The Geese

Ode To the Geese

Every time I see a formation of geese or any birds my heart is broken. I always wonder if their habitat will still be waiting for them at the end of their migration. Then I wonder if they will still have a home when they return.

Humans are destroying nature around the world at a dizzying pace. There is no longer a balance between humanity and nature. This has become the greatest grief of my life. I know life is a daily crap shoot and at any time I could lose a loved one or I could face a terminal disease. But I don't think even my greatest personal pain can equal the pain I feel for the death of nature. Humans kill, destroy, pillage, and rape the natural world with an unimaginable frenzy. This is all done for comfort, or sometimes survival, and mainly to accommodate our skyrocketing human population. When I see the limitless humans everywhere I turn, I don't see life, I just see death.

After hitting a real low in August, I promised myself I would no longer waste time in despair, defeat, withdraw, depression, or cynicism — but gosh, it's so much easier that way. It's so easy to just do nothing, and say to myself, "Nothing can be done." I will always remember my first Earth Day as an environmental activist. I was tabling for the Sierra Club's Sprawl Campaign, and a passing bypasser said, "There's nothing you can do about it." So, I've spent years, especially this year, reflecting and trying to figure out if he is right or wrong.

I believe he is wrong, because every week I meet and learn about environmental, social, and peace activists who are coming out to try and make a difference. I just read about another guy in today's newspaper. I don't know if something is getting triggered internally to make more people take action, or if there's always been activists like this. All I know is that I think I'm seeing the early beginnings of a Movement, and I have to believe it will take off. As for the Establishment that opposes us, they are powerful, but they are also cocky, sloppy, arrogant, vulnerable, and prone to make huge mistakes. The forces who oppose us at every turn can be turned into our partners. While there are many bad, greedy, and indifferent corporations, there are also many good companies capable of great good. There are also a few good, progressive, and visionary leaders in Congress. There is hope.

So, anyway, getting back to the geese. I cried for them last night. I don't know why, I just did. I just suddenly realized that I had an incredible love for them, and for my world, and for babies, and for Muslims, and African Americans, and Mexicans, and every one of my fellow humans. I read another article today about how a guy is running a peace ministry, where he gets Jews and Palestinian kids to play basketball together. It was mentioned in the article that people have to be "taught" to get along. This has really stayed in my mind. Perhaps, too, people must be "taught" to respect the environment. Maybe people must be "taught" to recognize their own bigotry and hypocrisy.

I have hope. I don't know why, but I just do.

Guest Message





My friend Snail Darter has been a great influence in my life. A great environmentalist who has held some impressive titles and positions, I respect and think about everything he says. He recently changed his name from Alan to Snail Darter and wrote the following beautiful ode to this famous endangered fish:

Since I have taken his name, I've been thinking about the little guy and his importance.

First a quick history lesson: The Snaildarter was placed on the endangered species list in 1977 and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor in 1978 saying that even though the fish, being only 3/5 inches long and mainly just eating snails in clean water, had no economic or cultural valve to humans his habitat must be spared and the huge dam project/land grab/boondoggle on the Telco River must be abandoned. This sweet victory turned to defeat when Congress responded by making his home exempt from the Endangered Species Act, and the beautiful Tellico River, its valley, plus the farms and villages along her were drowned so people could water sky and make a little electricity. Still the Snaildarter shall ever be a symbol of the earth's struggle against human excesses.

Dear little fish, how quickly you scurry along the river's floor. I see you crawling on your leg like fins. Were your ancestors the first to come on land? Are you the seed that we dry walkers sprung from.

You're colored like the rainbow, so quick, so confident that you can elude bigger fish, while you dine on snails. I weep for the death of your home, clean, cold waters flowing over rocks now replaced by a dead lake where they throw hatchery fish so humans can have something to catch in a place devoid of natural life.

You still exist in a few special places and someday when humans fail to maintain their power beast it will fall and the river shall flow again clear and pure while you hunt snails as before. You are God and we are despoilers of God.

