Anima Update - the Rain Maker's Gift!

"Given the steady eastward progress of the Wallow Fire and absence of rain in the near future, I have to avoid denial and accept that we likely have a scary 70% chance of our land being burned out.  This is NOT to say that I am resigned to such a fate, we will oppose it in every way possible.  Nor are we fatalistic about it.  As we teach in Anima, the only thing that is hopeless, is the person unwilling or unable to hope."

Jesse Wolf Hardin, from his Blog (6/20)

 I am delighted to copy below a  letter I received from Wolf today.  With the Wallow Fire virtually at the doorstep, monsoons began, and the fires seem to be under control at last.  The Anima Sanctuary will continue to do it's important work, and Jesse and Family and all the Beings there won't need to face devastation.  The First Monsoon came to Tucson as well (I woke up to the sound of thunder at 3:00 a.m.), bringing with it the blessing of extinguishing the Monument fire.

Maybe those prayers to the spirits of the ancient Rain Makers were answered! 

"With the subsiding of danger from the Wallow Fire, we’re finally taking a break from preoccupation with the unimaginable and unbearable, and slowly revving back up for the teaching, healing and tending that must continue no matter what else is going on.  Fire or not, students still need responses, Kiva’s clients still count on her for help, conference organizing and promotion is still important, the honeysuckle and lamb’s quarters require that we prioritize their watering, writers for Plant Healer have to be reminded of the upcoming issue deadline, and wild seeds of hope need to be planted in the soil of this land we so love.  Important, too, is taking the moments needed to personally acknowledge everyone who has given what they can to help keep safe this most special place that we’ve spent since 1986 guarding, restoring and sharing.

The Emergency Fund was spent on the purchase of a high quality Honda fire fighting water pump that pushes water all the way up the mesa to the cabins from the river, hose and pipes, a second storage tank and protective sprinklers for around the cabins... and they also covered the balance of the wages due the hard laboring friends that trimmed, cleared the grounds, installed the water pump, and insisted on taking part trade for their efforts.  It would have been difficult or impossible for us to accomplish these things in a timely way without the support, given that much of our work goes out to the world because of a sense of mission and with little or no profit for us. 

Even though it’s almost certain the still-burning Wallow Fire won’t be threatening this remote school and botanical refuge any longer, the preparations made for it feel no less wise or even crucial.  In the two latest and final Wallow Fire posts on the Anima blog (www.AnimaCenter.org/blog), I mention the warnings of authorities that we need to expect increasing numbers of super hot blazes in this region.  Well, in the last few weeks we’ve taken exactly the kinds of precautions the recommend everyone take in wildfire-prone areas... prior to a dangerous event and not during or after the fact.  All of this was made possible only because of donations including yours. 

We will not be simply storing the pump, however, unused until the next conflagration.  Water pumped up for the fire fighting sprinklers, can also be used for wash water and watering plants up here, instead of having to drive a truck and tank up and down the hill whenever the drought keeps the needed rains out.  And the pump can also be put to work spraying the banks on either side of the river during long dry spells like the one we’ve been in, giving the native plants a boost when they need it most.

And like my last Anima post explains, the scare we just got also enlivened and revealed the huge amount of connections we have to the community of earth loving friends, students and allies we’ve given our lives to.  It feels good, to be shown so clearly the myriad connections that we and this shared mission can depend on.  There is something to be said for the principle of detachment, but it is connection and devotion that make possible the miracles of our every day lives." 

Solutions Magazine and Good News

I think it's so easy to fall into despair these days - it's important to not concentrate on fatalism, but to be aware of the many, many "soulutions" that address our environmental, social, and spiritual crisis.  That's what gives energy to hope, and to transformation.  Here's a few journals I subscribe to that I felt like sharing - Solutions Journal, and Earth Portal News, both offering information about green energy and other good news.  I love this article about possible future urban "farms" - imagine picking your own salad as you head for the checkout counter.  Wonder if they'll have cherry tomatoes and bell peppers?

*******

from Earth Portal News:

Agropolis: The Future of Urban Agriculture?

