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I live in the Ravine and in case you are not familiar with the dorm rooms, they take an insurmountable amount of effort in order to make them look not as dreary as they actually are. And on that Thursday night, I was exposed to the quintessence of life, the epitome of humanity; a sublime way of living. It was a place that was filled with the spirit of God. The witnessing of the ethereal sunset setting on top of the land that waved as we walked by, while it scratched at our faces and brushed our hair with its brilliant colour and intricate brush strokes; this, combined with the companionship among a group of people I used to call strangers, is why I felt utter peace.  

Then it all changed as soon as I stepped into my dorm room. I stood in the doorway with my already wilting sunflower and the both of us stared at the off-white walls. We couldn’t help but feel like we were entering willingly into a place that had no right to be even called a place. There was no longer a cool breeze, no lingering smell of warmth, no sound broke through the walls and erupted our senses. It was completely devoid of sunlight and psyche. Devoid of what we call the weather and what the Ancient Chinese called the “Ch’i of Heaven”. In this human made apparatus, the universal breath of the earth was no where to be felt.

What I felt like my sunflower and I returned to was darkness and constraint. We started to feel claustrophobic, like we were being forced into a colourless, lifeless, concreteness. Coerced by not anyone in particular but by the way we were brought up to exist: to be easily manipulated. I placed the sunflower, the token of sustainability and altruism, in a gatorade bottle filled with water on my windowsill, and it looked absolutely miserable. As if it knew that it was plucked from its natural home and brought to this placelessness of steel and translucent air, it stared out my window with a hunched back; already counting the days until it finally withers and dies.

And that is exactly how I felt, as I stood in the doorway of my dorm room, while my roommate explained to me the mundane meeting she had to go to that night and the in-class essay she was preparing for the next day. I began to feel a slow profound sadness that seeped in at the thought of my inevitable ignorance and the helplessness toward how I was living. I am not at all saying that I wish to leave Augustana; in fact I believe that I belong here. But as I was sobbing in the shower that night at the fact that Don and Marie wake up each morning to the ephemeral light in their kitchen window, collect the eggs, and start their day’s work, (I am fully aware, that this is at best, a very untrue and cliche farm image, but how and ever.) I began to realize that I was living in a very socially constructed world so detached and cut off from the home that I was created to be amalgamated with.

A wave of nostalgia over took me and I realized that I missed the way we all sat on the back of those trucks as powerfully as I miss my family back home. The trucks drove us through puddles, pot holes, and uneven ground, but no one fell off. As we were bunched together, enjoyably being with our little, temporary “families”, we sat uncomfortably, our hands turned white while holding on for dear life, and we swayed and bumped into one another. But we laughed and discussed the technicalities of living. We talked of the ingenuity of the ways in which the farm sustained life for all living things, (the last of all and the servant of all), and the ingenuity of the way the paradigm of purchasing and consuming treats us, yet tricks us from the day we learned to inhale. 

We discussed how human beings are vulnerable megalomaniacs and are very aware of it. And we talked about beauty and the sublime that one can be sure to find even in the bleakest of winters, and the simplicity of such greatness. But it was only in retrospect that I realized that this was the ultimate metaphor for life. The land is our home, and we were slowly passing through it, sometimes stopping to admire and dwell in the details, but ultimately hopping back on those trucks to carry on. At the end of the day, when the sun cast its final shadow on the fur of the earth as it sleepily sank into a deepening darkness, we hopped off those trucks for a final time, said our goodbyes, took a sunflower and a cookie, and returned home, more content than ever.

