In Partnership With Mother Earth

Not too long ago I posted an article by Robert Koehler titled "Calling All Pagans - Your Mother Earth Needs You" and wrote to the author in appreciation for his article.  I was surprised when he wrote back, and we had an exchange of ideas, and very pleased when he sent me a followup article in which he quoted me from our email conversation.  So it's my pleasure to share his second article here.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH MOTHER EARTH

By Robert C. Koehler
 4/17/14

OK, mankind, it’s time to grow up, and I see a good way to start: Change the wording of Genesis 1:26. Change one word. 

Last week, I quoted that Bible verse in a column about the increasing velocity of climate change:   “And God said . . . let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,” etc.  

Dominion! * Nature belongs to us, to suck dry and toss away. And thus we moved out of the circle of life and became its conquerors, an attitude at the core of the Agricultural Revolution and the rise of civilization. The momentum of this attitude is still driving us. We don’t know how to stop, even though most people now grasp that we’re wrecking the environmental commons that sustains life.

Addressing the verse and the idea of “dominion,” Phil Miller, a minister, wrote: “Some of us understand that word to mean ‘stewardship’ or ‘responsibility.’” And David Cameron wrote: “One has to wonder what would have ensued had the translation said ‘stewardship’ rather than ‘dominion’? Almost incomprehensible that our future and the future of so many and so much may have hinged on that one word.”

If in one of the most defining religious-political texts of the human species we’d been charged with stewardship of the natural world, not some sort of adolescent, consequence-free control over it, what sort of spiritual understanding would have evolved over the millennia? What sort of technology? What would our civilizations look like if we believed in the depths of our beings that they were not distinct from but part of nature? What if, instead of organizing ourselves around the concept that we have enemies to subdue — “survival of the fittest” — we explored the complexity of our connectedness to one another and the whole of creation, even when the connections were barely visible?

What I am coming to learn, as I ask such questions, is that this understanding is already vibrantly present in the collective human consciousness, drowned out as it may be by the special interests that run our world. These interests, which serve war and money, have belittled complex understanding as “paganism” and colonized, enslaved and slaughtered its primary keepers: the tribal and indigenous people of the world.
 

Listen to the words of Rupert Ross, from his remarkable book Returning to the Teachings, as he describes his dawning understanding of the aboriginal culture of northern Ontario: 

 “The word ‘connecting’ leapt at me. It captured not only the dynamics I imagined in that room, but also the key feature of all the traditional teachings I had been exposed to thus far. Until then, I had somehow missed it. It involved a double obligation, requiring first that you learn to see all things as interconnected and second that you dedicate yourself to connecting yourself, in respectful and caring ways, to everything around you, at every instant, in every activity.“. . . (Children) had to learn to see themselves not as separate, individual beings but as active participants in webs of complex interdependencies with the animals, the plants, the earth and the waters.”

Indeed, Ross and many others have pointed out that indigenous science has always known what Western science has only recently relearned: that the universe is energy and dynamic flux, that there’s no such thing as objectivity and separation. 

“Like Western science, indigenous science relies upon direct observation for forecasting and generating predictions,” according to the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network. “. . . Unlike Western science, the data from indigenous science are not used to control the forces of nature; instead, tell us the ways and the means of accommodating nature.”   Among other critical distinctions, according to the website: “All of nature is considered to be intelligent and alive, thus an active research partner.”

 I note these ideas not to throw rocks around in some “debate” about who’s right, but to open up the national and global conversation about who we are. We can let these ideas sit in our imaginations. What might stewardship of nature mean if we regarded the relationship as a partnership? What might a celebration of Earth Day (April 22) look like?

“We need to re-myth culture, to re-sanctify nature before it’s too late,” Lauren Raine (“a longtime advocate and practitioner of neo-pagan theology and resident artist for Cherry Hill Seminary, “the only accredited Pagan seminary in the U.S”) wrote to me last week.“Earth-based spirituality is to be found in all cultures, including many rich traditions from Europe and Great Britain. The evolution of our strange, life-denying religious backdrop has much to do with the evolution of patriarchal culture and values. We need to get rid of the war gods, and return . . . to honoring the Mother.”

