This Blog contains: (scroll down)
Wake and Integrate -- a personal call for collective action
"The Condor and the Eagle" film announcement EARTH DAY and my reflection (April 11, 2020)
Spring 2020: Regenerative Vision (March 16, 2020)
Grief Becomes a Path for Action (October 25, 2019)
Wake and Integrate -- a personal call for collective action June 25, 2020 For me, in the flow of COVID-dominated life, climate issues can take a shadow seat outside of awareness. This weekend a circle of women leaders in Awakened Action* offered an online all day "retreat" in which over 900 of us around the world embraced with heart, the intertwined realities of racism, climate crises and COVID--learning together. PLEASE take time (20 - 30 min) to read my sharing and suggested resources.
Diana Livermore, one of the authors of The IPCC climate report* of 2018, shared her reflection that every amount of fossil fuel we use makes a difference in this effort to keep the temperature rise below 1.5 degrees She shared from her home in Tucson, a photo of the fires burning in the mountains above her, again reminding that fires, floods and droughts are more intense due to this rise of one degree we've already made. I felt a pang as I realized I had lapsed into numbness again about all this!
Kritee Kanko, my friend and local scientist who works with the Environmental Defense Fund, showed a graphic of tipping points*. There is not just one but many, some of which we've already crossed, some we may have a chance to avoid. That's so important for us to know: our actions make a difference.
The TRUTH sits before us and requires us all to re-examine a collective modern life that hasn’t been and isn't healthy for the planet nor her people. Anti-racism work needs to be threaded right along with addressing the climate crisis: they are intertwined. We need to educate ourselves about that interconnection. (See Kritee Kanko offerings below)
The fossil fuel industry, which needs to be de-capitalized in both senses, exists at the expense of people of color around the world. The film The Condor and the Eagle* shows communities whose health is negatively impacted. Indigenous people’s lives are being disrupted by companies drilling for oil/gas on their sacred ground from Canada to South America. The film brings forward voices and faces of some of the Indigenous people whose suffering is an invisible part of our use of fossil fuel.
I am reaching out to all of you in my community to ask you to make a commitment to honor the IPCC report's warning and call to cut back 50% on fossil fuel use by 2030. Greta Thunberg countered, saying in 2019 we have 8 years. Given not everyone will honor that call, I want us to personally cut back 50% in the next 5 years or 10% a year, reducing our energy use as well as replacing with renewable sources. We need to do this and share with others in our lives that we are doing so and ask them to join.
I also ask that we do the political work of calling businesses we use to change their carbon footprint and politicians to cease support for Oil and Gas. It is time now for transitioning workers and jobs to renewable energy. Let's push in CO, the US and globally for that.
I step outdoors into the beautiful day, appreciating the clouds, the robin listening for worms. I listen to my heart and the heart of the Earth: she is laboring to foster life even as un-awakened humans of the Western worldview damage and degrade it. We know "this isn't working" and this includes our own awareness and inaction. We all have much to learn to step outside our comfort zones and become active participants in changing the world inside of us, in our lives, in communities and nations. Let's come together to do that work.
I am aware this work needs to include our human supremacy attitudes and actions about the animal, plant and elemental world from which we evolved and are dependent on.
I come back inside to the computer to learn more for myself and read to understand this statement:
Hop Hopkins goes on to say:
"I know that what I’ve laid out here is a lot of dots to connect. I can imagine you thinking, “OK, so how do we end white supremacy then?
I wish I had all the answers, but I don’t. The answer is for all of us to figure out together.
(I ask that you read his whole article....he concludes with:)
All I know is ...as long as we keep letting the polluters sacrifice Black and Brown communities, we can’t protect our shared global climate. I keep asking again and again, ‘How could they bring themselves to do it?’
And now I ask you, what will you bring yourself to do?"
There are many good organizations as https://350colorado.org/ and http://cleanenergyaction.org/ to support or join in this action. The Earth herself teaches us through aspen groves with shared root systems just how much stronger we are when we work in community. There are also numerous sources of educating ourselves, some below. Above all, I ask that we make ample room to learn from Indigenous voices who bring to us their ancient culture of living in regenerative relationship with the Earth. Original Instructions, are a reminder:
https://4nishart.wordpress.com/2017/03/21/original-instructions/
If you don't have a group you are working with and would like to step into conversation and reflection about these issues with me and a few others, through an online venue, please let me know. I want us to share. We will meet in one of the common email groups we are part of, perhaps through Google Meet.
* LIST OF RESOURCES -- PLEASE VISIT
AWAKENED ACTION: Women Leaders Speak to Race, Poverty, Climate, and the Pandemic with Dekila Chungyalpa; Christiana Figueres; Jane Fonda; Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD; Sensei Wendy Johnson; Sensei Kritee Kanko, PhD; Stephanie Kaza, PhD; Diana Liverman, PhD; Joanna Macy, PhD; Rebecca Solnit; Heather McTeer Toney, JD. https://www.upaya.org/program/awakened-action-women-leaders-speak/?id=2326 The Upaya Center needs donations and so when you register, they will ask for oe ...Pay Pal any amount and credit card minimum donation is $10.00
The Condor and the Eagle: next showing 6/28/20
Other resources: please check them out
Pachamama Alliance -- https://www.pachamama.org/ (I've been listening to their series Resilience and Possibility) See our New Online Course on Reversing Global Warming
In fact, all humankind is struggling with PTSD right now, a symptom of which is the inability to see into the future. That this industrial way of life is insane, disconnected from the natural world, from its own body and community, is still not recognized. The only revolution that matters right now is the one that liberates Earth Mother and all her children. Including our bodies. And our minds.
