The Power of "We"

Today is Blog Action Day.  A day when thousands of bloggers from around the world blog around a central theme in the hopes of inspiring thought and creating a collective consciousness.

This year's theme is The Power of "We"
There are many ways to interpret this theme, what it has brought up for me is getting back to the basics of human understanding.  Why is it that individuals so often stay apart and separate? Why do we isolate ourselves and focus on division, differences?  The further away we have moved from our communal struggle for survival has brought us to where we are today: drawing imaginary lines on land, putting up fences and signs to keep others out, closing our blinds so no one can see into our home, hiding secrets and pain from our loved ones...
All the while when doing this we feel bad.  It doesn't make one feel nice to push others out constantly.  So to compensate we watch tv and spend our time on social media.   Instead of talking face to face we text and post on Facebook.  But don't worry I'm not here to bash the internet or condemn the media.  All I'm talking about here is the ability to form connections.
What we have lost in being where we are today is the ability to hold ourselves and others accountable for focusing on division and isolation.  Strangers can attack others in horrible and degrading ways when they remove themselves from a sense of "we"  It's easier to lash out when you don't have to look someone in the eye as you are putting them down.  The shadow side of social media is that this happens, although I think it has always happened with gossip and the like.  Social media magnifies the problem, makes harassment illusive and anonymous.  No better example of this can be found than Amanda Todd's story.  This young woman was harassed and manipulated by an anonymous internet lurker who blackmailed her and circulated a video of her.  Then he sent this video to peers who ridiculed her and drove her into depression.  How one man manipulated countless teenagers to torment this girl which then pushed her to suicide is beyond me.
Our power, the power of caring, real people is to stop predators from finding our children.
We can protect our kids.  We can stand up against bullying, and force accountability from those around us.
400 people worldwide have sent the RCMP information regarding this crime.  Adolescence is a tough time of life.  Trying to figure out who you are, trying to make it through...human contact, real people connecting on a personal and deep level is the only thing that bolsters the spirit against the isolationism of our society.
If someone can back you into a corner alone it is far easier to attack you on any level.
If you are surrounded by love; strong people of character, people from different age groups and backgrounds you are lifted up.  Strength in numbers, support from the power of "we".
Our power is to link together and connect to each other.
Our power is to care for those around us as we would our own self or our own children.
Our power is to seek solutions and hold each other accountable for actions that do not support the nurturing of humanity.
And perhaps most deceptive of all is that our power is to see through the manipulations of outside factions that may be trying to use our fear and self-doubt to control us to their ends.   Somewhere inside those factions are people who need to connect to their own humanity, their own inner truths.  When they do they will no longer be able to target others because they will feel its wrongness and if they can't see their wrong doing we will be there to show them their errors.  We will hold them accountable.
That is the power of "we."

We don't plow fields anymore

Today is Blog Action Day for this year and the theme is Food in conjunction with The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' World Food Day.  This topic's timing could not have been better for me since just yesterday I took a Food Fermentation class and learned the lacto-fermentation method.  As I write this my first try at sauerkraut is souring on the counter.  So my thoughts on food and culture, access, sustainability and health are inspired from learning new skills for my family's health.  Food inspires, nourishes, comforts; it is essential that we connect with it.

Connecting with what we take into our bodies, relates to more than the food itself but spreads to the people that tend it and the elements that grow it as well.  Having grown up on a farm I have watched this happen first hand.  Sun warming the soil, rain bending grain to the ground, and the brown soil turned over into the long rows of a plowed field.

As close as I was to these processes that contribute to the food cycle there are many of us who are not.  The shift in North American society from rural to urban living has left many of us without a connection to what we eat or the ones who grow it.  This was driven home for me 11 years ago while I was still in University.

The Fine Art department had a series of practicing, accomplished artists visit us for lectures.  One of the options for the students was to sign up and have an artist visit your studio space and critique your work.  When a feminist artist who's essays I had read gave a lecture that inspired me, I nervously signed up for a visit.    During her critique I realized that while I shared some political and cultural views with her we came from different worlds.  This hit home when as part of her overall comments she summed up her view of my earth honouring, Goddess inspired subject matter with the statement: I mean, we don't plow fields anymore.  