We also need to put our lives on the line, or at least honor those who do. One of the many responses I got to last week’s column was from environmental activist Jessica Clark, who faces jail time for sitting in a tree last fall. 

In September, she and other members of the Michiana Coalition Against Tar Sands, or MICATS, temporarily blocked Enbridge Inc.’s tar sands pipeline expansion through Michigan. This was an expansion of the same pipeline that ruptured in 2010, badly polluting the Kalamazoo River; it was the largest and costliest inland oil spill in history. 

One night the protesters climbed trees at the construction site in central Michigan and anchored their platform to the company’s construction equipment. If the ropes had been moved, the protesters’ platform would have tipped, dropping them 50 feet to the ground. That didn’t happen, but they were arrested and convicted of trespassing — for the crime of stewardship. It’s the price of growing up.

 Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press), is still available.

Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at www.commonwonders.com.

*My bold.

Why There Are No Jobs........and the Triumph of Walmart.

The Emma Maersk, part of a Danish shipping  line, is shown in the photos below.

This is very graphic, and a great commentary.   Don't know who circulated it on Facebook, but it really does say it all.

What a ship....no wonder 'Made in China ' is displacing  North American made goods big time. This monster  transports goods across the Pacific in just 5 days!! Another  two will soon be  commissioned.    These  ships were commissioned by Wal-Mart to get their  imported goods from China .... They hold an incredible  15,000 containers and have a 207 foot deck beam!!  The  full crew is just 13 people on a ship longer than a US  Aircraft Carrier which has a crew of 5,000.  With its  207' beam it is too big to fit through the Panama or Suez  Canals .
   
It  is strictly transpacific. Cruise speed: 31 knots.  The goods arrive four days before the typical  container ship (18-20 knots) on a  China-to-California run. 91% of Wal-Mart products are  made in China. So this behemoth is hugely competitive even  when carrying perishable goods.   The ship  was built in five sections. The sections are floated together  and then welded. The command bridge is higher than a 10-story  building and has 11 cargo crane rigs that can operate  simultaneously unloading the entire ship in less than two  hours. 
 

Additional info:
Country of origin  - Denmark
Length - 1,302 ft
Width - 207 ft
Net cargo  - 123,200 tons
Engine - 14 cylinders in-line diesel engine  (110,000 BHP)
Cruise Speed - 31 knots

Cargo  capacity - 15,000 TEU (1 TEU = 20 cubic feet)
Crew - 13  people!
First trip - Sept. 08, 2006
Construction cost -  US $145,000,000+
Silicone painting applied to the ship  bottom reduces water  resistance and saves 317,000  gallons of diesel per year.












 

Editorial  Comment!
A recent documentary in late March,  2010 on the History Channel noted that all of these containers  are shipped back to China,  EMPTY!
Yep,  that's right. 
We send nothing back on  these ships.
What does that tell you about the current  financial state of the west in crisis?
So folks, just keep  on buying those imported goods (mostly gadgets) until you run  out of money.  Then you may wonder what the cause of  unemployment  in the U..S, UK,  Canada and even in Australia????

Earth Day 2014

Gaia, mother of all,
I shall sing,
the strong foundation, the oldest one.

She feeds everything in the world.
Whoever walks upon her sacred ground,
or moves through the sea,
or flies through the air, it is she
who nourishes them from her treasure-store.
Queen of Earth, through you
beautiful children
beautiful harvests,
come.

It is you who gives life to mortals,
and who takes life away.
Blessed is the One you honour with a willing heart.
One who has this has everything.
Their fields thicken with life-giving corn,
their cattle grow heavy in the pastures,
her house brims over with good things.*

It is you who honoured them,
sacred goddess, generous spirit.
Farewell mother of the gods,
bride of starry Heaven.
For my song, allow me a life
my heart loves.

Homeric Hymn to Gaia XXX, translated by Jules Cashford.

* The original pronoun was, of course, "he".  I changed it to remember that not all Beings of the Earth are "he".  I suspect Gaia, in all Her magnificent diversity,  would approve.

Eclipse of the Moon

Mass of the Moon Eclipse

Not more slowly than frayed
human attention can bear,
but slow enough to be stately, deliberate, a ritual
we can't be sure will indeed move
from death into resurrection.

