Sunday, June 19, 2011

Fires, Anima Center


This has been a grim June for me - I am, frankly, exhausted.  My mother is in the hospital, and the smoke of fires from the worst fire season in Arizona history lingers in the air of Tucson. If you've never seen a forest fire, or the devastation left behind, it's an experience impossible to describe.  Few environments are as fragile, contrary to appearances, than the water poor Southwest, and what is happening now is very much about 100 years of human misuse and misunderstanding of this frail landscape.

Years ago I created a Samhain ritual called "Litany for the Lost", to honor the loss of extinct and endangered species and their landscapes.   We always speak of loss in human terms - but we are ensouled in the entire world, the entire eco-system.  Deforestation, destruction of land from the vast cattle industry,  water diversion for urban areas inappropriate agriculture (which results in salinizing the land, leaving it completely barren).........most people don't know that since 1895 we have lost 90% of the riparian areas in Arizona. (http://www.cpluhna.nau.edu/Biota/riparian_degradation.htm)   .

Who weeps for these Lost Ones?  I used to hike in the Chiricahua Mountains, and that's where I heard the story of the Thick Billed parrots that were indigenous to the area.  Imagine, parrots flocking in Arizona!  It turns out that virtually the entire subspecies was wiped out in one day by a group of "sport" hunters. Just try to imagine that...... Not even their ghosts remain for memory to enjoy now.  No one even knows that brightly colored parrots once flew there, nesting among the Cottonwood trees, a long lost flash of green and red.

I know I'm ranting, but it's time for a "Wailing Wall" that includes All Beings of the Earth.  The loss of so much life, not just human life and property, in these fires is soul loss for all of us.  It is a tragic irony that more of that loss may soon be the beautiful Anima Sanctuary - "Anima" means "soul or spirit" in Spanish.

My forthcoming trip to Glastonbury seems increasingly like a distant mirage. I hope I will, indeed, have that long awaited chance to stand by the Chalice Well.  Meanwhile, friends who may read this blog, forgive me if I have little to write at present.

One of the blogs I subscribe to is Gaian Voices, by Earth Activist Susan Meeker Lowry.   She comments on the fire rapidly approaching the Anima Sanctuary better than I could, so I take the liberty of copying from her recent blog entry here.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Wallow Fire is now officially Arizona's largest wild fire that has made its way into New Mexico. What you may not know is that this fire is fast approaching the Anima Center, threatening not only the handbuilt cabins and living quarters, but also the wild plant sanctuary, and all the restoration work of decades.

Wolf is a long-time friend and colleague. I first met him many years ago when he came to Montpelier, VT where I was living at the time. He interviewed me for a publication called "Talking Leaves" about my work, Gaian Economics. We found ourselves to be kindred spirits in many ways, though our lives were very different. I believe that Wolf had already found himself at what is now the Anima Sanctuary, then called Earthen Spirituality, though I could be mistaken. In any case, he was alone and gave himself totally to that place, committed himself to it forever, as one does one's spouse, and began the long and arduous task of restoring and reinhabiting the canyon. Loba arrived next, then, more recently, Kiva Rose and her young daughter Rhiannon.

So much has happened through the years. Native trees planted and flourished, native herbs returned, on their own and with help, along with species of animals, insects, birds. Today the place is vibrant with life, a true Sanctuary and sacred place honored and loved. It has sheltered wounded human beings who were, in their turn, loved and healed. Kiva Rose brought her love of the healing plants and her innate ability to hear and understand them, and find both new and traditional ways of making medicine. It's amazing to me how quickly and magnificently she has grown and matured into a real powerhouse of knowledge and compassion (and I'm sure it amazes her at times as well).
Though I have never personally visited the Anima Sanctuary, I feel as though I know it well. Not only through the many pictures I've seen on the website and also shared through the pages of Gaian Voices, but because of my connection to these wonderful people..................knowing that these wonderful people were there, doing such transformative work, sharing their love and energy with those who visited, and then the world at large through the internet, and workshops and conferences, was/is important to me.

And now it is threated by a raging fire started by careless campers. The way the media reports this fire and its path of destruction is also very troubling, focusing on the resort towns and homes that have been burned, as if that's all that matters, with not a word (that I've heard anyway) about the loss of wilderness, the death of all the critters, plants, insects, birds many rare and endangered perhaps now, thanks to the fire, extinct. Did you know that this fire is burning so hot that the soil in many places has become sterilized? It will take many, many years – generations – for the land to regenerate.