I apologize for my kind, for we know not what we do and I take up your name as my own. Snaildarter.

Happy Winter Solstice

We little evolution monkeys jumped out of de
text book so we can dance to Christmas music.

So There I Was...

Last night I attended my first Winter Solstice event and you know what, I LOVED it! When you celebrate the Winter Solstice you connect with nature and the very essence of your being. When you celebrate Christmas, you connect with malls, maxed out credit cards, and happy go-lucky shoppers who will fight you to the death for a parking spot.

As I was talking to this Buddhist girl and enjoying the Solstice party, I realized just how far I've come since I broke away from my old life eight years ago. Now, I am free. Now, I have real peace in my heart. I hate to say it but it's mind-numbing and demoralizing to sit in a pew year after year and listen to sermons that always have the same central theme — you must do more and give more. In a Baptist church, I know full well why no one sits in the first three rows. It's not just to humiliate the late people. Nosiree, it's to avoid getting sprayed by the preacher as he goes on and on about tithing, repenting, not skipping services, and so on. I mean it, one day we arrived late at my sister's church and lo and behold, that meant walking up to the front row in the middle of the service. My wife was so mad that she kept monkey-pinching me, and every time she did it I would let out a squeal of pain, and the pastor just thought I was getting into the message. And man, he screamed LOUD about if I didn't get saved right then, I could get killed in an auto accident on the way home and go straight to hell. Shit, there I'd be all alone with Hitler, serial killers (except for Ted Bundy, who went to heaven), and a billion Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and all the other folks who were born into the wrong religion. So in addition to giving me a second shower, all of this really had the net effect of scaring the crap out of me, especially that part about the lake of fire. See, you burn and feel the pain, but you really don't die (maybe because you're already dead), and just whither in pain for billions and trillions of years. Yes, all this makes perfect sense to me, but I'm just glad I'm free of it.

So, the point being, the switch from nature-based religions to anthropocentric religion has really been horrible for Western humanity because we've lost touch with who we are. In the United States, we have millions upon millions of people who have no environmental ethic and no connection to the moon and stars and the beauty of nature. When I began questioning these things in 1997, my Sunday School teacher said I should "worship the Creator and not the Creation." But I'm not trying to worship nature, only connect with it — and become a part of it again. But in the world of conservative Christianity, any celebration of nature is still connected with Paganism, and that word still has bad connotations. When your grandma used to grab a switch from the yard and start whacking you silly for stepping in her flower bed, didn't she used to scream, "You naughty little Pagan?" Yeah, Pagans have a bad reputation, still. But our ancestors and indigenous people today have and had something special that we've lost. They have a sense of "connection" — the beautiful feeling of being a part of some massive organism that reaches out to the stars. It's really much more beautiful and satisfying than the fear-based religion I was raised in.

Don't be afraid to be free, and to study different religious ideas. Don't be afraid to break out. It will be the most rewarding step that you ever take.

The Yellow Canary

Changing the World

Smile For Zee Camera

Wow, my dear friend Bro. G sent me an article tonight about a relatively new phenomenon — video podcasting. First, there was audio podcasting, which is suddenly giving millions of people a voice, and now, even better, there is video casting. Now, anyone in the world can create a short video, and you can view it on your computer or iPod. It's really neat how companies like Apple Computer are quietly changing the world. The whole podcast movement is just in time, since corporations and government are controlling the media more and more. Fox TV has become the official news agency for the U.S. government, just like TASS was for the Soviet Union.

I'd love to turn my little shed office into a studio and make little broadcasts for video iPod owners around the world to download and watch. This is a great source of alternative media, and yes, it gives me hope!!!!

