Our world, your garden

[Lowlight]

I was thinking about the human condition in relation to the planet today when the thought struck me...

Myopia is such a human sin/defect. We seem to need to suffer the consequences of actions before we wake up to what we are actually doing. If it was on a smaller scale things would be different.

For instance. Imagine you literally live off the produce of your garden and nothing else. Say it is your only source of food and water. Now, your sta in your back room looking out over your beautiful environment that provides all you need when suddenly some guy climbs over your garden wall. He takes no notice of you and starts dumping waste and litter. Then he starts polluting the water. Then he takes a saw and starts cutting down your trees and then begins cementing over your lawn. What would think? what would you do? I know i wouldnt be sat there and just say "oh it will all sort itself out sooner or later," and return to the morning paper, I'd be out there with a goddamn baseball bat...

Yet we simply do not see this problem if it is magnified to a planetary level. Why?!

[sidecross]

‘Why?’

Maybe because we metaphorically have a cell phone in our ear talking away while sitting on the toilet scratching our head.

I have extra baseball bats if you need them; I am a favorite of a 33’’ cupped model C271 Louisville Slugger.

[Lowlight]

hey sidecross I think we may need a few...

Global warming: passing the 'tipping point'
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article344690.ece

World is at its warmest for a millennium
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article344513.ece

[nanouk]

http://guajirodreams.com/blogs/images/PolarBear.jpg

Polar Bears Being Considered for U.S. Endangered List
John Roach
for National Geographic News

February 10, 2006
The Bush Administration yesterday kicked off a process to determine whether polar bears should be added to the United States endangered species list because their habitat is melting.

The action is "a significant acknowledgement of what global warming is doing to the Arctic ice," said Kassie Siegel, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity in Joshua Tree, California.

In December the conservation group, along with Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council, sued the U.S. government to protect the world's polar bears from extinction.

According to the conservationists, Earth's steadily rising temperature is causing the polar bear's habitat to melt. Many scientists say the warming is due, in part, to human activities such as driving cars and burning coal, which release heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere,

If the bears are given federal protection, they would be the first U.S. mammals officially deemed to be in danger of extinction because of global warming, the conservation groups said.

Rosa Meehan, the chief of marine-mammal protection at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage, Alaska, said the conservation groups presented sufficient information to merit a close look at the status of polar bears.

"It doesn't mean that we are going to list them or that we're not," she said. "We know things are changing. We know a lot more about polar bears than we did a few years ago. We need to review their status."

The Fish and Wildlife Service will spend the next 12 months examining scientific evidence about the changing Arctic environment and how it is affecting polar bears.
Polar bears live only in the Arctic, the northernmost region of Earth.

The bears, which can grow to about 8 feet (2.5 meters) long, depend on sea ice for their survival. They hunt their primary prey, the ringed seal, from the ice. They also travel, mate, and sometimes give birth on the ice.

But the ice is melting.

article continues here:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/02/0210_060210_polar_bears_2.html

sorry, don't mean to make this forum some sort of news blog, but this is just breaking my heart...

~nanouk of the north~

[sidecross]

The Polar Bear is a recent species about 70,000 years old.

[nanouk]

so?
the Homo sapiens are a fairly recent addition to our planet too...

[ February 13, 2006, 12:38 PM: Message edited by: nanouk ]

[sidecross]

Originally posted by nanouk:
so?
the Homo sapiens are a fairly recent addition to our planet too...Most people think we, Homo sapiens, are the most recent species.

My point is to those who literally believe in Genesis or the bible that the human is the culmination of species development and god's work.

[ February 13, 2006, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: sidecross ]

[nanouk]

if we go along those lines, sidecross, maybe God put the baseball bats in the wrong hands, or paws? *L*

~n~

[Lowlight]

"maybe God put the baseball bats in the wrong hands, or paws?"

Seems like it. That independent atricle says we have passed the point of no return as it were, and will now see some of the harhser predictions for global warming come true. And thats without any increase in co2 emissions which with the industrialisation of india and china will most likely increase even more. If peak oil is real and the US and other start to burn coal to make up the energy gap then it gets even worse...

Time to head for the hills?

I honestly believe that the only thing that can save us from future diaster now is the whole 2012 scenario. Without somekind of global consciousness shift this human age is set to end up looking something close o hell on earth.

So all we can do now is pray, speak out to those who will listen and those who seem ready to change. Hope dies last...as they say...

