 In Gaia's Garden by Susan Meeker-Lowry (SusanMeekerLowry)
posted Sat June 12th 2010 @ 1:14 PM
My first garden was a small flower garden in the shade of a huge, split white pine (the first tree I actually talked to and had a relationship with). It wasn’t the best location. Not much sun and the sandy soil was very acidic (something I had no clue about at the time). Read More »
 The Blame Game by Susan Meeker-Lowry (SusanMeekerLowry)
posted Sat June 5th 2010 @ 11:28 AM
Who is to blame for BP’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico? Many are playing the blame game. Here are some examples:
We are responsible for the oil disaster in the Gulf. BP is simply doing what we require because of our need for so much oil. Sure they could have been more careful. Sure they didn’t have to be because of the oil industry’s incestuous relationship with government. But it’s still our fault - after all we’re the ones pumping the oil into cars, homes, buying plastic crap, etc., etc.
Or: Don’t blame me! I had nothing to do with it and no one asked me. I didn’t have anything to do with that incestuous relationship. I certainly wouldn’t have allowed it, I certainly would have done something by now to reduce our dependence on oil. I only drive when I need to, have cut my consumption as much as possible. It’s the system, damn it, and one person can’t change the system!
The blame goes on and on. Even some of the solutions are couched in the form of blame:
We just need to STOP it! Stop driving your car and ride a bike. Grow your own food. If there isn’t public transportation where you live, move! You’re the problem! Do something about it!
However there are realities that don’t lend themselves to simplistic solutions and aren’t going to change simply by desiring that the do: I live in a place with no public transportation. I’m old (or disabled) and can’t ride a bike. I haven’t the money to move. Or I own my home and can’t sell it in the current market. Or . . . and so on.
I’ve read a lot on the internet on the BP disaster (which is itself a problem relying as it does on an oil-dependent infrastructure and resource dependent technology), from newspaper articles to blogs to advocacy pieces – so many articles, so many opinions my head fairly swims with them and after a while nothing makes sense anymore. The only thing I’m sure of is the Gulf coast is dead. I’ll never be able to shake the images of oil soaked pelicans and turtles and I know the reality is so very much worse. (I’m almost grateful to BP for not allowing more images to reach the public, though I know this is wrong and I do want the veil of secrecy lifted, as I’m sure it will be in the not-too-distant future). I also know the Gulf isn’t the only place destroyed by oil, as so many of the pieces I’ve read have pointed out. This one is just “our” tragedy, the others are elsewhere (Nigeria for one), and not on the average American’s radar because our media hasn’t put them there.
The beauty and diversity of Earth is dying due to our dependence on oil. Whether we personally chose it, or were coerced into it by a system over which we have no control doesn’t change that fact. And this wasn’t exactly an unknown way before BP’s disaster. The difference is it is now right in our faces, thrust into our consciousness each and every day since the blowout happened.
What is needed – aside from “killing” BP’s corporate personhood, taking all its assets for cleanup, restitution (as if there is any way one can recompensed for the loss of everything one has come to know as your life; as if a species can be recompensed for its extinction, or the ocean for contamination that will spread up the coast and eventually towards Europe), and the funding of an energy system that begins with conservation and so on – is a complete and speedy transformation of consciousness. A transformation that leads us to make changes in our own lives, certainly, but more than that helps us grok that systemic, cultural change is actually a possibility. I’m sick of reading comments posted on blog after blog that deride anyone’s hope or optimism that things can change as “unrealistic” and “impossible”. I’m tired of hearing that alternatives like solar and wind don’t cut it because no way can they provide the energy of oil, or that people just aren’t willing to give up their cushy, energy-intensive lifestyles, and so on.
How are we to get creative if ideas are shot down as unrealistic, if the options we do have are derided and abandoned with words before they’re even given a chance? The biggest problem, as I see it, is the notion that alternatives, whatever they may be, must provide large-scale solutions, rather than looking at the small scale, regional and local solutions to providing for our energy needs. It makes so much sense to me that how we get our energy should depend on the resources of our places, not on massive solar installations or huge windfarms that simply substitute sun or wind for oil, putting the energy into the same grid/system we have now. And if we started by instituting massive conservation measures, we could (I’ve read) cut our energy needs by as much as 50% right off the top. And think of the jobs that would be created!