Posted on September 16th, 2010 

 

Environmental News Network: Last week at the Nordic Exceptional Trendshop 2010, held in Denmark, one presentation  took urban agriculture to the next level. A collaboration with NASA, you might even say it launched urban agriculture out of this world, and into the future.The idea is called Agropolis, a combination grocery store, restaurant, and farm all in one building, employing the most advanced technologies in hydroponic, aeroponic, and aquaponic farming.
As it stands, Agropolis is still just a mere idea, with little more than some cool graphics to back it up. But regardless, Agropolis ushers forth a new wave of thinking about urban food systems.The team behind the Agropolis concept proposes that this new generation of store would be an ecosystem  unto itself, a finely tuned orchestra of parts in balance, that would not only be totally environmentally sustainably and friendly, but also just plain producing the freshest food around.

But what would all these innovative, NASA-inspired state of the art hydroponics and other high-tech solutions look like in practice? According to the vision of Agropolis, a customer would walk into a store that is covered in green. Vegetables growing on the walls as far as the eye can see. And below the floors one would see tilapia swimming, working in tandem with vegetables in an aquaponic system. You would buy a tomato that was literally just picked, from a plant that you can see in front of you. The store would bring a whole new meaning to local, and one-up the notion of hyper local, since all the food available to eat or buy would have traveled zero miles from the farm to the store. At most, just a few steps.

It all sounds grand, and more than a little space-age. But the challenge given to the team that came up with Agropolis wasn’t entirely outside reality: Create a farm without relying on arable land. As the Earth’s healthy soil and other resources dwindle, it may not be out of the realm of possibility that a system like Agropolis be needed, particularly in urban areas. And while urban agriculture has come a long way, incorporating all kinds of creative and innovative ideas and technologies, in order to make it work on a large and global scale it may be time for something as futuristic and high-tech as Agropolis.

Rumi

Out beyond ideas
of wrongdoing and right doing,
there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down
in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language
- even the phrase "each other" -
do not make any sense.

From The Essential Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks.
© Copyright, 2004, HarperSanFrancisco.

I woke up this morning to find the word "raukkadessa" floating  in my mind, between sips of coffee.  The word came from a song on  Beyond Love (Sami Records, 2004), an album by my friend Kathi Huhtaluhta.  Kathi  lived in Finland  where she studied "Yoik" traditions of Sami chanting.  She told me her song, Raukkadessa, derived from a word she learned while there, which meant "beyond love".

Meaning, beyond the pairs of opposites, beyond loss, conflict,  history, and the constructs of personality and culture, beyond even our temporal experience of love, "there is a field".  

Prayers for the Dying

"Form is Empty, Empty is Form" Detail (2009)

Of life's Spring

may we drink deep

and awake to dream

and die to sleep

and dreaming

weave another form

a shining thread

of life reborn

~~Starhawk
"The Weaver Song" from the Spiral Dance

I posted this earlier, and then felt a bit too "exposed", so I withdrew it.  But I feel that was not really right, and so I'm posting it again, and offer again my gratitude to the people who so kindly offered comments at the time.

In early 2009 I did a series of works dedicated to my brother I called "Prayers for the Dying".  I've been wanting to write about my brother again, and don't really know how to do it. I wish I could give him, and others like him, a voice.

Maybe the reason to write about this story is to demonstrate how very important it is to re-examine our understanding of death.  All the research and  interest in NDE's (near death experiences), mediums,  Michael Newton's "Life Between Life" work, even TV shows like "Ghost Hunters" contribute to changing attitudes to what death is,  and hence, to what life is as well.
 

In 2008, Glenn had a brain stem stroke, and since then has as been in a  persistent vegetative state, which means that he is fed by tubes, breathes  by tubes, and cannot respond to others in any recognizable way.  His doctors have told me that there was no brain activity, and no hope of recovery.  Glenn did not have a living will.  Because my mother  has traditional ideas about  "god's will", I can't remove life support.  The only other surviving member of my family is a brother who agrees with my mother.   Glenn lingers in a vegetative state, and I am unable legally to assist my brother to pass.  I know I step into an ethical hornet's nest when I say this. 

One of the ways I've dealt with this has been assisting a number of charities that work with children in Glenn's name, something he would appreciate.


The last decade of Glenn's life, he became  depressed, and isolated.  He was a gun collector, and after his stroke, I  took half of his collection and sold them, donating the money to a charity for children as a way of transforming the negative energy that the guns represent.   The rest, at my other brother's insistence, were locked  in a closet, and he kept the key (the house is retained for his and my mother's use). 