[sidecross]

Even Stephen Hawking said more than a year ago that we have passed a point of no return and believes moving from Earth the only solution.

I can assure everyone here I would not be given a ticket to board where ever they go, nor would I want too.

[nanouk]

"I honestly believe that the only thing that can save us from future diaster now is the whole 2012 scenario."

I honestly believe the only thing that can save Gaia from future disaster is an immediate full depletion of oil and coal, her veins and marrow are near enough empty, until then, the race is still on...

But, the fares on my local buses and trains went up yet another 35% a month ago, so where is the encouragment to go public?

[ February 14, 2006, 07:57 AM: Message edited by: nanouk ]

[sidecross]

You would think that the world’s governments would find in their national budgets ways to finance public transportation.

The U.S. has over a 2 TRILLION dollar budget; you would think that free public transportation would be included in such a high expenditure of income from tax revenue.

[Lowlight]

yeah nanouk that would be helpful, but there is literally decades of coal left so blobal warming may get to apocalipic proportions before it runs out. I remember we talked about global dimming somewhere here about a year ago, that would have to be factored in as well which make the problems even more complex. Like i said, without somekind of planetary consciousness shift are number may be up. I think it may help to remember how much power we have in money terms - we have to start buying local etc and starve the corporations. Your right though, public transport in the UK is shit and overpriced. I dont drive anyway, i never bothered to learn and dont intend to either.

[sidecross]

‘…I dont drive anyway, i never bothered to learn and dont intend to either.’

A five star response!

[willoweyes]

If anyone here has been forced to endure the "March of the Penguins" they know that there are plenty of mean penguin=guzzling seals in the Antarctica.

I (for the first time) appeal to you my friends. Save the Polar Bears!

This takes more imagination than that of which the US Agencies are capable of.

In other words, we need to find a way to get the Polar Bears to the Antarctica.

I just read a discussion of the controversial wolf project in Yellowstone. Under the tender tutelage of the Bush Administration, the wolves are dying out "naturally" through attrition, etc.

Through the obsessive and anal utilization of radio collars and tranquilizing dart guns (what a feeling of power it gives one! What a feeling of virtue!) The Park Service and EPA have managed to kill of a goodly proportion of the Yellow stone wolf pack.

We need to become latter-day Noahs, listening to the disturbing warnings, and witnessing such an Arc as our god requires of us.

(note this god doesn't need caps, but the Forest Service does)

[Thom]

The wolves have to be forced to wear collars, but we buy them as status symbols. Cute.

I think Lowlight is correct overall - conciousness shift is our best hope.

I have to admit though, I've been pretty appalled lately to realise the personal sacrifice such a transition might require of Me...

[ February 16, 2006, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: Thom ]

[Lowlight]

"I have to admit though, I've been pretty appalled lately to realise the personal sacrifice such a transition might require of Me..."

yeah, i was just taking about this last night to a close friend. Either way - planetary shift or no - the lives we live right now are soon gonna go down the toilet. And here's the weird thing...it deserves to.

[sidecross]

Glaciers Flow to Sea at a Faster Pace, Study Says

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: February 17, 2006


The amount of ice flowing into the sea from large glaciers in southern Greenland has almost doubled in the last 10 years, possibly requiring scientists to increase estimates of how much the world's oceans could rise under the influence of global warming, according to a study being published today in the journal Science.

The study said there was evidence that the rise in flows would soon spread to glaciers farther north in Greenland, which is covered with an ancient ice sheet nearly two miles thick in places, and which holds enough water to raise global sea levels 20 feet or more should it all flow into the ocean.

The study compared various satellite measurements of the creeping ice in 1996, 2000 and 2005, and was done by researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the University of Kansas.

Glaciers are creeping rivers of ice that accelerate or slow and grow thicker or shrink depending on the interplay of a variety of conditions including rates of snowfall and temperature and whether water lubricates the interface between ice and the rock below.

Sometimes the rate of movement in a particular glacier can change abruptly, but the speedup in Greenland has been detected simultaneously in many glaciers, said Eric J. Rignot, the study's author, who has extensively studied glacier flows at both ends of the earth.

"When you have this widespread behavior of the glaciers, where they all speed up, it's clearly a climate signal," he said in an interview. "The fact that this has been going on now over 10 years in southern Greenland suggests this is not a short-lived phenomenon."

Richard B. Alley, an expert on Greenland's ice at Pennsylvania State University who did not participate in the study, agreed that the speedup of glaciers in various places supported the idea that this was an important new trend and not some fluke.