At the time I was too disappointed to respond to her.  Later as I went over what she said I felt upset that I hadn't responded to her by saying that I actually had plowed a field.  In fact all over the world people are still plowing, sowing, watering, and weeding.  As I look back on this experience I feel sad for this woman that she was so disconnected from her food that she had forgotten this.

Today I live in the city but I still feel connected to my food.  I work hard to impart the connections to my children and to never become so absorbed by urbanity that I would forget the farmers and gardeners who tend the land for us.  We plow fields, we sow cover crops, we interact with plants using Permaculture,  we are farmers, gatherers, foragers and cooks.  These things are in our bones and are part of our collective memory for thousands of years, but most of all still happening all over this world every day so that we can survive.  And not just survive but come together and share the most human experience of eating.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water

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Where would we be without water?  In short we wouldn't exist.  Water is a fundamental part of our lives and western society squanders it.  I try to reduce our family's water consumption.  I think of how wasteful it is to let the water run to get it to a desired temperature, I use day old water from our reusable water bottles to water plants, I turn the water off when brushing teeth or washing hands.  I wash as much of our laundry in cold water as I can, I let the yellow mellow in the toilet.  These are small steps, things that seem like a drop in the bucket (if you'll pardon the pun.) 
I want to do more and be as careful as possible with water consumption.  I believe that water should not be owned, but should be free to all.  Clean and safe water is a human right at its most basic.  So please think about your relationship with water today.  I ask this not to make you feel guilt or hopelessness but to encourage dialogue and contemplation.  What can you do right now to respect the fundamental sacredness of water?

You can head on over to the Blog Action Day website to read all the other wonderful posts written today by thousands of bloggers.

I leave you today with a song that I wrote many years ago which shares my feelings about the element of water.

Water

Cradled by the rocking to and fro

rest on top of the water

her cup will overflow

taste salt on our skin and the willow sways

by the water

Dive deep, dive deep,

lotus

feel the well heave

we head westward wading through

rivers of reeds

Autumn leaves, autumn leaves

washed from the streets

cleansing rain solemnly beats

Emotions release untangle these weeds

laugh, play and swim

splash in the moonlight

the tide's coming in

Dive deep, dive deep,

lotus

feel the well heave

we head westward wading through

rivers of reeds

Fertile fields growing our life force

nourishment heals

and comes from the water

Womb of humanity

coral and pearl, 

glistening jewels of the water

Dive deep, dive deep,

lotus

feel the well heave

we head westward wading through

rivers of reeds

Dive deep, dive deep,

lotus

feel the well heave

we head westward wading through

rivers of reeds

Blog Action Day 2009

Well here I am...several hours into Blog Action Day and just getting to my post. This morning was not the easiest as Ky was in quite a mood. So despite a to-do list the length of my arm and the breakfast dishes (now joined by lunch) still on the kitchen table we headed out the door for a walk. My intention was to ground both my little earth sign and myself and write some notes while he played at the park. As we walked, Climate Change this year's topic, swirled through my head and was reflected in many different things. My son's delight as he saw transit trains and buses bringing people from place to place. A homeless woman's smile at Ky in his pumpkin hat while she ate cold food out of a tin can. She had spent the night on a slab of concrete beneath the bicycle bridge leading to the park. The Styrofoam container floating in the creek we crossed over which is a salmon habitat. The beauty of fallen leaves, a warm overcast day, and the sound of birds in the trees. And now I sit here to write about something that I am ashamed to say I barely knew about a few months ago. Something that is a Canadian issue with climate, oil and how we interact with the natural world.

Several months ago I listened to Sierra Club Radio's podcast from 2008 about the Alberta Oil Sands. They were trying to lobby Hilary Clinton to prevent a pipeline being built to pump the oil from Alberta into the United States. I had heard of this before but I did not know the extent of the actions that our provincial neighbours were taking to extract this oil. In their March 2009 issue National Geographic published an objective and well written article on the oil sands entitled: The Canadian Oil Boom: Scraping Bottom. This article presents facts that are important for all Canadians and Americans to know about this oil. Here is a sampling:

-"The U.S. imports more oil from Canada than from any other nation, about 19 percent of its total foreign supply and around half of that now comes from the oil sands."

