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA To be a part of a consensus decision, everyone concerned must: Be informed about the issue at hand. The more information everyone has regarding the topic of discussion, the more able they will be to make educated decisions. Ignorance is not bliss.

Be willing to listen to others' ideas and try to understand their position, viewing differences of opinion as helpful rather than harmful. The art of listening is just that, and it must be consciously practiced. Remind yourself that a group-friendly, altruistic goal is what consensus decision-making is all about. Be willing to shut up and truly hear people for what they have to say. After all, someone else's opinion, a view that you never considered, might save your life.

Be able to describe your position, without arguing, so that others may understand your view. As simply as possible, describe your point of view. Imagine you're instructing a skill to a child: keep your words concise, simple, and short. Hold in check the ego's love of being right and trying to convince everyone how great you and your point of view are. Don't try to change people's minds. The wisdom or otherwise of your stated position will speak for itself and people will change their own minds or not.

Be rational. Remember Spock on Star Trek? Supercharged emotions will be common under stress, but they will kill altruistic group decision-making. If you can afford to do so, wait until emotionally charged people have a chance to chill out and settle down. Be like the hawk rather than the mouse, seeing all things from high up, the big picture fully exposed.

Be part of the process from the beginning. You are making decisions that will affect the health and safety of loved ones. Pay attention, don't interrupt, leave your ego at the door, and partic.i.p.ate from start to finish. If there are unresolved disagreements you consider important, steer clear of the temptation to back down and change your mind just to avoid conflict. Giving in to the pressure of the group will likely make you pout and feel resentful in the future. This pent-up bitterness might later consciously or otherwise sabotage the decision to the peril of all concerned. At the same time, don't be stubborn and use the rationale of what I just wrote to be a jacka.s.s and attempt to selfishly get your own way. Use balance in all things. For heaven's sake, drop the petty bulls.h.i.t and get along! You're still alive, so be grateful and do whatever you can to pull your own weight and reduce survival stress and friction within your family, city, state, and nation.

DEFINING Your Urban SURVIVAL PRIORITIES

"Always bear this in mind, that very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life."

-Marcus Aurelius What one wants is not always what one needs. The effects of modern civilization and the luxuries it offers intoxicates the senses and makes the task of deciding what your family needs difficult. It's virtually impossible to focus on what is required as the mind is pulled this way and that with the pure over stimulation of Madison Avenue and all the c.r.a.p they say you must purchase to become a fulfilled and happy human being. After all, the easiest way to sell your wares is to appeal to a potential consumer's fear, ego, or ignorance.

As mentioned earlier in this book, our town, to its credit, had several town meetings regarding the Y2K crisis. I attended every meeting that I could, fascinated with the public display of disaster preparation and human drama. The majority of these town meetings consisted of a panel of several individuals. Each person represented a key element of what most people thought was important if the grid went down. There was the guy from the power company, one from the water department and sanitation treatment plant, a communications person, a representative from one of the local grocery stores, a couple of people I've since forgotten, and a financial planner. After each gave their monologues, the real fun began and the panel was open for questions from the fidgety, sweaty audience. In all the town meetings I attended, more than 85 percent of the questions were directed toward the financial planner! To h.e.l.l with food, water, having a safe place to take a dump so the kids don't die of dysentery, or finding out if Aunt Mabel's dead in Duluth, Minnesota, as long as our investments are safe-silly, silly people. At the very least, if your investments are on paper, you'll have something extra to wipe your b.u.t.t with. Enjoy!

THE PREPARATION GAME.

(CHECK OFF ALL FIVE.

FOR FANTASTIC FAMILY FUN!).

Physical Preparation. Survival scenarios are synonymous with physical stress and unique sanitary conditions. Sleep deprivation, dehydration, and hypo- and hyperthermia can compound other limitations. Maintaining a proper level of physical fitness, health, rest, and hygiene is strongly recommended.

Mental and Emotional Preparation. Self-confidence is the key and is the result of proper prior planning, skills practice, strong family cooperation and communication skills, personal belief systems, and your overall experience with stress and doing more with less.

Materials Preparation. Have on hand the right equipment for the job (maintained and in proper working order) and know how to use it. Having backup equipment for critical goods is wise in case of theft, loss, sharing with others, accidents, or breakdowns.

Dangerous Scenario Preparation. Weird stuff happens. Mentally play out possible disaster scenarios with your family (and neighborhood if possible), including rendezvous points, leadership roles, and relevant environmental and civic emergencies. If this is done successfully, the end result should be a happier, calmer, and more centered family unit-not a bunch of anxiety-ridden, paranoid people freaking out about how many ways there are to die.

Spiritual Preparation. A strong grounding in a Presence larger than oneself is an extremely powerful force and imparts the gift of a positive, holistic, eagle's-eye view of the current situation and life in general.

Note: Outside of an ever-changing Mother Nature and urban or suburban landscape, the proverbial wild card lies in human nature and how it reacts to stress. Make every effort to get to know the other people in your tribe before crisis strikes.

Sacred Simplicity You are directly responsible for your life. Through free will, you are the directing intelligence through your heart, and what you think, feel, and hold your attention to is what you become. One of the most challenging things you may need to accomplish is to psychologically download into your loved ones the power of doing more with less. Your entire survival plan-from physical preparation to riding out the storm itself and helping your neighbors along the way-can be made easier by keeping your outlook on the situation as simple as possible. The fewer moving parts the better, in your mind and in your toilet. Moving parts, literally and figuratively, leave options for elements of the unknown-the origin of fear-to breed and manifest.

