MARCH NEWSLETTER

ON BEING A WORLD CITIZEN

I was walking by the Master Gardeners booth at the farmers market this morning. Seeing a woman standing there with a broad smile I asked her if she knew where I could lend my support to proposition M, which bans genetically modified foods in Sonoma County for the next 10 years. The woman at the booth withdrew her friendly smile and told me that the master gardeners don’t get involved with politics. I can understand their perspective and I can understand this woman pulling away from me. I have held back from voicing my opinions in many areas of my life. Activism has felt threatening. As a spiritual counselor and supporter of mothers regardless of their political or religious orientation I have kept my opinions to myself lest they get in the way of our rapport. As a mother who loves this Earth the whole subject of its demise can be just too much to bear. When is it my duty as a citizen to move past my fears and speak up and when is it best to not, as the Buddha said, “Traffic in viewpoints”?

Last weekend I attended a Bioneers convention. (see www.bioneers.org ) The Bioneers have been around for 16 years. Its founder, Kenny Ausubel, writes “While things look pretty dismal at the national level, there’s powerful momentum on the ground locally and regionally. Many communities, cities and states are focusing on real problem solving. If we are truly working for a sustainable, restored world, then we need to build it patiently from the ground up.”

The presenters at the Bioneers convention shared brilliant solutions with vision and passion to an audience filled to the brim with people who were already aware that we are destroying the planet. We were awake to the horrors of global warming, of the endangered rain forests, of strip mining, of the rapid depletion of oil reserves, of pesticides and how they are impacting the health of our families. What we were looking for was hope, for solutions, for our marching orders and we weren’t disappointed.

We heard from Andy Lipkis of the “Tree People” in Los Angeles who coupled the problem of flooding when it rains to drought when it doesn’t by building multi-million dollar cisterns to catch the rain thereby preventing flooding and providing much needed fresh water. We heard from engineers who designed energy efficient homes, indigenous people who remember how to live sustainability on this planet. The most current science was married to ancient indigenous wisdom in order to create new solutions to the problems that threaten life on this planet. Biologists and engineers looked to plants and animals to emulate their time tested adaptive strategies. Myths about how the powerful and grand eagle lost its power to slow persistence of the meek turtle reminded us to never give up. Hip Hop artists engaged our hearts with youthful exuberance. I walked away from the weekend with hope and with a newborn sense of activism.

To access our inherent joy we first must throw off the shackle of denial, denial of the darkness we humans find ourselves facing due to our own ignorance and arrogance. In Buddhism ignorance is one of the three poisons, the other two being hatred and greed. These are the mental qualities that keep us from seeing our true radiance. Ignorance is the most difficult of the three because, whereas anger and greed are easily felt, ignorance is ignorant of itself. This makes it slippery and hard to uproot. The only way to uproot ignorance is to educate ourselves by turning into life as it is with courage and open eyes. Until we face the truth of our situation we remain slaves to our fear and ignorance, dragging them around as a ball and chain. Looking at the truth of the Earth’s condition squarely and allowing ourselves to feel the full anger and sorrow of this condition clears our hearts like a spring rain clears the air. In the clear air we are uplifted and channel our energies into productive, empowered dreams and actions. The common belief is that a conference on the environment is bound to be depressing. To the contrary, this conference was full of laughter and joy. The green revolution is about interconnectedness, self-expression and awareness of the beauty all around.

The challenge I’m left with, after awakening to the Earth’s plight, is how to bring these insights into my everyday life and into my community. There is a Tibetan saying that people like the truth like a dog likes a stick. The stick they are talking about is one that swats the dog, not one that is used to play catch. How do we bring this important information to our friends and family without alienating them? How do we avoid getting into battles over viewpoints and thereby creating more polarization? How do we share information with love so that the people we are talking with do not feel defensive?

As a citizen of the world it is no longer, and probably never was, acceptable for me to remain on the sidelines of the important issues of the day. The stakes are too high. The furry of the hurricanes that have taken so many lives and left so many homeless were predicted by experts on global warming. What if I, and others like me, had been more vocal years ago? As an advocate for families I now know that global warming, environmental degradation of the planet, the dumbing down of citizens, are all family issues. Families and their individual members suffer from our silence.

Edmond Burke wrote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Many of us, and I include myself here, have done just that. Busy with our families, with our economic situations, feeling the stress of modern life, we sometimes feel too overwhelmed to act on behalf of a threatened planet. But we are all citizens of the world. It is our beautiful blue green home and everyone on it is our sister and brother. For their safety it behooves us to educate ourselves about the land, the water, the people, plants and animals and share what we learn. These basics are the building blocks of happy individuals and happy families.

Jacqueline