As the bright silver inch by inch
is diminished, options vanish,
life's allurements. The last silver
lies face down, back hunched, a husk.

But then, obscured, the whole sphere can be seen
to glow from behind its barrier shadow:  bronze,
unquenchable, blood-light.  And slowly,
more slowly than desolation overcame, overtook
the light, the light

is restored, outspread in a cloudless pasture of
spring darkness where firefly planes
fuss to and fro, and humans
turn off their brief attention
in secret relief. 

No matter:  the rite
contains its power, whether or not
our witness rises toward it;
grandeur plays out the implacable drama
without even flicking aside our trivial
fail to respond.

And yet
we are spoken to, and sometimes
we do stop, do, do give ourselves leave
to listen, to watch.  The moon,
the moon we do after all
love, is dying, are we to live
on a world without moon?  We swallow
a sour terror.

Then
that coppery sphere,
no-moon become once more
full-moon, visible in absence.
And still without haste, silver
increment by silver
increment, the familiar, desired,
disregarded brilliance
 is given again,
given and given.


Denise Levertov
from This Great Unknowing:  Last Poems,
1999, New Directions Press

Calling All Pagans: Your Mother Earth Needs You

Here's an article, written by someone who is unaware, perhaps, of the decades long work contemporary pagans, Goddess workers, eco-feminists, and other Gaians have been doing.  Huzzah - pass it on.  He addresses what we have been talking about for so many years, the urgent and potent need to re-myth our world, to re-sanctify the Mother. 

 Calling All Pagans: Your Mother Earth Needs You

by Robert C. Koehler

 "Sadly,  we’re far more prepared to go to war than

 we are to make peace with the planet."

Somewhere between these two quotes lies the future:

“And I would like to emphasize that nobody on this planet is going to be untouched by the impacts of climate change.”

“The Judeo-Christian worldview is that man is at the center of the universe; nature was therefore created for man. Nature has no intrinsic worth other than man’s appreciation and moral use of it.”

The first quote is from Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, summing up the dire and much-discussed findings of its recent report: Human civilization — its technology, its war games, its helpless short-sightedness and addiction to fossil fuels — is wrecking the environment that sustains all life. Time is running out on our ability to make changes; and the world’s, uh, “leadership” — political, corporate — has shown little will to step beyond more of the same, to figure out how we can reduce carbon emissions and live in eco-harmony, with a sense of responsibility for the future.

"But maybe we can start learning, at long last, that we are not the masters of the universe and that “dominion” and exploitation are immature expressions of power."

The second quote is from radio talk-show host Dennis Prager, writing recently in the National Review Online. He goes on, in his remarkable rant against environmentalism, to point out that “worship of nature was the pagan worldview” and “for the Left, the earth has supplanted patriotism.” Eventually he compares environmentalism to loving wild dogs more than mauled children.

Prager’s diatribe isn’t my normal reading matter and I only bring it up here because I think it has relevance to the leadership void I’ve been pondering. The contemptuous dismissal of nature as lacking intrinsic worth — an unworthy competitor with God for human allegiance — may no longer have mainstream credibility, but, like racism, it’s part of the mindset that has shaped Western civilization.

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

We’re still caught up in the momentum of dominion. Thus: “. . . for all the alarming warnings generated by the scientific community and confirmed by the IPCC’s comprehensive analysis of that science,” according to a recent Common Dreams article, “world governments and the powerful private sector have done next to nothing to meet the challenge now before humanity.”

Indeed, as Elizabeth Kolbert points out in The New Yorker: “Currently, instead of discouraging fossil-fuel use, the U.S. government underwrites it, with tax incentives for producers worth about four billion dollars a year.”  We’ve got, as the IPCC report states, “a 15-year window” to start making serious changes in how we structure our world. Human society will need, the Common Dreams piece says, to “revolutionize the structures of its economies, food systems, and energy grids.”

This is not going to happen — not at current levels of awareness, concern and empowerment. This is the dawning realization I find myself less and less able to live with. Climate change and global weather chaos — droughts and fires, tsunamis and tidal waves, crop failure, undrinkable water, devastating cold, rising oceans, new levels of social turmoil — are the future we are unable to hold off. But maybe we can start learning, at long last, that we are not the masters of the universe and that “dominion” and exploitation are immature expressions of power.

