Blogs

what a fabulous and inspiring program this is! here are suggestions of some books you might also find of interest. there are so many excellent books out there. these are just the ones that come to mind at the moment:

Wild Earth, Wild Soul: A Manual for Ecstatic Culture – Bill Pfeiffer
Active Hope – Joanna Macy’s most recent book with Chris Johnstone
Going Dark – Guy McPherson
Conscious Collapse – Carolyn Baker
The Derrick Jensen Reader: Writings On Environmental Revolution – Derrick Jensen
or anything else by Derrick Jensen
The Practice of The Wild – Gary Snyder
Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth and Mind – edited by Theodore Roszak
Deep Ecology – edited by Bill Devall and George Sessions
Ecofeminism – Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva
The Ecology of Wisdom: Writings by Arne Naess
Woman and Nature – Susan Griffin
Spirituality for America: Earth-Saving Wisdom From the Indigenous – Ed McGaa

keep on rocking the world,
vivienne

This is a rather difficult post to write…I am sitting here in class, listening to Lorne Green speaking about the history of residential schools, the effects and healing.

This semester I have been involved with different classes doing some work around residential schools which has been very impactful to say the least.

I saw first hand what kind of impact these systems and school had on people. My father and his younger brother were put in foster care and then in a catholic orphanage when they were young. The experience and its effects stayed with them through their lives. They each spoke a bit about it, even on their death beds. My dad and I were very close and spoke about many different subjects quite openly. When the horrors of residential schools began to be exposed more and broadcast my dad and I had several discussions about it. I did come out and ask him if anything had ever happened to him while in an orphanage and all he replied was that: “There are a lot of weird people in the world and a lot of sick people. Really sick people”. He also told me he saw a lot of severe beatings of kids, some where he knew they would never be the same. When I asked about sexual abuse he told me they stayed away from him for some reason. For a person that was always positive, optimistic and full of life and energy, this was one of the rare occasions where I saw my dad slide into a dark place with a different look on his face.

My mother and father very rarely disagreed on anything, however, I do remember one of the fights they had was about my mother wanted to take my sister and I to church or at least to Sunday school. My father absolutely refused. Its was one of the only times I saw him raise his voice and I knew there was no way to sway him. Even my mother crying didn’t help the situation. He said that there was goingto be no discussion about it, that when us kids were old enough that we could make our own decision about whether or not we would attend. I never really understood until experiencing and learning about the effects of trauma and grief later on in life. Funnily enough, towards the end of his life, my father asked to meet with one of the catholic priests in our city. They had several visits and I saw the effect that these meetings had on his sense of peace and well-being at the end of the terminal illness he died from.

I grew up in the Northwest Territories. Apparently between the NWT and Nunavut there were a total of 10 residential schools. The first were in Fort Resolution located on the South side of Great Slave Lake in 1867 and in Fort Providence on the shores of the Mackenzie River also in 1867. I still have friends residing in both these places. When I was growing up Fort Res was home to several dog mushers and kennels who did very well on the race circuit. My dad spent several weeks a year in Fort Providence hauling supplies over the river during break up and freeze up with a helicopter. It’s only been in the last few years that a bridge has replaced the ice bridge that we would travel on. When the bridge was out during these times there was no other way to cross the mighty Mackenzie.

Growing up, I heard stories about abuse that had gone on in these schools. Many different stories. I remember my friend’s mother telling me that when she was a young woman in her home community that she refused to go to church until they got this “half daft, sicko priest out of there” and she told us a story that is to obscene to repeat here. Coincidently, that same man many years later was brought before the courts for things he did to children in his care and in his community. She told me and her daughter to be very leery all the time and not to trust a soul.

Other stories included explaining the reasons as to why adults I knew around me drank or acted wild and abusive and crazy. As a kid, I didn’t really understand that it had a lot to with being taken away from their families and put into residential schools…in looking back now and knowing what I know about severe trauma and grief…it did. The witnessing of ongoing shame and trauma, blame and neglect. Struggle with severe addiction and different forms of abuse and just general insanity and the normalcy of it all is something which has permeated my life and beliefs and has taken a great deal of thought to somewhat sort out.

