Pass it Along

Some good stuff here. Pass it along.

An Ecosystem Being Transformed: Yellowstone 15 Years After the Return of Wolves

On the 15th anniversary of the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park, a quiet but profound rebirth of life and ecosystem health is emerging, scientists conclude in a new report.

The Revolution Begins in 2012

The Tea Party might not know it but they are mad about the same thing that Occupy Wall Street is. They have a sense that our politicians have sold us out - and they are 100% right. The problem isn't Big Government or Big Money. The problem is when Big Money buys Big Government leading to Big Corruption.

I prefer the term 'uprising' to 'revolution' -- 'revolution' is associated with violence and I'm not advocating violence in any way, shape or form. It is time, however, for the American people to reclaim their right to be heard. The 99% is not about redistribution of wealth, it is about the redistribution of power. If money is a form of speech, then some have louder voices than others, and corporations have the loudest voices of all. That is a violation of the spirit of democracy plain and simple. If we don't make our stand now, we may wake up some morning to find that all we cherish about our country has morphed into something ugly and unrecognizable.

And on an entirely different note, if you have slugs, get ducks:

Rise and Root

Risa, over at The Hermitage, has created a new symbol for an uprising rooted in the earth and is sharing her symbol with the world.

. . . I made this drawing for you - Rise & Root - a symbol perhaps, a waymarker for the Zapatistas of suburbia. As I drew the rooted tree-people raising their fists, I realised that they were the embodiment and representation of my dream-rune: raised fists to the fight, and roots in the earth. I give you this image to do with what you wish: download it, reblog it, print it, photocopy it, make it into stickers and take them with you in your bag to stick on the backs of public toilet doors, on supermarket conveyor belts or over underground advertising screens; make it into a poster, a projection, print it on bags and T-shirts, paint it large on the sides of petrol stations, pavements, parliaments.

Or take the rune as a symbol we’ll all recognise when it’s chalked on our doorsteps, and tattooed on our foreheads. I want this image not to be for sale - take it freely and use it, let’s make it spread unrelenting from the edges, appearing everywhere, but not obviously authored. I will not make a website about it. It is rough, and black-and-white as a badly photocopied pamphlet. It is yours. A gift to our revolution for Two Thousand And Twelve. Take it and run.

With her blessing, and mine, take it and run!

Fog and the Midnight Hour

Here in the 'hood, the year ended with fog -- a fog that got progressively thicker as the day wore on, so thick that our neighbors all but disappeared into a parallel reality. But at the midnight hour, the fog cleared and the stars and moon shone out in all their brilliance, lighting our way home.

What better metaphor for the dawning of this new year?

Hope, Not the Bob kind

There’s an interesting discussion at The Arch Druid Report about hope and optimism and pessimism and whether wishing on a star is a good thing or a bad one. I touched upon this subject a while back, but it deserves another go-round. These are words that are used daily and yet there seems to be no universal understanding of the concepts they represent.

John Michael Greer offers one definition of hope:
“ . . . hope doesn’t depend on a sense of entitlement that insists the universe is obligated to provide us with whatever happy ending we think we want, and in any real sense, it’s incompatible with notions of that kind. Hope is the quality of character and the act of will that finds some good that can be achieved, no matter what the circumstances, and then strives to achieve it.”

On the first part, we are agreed. “Hope” has nothing to do with a sense of entitlement, nor with the kind of wishful thinking around which we have built a cult of Positivity. But neither is hope a quality of character that works to make the best of a bad situation. I’m not sure what the term for that quality would be -- courageous, perhaps . . . resilient, or resourceful, or some combination of the three. We are arguing semantics here, but it does seem that semantics matters.

Hope can be a verb or a noun, but not an adjective. As a verb, ‘to hope’ is to recognize that there is more than one outcome possible and that some of those outcomes are more desirable than others. ‘To hope’ is to focus one’s imaginative power on the more positive outcomes. ‘Hope’ as a noun refers to the belief that a positive outcome is still possible even when it is unlikely.

It seems to me that hope is most appropriate for those events in life that are beyond our power to effect -- we hope that a friend who has cancer may be cured; we hope that the Saints will make it to the Super Bowl; we hope that the lost child in the news will be found whole and happy. Hope is a wish for the best and yet a recognition that our wishes are not always fulfilled. Hope implies the possibility of an undesirable outcome and is an attempt to ward it off with the power of positive thinking. Hope, at best, is weak and ineffectual, but it can keep a light burning where otherwise there would be darkness. It can also prevent one from accepting and dealing with reality. On the one hand is a person who boards up the house, evacuates, and hopes that the hurricane loses strength before it makes landfall, and on the other is a person who sits stubbornly at home while the waves come crashing ashore and yet entertains the weird notion that hope will suffice.

Hope, to me, is not one of the great virtues. Courage is, as are resourcefulness and resilience. But hope . . . I’d rather have a clear-eyed reality check any day. After I’ve prepared for the worst, then, and only then, will I hope for the best. And if the worst comes anyway, I hope that I may have the courage, resourcefulness and resilience to make the best of a bad situation and to inspire others to do the same.

Language is funny, isn’t it?

It Works for Me

Rather than dig around in an over-cluttered brain for something true and wise to write as 2012 dawns, I’ll just share a few wise words that others have written.

“ . . . my wish for all of us for 2012: that we may each find our way of living from the very centre of who & what we are; that we find a deeper level of freedom to be who we are without concern for others' opinions or life-limiting beliefs we were taught or constructed around a fantasy of inner or outer "safety." I smile as I write this. Life is not safe- it is unpredictable & short, a messy mix of joy & sorrow, a glorious plethora of endings and beginnings.