Kiva Rose mentioned sitting in a cafe listening to fire fighters talk about how the forest will resemble a moonscape. I can't imagine. And yet not a word. Only that a few homes were lost and therefore the fire, now the largest in AZ history, hasn't caused as much damage as the fire that had been the largest until now because not that many buildings were destroyed. How angry that makes me!

So, now Wolf, Loba, Kiva Rose, and a contingent of committed friends are doing everything they can to prepare their home and Sanctuary to withstand the fire at least so that when they return (if they have to evacuate, they will return and begin again) there is something left. They have done clearing around the cabins, cutting much loved trees, limbing others, bring sand up from the river to blanket the ground, packing belongings, burying tools. They have managed to purchase a water pump strong enough to pump water from the river to the buildings so they can wet them down. As I type this the fire is about 5 miles away, the canyon fills with smoke. Rest assured they will leave if they have to. But they will return. As Wolf said in a recent fire update, you don't abandon a loved one because they have been disfigured. You stay and love them anyway.

As you can imagine, these preparations, and the restoration process to come, cost money, which is in short supply. A fund has been set up for donations. I've sent what I can. Not as much as I'd like but it's something. Please, if you can possibly do so, click the link and do the same. The money will be greatly appreciated and put to excellent use. And whether you can help financially or not, please send your good energy, your prayers, your visions of healing and protection – whatever works for you.
Thank you!"

Here's the link: http://animacenter.org/donate.html – and while you're there you can sign up to receive updates and other info from Anima.

(with thanks to Susan Meeker Lowry)

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

James Lovelock, Father of Gaia Theory

I've not had much time to write lately.  An update to the massive Wallow fire that is threatening Anima Sanctuary in New Mexico - it continues to approach Reserve, N.M., but hasn't arrived.  All the folks there are busy around the clock clearing their land, and preparing for evacuation if necessary.  We continue to pray for them, and to pray for rain.  I think of the many Kachinas I've seen that represent the thunderclouds of New Mexico monsoon season, dark threads of rain flowing beneath them.  Nothing, in the desert, is more precious than rain.

James Lovelock, the Father of Gaia Theory (with collaborator Lynn Margulis) is 93.  I was pleased to find several recent interviews with him on UTube, and felt like sharing them here.  As Dr. Harding comments, James Lovelock should have received the Nobel Prize long ago.








Saturday, June 11, 2011

N.M. Fire Threatens Anima Sanctuary

 As those living here in the Southwest know, this has been a terrible season for fires.  I wrote about  Jesse Wolf Hardin, Loba and Kiva and the Anima Nature Sanctuary and Herbal School just a week ago - tragically, they are currently threatened by a huge forest fire in Western New Mexico, and may be forced to evacuate.  For more information, here is Jesse's Blog.  At the urging of friends, Anima has set up an emergency fund.  I've copied from the latest post on their blog below - and I know that prayers are welcome from their many friends.

 Anima Emergency Fund

A fund has been set up for Anima Sanctuary and School, at the insistence of many.  Contributions will be accepted for land protection and repair, which will also help make possible our continuing publication and healing work.

We have already had to shift funds from home repairs to evacuation preparedness, extra fuel for the vehicles and supplies, while our paid workers and gifting friends shift their emphasis from the water project to clearing the ground of flammables in a perimeter around the main cabins.  This Emergency Fund will help fund these preparations, and in the event the fire does indeed overtake and engulf us, it will be used to replace and repair the infrastructure of the sanctuary and school, and to pay for what will be a huge reseeding and restoration effort.

Donations to the Anima Emergency Fund can be made at http://animacenter.org/donate.html and indicate in the message box that it is intended for the fire fund. Or a check or m.o. made out to

Gretchen Geggis (Loba)
Anima Emergency Fund
P.O. Box 688, Reserve, NM 87830

Thank you!


NonMonetary Donations

To those of you offering to send foods, herbs, tools and so forth, we ask that you send a letter to the above addresses with a list of what you can provide, and then IF and when they’re needed we’ll get back to you.  If the fire moves through this canyon and takes our living structures, a travel trailer will be the first item we look for.

Physically Assisting With Our Evacuation

Only a few of the many folks offering to come here and help, are even from the Southwest!  We will only accept the assistance of those who live close enough for it not to be a great hardship, and only in the last couple days before we need to be fully evacuated.  This could happen a week from now, several weeks from now, or in only a few short days depending on what the winds and blaze does.  If you are determined to help with an evacuation, please write us with your availability and how to reach you quickest.