My only hope is that, in so learning — as humanity finds itself increasingly entangled with environmental chaos and recognizes its utter vulnerability to nature — we will begin to transcend our isolated sense of entitlement to do with Planet Earth what we will and revolutionize the way we organize every aspect of our social structure, rethinking ten millennia of dominance-motivated social organization. Nobody, after all, no matter how wealthy and fortified, is immune to the impact of a changing climate.  We’re all in it together. We’re part of nature, not its master. This concept is the missing foundation stone of contemporary civilization.

It was in this state of mind that I read Prager’s essay, wondering if such an awareness change were possible, or whether, as the consequences of unsustainable living intensified, we’d become, instead, increasingly isolated and survivalist in our thinking.
“Worship of nature was the pagan worldview,” he wrote, sounding the note of ultimate contempt for any suggestion that environmental sustainability matters and our way of life needs to change profoundly.

Perhaps the word “pagan” embodies the most deeply embedded prejudice in the Western, civilized mindset — the first and last justification for global dominance. Pagans are the ultimate “other.” We’ve built a moral structure on this prejudice, and as a consequence the U.S. government continues to subsidize rather than tax fossil fuel production. As a consequence, we’re far more prepared to go to war than we are to make peace with the planet.

We have to undo this prejudice before it undoes us.

 Published on Thursday, April 10, 2014 by Common Dreams

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound is now available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his website at commonwonders.com.

"The Blessing Way".....

Navajo sand painting

In the house made of dawn
in the house made of evening twilight,
in beauty may I walk
with beauty above me,
with beauty below me,
with beauty beside me I walk
with beauty all around me I walk
with beauty it is finished."
                .......Navajo (Din`e) 

This is a prayer/poem  I sometimes read as a way of remembering how to "walk".  I love the Navajo understanding of the continual motion and transformation of life,  and their so very important understanding that, from the "house of Dawn" to the "house of Twilight" we can choose to realize beauty all around us.  And their understanding of "beauty" means all that is good, beneficial, worthy of gratitude.

The Rainbow Bridge, an important sacred site for Navajo mythology

"As opposed to the other Navajo [Diné] Chant Ways, which are used to effect a cure of a problem, the Blessing way [Hózhó jí] is used to bless the "one sung over," to ensure good luck, good health and blessings for all. It is sometimes referred to by English speaking Diné as being "for good hope." The name of the rite, Hózhó jí, is translated as Blessingway, but that is certainly not an exact translation. In the Navajo language (diné bizaad) the term encompasses everything that is interpreted as good - as opposed to evil,  all that is favorable for man. It encompasses such words as beauty, harmony, success, perfection, well-being, ordered, ideal. The intent of this rite is to ensure a good result at any stage of life, and therefore the translation of Blessingway.”
 

Spider Woman weaving

Stop Telling Women to Smile

 

http://www.stoptellingwomentosmile.com/

Here's a wonderful series of posters created by artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh that ring true.  Remember the song "Give Me The Night" (Give me the silvered streets............)?  A young woman's urban  experience is a very different experience from that of a young man.  For one thing, it's scary to walk the streets at night, full of menacing men, fear of rape.  In the daytime, young women are often subject to harassment, and a different kind of predatory attention that, instead of innocent flirtation, often veils a hostile undertone.  I remember it well, the fear and the sense of  psychic, and sometimes physical,  invasion.  Being old has it's perks, and one is that I'm invisible to men, which I thoroughly enjoy.

Stop Telling Women to Smile is an art series by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh. The work attempts to address gender based street harassment by placing drawn portraits of women, composed with captions that speak directly to offenders, outside in public spaces. Tatyan Falalizadeh is an illustrator/painter based in Brooklyn, mostly known for her oil paintings. Having recently branched out into public art as a muralist, STWTS was born out of the idea that street art can be an impactful tool for tackling street harassment.   STWTS started in Brooklyn in the fall of 2012. It is an on-going, travelling series and will gradually include many cities and many women participants.  Street harassment is a serious issue that affects women world wide. This project takes women’s voices, and faces, and puts them in the street - creating a bold presence for women in an environment where they are so often made to feel uncomfortable and unsafe.