If I hate anything, it is the arrogance of ignorance. I was taught from many important people in my life that a lack of awareness is what we are born into and it is a very deep trench that is difficult to climb out of. I am a child of humanity, and therefore an automatic child of naivety and vulnerability. I feel that by simply living, I am subconsciously contributing to sinister corruption based on the fact that we all are hypocrites whether we choose to be or not. Everything we buy from the store, everything we eat, everything we wear, everything we listen to on the television, radio, and internet are the reasons why this earth is slowly depleting. We are sheltered and with being sheltered, we grow hungry, so we are fed lies. But if we ignore are hunger for just a moment and think about the immense destruction human beings are capable of, we would all be deeply disgusted, and this disgust would be the catalyst for change. And that is exactly what the eminent “they” are trying to hide from us. They manipulate us into believing that we are not capable of thinking, and by doing so, we are slowly losing our free will and the earth is slowly losing its patience as well as its capacity to survive.  It is only when one of us breaks through the cycle and refuses to spin round and round the two faced system that keeps tugging at you to keep on moving with the rest of the crowd, to not dare stand up and stand out. It is only when one of us says the simple “no”, that the cycle slowly starts to slow down, and ignorance and naivety recede. Edmund Burke sums this all up quite nicely by saying that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good [people] do nothing”.

But I am a student. At a University. My choices are limited greatly by my monetary circumstances. I am surrounded by the exploitation of resources. Everything encapsulating me has been or will be demolished for the sake of my comfort and security. I drive to Walmart to purchase commodities that I do not need. I eat the meat of cows, pigs, and chickens that barely lived through the torment they suffered in their short lives. All of these issues boil down to the fake democracy we are living in and the éminence grise feudalistic world that lurks in the background.

Our world has turned too materialistic and has been filled with an abundance of avarice that is slowly taking the place of what we call inanimate, abiotic objects that fail to fit what we deem “being alive”. Humanity sees itself as preeminent in all aspects, and that those that are not properly equipped with a human voice are not worthy of any justice, let alone proper acknowledgement. But what we are somehow failing to take into consideration is the fact that these abiotic objects are the key sources and foundation of our existence.We are capable of the abuse and slaughter of living, breathing beings who feel emotion and pain. So that begs the question: what exactly are we doing to the inhabitants of this earth that do not have faces and cannot breathe? What is the magnitude of the pain we cause to those things that we deem not human, not alive, therefore irrelevant? I do not think our minds have the capacity to wrap around the immensity of the ruination we cause. We have become so detached from our earth. And our hubris, megalomania, and avarice have caused that detachment. This is not who we were created to be. This type of mind set is the essence of inhumanity.

There is a reason as to why the earth is described with female pronouns, and given a maternalistic title. Sometimes known as Gaia, she is fertile; she gives life and takes care of the ones whom she houses. She is our mother but as powerfully as she brings life, she can just as easily remove it, and when we don’t treat her with the respect she not only deserves but needs, our race will vanquish with her. We have become dependant on impermanent materialism and it will be our downfall. We try to objectify and possess everything, but the land that we stand on is in possession of Life itself.

There is hope though. As there always will be. Because each of us recognizes that our planet is immensely beautiful, and to a certain extent, vulnerable as well. And I believe that when we step back and view ourselves from a philosophical self- conscious perspective, all of us will find those maternalistic qualities: the need to give, the need to protect, as well the capability to love.

So to conclude, my sunflower did die. And when it reached the point where I finally decided to let it go, it was no longer the great flower that it used to be. It was drooped over and it looked tired, where as at the Rusicka’s Sunset Farm, it was so full of the sun. The five days it spent in my room was the last of its life, but by simply being there, my dorm room was filled with a holy refulgence. Some of us go to great lengths to brighten up our rooms: fancy lighting and posters. But the sunflower is all we need to bring light into our homes, and they are not just temporary flowers used for decoration. Slowly, we are reverting back to our sources and the division between infrastructure and the environment will diminish.

Previous trips: Sept. 10, 2015, July 12, 2015

As you are familiarizing environmental awareness in your local areas, we do the same through a tour of our farm.  Everything is connected.  If there is anything that we don’t understand, it is because we have not yet found its purpose and that is our task or mission to find out how it fits into making the picture complete.

For example, mountain blue birds are a joy to see on our farm.  Their blue plumage can take your breath away and leave you in awe.  However, the BB is not just another pretty face.  It enjoys dining on terrestrial insects like grass hoppers and their larvae.  When a drought comes along, grass hoppers are part of the package, as they like dry conditions.  They can wipe out entire crops of grain and also pasture. 