"There's no way that the Jakobshavn Glacier on the west side can call up the Helheim on the other side of the ice sheet and say, 'Let's get going,' " he said.

A separate commentary published in Science by Julian A. Dowdeswell of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Britain noted that the rising flows could be a result of both the rapid deterioration of the miles of floating "tongues" of ice where the glaciers enter the sea and an increase in water melting on the ice surface and percolating down through crevasses, where it can reduce friction with the underlying rock.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/science/17climate.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Thom]

Lowlight,

I've been thinking a lot recently about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, begging the higher power to go easy on him. He knew the ultimate value of the immediate agonising sacrifice, but as a man he recoiled from it, keeping sympathy with life and the animal desire for more life. Eventually though he gave his assent and surrendered to the higher will, so to speak.

On my smaller postmodern scale, I identify with that. William Blake's illustrations to the book of job have been like oxygen to me lately. I see them as a map of the necessary progressive psychic changes an individual must make if he/she thinks it's a good idea aligning with the divine will/evolution.

[Lowlight]

I agree with you thom. If everything has to come down before it is built up again, then individual dissolution given over to the greater cause of planetary balance rather than the extreme imbalances of today must surely be accepted.

It is hard to accept when looking at it from a modern day western perspective though, something that i am progressively trying to shed.

[daniel]

Since I have spent the last five years writing a book on "the 2012 scenario," I will tell you exactly what it means: It means all of us getting a clue, and using the full power of our intellect and our will to change the situation - also reaching out to each other as brothers and sisters rather than the mistrust and backbiting that this forum sadly represents. Use of our intellect means studying the system currently in place on all levels, finding its weak points and vulnerabilities, and targeting them. Let's think and act like spiritual warriors, fighting for a better world.

As for the initial garden scenario Lowlight describes, it seems that it is exactly what happened during the initial stages of imperialism. When the indigenous people fought back, genocide and slavery was the result.

I believe the system itself has to be repurposed - or as alchemists say, the poison converted to medicine. That is my thinking behind the evolver project.

[Lowlight]

"As for the initial garden scenario Lowlight describes, it seems that it is exactly what happened during the initial stages of imperialism. When the indigenous people fought back, genocide and slavery was the result."

That i an interesting take on it. I wouldnt want the crude 'baseball bat' response to be taken too literally as it as...errm...obvious limitations when magnifying it too planetary proportions. I guess im saying that the resistence would be quick and powerful, which is open to interpretation.

I have thought about subverting the system, i.e. the alchemist trick, but im not sure it is the only answer, though it is nonetheless a necessary weapon. I find myself caught between two kinds of mindsets -

1. Fuck it. (basically the we have ruined the planet and deserve what is given to us over these coming years. If those who are left can make humanity something worthy again then great and that is what i hope for, but we might just pass from the historical record completely.

2. Revolution is but one day away. (we still have the power to change peoples minds and get enough on board to save this place before it goes down the pan.)

Is there a third way? maybe a mix of the two? or something completely different? The good thing is that the next few years are exactly that - the next few years, so we will see the fruits either way soon.

"also reaching out to each other as brothers and sisters rather than the mistrust and backbiting that this forum sadly represents."

Yeah i know what you mean and i feel it. But i think that internet forums are always like this as the set up of them seems to facilitate angry debates, insults etc. Its been a long process but ive learned to not really care if people insult me personally. Face to face it would be a different ball game - people are often so much more polite that way.

[willoweyes]

Yes Lowlight--I don't see these as personal attacks. But then, I am not real, like Daniel is. Only my simulacrum is projected here.

There is a fierceness--a certain wild laughter at the consequences, that it is necessary to cultivate--or surrender to-- if one wishes to run this untamed river.
____________________________________
"He was born with the gift of laughter, and a sense that the world is mad." Rafael Sabatini

[sidecross]

"also reaching out to each other as brothers and sisters rather than the mistrust and backbiting that this forum sadly represents."

I have written on more than one forum, and if daniel believes as he is quoted, he needs to surf other forums for how strong ‘mistrust and backbiting’ can manifest.

This site is one of the best I have ever been a part, and we all should be proud of what we have been writing and accomplished here these past years.

I write this in full acknowledgment that two of our writers have died by their own hand.