. . . seeing the new year through the lens of heart, mindful of the gift of being in this breath-takingly beautiful world. My New Year's resolution? To savour each moment, every taste & texture, sound & scent, shape & colour; to hear the music & dance when I can; to allow the divine light embedded in the centre of every cell of my being to guide & direct me.” Oriah Mountain Dreamer

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." Joseph Campbell

My personal resolution for 2012 is to wear more feathers in my hair. Not as profound as Oriah's, but it works for me.

West Meets East

A sobering article by Patricia Williams in The Nation raises concerns about new threats to our civil liberties:

“You know these are interesting times when Glenn Beck, Dianne Feinstein, Rand Paul and the ACLU all stand on the same side of an issue. The issue in question is Subtitle D of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), particularly Sections 1031–1033, being discussed by the House and Senate as I write and headed to the president’s desk any day now. These hastily added, under-the-radar provisions, co-sponsored by Senators John McCain and Carl Levin, would allow for the indefinite military detention of any person alleged to be a member of Al Qaeda, the Taliban or “associated forces.” The provisions also apply to any person who supports or aids “belligerent” acts against the United States, whether the person is apprehended beyond our borders or on domestic soil. . . . Under this law, if the Defense Department thinks you’re a terrorist, there would be no presumption of innocence; you would be presumed a detainee of the military unless the executive decides otherwise. . . . You will be an “unprivileged enemy belligerent,” with limited rights to appeal that status, no rights to due process, or to a jury, or to a speedy trial guided by the rules of evidence.”

I have always considered myself to be a liberal and proud of it. “Bleeding heart liberal,” that’s me. But these days, I sometimes find myself agreeing with Libertarians and true conservatives and people of various political persuasions. Perhaps the political spectrum is not a line but a circle. Perhaps if one goes far enough west, it becomes east. Perhaps the erosion of freedom in America is becoming so egregious that we will find our common ground and the 99% will speak with one voice.

Speak out, America, while you still can.

As we go into 2012

I’m back. We’re going into a new year and I’m finding that I have new soap box material that needs an outlet.

I’ve been reading some of Peter Sinclair’s stuff on Facebook -- all that high-tech-will-save-us stuff -- and wondering why I’m so put off by that type of article. Then it dawned on me -- part of it is that science seems to be promising a solution that does not exist -- that the problems of oil depletion and climate change can be cured by some miraculous new invention and business as usual is still in the cards. As long as science keeps dangling this elusive miracle in front of us, we are not going to make the real changes that need to be made. This false hope allows us to continue sleep-walking through the destruction of our planet while dreaming sweet dreams of a delusional Star Trekish future.

But the real problem is that we are trying to treat the symptoms while ignoring the underlying cause and that is like taking antacid to combat stomach cancer. The problem is not a lower energy future, and even climate change is only symptomatic. The problem is that the world is over-populated with human beings who are living unsustainably and destroying Mother Earth and her children in the process. As in the Canadian tar sands. As in mountain top removal. As in deforestation of the Amazon. As in global warming that is melting the ice caps and the methane rich tundra and heating the oceans to the point where currents may change course. As in over-fishing and over-mining and over-paving and over-building and over-producing and having no ‘away’ where we can rid ourselves of our flood of toxic wastes. So solar bubble wrap ain’t gonna cure nothing, Peter. Sorry!

The best thing that could happen right now is the collapse of the world’s economies wherein the bottom falls out of the demand for fossils, wherein people realize that if they are to survive, they are going to have to grow as much of their own food as possible and make do with much less, wherein the ideas of permaculture spread like wildfire across a parched prairie and wherein the status symbols of old become the new social stigmas. Who knows, maybe 2012 will be the watermark year . . .

Ah, 2012. The year has a mythical hold over our imaginations. Over at The Archdruid Report, John Michael Greer states with absolute confidence that December 21, 2012 will go down in history as The Day Nothing Happened. I disagree . . . and go on record as stating, with absolute confidence, that December 21, 2012 will be a day worth remembering. There are no days when nothing happens -- every day is memorable for the moments stacked one upon another that make up our lives.

But of course, that is not the kind of happening which JMG addresses. He is referring to all the prophecies based on a misunderstanding of the Mayan calendar -- events ranging from cataclysmic events to The Rapture to mass enlightenment to alien intervention. He discusses why prophecies have such attraction for us -- and it basically comes down to an aversion to personal responsibility. It is much easier and much more pleasant to sit back and let events unfold than to take responsibility for the trajectory of our lives -- even if we don’t expect major events but just a steady influx of scientific miracles that make tomorrow easier and more golden than today.

I am hoping that JMG is wrong. Granted, the Mayan calendar does not predict the end of the world, but it does indicate the end of a cycle. I don’t know this to be true, but I am hoping that it is -- I am hoping that, as with the winter solstice, the tide of darkness will have reached its apex and begin to give way to the light. As with the solstice, one will not awaken on Dec 22 and notice a difference -- but as time progresses the change becomes evident. How much time? Not likely in months, but in years, decades, maybe even centuries.

Whether or not 2012 is a watermark year, the human tendency to avoid personal responsibility is still a valid observation. So, what about me? I could be the poster child for responsibility avoidance. I sit and dream about other places, other circumstances, other friends, other life-styles. I need to make it work here, with what I have. Not as a forever thing, but as a ‘for now’ thing.

Hmm, easier said than done.