-"Oil sands production uses enough natural gas daily to heat more than 3 million homes."

-"The oil sands are still a tiny part of the world's carbon problem-they account for less than a tenth of one percent of global CO2 emissions..."

Despite the obvious reasons that I would object to this method of extraction which can be explained more in the above link to the National Geographic article, I feel the underlying issue for me is the effect of this type of oil refining on the earth. On the Government of Alberta's website they say regarding the oil sands:

"Through ongoing research and technology work continues to find new and improved ways of recovering this significant resource and reducing the environmental footprint."

My question is how is that possible? The environmental footprint from this practice is HUGE. The means is not justified by the end. In the long term the area where this extraction is taking place is being destroyed. Again quoting Robert Kunzig from The Canadian Oil Boom:

"No where on Earth is more earth being moved these days than in the Athabasca Valley [Alberta, Canada]. To extract each barrel of oil from a surface mine, the industry must first cut down the forest, then remove an average of two tons of peat and dirt that lie above the oil sands layer, then two tons of the sand itself."

This oil is the result of the Athabasca River eroding away billions of cubic yards of sediment that once covered the bitumen which is eventually made into oil. This process took millions of years. How long will it take for this part of the Earth to regenerate from this horrible process? The key to this issue is to stop extracting "dirty oil" and work towards alternative fuel methods. The oil sands employee thousands of people many of whom have traveled from other provinces in search of work. I feel for these people and yet I believe that the oil sands must stop. Our climate, our Earth, our health and the health of wildlife in Alberta is at stake here. Sustainability is what we must work towards and this method takes too many resources and creates too much damage to ever be worth the oil to me.
If you live in the United States I encourage you to contact your local officials and let them know that you do not wish to buy oil from the Alberta Oil Sands. Here in Canada I hope you will all voice your displeasure with their existence as well. Here are some more links with relevant information.

Greenpeace Stop the Tar Sands

Sierra Club BC Minister: Climate Plans in Peril

Find your Member of Parliament to send an Email

Bloggers Unite October 15th

I urge you all to visit Blog Action Day headquarters and consider adding your voice to the thousands who will be blogging on the topic of climate change together. Visit www.blogactionday.org to sign up.

Poverty and Homelessness: Blog Action Day 2008

Today is Blog Action Day. I learned about this from Nature Deva. Bloggers from around the world unite to write about a world issue. This year the topic is poverty. After the Canadian election yesterday this topic is even more important. A court ruling handed down yesterday in Victoria BC, has given homeless people in that city the right to erect tents in public parks and green spaces. For more info click here.
Many of us may cringe at the "unsightliness"of this. Make shift shelters, debris and goodness knows what else will be laid out for all to see. This is a landmark decision and one that the mayor of Victoria is not happy about. In many countries around the world poverty is not as hidden as it is here. We shake our heads at our homeless, thinking they may be lazy, drug addicts, or mentally ill. Some give spare change, some support homeless shelters, but most of us turn our heads the other way. Poverty exists in Canada and while our government gives tax cuts to corporations people have no public housing. Our climate on thw west coast may be the mildest in Canada, but I cringe to think that a nylon tent or card board shelter is all that keeps many homeless from our sub-zero temperatures. I don't want to see tent cities in our public parks, but I don't want to see human beings living in poverty anywhere. Why is it that parks can only be used by people who have? If you were homeless would you rather sleep in a tent in a park or in a cold concrete doorway or dangerous back alley? We need to get our homeless the option of housing. The options of shelter and the help they require to pursue what we all do. I say the option because some people who live on the street choose to live there. I do not understand that choice but I try not to judge it. I have not walked in anyone else's shoes. For those that want off the street our governments from federal to municipal must provide safe alternatives for them. I think that is a worthy case for my tax dollars, and until they do, on their drive or walk to work each morning they will be faced with the reality of poverty in Canandian cities, tents and all.