The real problem with such localized/regionalized plans is they aren’t going to add to the coffers of huge corporations. No, this kind of regionalization lends itself best to small and medium sized entrepreneurial enterprises, based where their customers live, enterprises satisfied with a modest profit, much of which is put back into the community. But the work will get done and will be jobs created, jobs that pay a living wage. But billions in profits? Probably not. This is the real reason ideas for conservation and alternatives along with a decentralized energy system (and electrical grid) are considered “unrealistic”. It’s not because it’s physically impossible or even because consumers aren’t willing to change, but rather because our economic system as it currently exists doesn’t allow for the common good. It only allows for the maximization of profit. Until this changes the Earth and all the living beings who live here, including human beings, will continue to suffer and die so that others may become billionaires. Read More »
 Cosmic Walk Script by Glenys Livingstone, Ph.D. (SusanMeekerLowry)
posted Thu March 25th 2010 @ 3:07 PM
My partner Taffy and I have been building new ritual space
– a MoonCourt - for celebration of the Seasonal Moments (1). Part of the plan was to lay a brass spiral representing the Universe and its unfolding Story into its floor; and so just before Winter Solstice (June 2009 Southern Hemisphere) I found myself having to calculate the measurements for it, and for the spaces between events considered to be of note. It was a timely Winter Solstice contemplation, since at that time we celebrate Origins. Read More »
 Transition Towns: A Whole-Systems Approach to Rebuilding Community by Shaktari Belew (SusanMeekerLowry)
posted Thu March 25th 2010 @ 2:46 PM
Does it seem like everything in life is getting more and more complex and difficult to understand? It’s not that we’re getting dumber – really. It’s that we are finally beginning to see our world through the lens of complex interdependent systems. The difference this focus makes in every aspect of life is beginning to reach mainstream media, even as it attempts to package our ever-increasingly complex issues into bite-sized bits of easily digested, if not totally accurate, information. Read More »
 Celebrating Thomas: A Tribute to Thomas Berry 1914 - 2009 (SusanMeekerLowry)
posted Thu March 25th 2010 @ 1:50 PM
What is needed on our part is the capacity for listening to what the Earth is telling us. As a unique organism the Earth is self-directed. Our sense of the Earth must be sufficiently sound so that it can support the dangerous future that is calling us. It is a decisive moment. Yet we should not feel that we alone are determining the future course of events. The future shaping of the community depends on the entire Earth in the unity of its organic functioning, on its geological and biological as well as its human members.
- Thomas Berry, The Dream of the Earth Read More »
 Politics & the Environmental Movement: An Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair (SusanMeekerLowry)
posted Thu March 25th 2010 @ 1:39 PM
Somewhere along the line, the environmental movement disconnected from the people, rejected its political roots, pulled the plug on its vibrant and militant tradition. It packed its bags, starched its shirts, and jetted to DC, where it became what it once despised: a risk-aversive, depersonalized, hyper-analytical, humorless, access-driven, intolerant, centralized, technocratic, deal-making, passionless, direct-mailing, lawyer-laden monolith to mediocrity.
- Jeffrey St. Clair, Born Under a Bad Sky Read More »
 Editorial: Volume 7, No. 3 & 4 (SusanMeekerLowry)
posted Thu March 25th 2010 @ 1:22 PM
Today I am beginning to post articles from the last issue of Gaian Voices, as the spring/summer issue is now in production. This is the editorial for that issue: Read More »
 The Re-enchantment of Nature by Susan Meeker-Lowry (SusanMeekerLowry)
posted Fri January 8th 2010 @ 12:46 PM
There was an interesting article in the Winter issue of Earth Island Journal called “World of Wonder: Toward a Re-enchantment with Nature” by James William Gibson. The article was adapted from Gibson’s book, A Reenchanted World: The Quest for a New Kinship with Nature (Metropolitan Books), which I have not yet seen but it’s now on my “to do” list. Read More »
 Counter Argument for "Stimulus," Growth, & Employment by Jan Lundberg (SusanMeekerLowry)
posted Thu October 1st 2009 @ 11:04 AM
It is not clear where we are headed in terms of a society impacted by ecological destruction and the end of globalized consumption. I for one am not sure I want to see the result. However, as things are not so bad now compared to where they seem to be heading – with too many mouths to feed and no social safety net or ecological capacity up to the challenge for avoiding big pain – I continue to soldier on, so to speak. I try to serve the greater good while I worry about my own survival and that of my loved ones. I also have a good time when I can, but things are getting weirder for me as they seem to be for most of us. Read More »
 Talking With Plants: Cultivating Intimacy with the More Than Human World by Kiva Rose (SusanMeekerLowry)
posted Thu October 1st 2009 @ 10:44 AM
Down on our bellies on the grass, we take a flower’s view of the world. The huge blue sky, the ancient sheltering trees, the dance of the wind with every being and the rain drizzling down – iridescent drops spilling onto skin and petals and fingers and roots. From this perspective we’re children again, speaking in the primal wordless hum of ancestors and plants, animals and delighted babies. We’re here, in the truest sense of the word, in this moment and place, immersed in the fragrance and feeling, engaged in the timeless exchange of human being and Earth. Read More »
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