The industrial model of farming has discovered pesticides that kill grasshoppers and save crops and pastures.  However, pesticides do not target only one thing.  Eventually, they make their way into the food chain and have been found to be a cause of breast cancer, one pesticide called Carbofuran, to be specific.  It is examples like this that make us realize that any action that we do, cannot only do “one thing.”  This relates not only to our farm but also to your community of Camrose and area.

One thing that industrial agriculture does well, is that it treats symptoms.  It rarely identifies the cause.  On our farm, we have 240 nesting boxes that we hope will attract many mating blue birds.  If they do their job, we have great hopper control.  To discourage hoppers, we leave lots of standing pasture in the fall which dies and becomes litter that covers the ground in the spring.  The fewer bare patches that you have in your pastures, the fewer hoppers you will have as they seek out these areas to lay their eggs.  So we are identifying the cause.  The temptation is to have more cattle which would leave the pastures bare in the fall and if the following spring is dry, there will be ideal conditions for hopper out breaks.  More cattle translates into more money for the short term, but less in the long term, as overgrazing will soon have you reducing your numbers and recovery takes a long time.  I know because I have visited there and done a great job of reducing the abundance that the land can provide.  In 1996, we began to “rebound” and rebuild what my previous management had compromised.  As Wendell Berry mentions, we have to understand how much is “enough.”

The other benefit of leaving more grass in the fall is that the litter that it provides in the spring covers the ground and reduces evaporation.  This provides the grass with moisture so that it will grow, even though there has not been any rain.

I have asked many people what benefits come from a drought which sounds like a dumb question.  I have had no takers.  However, in the extreme drought of 2002, the BB’s that came to our farm and nested, found so much food (grass hoppers) that they nested twice and doubled the population.  There is the benefit to our farm and the common good.

A tour takes about 2 to 2&1/2 hours.  We drop in on the hogs on pasture.  Kids seem to enjoy this the most as few if any of them have ever seen a real pig, except for “Babe,” let alone observed it in a farming environment.

The chickens, turkeys and laying hens on pasture is the next stop.  Again, this is something that few adults or children have seen.  It re-frames the paradigm of raising livestock.

We begin calving next week and should still have a few more to come when you come for the tour.  We will drop by and see the cows and calves grazing or lounging while chewing their “cud.”

We will also be grazing about 120 cattle for another farmer.  Water is pumped to them with a portable solar powered pumping sytem.  By keeping the cattle out of the creek, we are improving water quality for those downstream.  If you ponder this, you will realize that there is always someone else “living down stream.”  Even when the water runs into the ocean, there is “life” living downstream.

We have trees planted in many different varieties of plantings such as eco-buffers, wildlife habitat plantings and shelterbelt plantings.  All of these have very diverse purposes.  The eco-buffers attract native pollinating insects which pollinate our pastures as well as the native flowers in them.  The habitat plantings attract a plethora of species of birds as well as ungulates, insects and predators.  The two row shelterbelts provide “shy” wildlife species corridors to travel throughout our farm and feel “at home.”

During the tour, you will see all of our 10 dugouts (watering sites) and creeks, fenced off from livestock.  These areas provide tremendous habitat for biodiversity.  Since 1970, the “Blue Dot” has lost 50% of its wildlife…………………………(this requires a pause)……………………………………….I feel that this needs to be emphasized as we are all dependent on many forms of flora and fauna to exist as a species.  This is our main goal of offering tours; plant the seeds of the importance of caring for the land and its creatures and hope that our guests will take this home.

The last stop is at the cabin for the potluck at about 4:00 to 4:30.  There is a small propane stove with an oven.  There are two composting toilets – each looking like the best toilet you’ve ever seen.  I would ask that folks bring chairs.  The cabin has a wrap around deck and the front overlooks the wetland that inspires us to keep on keeping on.  We have three pick-up trucks that we can transport about 40 people so dress comfortably and prepared for “weather.”

RSVP to: spiritoftheland1@gmail.com.  Also, please feel free to ask questions if you require clarification or have suggestions.