I look at my own two children and I think of them being taken from me, abused and neglected and I have no idea as to how a family ever would recover from that. My first instinct is always to think of my children’s wellbeing. That is very strong within me and I put it out there that it is very strong within every parent. To have your child taken from your care and subsequently abused is unimaginable. Like really sit and think about that for a moment. Think about what went on. The effects of these schools and this system had will be apparent for generations to come.

I believe that more healing will come from others speaking out more about the effects that these systems had on individuals and families. I am also going to propose that the current system continues on with these abuses today. That the abomination of indigenous and aboriginal individuals, families and communities in this country is blatantly continuing on today. One example that I put forth is the abuse and poisoning of one of the largest fresh water systems in the world, the Athabasca. Aboriginal communities along this river system are essentially being poisoned. There are children who are sick. Imagine being a parent of a sick child. A child you know is not going to get better. This is going on in this country today. There are still children being taken from their families by our government in this country. I encourage you to really sit and think about that. Has our society evolved at all? From residential school abuses to environmental abuses…Is this at all acceptable for any reason? It’s not to me.

“And he watches Lightning, whom he does not love. That one, he thinks, will be hard put to be worth what he will eat. For he is one who believes in a way out. As long as he as two choices, or thinks he has, he will never do his best or think of the possibility of the best”

–Wendell Berry: Bringing it to the Table, 217

            Perhaps many of us can relate to Berry’s story, having had to put up with a character who does not know the meaning of hard work, maybe whose apathy gets in the way of their engagement, or someone whose blatant ignorance is frustrating beyond belief. I too feel this lack of love for individuals such as these. It’s a common malaise of our postmodern times, the malaise of choice. We can be engaged in as much as, or as little as we please, for our own accountability is rarely held to anyone other than ourselves. We do not have to follow politics if we do not wish, or divest from our consumer lifestyles, even get out of bed in the morning.

Fundamentally though, I would argue our choices have consequences, and in paying attention to the value of our choices, the potential of our actions, and strength with which we may proceed, the opportunities that ensue our engagement extend beyond our imaginations. Beginning with our plates: we may choose to eat responsibility to better care for the land that sustains us, the farmers who provide that sustenance, and to show respect for an omnivorous nature that imposes incredible strains on the natural environment. 3 times a day, maybe more, we may vote with our fork to make meaningful change to the food system, in particular. Our acts of consumption are not dissociated from politics, and Berry reminds us that it is in the conscious consumers hands to enact positive change on a personal, and systemic level.

We must then be conscious of choice, and the implications of our choices. For those who are unaware, or disengaged from these consequences, utmost love and nurturance is due. We must be careful to not condemn them for their ignorance, but instead lead by example and demonstrate the bounty and wholeness that accompanies our decisions to have concern for the environment, the welfare of people, and health of our bodies. Let us embark on this journey together, one meal at a time.

 

This documentary/game is very much worth looking at (and playing): a new National Film Board release by filmmaker David Dufresne. Click here for the link to the main page, trailer and game. Click here for the filmmaker’s blog post about the game. The game has been getting quite a bit of press since its release this week.

I am listening to Lorne Green tonight, and again finding him inspiring as always and the history as always dispiriting but as critical to ground ourselves in as the land we traverse and enhome ourselves in. I want to share this talk delivered a couple of weeks ago at SFU by Anishinaabe activist, writer, storyteller, academic Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Restoring Nationhood: Addressing Land Dispossession in the Canadian Reconciliation Discourse.

 

Presentation to the
DEFEND OUR CLIMATE-DEFEND OUR COMMUNITIES RALLY
Simms Millenium Park, Courtenay B.C.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
(Caps in text are the audience response.)

Good Afternoon. This is quite a crowd. Good to see so many of you here.

I’ll start with a question. Why have you come here this afternoon? What has motivated you? Is it because you want to win something? Here is why I’m asking.

Last year our local environmental group had an exhibit at the Fall Fair. In front of our exhibit was a map showing where the proposed Raven Coal Mine was located. I saw a man looking at the map, I approached him and, after a brief discussion about the mine, he said to me, “I really respect what you are doing. But this is not for me. For eight years I worked for Green Peace. But I burned out when I realized that despite all our work we were not going to win.

By sheer coincidence, a little later another man with a history of environmental work came up to our booth and said, “I’m not going to come out against the mine. It will do no good unless we can change the whole capitalistic system. We are never going to win.

