Compassionate Earth Walk

Copied below is a web posting of Shodo Spring, a Buddhist who will be walking one of the pipeline routes beginning in July.  I posted it because his statement precisely agrees with my opinions — and because I (and Bitsy hopes to come along) plan to participate in part of the walk.  If you also want to participate, go to his web site.  I added the map here.

http://www.compassionateearthwalk.org/

Humans are destroying the earth, including ourselves. We are using up all the natural resources (coal, oil, water, soil, natural gas) as if they would replenish themselves – or as if there were no tomorrow. We make chemicals that make millions of us sick. Our extraction of fossil fuels (and our unnatural methods of farming) are causing climate change that has already caused catastrophic floods and droughts – and we are on track for much, much worse.

Knowing this, our governments and institutions have chosen to continue extracting resources at an ever-increasing rate, to create new and more sophisticated poisons, and to ridicule or imprison those who object. The disease of our day is to see ourselves as independent and the world as a resource to consume.

In this walk, we openly announce that it is the other way around: we are part of the earth, embraced, supported, and given life by it. None of us could take a single breath without the help of the myriad beings that inhabit this planet. In doing so, we ally ourselves with millions of people who have lived in harmony with their natural communities, for centuries and millenia. We thus begin to decolonize ourselves, which is a step toward real decolonization.

• Walking, we consciously give energy to the earth, going against the flow of constantly taking as if it were our right.
• Meeting people, we listen to their stories and offer them love and support.
• Entering communities, we offer our hands in service and invite dialogue and shared prayer. Where we are invited, we connect communities with resources, knowledge and skills for restoring the earth and their local economy.
• Sharing our story, we invite everyone to leave the values of consumption and destruction, and return to membership in the community of life.
• Living together as we travel in conscious spiritual community, we allow ourselves to be opened and healed by all these encounters and each other.

FYI-Tar Sands Pipeline Blockade

Bitsy and I will attend the Blockade of the TransCanada Tar Sands Pipeline in Nacogdoches on Monday 7th. Let us know if you would like to come along and are willing to obey the “rules” that have been defined by the Tar Sands Blockaders. Or better yet go for the whole training program that begins on Thursday in Livingston in the snow and rain!!

Bitsy just gave me a dirty look and stuck her nose under the bed covers.

http://www.tarsandsblockade.org

Not All Texans are Wimps*

Sign up to join the Mass Action and Training Camp to Stop Keystone XL on Monday, January 7th.

Please, begin to make your travel arrangements today. The training will likely be in the Nacogdoches, Texas area and we’ll be contacting you with more details soon.

SCHEDULE (Jan. 3rd – 8th):

Thursday, Jan. 3rd – Travel & Arrival

Friday, Jan. 4th – Day 1: Direct Action Training Camp
Saturday, Jan. 5th – Day 2: Direct Action Training Camp
Sunday, Jan. 6th – Day 3: Direct Action Training Camp
Monday, Jan. 7th – Mass Action to Stop Keystone XL
Tuesday, Jan. 8th – Debrief and Depart

Everyone should come prepared to camp out in the cold. If you are interested in risking arrest you must attend the Training Camp.

Questions? In the meantime if you have any questions about travel or details please email: TSBComms@riseup.net

Together we have the power to stop this toxic tar sands pipeline!

Tar Sands Blockade
TSBComms@riseup.net

That’s the end of the TSB communication.  I’m sure you all remember Diane Wilson’s presentations to Bioneers and her books about the chemical industries and their effect on the fishing communities of South Texas less than a hundred miles from this complacent community where I have lived until they fouled he air, water and land.  Even a cat knows enough to use a litter box.  (Bitsy and I will be at the action.)

(*Let’s say a wimp is a follower who goes for the social strokes, rather than than actually fact-check the propaganda and then do what is right.)

Hello Group-110201

Meeting Details

Next Week is the second Thursday of February. We will view a video by Joseph Campbell, and follow up on the theme of compassion for the month. This Thursday we continue the Montsanto project with a video on the precautionary principle, the two warnings issued by Dr. Martha Crouch, and a paper that Donna found (see below). The video in March will be Economics of Happiness produced by Helena Norberg-Hodge of ISEC, and will probably be at our new location in the clubhouse near downtown Bryan. More details on that later.

I will be at the studio every Thursday, working on our group projects, at least by 10 AM. The studio is open on Thursdays to helpers and participates to view videos and discuss. The project this month is based on the movie “David versus Montsanto,” that we aired on January second Thursday, and has been a rich source of material, and addresses all the levels of organization, as well as the precautionary principle, and the legal project in PA that challenged the “personhood” of corporate factory farming in rural neighborhoods. All this lends itself very well to a study plan we will distribute to other groups and educational organizations.

The kind of study plan that I envision follows a problem-solving model that I’ll discuss in Bare Bones Biology 044, to be aired on KEOS during the third week of February and the posted at http://www.barebonesbiology.com. The audio pre-cast is attached. (Will send later, the email seems to be in a terrible muddle today.)

Our program will discuss the biology, at each level of organization, of whatever we are studying. This is important, because we humans are a biological organism living inside a biological entity, and that fact places strict predictable limits to our problem-solving options. Within these limits, whatever we do not want to violate the needs either of humans or of the ecosystem, as many current actions do, because, if we ignore the limits, our work will not be sustainable into the future. As we consider each level, we discuss the dilemmas that arise because of conflicts among human needs and desires, the health of the ecosystem, the power of the corposystem, and our goal to arrive at a solution that stresses the best of human values.

January with Montsanto:

Independently, we chose the movie David versus Montsanto for our January study, and Marilyn, of our western adjunct is privileged to participate in the UU showing of “The Economics of Happiness,” and Donna found a story in the Winter 2009 issue of UU World (Dinner with Montsanto, Unitarian Universalist World, Page 37, by Michelle Bates Deakin), about a project undertaken by The Rev. Nate Walker of the Philadelphia UU. Rev. Walker’s goal is to inspire Montsanto to adopt a pledge vowing to “do no harm.” Rev. Walker’s sermon on the subject (available on UTube and also on the web site of the church) was sent to the CEO of Montsanto, and they responded.

The short UU World article, with quotes from members of the UU and from some of the top brass from Montsanto, raises a number of questions that fit perfectly into our project. One is that Rev. Walker’s project is directly driven by both the precautionary principle and our need to use methods of compassion whenever possible to resolve our human dilemmas. The other (well, this is personal from a person who has worked in corporations) is that it sounds to me fairly naïve. And as I was thinking along those lines, driving home and listening to I don’t really know what radio program, I heard an interview of an author, a former corporate executive (the title maybe corporate spin??? I couldn’t find it on google.). This man described the modern approach to propaganda in his corporation, and it did remind me of the statements of Montsanto that are quoted in the UU article.

So the question is: How might one address our situation in a way that is more likely to work? And I’m thinking our other video – a report of the attorney, Linzley, from PA, might give us a clue.

Also on the subject of food is the newest report from Lester Brown, who has been gathering data about the condition of the earth for more than 40 years.

See you on Thursday at the studio! ☺