Our hosts, Don and Marie Ruzicka:

This weekend a gathering was held in Camrose and we’d really like to share the generative energy that came from that evening with all of you who frequent this blog!  Knowing that others are working in solidarity can be a source of great inspiration and hope.  I especially wish to send this out to the Unceded Coast Salish territory.

We began our gathering at Rathnavalu’s with nearly 45 people maneuvering into an infinity loop through the house and around the bountiful table of pot luck goodies.  For those of you who have not spent time considering the bureaucracy of the food safety system, having a pot luck is one of the revolutionary acts that we can all partake in!  It’s a chance to bring to our plates foods made from so many loving hands.  What a gift to share in the work of so many!

We got into the spirit of the land by sharing where our spirits have connected and grounded in spaces all around the world.  Here’s the images that my hand could frantically capture…

oceans – beaver trails – headwaters – family farms – game trails – I hug trees – aspen woods – cathedral forest – beaver dams – creek – where I live – critters moving – silence of the coulee – you can hear the dinosaurs – donalda – kootney plains – summers with grandparents in forested land – where i can feel the wind – queeen charlotte islands – I like to look for dead trees – everywhere blew by frontier – my garden – stony creek – read by summer light – california coast – whales pouting while breastfeeding my son – mirror lake – the wind in the aspen leaves – ocean meets the rocks – salt in the air – secret beach – half moon silica sand – smelling cedar and sea air – moose lake – outside and walk – rolling hills – bow river – sunflowers and bears – it has changed but still feels like home – manage the earth – use the wind and the sun – skiing to the research station – mythic status – climbing trees – looking at sunsets – rollyview – chickens and fresh eggs – and lambs and goats – the stars – trail system – choke cherries – mountains – just every part of it…

“You don’t have to be great to do great things” said one of our readings.  And this was a small gathering of great people.  What is the blue dot movement?  Check out this video:

We can affect the future.  This much we know.  Imagine if the sacred spaces that sustain our life and spirit were protected within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  This is the impetus behind the Blue Dot movement – to have our municipalities, provinces and our nation recognize it’s citizen’s RIGHT to live in a healthy environment with clean air, water, soil and food.  Just like we have the right to vote.

As David Suzuki says, “things are only impossible until someone decides they’re not.”

To learn more about ecology and the Charter of Rights, we watched a presentation by David Boyd, one of Canada’s leading environmental lawyers and the author of several books on the subject. Please contact us if you’d like a link to his presentation.

A quick break-out session allowed us to ask each other why we were out on a cool February night.  My own answer is community.  There are crisis in the works, as always there were and ever there will be.  They will always come to pass.  The only way we will weather all the storms of life is with community to help one another.  The community we are building around Spirit of the Land or Blue Dot or local economy or anything else of consequence, reminds us that there are others who are willing to help, to hold space and spirit, to bring ideas and food.  If climate predictions come to pass, I want to know everyone in that room by name.  I want to know anyone who is reading this post by name, so we can achieve together what we cannot do alone.

Community doesn’t happen with polarization.  It happens with compassion and understanding, and as we sit in story with one another, we come to see that we all care for our world.  We all love our children and grandchildren.  We all want a future for our species.  Some people have spent their life’s work in service of systems that we have now identified as problems for these hopes.  This is devastating.  I even feel bad when I slightly offend someone if I have acted or spoke without full knowledge.  Imagine spending your entire life acting in a way that you never considered destructive.  The guilt and shame that comes from changing our lives is not to be overlooked.  Those who have done it are brave souls, but we must remember that those who have not are simply human.  Change can be a very frightening thing indeed.  We must move forward together, with hearts held in care.  Our obstacles are the very place of beginning.

Just an idea…..

So here are a few of the ideas that did get captured in our gathering, but many were not.  And if you have an idea, please send it along to spiritoftheland1 at gmail dot com (I wrote it this way to keep the spammers away!)