3 CDs $33, 3 transcripts $12 (The middle one I recommend on COVID and Capitalism)
Thank you from Mother Earth for attending to this,
The Condor and the Eagle, FILM invitation and my reflections:
I invite you to sign up for an online screening of
The Condor and the Eagle,
EARTH DAY, Wednesday, April 22 at 7 pm MDT
This
film documents a journey to Indigenous communities affected by the fossil fuel industry
in Canada (Alberta tar sands), the U.S. (Houston) and South America (Peru,
Ecuador). It shares their collective resistance efforts and personal
messages through on-the-ground interviews.
Register for the 4/22 evening screening -- https://event.webinarjam.com/register/39/k6yx6h20 (copy and paste)
The
goals of the film are to:
o a) build awareness of the
issues/interconnections
o b) raise financial support for
indigenous campaigns through donations from screenings
o c) increase participation in actions /
the movement(s) to counter harmful effects from the fossil fuel industry
I
highly recommend seeing this moving, disturbing and heart-opening
film. The deeply personal stories educate beyond the facts you may have
heard. I felt a sense of wholeness and connection after viewing this film
regarding my concerns and actions related to the Earth and to Indigenous
issues.
In
these times we often hear and say ‘We are all in this together, and helping one
another through.” It is from this place of understanding of our
interconnectedness, that we can create a new base for our society, economy, and
health-care system. We need to re-evaluate how we see our relationships with
one another as humans and with the Earth’s Eco-systems and all species.
All of our lives depend on this web of life we are weaving.
My
concerns and prayers I share which are reflected in the film, “The Condor and the
Eagle” are that we
o learn from Indigenous people to value a
better way to live in good relationship with all forms of Life on Earth
o wean ourselves from a
culture/government that keeps supporting the fossil fuel industry when there
are viable alternative sources of energy and viable Green New Deal ideas
o heal the wrongs done to Indigenous
communities, specifically by the oil industry we gain some benefit from
o alter our consumption-oriented life
styles to ones that recognize our global consumption is at the rate of 1.5
planets and is severely degrading Earth’s ecosystems, and the air, water, soil
and species on which we all depend
See some suggestions for actions you may want to take after seeing the
film . Thanks for watching this film—and responding with your heart and mind!
Spring 2020: Regenerative Vision
As we hunker in our social isolation this spring, may we
reflect …
What we as an industrialized human species have done to extinguish
life of other species and threaten our own future existence, the Coronavirus is
now doing to threaten our human lives.
Could this time become a wakeup call to change our human
behavior from one disconnected from Earth and each other into one acknowledging
and acting to protect our interconnectedness, our impacts on others?
As governments seek to help us through policies and measures
to protect ourselves, may we awaken to thinking and acting beyond where our
modern ways of living have brought us-- living outside the staying power of
this planet.
Would that as we are called to act for the good of
everyone’s health, we enact the value and necessity of universal health care, not
for profit,
Would that worldwide policy ask, at this time of census,
that humans stop birthing babies, beyond self-replacement, one for one and more
women decide NOT to bear children so that we reduce human numbers and reverse
our terrible impact on the generative life of this planet
Would that we as a human species self-contain from using so
much fossil fuel for war, for transport, for creating plastic, for over-heating,
over-cooling homes and public buildings
and replace fossil fuel with a just transition to renewable energy and
non polluting product sources.
Would that we shift our usurious growth-oriented economics
into one responsible and accountable for impacts, creating meaningful work in
support of Life; and shift from subsidizing mono-crop agriculture to support
regenerative agriculture.
Would that over-consumption, hoarding wealth be seen as an immature
non-social expression and be replaced by a universal basic income from just
taxation to provide for the basic needs of everyone.
Would that we see into, understand and transform racism,
sexism and other “isms” into a just and equitable world for all beings.
Would that humanity learn respect for the life of other
species, understand the nature of this beautiful planet, Earth and live in
respect for and in a greater harmony with its creative evolution.
Bonnie Sundance, Director, www.Our-Sacred-Earth.org
Grief becomes a Path for Action – I walk to the bus, with grief, as these thoughts come. (October 25, 2019)
As you plan and you look out across the pathway of your day
– what do you see? What concerns arise?
In your day, when you look up at the sky, do you also see the
mounting Climate Crisis as we climb towards 450 ppm of CO2 when the safe amount
is 350 ppm?
When you look down at your feet do you perceive the dying of
biodiversity, the species forced out of existence?
Along the periphery of your gaze do you see the flames
burning the precious Amazon forest upon which we depend?
Are these part of your day as you make choices? Converse with colleagues and friends?
Would you spend an hour each day for the Earth? To live to change our culture into an Earth
caring/connected one?
In that hour can you reflect? -–
Can you say No to your next airline travel plans?
And say No to your investments or to your support of fossil
fuel companies?
Can you say No to military spending and corporations with
whom 50% of tax money goes for 50% of US fossil fuel emissions?
Will you join and support the work of an Earth caring
organization?
Can you aim to cut back your fossil fuel use by 50% in the
next few years as the IPCC report asks?
Can you walk or take the bus instead of hopping into the
convenience of your car?
Are you willing to step outside your comfort zone and
stretch for the Earth and children of all species?
In that hour, can you step into a caring relationship with
nature/a tree/the Earth/another being –and care. Can you learn from Indigenous cultures the
importance of understanding our interconnection?
Can you appreciate what you have and let it be enough?
Can you start giving TO the Earth and let go of expecting
Her to give to YOU so much at such a high cost?
The Earth thanks you for spending an hour giving her your
caring attention in action.
Bonnie Sundance, Rocky Mountains,
Colorado
Executive Director, Our Sacred Earth,
www.Our-Sacred-Earth.org