Wallow Fire Satellite Image showing Anima Sanctuary

Thursday, June 9, 2011

More Green Men

  Photo copyright Murray Fortescue (From "The Company of the Greenman")

 Couldn't resist sharing these visitations of the  Green Man, thanks to Chris Walton and his blog "The Company of the Greenman"!  Suddenly the Green Man seems to be popping up everywhere - I think it's a good sign. 





The Green Man's Visitation Renaissance Faire 2011

Sunday, June 5, 2011

The Anima Sanctuary & Earthen Spirituality Center

'The Prophetic Heart explores the true frontiers of consciousness, where past, present and future meld seamlessly into activist art, an inclusive pulsing web of which we are both but a single inextricable strand and one of the crucial conscious weavers..... We see that our personal struggles are part of a shamanic process of falling apart and being remade, much as the tumultuous Earth Changes tell the story of a living planet restoring balance through dramatic transformation."
-Jesse Wolf Hardin 
 I posed the question, "How do we talk to the Earth? " and immediately thought of Jesse Wolf Hardin, Loba, and Kiva Rose, who have created the Anima Sanctuary in Reserve, N.M.  For many years they've been living off the grid in their magical canyon near the Gila wilderness.  Jesse is a philosopher, writer, teacher and artist, and Loba and Kiva Rose are herbalists and Medicine Women.

The high deserts and hidden canyons of New Mexico, layered with cottonwood trees and rock sites inscribed, like some ancient book,  with petroglyphs, have been famous for attracting artists and spiritual seekers.  It's Spider Woman's Country, the shimmering, transparent strands of her Web seem especially lucid and visible.  There is a particular kind of person I seem to meet there I call the "New Mexico Mystic ".  A couple of years ago I wrote about the ecologist, philosopher and magician David Abram, and Wild Ethics. New Mexico also hosts eco-psychologist Bill Plotkin's Animas Valley Institute.  And the Lama Foundation, with its World Indigenous Peoples Conference.  And the  Cuyamungue Institute, founded by Felicitas Goodman, and Greg Bradon........new Mexico mystics, people who speak with the land.

For a long time I've been aware of the Anima Center in Western New Mexico.  I've corresponded with Jesse, and met him and Loba one wonderful summer at Brushwood, where he came to teach at the Starwood Festival, and Loba, who is a fabulous cook, created special feast for the women.  Jesse has been a prolific writer, with hundreds of published articles and 6 books.  He was also a  visual artist who left his life in Taos to become caretaker for the land in the Gila Wilderness he fell in love with, where he later established, with his partners Loba and Kiva  Anima.
 
"There at the base (of the cliff)  the impulse is always to look up, and it must have been so even for those first human inhabitants of the canyon trained to seek spirit in the ground as much as the sky. And craning my neck towards the forms and fissures above, through choking tears, came these unexpected words “I promise, no matter what, I’m yours. Even if I end up penniless with no one here to love me....” Then, in almost a scream, “I will never leave you!” And in turn, I accepted the canyon’s assurance that I belong.... and that as lonely as I might be, I would never be alone."
Loba
 ----------------------------

"Contracted: receiving the support of the land and pledging the self in return. There was of course another contract as well, whereby I– then a young man with more attitude than common sense– signed my name on a set of papers that indentured me for fifteen years. As with most or all real estate agreements, it stipulated that if I was more than thirty days late with any of the semiannual payments, the land would automatically revert back to the seller. In order to stay close to the land I’d gone from selling expensive paintings in our gallery in Taos to working minimum wage jobs doing everything from spreading seeds on logged acreage to making adobe bricks, with friendly immigrant workers I could barely understand. My part of the bargain involved doing whatever it took to get up the money for the land payments, and the seller was likewise bound to turn over control of a most special place.

......Nonetheless, the most important contract is not that between two people.... it’s the reciprocal commitment between human and land, made and fulfilled in particular places. As with contracts between individuals or entities, both parties make promises in exchange for specific benefits. For centuries the land has kept its part of the bargain by offering up nourishment, shelter and instruction while we’ve largely defaulted as a species on our reciprocal obligations. We’ve largely failed our task to be the planet’s most sensitive receptors, to temper knowledge with humility and wisdom, or to properly give sacrament to, give thanks for, preserve or celebrate that land we as a species have evolved in contractual partnership with.