• Just as the women’s safety audit occured in Camrose recently, we could come up with an environmental audit that would involve all citizens in going around their neighbourhood.  Count trees, check pollution sources, where’s the water? where’s the wildlife? This information could go to the city along with a petition for a declaration of the Blue Dot variety.
• Use Community Service-Learning students from Augustana to assist with above or with other initiatives
• Involve the Stoney Creek center
• Involve and synthesize the work of the many outdoor clubs in town, like the ski clubs, bird clubs, hiking clubs and other lovers of the natural world.
• Remember –  grandparents will vote for the future of their children! Speak to kids about influencing their grandparents on how we use their future home.
• Celebrate achievements!  Battle River Watershed Alliance and Centercam recycling did not exist a few short years ago.  Build on what we have done and don’t forget our might!

A couple of articles were presented to look up.  One was a Macleans article on the progress of human history.

The other was a series of interviews on CBC Ideas with Gwynne Dyer.

Finally, we went around the circle just blurting out thoughts.  Again, if you have further thoughts post them in the comments below or email us!

hope and what is positive – focus – education – talk to a friend – conversation – example – everyone’s ideas count – networking – t-shirts, buttons – petition public – conversation from industry – pembina institute – relationship between the worst and best… we must be honest with the worst in order to reach the best… be unafraid of the worst because then we can have belief in the best capacity as human beings – pressure from the ground up – reach out and bring people to the next gathering – expand our capacity – offer hope to other…

And this is what I hope, dear friends both near and far.  That this small gathering of great people in Camrose can offer you hope where you live.  There are others out there who send you love, hope and solidarity for the work you do in the place you love.

Please use this space to share your work!  This blog is followed by people in Camrose, Comox, Vancouver, Victoria, Terrace and who knows where else!  Feed the network with hope and stories of your work.  Together, who knows what we may be able to do.

Leslie

Thought I’d post this video just to put you all at ease.  Guess what?  It’s safe!

Geez Magazine’s Winter 2014 Issue features the Caring for All Creation series. Thanks Katie Doke Sawatszky, Geez Experiements editor, for seeing this work as important to share with others and for capturing its ethos so well. Katie and Glen were participants in the Vancouver series.

Justice Work Built on Community Dialogue

Spirit of the Land, an initiative out of the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus, is doing some of the most admirable community-building work in western Canada. Through a cross-provincial community-dialogue series called “Caring for All Creation: Land, Water, and our Communities,” the initiative seeks to build diverse community around eco-justice issues.

This past spring, Spirit hosted a series in Vancouver and Victoria. Free and open to the public, it consisted of six gatherings where activities and reps from local organizations present and lead group discussion. Every other week, participants were encouraged to gather in small groups to discuss the course content and get to know one another.

“Our external ecological crises are symptoms of a deeper spiritual and cultural need that is due to our disconnection with place – and all the lands, waters and communities place holds,” says Carmelle Javney Mohr, an activist from Alberta and one of Spirit’s founders and organizers. “Our concern is that so many of our efforts are oppositional in spirit. The hope of Spirit of the Land is to reveal the commonality that binds us within our diversities.”

The concept is definitely experimental. By opening it up to the public and welcoming voices from both “sides” of eco-justice issues, the initiative is at the mercy of the participants’ interests and agendas.

“I think the hardest part is gathering alienated folks into the same room first. Once in the room though, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly we can find common ground. Even if just two people whose lives have been inevitably placed in opposition with each other break bread together, our world has become kinder. And I believe it has a ripple effect.”

When asked about her hope for Spirit of the Land’s series, Mohr sees the gatherings as a practical way for people to be encouraged and inspired amid ecological crises.

“I hope it can help give answer to that question we so often ask despairingly today as we glimpse the magnitude: ‘Where on Earth do we begin?’ On Earth. Begin on Earth. For when we are present on Earth, we come to know it. When we come to know our place, we begin to fall in love with it. In love with it, we can take care of it. And when we care for it, we belong. Connected.” – Katie Doke Sawatsky

Money is, simply speaking, a medium of exchange. When US president Nixon detached the US dollar from the gold standard in 1971, the exchange of money became a conceptual obligation agreed upon by the exchanging parties, and money the expression of the value or price of that transacted good or service. In other words, money became a concept attached to paper. And we have the power to change its meaning.