New Perspective (Or Not New)

After spending several months thinking about the "next step" in my activism, I've gone full circle. I mean, in the last few weeks I played with the "just do nothing" idea to "let's approach this on some mysterious deeper level" approach, and now I'm back to my original premise: Making the world better will simply take a lot of love, a lot of positive energy, grassroots organizing, and dogged persistence. After really feeling sick during August and September, I have my energy and drive back. I feel good — I can swim, take long walks, do yardwork. God has blessed me with energy, which is the most precious resource there is. It is up to me, and to all of us, to use our limited time and energy in the way we are felt called. I wish it were all that simple, but the problem is that there is some other goober out there who feels "called" to work against me. As I struggle to get the Sustainability Movement going, some fundamentalist is going to be working to make America a strong theocracy, and there won't be room for folks like me in this new religious order. But, yeah, that's the one thing I've learned about life: nothing is black and white, and nothing is simple. There is always the dreaded "X" element - the law of unintended consequences, the big freaking "what if."

The following was on the signature line from an email that I received from an activist leader. I just thought it was interesting, and have no idea who Paulo Freire is. Oh, I just Googled him — he is a famous Brazilian educator, and said to be the most influential thinker about education in the late 20th Century. Wow.

"Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress."
- Paulo Freire

My Take on Christmas

Damn..

Okay, the so-called Right Wing backlash on Christmas this season is totally nuts. For the record, Christmas was hijacked from a Pagan holiday called Saturnalia by the Romans. The Romans, in turn, stole the holiday idea from various ancient European traditions. In recent years the corporations stole the holiday and turned it into a profit center. Now, mass media blitzes try to get you to buy LOTS of junk and they don't care if you run up your credit card in the process.

For a long time I've ranted about the perverse relationship between industry and religion, and there is no greater example of this than Christmas. This is a holiday about materialism, consumerism, excess, indulgence, and extreme narcissism.

Yes, this holiday has NOTHING to do with the teachings of Christ. So, don't get pissy when a store clerk says, "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." See, it's their holiday now, but they don't want to just confine it to Christmas because if they offend other religions they might lose sales. It's not about political correctness, it's about BUSINESS.

So, if you are one of those fundamentalist Christians involved in the great Christmas counter-movement, I say that you should just relax. Drink some eggnog, watch some football, and just chill out a little. It really doesn't matter — honest, it really doesn't.

Well, I'm not anti-Christmas; I just don't like the commercialism part. Let's just cut out the mass merchandising and recognize Christmas for what it is — a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and enjoy a really fun winter holiday with some neat traditions. It's okay to eat cookies, sing some carols off key and get smashed at an office party. But PLEASE, don't freak out when stores put "Happy Holidays" in their ads. Sheesh, come on.

Yellow Canary

"The harbinger of danger, the carrier of glee, the avian nut case ... yeah, the bird, man."

The Big Issue In A Peanut

Peanuts, man, peanuts!

Okay, I haven't posted in a while. That's because much of my posting time has been spent reading and participating in the great discussion on the Atlanta Leavers list. More on that later.

Tonight, I dedicate my blog to Sister Canary Cecilia of Florida. Cecilia really inspired me when I first took on the population issue in 1997. She went to a town hall meeting and got into the faces of politicians and started asking them population-related question. Of course, the central Florida good ol' boys were kind of taken aback by that and really didn't know what to say.

Anyway, here is a wonderful excerpt from an article that Sister Cecilia wrote. It really says it all.

From Cecilia:
I am passionate about population issues and work very hard to see that the Bush administration stop withholding funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). I am a staunch advocate for access to contraception and birth control measures, in large part, to prevent unwanted pregnancies and unwanted abortions. To prevent abortions is to prevent unplanned pregnancies. In my humble opinion, the vast majority of the world's ecological problems are the result of too many people jeopardizing the carrying capacity of our planet. So many children enter the world in an impoverished condition and so many die because of the lack of adequate health care, clean water and adequate nutrition. This needs to be addressed nationally and globally. If any one cares about the future of children and our world, one MUST be willing to address population and the carrying capacity issue. Helping families to plan for the size of their families will ripple across the globe so that we can have a sustainable world and a healthy population.
Thank you, Cecilia!