[whitewave]

Since last winter I haven't participated very much in this forum for exactly some of the reasons that have come up in this thread--the mistrust and backbiting Daniel mentioned, the angry tone involved in many posts (I define sarcasm as anger), and the need to prove one's point or refute that of someone else. I have not participated out of disgust, I have just wanted and chosen to engage in a much more intimate way with my emotions. Instead of projecting or venting, I have been examining their root cause in me. Not by searching for what caused them. I have moved past needing to define myself as victimized by realizing that all the experiences of betrayal I went through were ones my soul attracted in order to lead me to a realization of unconditional love through forgiveness (the awakening of the Christ Consciousness). I did not just forgive those who betrayed me, I forgave myself for not trusting in the universe, more specifically in the oneness of all, the unnameable we try so hard to express with the often limiting means of expression we have been granted (or have yet discovered) here on this dualistic earth. I have learned that my lack of trust stems from an inability to fully see and know my connection to the divine, however you choose to name it, and that this is what caused me to need to experience betrayal in the first place. When this forgiveness occurred I was able to love everything and everyone, if only for a short time-- to understand with heart and mind the meaning of no separation, and to experience the gratitude that comes with the realization that even those who I perceived as enemies were actually mirroring what I needed to discover and work on within myself. My focus over the past year has been embodying this feeling, which I've discovered, requires the discipline and commitment of a warrior, as Daniel exhorted us to become in his post earlier in this thread. My teacher recently gave me a formula that has been very helpful in maintaning my warrior discipline. 1. Surrender the idea that you have to go it alone. 2. Release all attachment toward achieving a goal. 3. Allow what needs to happen to occur. In some ways, since following this formula, my life has become more stressful because I am in a constant engagement with myself, always aware of my reactions and of what I am supposed to be learning in every situation that does not go as smoothly as I would like it to. She has also been stressing the need to move beyond judgment--every time we judge another we are judging ourselves, thus harming the whole of creation. Of course, her teachings are predicated on the belief that everything is connected. If you don't believe that we are all one then they will most likely not resonate with your consciousness. I have learned so much from this forum whenever the threads really dove into examining how we were interacting. I feel the path of paranoia that is often dwelt on here will not best serve us as I believe that it is our thoughts that create our reality. At the risk of sounding dogmatic, I amend that to saying I know that our thoughts create our reality. Silentwolf, when you attack Daniel with such anger, do you ever wonder where that anger comes from? The anger belongs to you. Daniel is just a foil for it. As foils for each other, we should all be grateful to each other. I would hope that we could all become the brothers and sisters that Daniel spoke of in his prior thread, but this requires an honest look into ourselves, it requires getting to know our souls. Own your shadow. Don't project it on to others. I like the idea of converting the poison into something that heals. My favorite permaculture principle is in alignment with this idea--the problem is the solution. We have created this current ecological crisis on such a grand scale so that we have the opportunity to come together on a grand scale, just as we do on a microcosmic level when we create crisis within our physical bodies through disease. Perhaps the backbiting and mistrust will continue here, and that is ok. It is only a reflection of where people are at and what they need to learn still. It is up to the individual to choose if she or he wants to interact with that anger. I have written this post today because I relate to what everyone has experienced or is experiencing here and feel that I have something to offer that could benefit the common good by giving people a way to let go of their fears. I don't think anything or anyone needs to be saved, but I can testify that it is a much more pleasant experience to live this way than to be trapped by one's own fears. One more thing, for those who perhaps shy away from expressing their feelings, afraid of hurting others maybe with their strength or violence,thus perpetuating the cycle of negative feelings which stop us from being our authentic selves. I have learned a process lately called The Feeling Cleanse which allows one to very quickly get to the root cause of whatever uncomfortable emotion one is experiencing, and then to work through it be feeling it internally instead of expressing it outwardly. Tomma, the woman who discovered it, actually believes that expressing our feelings is not the key to releasing their harmful effects on us, rather, she says, we must learn to be with them. I have had profound results from this technique. It is simple and brings clarity and peace. It is available at her website www.freesoul.com. (http://www.freesoul.com.) I have not checked out Evolver at all yet, but if we do not all evolve together, I wish you well on your journies. Peace in your hearts.

[sidecross]

‘I have not participated out of disgust’

‘to a realization of unconditional love through forgiveness’

‘One more thing, for those who perhaps shy away from expressing their feelings, afraid of hurting others maybe with their strength or violence,thus perpetuating the cycle of negative feelings which stop us from being our authentic selves.’

These three comments seem to contradict each other, but if whitewave feels at peace with her statement so be it.

There are many ways on the path some are rough and bumpy while others may be serene. As the lyric says ‘whatever gets you through the night’.