This past spring they weren't in town, and I did an "energy cleansing" with my friend and while "sageing"  I noticed that the closet door was cracked open.  I'd never seen it open before, since my other brother was adamant that I "leave Glenn's things alone".    I looked inside, saw some guns and other memorabilia.  I  did not remove anything, and shut the door, which locked and I can't, of course,  open it again.

In retrospect,  think that closet opened because Glenn wanted me to take the contents and turn them into charity, as I did before.  I wish I had.  My friend noticed the phenomenon as well. 

"The Heart Sutra" (2009)

One of the reasons we did the "cleansing" was there have been many such experiences  in that house, and I've never been comfortable having to stay there.

One of the most striking was last winter.   I was alone in the house, reading,  when suddenly I heard a bell, kind of like a Tibetan brass bell, right beside my ear!  I was so startled I got up and walked around, trying to find out where the bell  was,  but no luck.  Within an hour of that strange occurrence, a friend called, inviting me to go to a talk given by a local energy healer.   Which is how I met Kate,  who works as a medium here in Tucson.

I arranged for a meeting, and we met in a quiet cafe, where Kate informed me that Glenn was with us (!) -  and then told me things about him that seemed  accurate.   She said that Glenn, and others like him, are often out of the body, and she encouraged me to go talk to him at his bedside, and tell him he can let go. Last summer I went away for a while, and when I returned  I saw Kate again.  She told me  Glenn had "crossed over".  I don't know what that means, as he remains physically in a vegetative state.  But I remember the bell - and the encounter with the medium certainly gave me comfort.

 

I don't see spirits, although I pay careful attention to synchronicities in my life.  I don't know what to make of this, but it's given me a better capacity to deal with the situation.  I hope what Kate said is true, but I can't really know.

Meanwhile, I pray to Tara, Goddess of Compassion, for my brother, Glenn, and I'm going to sponsor another child for him.  I know he would be pleased.  

"Transformation Reliquary" (2009)

 

 

Waters of the World

© Photo by Cathy Frischknecht & Christian Bollmann

"O fountain mouth, giver, you, mouth, which
speaks inexhaustibly of that one, pure thing,—
you, mask of marble placed before
the water's flowing face..."

from Sonnets to Orpheus
by Rainer Maria Rilke 

 There is a wonderful ritual  we used to do at Reclaiming's Witchcamp called the "Waters of the World".  We would begin the week long event with a ceremony in which participants brought vials of water, gathered from throughout the world as those gathered were.  Each would empty water into the Chalice, naming the place from which the water came.  I remember the profound sense of gratitude, and the presence of the Holy, as I poured my little vial of water from the beloved Rio Grande into the Chalice.

The theme for this year's Glastonbury Goddess Conference is "Celebrating the Great Mother of Water ", and I will return from Glastonbury with a vial of water from the Chalice Well there.......a personal pilgrimage that I've longed to make for many years.

Freddy Silva, a world renowned researcher of crop circles, believes that the concentration of crop circles in the ancient sacred geomantic sites of southern England  is also about shifting or "raising"  the energies of the water tables there, which in turn flow into the ocean, impacting on subtle levels the entire world.

She is our universal Mother, the source and beginning of life.  We grow in Her amniotic waters and are born, we weep and our hearts open, we are "baptized" in Her waters and offered a new life.  And like children, which we really are, we take Her for granted, rarely noticing the great Mother who nourishes us.

When I was a teenager, I used to devour any science fiction I could get my hands on.  A child of the '50's, we grew up with "The Bomb", and a universal mythos of the End of the World at the hands of the inevitable military mind.  I still think "On the Beach", with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner, is one of the most powerful movies ever made, and I remember well the terrible message Ray Bradbury told with his "Martian Chronicles".

Anyway, there was a story I read (I have no idea who the author was, and would love to find it again) in which "The Bomb" had happened, and an astronaut had the misfortune to be be the last living human being.  He saw it happen while orbiting the Earth, and landed to a desolate and barren world.  He begins to walk, and as he walks he hears voices  talking to him, calling to him.  He sees, through blowing dust,  his wife, his children, his friends, his dog, all just ahead, beckoning  images of everyone he's ever loved, calling to him urgently to hurry, to meet them somewhere in the distance.  At last, about to die from radiation, he finds himself standing on a beach, the waters of the ocean lapping gently against his ankles.  What called to him  was Mother Ocean, and as the story ends our desolate hero sinks, finally at peace,  into the water.  We're left to imagine that She will use his life, and the cells in his body,  to begin again.