The rise of the corporate economic market based on a currency of accumulation and privilege invests in the meaning of money a global network of consumerism that at times increases benefits to the wealthy, and undermines the underprivileged. This financial paradigm is being seriously questioned by the new generation. The links between globalization and economic disparity is being studied. The transition to a carbon-free economy, localized with a community fabric is being lauded. And the reprise of a monetary system that supports communities and local businesses is being revisited through community-based currencies. Here in Calgary, that expression came in 1996 through what is now known as Calgary Dollars, a complementary currency that complements our national dollar with reciprocity as a core value, where participants not only receive good and services, but also offer services and goods to neighbours, friends and community members, garnering the social capital of opportunity and trust with others. Calgary Dollars is local money!, but more accurately: a right to barter with each other where its benefits overcome the leaky economics of multinational corporations whose investment leaves us to shareholders around the world, and instead stays local by its very nature. Findings consistently show that the exchange improves participants’ social and economic well-being and strengthens their ability to withstand social and economic crises. These results help to encourage sustainable development by putting communities first, which will drive the next economy.

By Mike Unrau and the Calgary Dollars team.

mike@calgarydollars.ca / 403.270.8002

While much of Jim Wallis’ book, Rediscovering Values, was review for me, primarily in discussing the issues of our economics and the commons and community we need to turn to, I did find his concepts quite easy to grasp, and they all seemed quite practical. I think his metaphor of an unbalanced stool (the largest leg, the economy, that has grown so large it has now toppled our society over) is very accessible to anyone, not just economists, which allows for the concept of a new economy to be understood regardless of you economic knowledge.

For me, the best section was the last one, which took Chapters 16-17. I think that within these chapters he was able to put forward a transformation that is within our reach, while giving us a list of things we as individuals can be doing to make it happen. Wallis begins with the larger scale, suggesting that “A balanced stool [society] might also need new regulations around the revolving door between government regulators and lobbying for the industry they are supposed to regulate” (Wallis 225). In other words, Wallis addresses the need for change from the top down as essential, and even gives ways to do that – it is all about finding balance in government involvement or lack thereof. This was helpful to me, because while I appreciated previous writers that we have spent time with (particularly Eisenstien in this case), I found that Wallis’ goals and comments for the change that needed to happen on a large scale were easier for me to realistically support. It could be, perhaps, that Wallis’ ideas were not as radical, and perhaps they need to be. But for right now, I think Wallis is on the right track, and feel as though I can get behind his ideas.

In Chapter 17, Wallis narrowed down to what we – as individuals, communities, and churches – can do. He gave a list of 20 practical things, or Moral Exercises, as he calls them, to assess where we are at in embracing a new economy and making change on the micro level. He tells readers that “ Change begins when some people make different choices,” and that “[c]hange is preceded by commitments, new practices, and new disciplines – on all our parts” (Wallis 228, 229). Our actions start change, and sometimes it isn’t until after that our beliefs fully follow.

Of course, I had to read through and consider the Moral Exercises he lists, and ask myself (with only one week until the conference, and only one month left in this course) where I am in embracing the change that the new economy will bring. I had spoken in class a while ago about a practice my mother has, every once in a while writing down what her values are, and then asking herself where those values manifest in her everyday life. Wallis’ list reminded me of that practice. Where does my money and time get invested? When I think of my values, I think of God, my family, the pursuit of Biblical justice, my other relationships, my education, to continually be growing and challenging myself, and my health. When I look at my calendar and budget, it is blatantly obvious that my education takes up the largest section of both my time and money… but I guess there is a time and place for that, and right now I am pursuing education, so I struggle with the question: how does one pursue education and not spend the majority of their time and money investing in it? Needless to say, I still have to figure that one out. But that unique dynamic aside, Wallis (and my mother) challenge me to ensure that my engagement in this world, both economically and with my time, must reflect my values – and if they are not reflecting what I say my values are, perhaps they reflect what my values have become.