[whitewave]

Hello Sidecross,
That first statement you pointed out was supposed to be a double negative--I have not not participated....thanks for the clarification. I really don't think the other statements contradict themselves, but as you say, whatever gets you through the night....

That said, I think the fact that your first reaction (maybe not your first, but what you chose to post) to my post was to criticize it by looking for errors or holes in my logic underscores what Daniel was talking about when he said this forum was characterized by mistrust and backbiting. I am not criticizing the behaviour of people on this board. In fact, I thought I made it clear in my long post that what I have been doing is trying to accept my own shadow by owning my feelings, which means I am engaged in a continual process of self-examination in which I try to realize what I am feeling beneath the feeling--trying to get to the root cause of my uncomfortable reactions. I can't do this by projecting them on to other people by criticizing them.

Perhaps my clarity of expression is not quite developed enough yet to do this, so for that I thank you for your criticism, however, I don't feel encouraged to participate here when all I receive is small-minded criticism after speaking from my heart. So be it. A part of me says that's all s/he has to say to what I just wrote? And that is an issue that has come up for me a lot lately--the feeling that no one understands me, even when I feel that I have explained myself quite well. What I have learned from this is that not everyone sees the same way, or that not everyone can understand who I am or what I am embodying. Because my ego wants to be recognized, I keep coming up with people who criticize me and fail to see me. So thanks for letting me know I still have work to do in this area. (That is not a sarcastic statement. I mean it sincerely. I often think we are all so conditioned to be defensive that we mistake earnestness for sarcasm.)

I think what I did in this last post was try to synthesize the different feelings being expressed in this thread in order to give myself and others who read my words an opportunity to challenge ourselves through our reactions to each other so that we can ultimately learn to cooperate with one another in order to create a sustainable earth. To do so means we have to drop our defenses, which I will admit is difficult, especially when we are being attacked-- this is the core of non-violent action, which I feel is the only way to stop the cycle of violence which consumes our bodies and spirits and turns us into people who, because we have no relationship with our souls, are always seeking outside ourselves for satisfaction, and who will continue to experience life as a series of betrayals, until we achieve the inner union that will enable us to see, to know, and to realize our connection with All.

[sidecross]

Good argument should not be equated with ‘mistrust’ or backbiting’.

Einstein & Bohr (Neils Bohr) had great arguments in physics that could just as easily be described has backbiting and looking for holes in each others thinking.

When done in good faith this kind of argument is the abrasion like a file that that smoothes the bur in faulty thinking or proves the bur an integral part of the thesis.

Our very existence is based in a Universe that is still expanding with such force that most of it is cloaked under a term now designated as ‘Dark Energy’.

Good argument should be relished and not be hidden in a closet or worse to be labeled as counterproductive.

[Gift Horse]

Dear Whitewave,

I resonated with much of your post.
If I were to use labels to describe my path, I would be doing so to save lengthy explanations. That said, I have been drawn to a Toltec path of personal awareness, transformation and unconditonal love. Much of what you said described the work I do.
I tried to go to the reccomended website "freesoul" but was unable to bring it up.
Could you check the address?
Thanks!

[whitewave]

Thanks Gift Horse,
The website is www.thefreesoul.com. (http://www.thefreesoul.com.) Sorry! My mistakes here are a result of being in a creative flow when I write--I should be more careful and go back and edit, but I've noticed that when I make mistakes and someone picks on them they provide us with take-off points for discussion. So maybe I should just keep making them.

Sidecross, Einstein and Bohr were arguing in order to create something! I think there's a big difference between arguing for the sake of arguing and arguing for the sake of creating something new! However, I can see how when we argue here, even if it is not in very creative ways, it helps us create ourselves. We just don't get to see that happening unless it is expressed in writing here.

[daniel]

whitewave,

it is good to witness your return, like a tidal flow sweeping into a long empty beach (or somethin').

as for the heckles and insults and careless criticisms, my usual strategic choice of reaction is to remind the posting person, at least once in a while, that I am actually human, and do feel it. At the same time. I think it is a bit like psychoanalysis for all of us - as you say, people can develop self-consciousness, if they so choose, by seeing their posts about others as projections. Maybe they will even grow up!

In any event, there is ultimately only One Consciousness... today one representative of the One is beating the shit out of another, or shooting depleted uranium all over his country, or torching his churches. The next day, perhaps, they have awoken from their bad dreams to embrace each other and, arm in arm, rebuild their ruined lands.