With every gift comes a responsibility to its spiritual and physical “care and feeding.” This goes for the soil itself, elemental to all life, and all that grows from its bosom or calls its rocks and trees home. Responsibilities to the plant and animal species we consume, to the water we drink and the air we breathe. The responsibility to insure that which we take is neither diluted nor despoiled, to give back equal to that which we are given. And whether we choose to call it that or not, it includes a responsibility to engage in some form of prayerful communion. 

Responsibility: the ability to respond."

From "Selected Writings", Jesse Wolf Hardin

 Jesse's Blog:   http://animacenter.org/blog/?cat=10

Kiva Rose






Thursday, June 2, 2011

How Do We Speak to the Earth?


 "speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee[Job 8]

I've been  re-acquainting  myself with  the people, and their work,  who have informed and inspired my life.  It's a kind of backtracking I feel I need to do, to "archive" and "update"  these sources.  To Celebrate those who have been touchstones on the path might be a better way of expressing it.

Recently I posted a little interview I did with Frank Barney, at the Brushwood Folklore Center in  New York state.  My question to Frank was "How do we talk with the Earth?"

Since then, the question has hung around me like the mythic floating mountains of Avatar's "Pandora", long roots dangling in the  atmosphere.  What does it really mean to talk with the Earth?  How would we live and act if we experienced the World, as  Joanna Macy famously put it, "As lover, as mother, as self"?  How does the Earth "speak to us"?  How did people from other cultures and times do it?  How are people in contemporary settings "talking to the Earth" now, in this time of great crisis? Where and how are they engaging the conversation?  What have my own ecstatic, and sometimes inexplicable,  experiences been?

Now that I think about it, this question has been fundamental to my art and spirituality ever since I blundered into a workshop in 1982 on ancient sites of New England, and Sig Lonegren taught me to dowse at a cairn, and ley crossing, site in Vermont.  Come to think of it, he and his wife Karyn live in Glastonbury as well!  Circles!

 
 So, friends who may be reading this blog, forgive me if  I use it for research for a while.  With my trip to the UK coming soon, I realize that this question, as I visit sacred calendar sites, meet Goddess women who invoke the Deities of their homeland,  as I perhaps visit crop circles and listen to speakers at the Glastonbury Symposium......under it all, that's the question I ask.

How do we interact more consciously with the mind of Gaia, our mother earth?

"Today we suffer from Geomantic Amnesia, forgetting that our planet is interactive with and responsive to consciousness." 

John Steele, GEOMANCY: CONSCIOUSNESS AND SACRED SITES
 
So here I sit, surrounded by books and links to UTube.  I re-visited the  writings of Starhawk.  I re-visited James Lovelock and the Gaia Hypothesis, which is now Gaia Theory. I pulled out articles about Vision Questing, and wonder anew what that question might mean within the practices of traditional cultures, shamanic cultures, and ancient cultures.  I watched Avatar again, delighted with the way Cameron  introduced the idea of  "Tewa", the "Anima Mundi" of the planet Pandora.  Among my books I find Earthmind, remembering a conversation I had with one of its authors, John Steele, so long ago. I looked up Michaela Small Wright and Perelandra, and the Book of Findhorn. I re-read an article by eco-feminist Gloria Orenstein,  in  Re-Weaving the World,  and checked out what's happening at the Source, founded by contemporary shaman Jewell, and the Anima Nature Sanctuary in New Mexico as well.

Sure enough, within a day of doing that, I received an email from Jesse Wolf Hardin, founder of the Anima Sanctuary.   Threads.......

Most of all, I had an "ah ha" ...... I'm going to Glastonbury, and Findhorn,  this summer, to encounter people who, in their own ways, have been asking this question themselves, and like my friend Frank, have found their answers.

So......now  I know why I'm making this trip.  Let the adventure begin!

"Earthmind 5" (2009)

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

I AM, Movie by Tom Shadyak


"We're really geared at a primordial level to feel what another person feels....this is the emergent story. We are far grander than we've been told." 

I wanted to post this new movie  by Tom Shadyak, which is coming soon to Tucson.  We are hard wired to cooperate, share, co-create  - so very good to find the message shared by this successful Hollywood director.  I can't wait to see it!

Playing June 17, 2011  in Tucson  at The Loft on Speedway!