I’ve thought a great deal about these two men. I hate the use of “winning” as a motivator. For one thing, this is not a game. Both the Enbridge Pipeline transporting tar sands bitumen across B.C. to huge ships travelling down our coast and the proposed coal mines planned for the Comox Valley are a clear and present danger to our community, to our province and indeed to Canada and to the world at large.

For another thing, when we lose, and we sometimes do lose, some folks just take their bat and ball and go home. They are not in for the long haul.

So what does motivate you? I believe it is a spiritual reality. I’m sure that if you look deeply into your soul you will find two things. First, awareness that you and what you love is being abused. This is often manifest in anger and perhaps outrage. Second, you discover welling up within you a desire to stop this injustice by standing up and doing the right thing.

Many people have gone ahead of us who have faced even greater challenges than we face. We can learn from them.

When Mahatma Gandhi decided to take on the almost 100 year old British colonial Raj, he didn’t get a small group together and say, “Okay Guys, How are we going to win this thing? He and his friends just decided to stand up to the abuse and do the right thing.

Then there was that day on the bus in Montgomery Alabama when Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger and ended up in jail. She wasn’t thinking of winning anything. She just got tired of being pushed around and knew it was the right thing to do. So did Martin Luther King as he watched the events develop in Birmingham. Wounded men, women and children were scattered on the ground after they had been brutalized by Bull Connor’s police with their truncheons, attack dogs and water cannons.

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in South African jails. He undoubtedly continued to hear of the deaths of many of his people killed by the regime for trying to stand up for their rights. But he sat in that cell, became a hero for his perseverance and, after years of international pressure, the regime tried to deal with him. They would let him out if he would be a good boy and stop protesting. “No Deal” he said. He refused to come out until he could be released on his own terms. He knew it was the right thing to do.

As we look to the future there is one thing we can win. We can win the minds and hearts of the people of this valley.

Every year I write these words of Teilhard de Chardin on the front page of my Daytimer. “The future belongs to those who can give a reason for hope.” I really believe that this is a mission for each one of us—to give others hope and the courage to resist injustice.

Take a look around you. Think about the people who are not here—your family members and friends, your church members, your school, your organizations and businesses. You can inspire these people. You can give them a sense of hope—if you are willing to go out and tell them your story—the story of the concern that is in your hearts.

Tell them about how the Harper’s Government’s Northern Gateway Pipeline will desecrate the Great Bear Rain Forest and how the inevitable oil spills from tankers coming down that narrow passage to the sea will inflict untold damage on the environment. Ask them to join you and get involved. And when they ask you why they should get involved, say to them, “Because… IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

Tell them about how the Harper Government is stealing your rights as a citizen; how it is ramming through omnibus bills that remove environmental laws that have taken thirty years to develop; how it constantly promoting the toxic tar sands; how it is handing over our resources in bargain-basement deals to foreign countries; how it is silencing its own scientists and having their cabinet ministers attacking environmental and other non-profit groups that dare to speak out against them. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/an-open-letter-from-natural-resources-minister-joe-oliver/article4085663/ Ask them to join with you and speak out against these injustices. And when they ask you why they should get involved, say to them, “Because… IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

Tell them how the Harper government is abusing our aboriginal brothers and sisters. In 2012 the Harper government was one of the very last UN countries to sign on to the United Nations Declaration of The Rights of Indigenous People. http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1309374239861/1309374546142 That signature was the ultimate in hypocritical political gestures. Among other things the Harper Government pledged to recognize aboriginal rights to traditional lands and to self-government. But, at the very moment it was signing the document it was working with large corporations to drive a pipeline across traditional lands and to do it without adequate consultation. Ask your friends and acquaintances to join with you in protecting the rights of aboriginal peoples. And when they ask you why they should get involved, say to them, “Because… IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

Tell them how the Christy Clark government has agreed with the Alberta Government to support the Northern Gateway Pipeline across northern B.C. Tell them how this government is intent on turning our valley and Island into Appalachia North. It has recently issued 18 new coal licenses in our valley to Chinese companies, all of them in close proximity to critical water sources. And make sure to tell them about the news reports in the press this week based on leaked documents that the government is literally “giving away the farm.” It is eviscerating the Agricultural Land Reserve and handing over to its oil and gas section the responsibility to make farm land available for fracking. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/sacrosanct-agricultural-land-commission-eyed-for-breakup/article15306864/#dashboard/alerts Ask your friends and acquaintances to join you in protest. And when they ask you why they should get involved, say to them, “Because… IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

Folks, in a couple of weeks I will turn 75. I’m getting a little long in the tooth and like many of you grey-haired folks out there I have a shaky health history. It is inevitable that people our age start thinking about how we wish to be remembered.