Americans in general, but especially my generation and younger, are spoiled rotten. We are incredibly self-centered and used to getting our own way, and we have a tantrum if we don't. A big crisis is our e-mail being down for a day. Many have moved far from center on what life is all about and what is truly required to live and be happy. If you or someone you love is a slave to materialism, it can jeopardize your survival plan. If a loved one can't live without their hairdryer or other luxuries after the grid takes a dump, they're in for a rude awakening-as are you. The lack of electricity might cause them to have an emotional meltdown during an emergency. I strongly recommend that you have a family powwow about basic values as they pertain to the grid coming down and the lack of conveniences that will occur. It's best not to have this conversation around a single lit candle during a blackout-don't learn to swim when the boat is already sinking.

The quickest way to find out what you need to live in any situation is to go without. If you sat down anywhere in the world with only the clothes on your back, you would quickly conceptualize what is needed for your survival from your current environment, or you would die. In fact, the priorities of your survival would come to you. First, you would seek to eliminate whatever condition brought discomfort to your body. If it's too cold or too hot, you would need shelter. After this challenge was met, another would surface that would require attention and so on down the line. Mother Nature, coupled with the fact that you possess a physical body in a physical world, mandate what is required for your overall survival and comfort.

In like manner, the tens of thousands of homeless people living on the streets around the world deal with life the same way, at least at first. They find out quickly what is needed to live through discomfort, improvising their needs from their surroundings. As being uncomfortable is a drag, they take their destiny a step further and seek to get their needs met before the need arises, exploiting the concept of advance preparation. Many homeless people are extremely good at procuring from an urban environment what is needed to live. Their lack of amenities has honed their awareness about what is required to sustain life. Am I saying that you have to live in the woods or on the streets to figure out what your family needs during troubled times? No. But it would give you a worldview on grat.i.tude and appreciation that you would never forget. In any event, I've done both so you don't have to.

For most urbanites, life can be broken down into a few precious categories of physical needs. They are as follows: clothing, sleep, water, shelter, food, sanitation and hygiene, lighting, first-aid, communications, and transportation. The order of their importance will be dictated by your current and future situation. Pay no mind to the "G.o.ds" of survival who preach endlessly about which category is more important than the others. While I myself preach about the virtues of regulating body temperature via clothing and water in an outdoor survival scenario, both take a backseat to first-aid when one realizes they have a tree branch sticking out of their leg. While the contents of this list may look harmless and somewhat simple, the human ego can mess it up in a heartbeat and turn a simple idea into a nightmare of things to buy and events to fear. In the coming pages this book will cover how to deal with all of the above categories, as well as others. You will find the job of preparing your family for the unknown much easier if you first pay attention to what is known about the human body and the priorities required to keep it alive.

The following chart hammers home the importance of your survival priorities. I call it "The Rule of Threes or Fours." Depending on whose survival book you read, the authors will differ on the increments of time involved before you croak. While not completely useless as a teaching tool, much like political promises, the chart is full of errors if taken literally. A person can die in a few hours in the desert from hyperthermia and dehydration from lack of water, among other stupidities, which is in seeming contradiction to the chart to the right. In like fashion, if I tell nicotine-addicted students in my courses that they can't smoke for the next several days, I might see the "fall-apart-as-a-group" statistic go down the tubes in a few hours. What this chart does accomplish, however, is to plainly ill.u.s.trate what will statistically kill you first. This wisdom allows you to intelligently compile a preparedness checklist for what will befall you, sooner or later, without becoming a slave to another's opinion. Three tons of canned food and ammo stashed in your garage doesn't mean much if you die from hypothermia in your on-the-grid house, featuring electric s.p.a.ce heaters, while in the midst of a several-day, mid-January power blackout.

In addition, the chart ill.u.s.trates the all-important role that psychology plays in all emergency scenarios. Panic-the bane of all-thrust into a survival situation must be dealt with first and throughout your ordeal. How many watts of power your generator puts out is irrelevant if you're too scared stupid to fire it up. Like anything else, training, practice, and proper advance preparation will serve you well in your family's time of need. The very fact that you're still plowing through this book is a testament to your wanting to know more and take the bull by the horns in your family's self-reliance and independence. Notice also how all of the items listed in the chart with the exception of group dynamics, to a greater or lesser extent, involve keeping your body's inner core temperature at 98.6 degrees F (37 degrees C)!

How much stuff DO YOU NEED. . .and for HOW LONG?

"The more you know, the less you need."

-Australian Aborigine saying The average modern wilderness survival scenario lasts approximately seventy-two hours, or three days, before rescuers find you dead or alive. In contrast, our hypothetical urban survival scenario has no set time limits. Eventually, we're a.s.suming that local, state, and federal emergency management agencies will bail us out of our predicament. . .but the question is, when? In a wilderness survival emergency, only you and the company you keep are screwed. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the grid is up, the power is on, people are commuting to work, and the burgers are sizzling on the grill at the nearest fast-food joint. Nothing has changed, and the ordered chaos we call Urbania chugs along just swell.

Imagine if all of your modern-day niceties "hiccupped" for a short while and failed to function on cue. Better yet, picture the services and conveniences that you take for granted each day coming to a screeching halt for an unknown period of time. It's obvious from past disasters around the world, human caused or otherwise, that local emergency response personnel are hopelessly understaffed. As n.o.ble, selfless, and hardworking as those emergency teams are, they always require a.s.sistance from other towns, counties, states, and sometimes nations. All of this takes time to accomplish, and time is one commodity that may be in high demand if you don't take care of the simple, basic needs that your family will have before the crisis happens.

HOW MUCH SURVIVAL STUFF YOU HAVE IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO WHAT YOU FEEL THREATENS YOUR HOME, AND HOW LONG THE EFFECTS WILL LAST.