 Pretty extraordinary story, considering it was written in the 50's, long before Gaia Theory, Women's Spirituality, or even Ecology!

I never forgot that story, although all of the Andre Norton I once read is long, long gone.

I know that I often sound rather apocalyptic, but I don't really feel I am.  I think, in this time of transformation,  we're being given a chance to grow up,  and become co-creators, instead of exploiters, of life.   In the face of so much loss, so much fear, it will be hard to hold that hope.  But I have a deep kind of faith in the adaptability of the human spirit, and beyond, the evolutionary mind of nature, of Gaia.

Holy Mother of Waters, I Praise You!

From The Huffington Post (6/20/2011)

If the current actions contributing to a multifaceted degradation of the world's oceans aren't curbed, a mass extinction unlike anything human history has ever seen is coming, an expert panel of scientists warns in an alarming new report.  The preliminary report from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) is the result of the first-ever interdisciplinary international workshop examining the combined impact of all of the stressors currently affecting the oceans, including pollution, warming, acidification, overfishing and hypoxia.

 According to the report, three major factors have been present in the handful of mass extinctions that have occurred in the past: an increase of both hypoxia (low oxygen) and anoxia (lack of oxygen that creates "dead zones") in the oceans, warming and acidification. The panel warns that the combination of these factors will inevitably cause a mass marine extinction if swift action isn't taken to improve conditions.

"The 6th Extinction" (2007)

The report is the latest of several published in recent months examining the dire conditions of the oceans. A recent World Resources Institute report suggests that all coral reefs could be gone by 2050 if no action is taken to protect them, while a study published earlier this year in BioScience declares oysters as "functionally extinct", their populations decimated by over-harvesting and disease. Just last week scientists forecasted that this year's Gulf "dead zone" will be the largest in history due to increased runoff from the Mississippi River dragging in high levels of nitrates and phosphates from fertilizers.

A recent study in the journal Nature, meanwhile, suggests that not only will the next mass extinction be man-made, but that it is already  underway. Unless humans make significant changes to their behavior, that is.

Travis Donovan

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/20/ipso-2011-ocean-report-mass-extinction_n_880656.html?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl2|sec1_lnk3|71953

Anima Sanctuary Update

 "A steady stream of elk have been driven east across our Anima Refuge by the alarming smoke."

"Given the steady eastward progress of the Wallow Fire and absence of rain in the near future, I have to avoid denial and accept that we likely have a scary 70% chance of our land being burned out.  This is NOT to say that I am resigned to such a fate, we will oppose it in every way possible.  Nor are we fatalistic about it.  As we teach in Anima, the only thing that is hopeless, is the person unwilling or unable to hope."

Jesse Wolf Hardin, from his Blog (6/20)

I am sorry to report that things are not looking good for Anima Sanctuary.  Here in Tucson it's a roaring 112 degrees, bone dry, and no sign of the monsoon season.  Still praying for these dedicated and courageous people.

“Considering what I get from the work that you and your family do… I wish I could have given more.  All your hard work is not for nothing. You live in the wilderness, at the complete mercy of nature’s whims.  You’re not a martyr, and I can’t tell you how much I respect that…. You are raising awareness, inspiring and enlightening people, even in the face of the destruction of your home. I don’t know what it feels like to have the prospect of your home being destroyed, and not only that but a place that you’ve put blood and guts into restoring… But if the fire hits your canyon, it will not kill the spirit that runs through it. It can be built again. And you’ll have hands to help.”   -Rebecca A.

The Summer Solstice

Wishing the blessings of the Solstice to all!  May we all "dance the Long Dance" together this sacred day.

The world is
not with us enough

O taste and see

grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform

into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

 Denise Levertov

I am a lover
Of the steady Earth
And of Her waters.
She says:

“Let the light be brilliant,
For those who will cherish color.”
What if there be no Heaven? She says:

“Touch my Breasts - the fields are golden.”

Her Songs are all of love, lifelong.
Every blue yonder,
Her brass harp rings.
Unlettered, in Her rivers
Our cherished sins
Drift voiceless in Her clouds.

She will rust us with blossom
She will forgive us
She will seal us
with Her seed.

Robin Williamson
("The Song of Mabon", 1985)