I hope that if someone erects a tombstone over me it will contain the words, “He did what he did BECAUSE IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO.

Mike Bell
Comox , B.C.

My son was born six years ago and since his birth I have been a single parent with several challenges and very little support. Finding myself in this situation and at this age posed a reevaluation of significant long held beliefs regarding every aspect of my being.
It became very apparent that my children were watching every move I made and were emanating it in their interaction with the world. Beginning to understand the importance of community, rural and environmental sustainability I began to understand that the family plays an enormously important role.

I am lucky. I am a pretty social person and there are a lot of people in my life I would consider friends. I have received a lot of good support and good advice over the years pertaining to the home I should co-create with my kids. A few of those I would like to share in this brief post:

1. “Conscious decision making. Think about it and implement it. Conscious decision making.”
2. “Families the most important thing. You take care of your family. You make them a priority and you let those kids know every day how much you love them.”
3. “Figure out how to grow your own food and be in service to your family and to your neighbors. Help one another out. You teach those kids how to take care of themselves and contribute and that’s the best thing you can do. It will come together, trust me on that one.”
4. “Kate, you focus on improving yourself, building a good home for those youngsters and figure out the people that really truly care about you and you focus on that and the rest will fall into place. Everything else can just ^*!!@ right off. You got me? ”

This is what I held onto in dark times and which I now dole out to others who are struggling to identify and build a life. All of these can be extended to sustainability. Looking at the products we use in everyday life and talking to my kids about it. Taking the time to plan on taking them for walks and on short trips. Initiating conversations about what we have seen and asking for their opinion. Having them research different recipes and getting them involved in food preparation are all activities that contribute to sustainability on a more broad spectrum.

The ‘personal is political’ is an empowering statement that allows us to reflect on our daily actions and see how they have an effect on the greater whole. Individual lifestyle changes can most certainly lead to a fuller and more engaged life. Every time you consume or participate in modern life, you are making choices not only for yourself, but for the planet. Whether you decide to walk or drive to work or whether you choose to buy organic or support your local farmer’s markets… these are all ways in which we can peacefully protest against the current paradigm of mass consumption. Recycling, up-cycling, reducing and re-using items not only gives our ‘waste’ a new purpose, but we can find joy in expressing our creativity by making our own clothes, gifts, candles, jams, etc. Shout out to Leah who makes her own super cute clothes out of old fabrics that would otherwise be thrown away. You rock! <3

We can discover new things about ourselves through these creative processes, it doesn’t have to be a chore. Being kind to yourself and to the earth is one in the same. Over the past few months I have transformed my life slowly and found a way to make a difference that works for me. I did plenty of research into the ingredients of my common house-hold products and beauty products and have replaced many things with natural alternatives. In the Spirituality & Globalization class, my little group made our own toothpaste and ever since then I was like wow, what else I can make? Turns out; pretty much everything! Body wash, deodorant, laundry detergent, etc. These personal choices I’ve made by switching to a chemical-free lifestyle has not only made me feel better, healthier, and more vibrant, but I know that i’m doing the earth a favor by no longer buying plastic shampoo bottles and washing poisonous sulfates down the drain. & By choosing to live a vegan lifestyle, and buy organic, non-GMO foods I’m giving a big middle-finger to the large corporations that are destroying and degrading this beautiful earth as well as contributing to rising cancer rates among people and factory farms that mistreat and abuse animals severely.

I’m certainly not a saint, I have much to learn and still a lot I need to work on, but small changes like this can certainly improve one’s well-being. By having the opportunity to engage in conversations pertaining to these issues is empowering as well, knowing that we’re not alone and we all are striving for a better quality of life for us, our neighbors, and future inhabitants of the earth. We are responsible today not only for what we do but for what we don’t do. So thank you class & presenters for your continuous inspiration and insights, I need you guys, you make my life better and give me hope.