Why were people of old so integrated with their surroundings?
Because the objects that they used,
the food that they ate,
and
the activities that they engaged in
were straight from their surroundings.
They used sticks made from bamboo as eating implements.
They used vines to make baskets.
They used gourds as vessels.
For food,
they grew plants, domesticated animals,
and caught fish and game.
Their social structure was built
around the cycles of the sun,
moon, and stars.
Newborn babies were washed
with the waters of the nearest stream.
The dead were buried in the same earth that
provided sustenance.
Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao Daily Meditations, pg. 320
The post-apocalypse era will not occur from nuclear warring but rather from humans unwilling to call a halt to our exploitation of Mother Earth and her natural resources. The agribusiness and chemical giants have access to a seemingly bottomless pit of money to influence food and farming policy makers. How will you as an inhabitant of Mother Earth step up to intervene in this exploitation?
Animals, insects, birds, trees as well as other plants are dying or becoming extinct at rates here to for unheard of. Some of us just go about our daily lives as usual while the loss of diversity is rapidly growing. Those who do step up to thwart "big business" and our present administration are penalized. Are you willing to step up no matter the personal penalty?
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| Snow Geese and Ross Geese at Bosque del Apache |
In a conversation at Santa Fe's independent bookstore, Collected Works, between Terry Tempest Williams and Tom Udall, Terry shared how she was fired from her long standing, and beloved, teaching position at the University of Utah, the state's flagship university of higher learning. She was highly respected and honored with numerous awards including commencement speaker. She attributes her firing to her and her husband buying up oil and gas rights in Utah ... as many as they could pay for from their bank account. These purchases were "frozen" and are presently in litigation, something that has never happened before. She shared that Trump cronies intervened on multiple levels, affecting her and her husband's lives in Utah.
From her most recent book, Erosion: Essays of Undoing:
"BOOM! EROSION OF BELIEF, December 2, 2017
What is beauty if not stillness?
What is stillness if not sight?
What is sight if not an awakening?
What is an awakening if not now?
The American landscape is under assault by an administration that cares only about themselves. Working behind closed doors, they are strategically undermining environmental protections that have been in place for decades and getting away with it, in practices of secrecy, in deeds of greed, in acts of violence that are causing pain.
Like many, I have compartmentalized my state of mind in order to survive. Like most, I have also compartmentalized my state of Utah. It is a hidden silence that we all share. This is the fallout that has entered our bodies; nuclear bombs tested in the desert - Boom! These are uranium tailings left on the edges of our towns where children play - Boom! The war games played and nerve gas stored in the West Desert - Boom! These are the oil and gas lines, frack lines from Vernal to Bonanza in the Uintah Basin - Boom!This is Aneth and Montezuma Creek - the oil patches on Indian lands - Boom! Cut Grand Staircase - Escanlante in half - Boom! And every other wild place that is easier for me to defend than my own people and species - Boom!...
President Donald J. Trump will try to eviscerate Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Monuments with his pen and poisonous policies. He will stand tall with other white men who for generations have exhumed, looted, and profited from the graves of Ancient Ones. They will tell you, Bears Ears belongs to them - Boom!"
To read more I highly recommend her book published this past year. In her book she includes essays about other climate change activists who are literally and figuratively laying their lives on the line to bring the environmentally destructive behavior of humans, including big corporations, to a halt.
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| Greater and Lesser Sandhill Cranes at Bosque del Apache |
For sure personal changes have an enormous effect as suggested in an earlier post! For each of us active participation in change of a larger magnitude is essential at this time of crisis on our planet we and so many other BEings call home. So I ask, how are you willing to act to bring about the necessary changes so that our governments on all levels recognize the dire situation affecting each and every BEing here on Mother Earth?
“Fill each of us with love for our true Self,
which includes all of the creatures and plants
and landscapes of the world.
Fill us with a powerful urge for the wellbeing and
continual unfolding of this Self.
May we speak in all human councils
on the behalf of the animals
and plants and landscapes of the Earth.
John Seed
Earth Prayers from around the World:
365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth, pg. 34
As we consider our commitment to the well BEing of Mother Earth, may we
