![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
Two weeks off...
Myself, I'm trying to finish my final paper for the quarter so I can be on my (two week only) summer break from school. It's due by midnight tonight. Right now, I'm at a 10 page single-spaced outline for a paper that doesn't need to be more than 15 pages double-spaced - looks like I'm over doing it again. The good news is that, for me, the outline is 75% of the work, so I'm getting close to done.
Then maybe I can plant the rest of the plants I bought over a month ago that haven't made it in to the ground yet...
The Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3, 2009
When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world." There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.
You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.
A great speech - full text available in PDF format.
Thornton Creek breathes again at Northgate
A new channel south of Northgate Mall in Seattle will filter sediment and clean the water of Thornton Creek. A parking lot used to cover this 2.7-acre creek channel.
Dragonflies alight and swoop delicately from plant to plant. For biologists and project managers alike, the presence of these insects, which are sensitive to pollution, indicates a healthy ecosystem.
That wasn't always so across the stark, paved grounds of Northgate Mall. Polluted runoff from the parking lots and neighborhood streets had nowhere to go except directly into Thornton Creek, a stream that weaves through Shoreline and North Seattle and empties into Lake Washington at Matthews Beach Park.
But with enough community pressure and compromise, change can happen.
More at: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l
But, it seems nature is telling me to go the heck to bed, and so, I will.
I am setting up a meeting with someone with some background in this area and there are a couple books on my radar already - Pagan Visions For A Sustainable Future and Love God Heal Earth. However, I'm also really hoping that I can get some good ideas from my friends in LJ-land and the wider blogosphere.
Do you have any books to recommend?
People you think I should talk to?
An event that I should go to?
Know of any cool organizations in the area?
Be interested in talking to me about how your spirituality informs your work towards sustainability or your environmentalism?
I'd appreciate any ideas, suggestions, inspirations. Thanks!
Additionally: (not really visible in the above picture), a Nootka and a Pea rose* and an Indian plum (aka osoberry)*. I already have an Indian plum, but it has never fruited, which has made me very sad. I've learned that this is probably because it's a male. So I bought a female Indian plum - and I know it's female, because it's already in fruit.
(If you click on the above picture, you'll go to my Flickr page, which has notes as to which plants in the picture are which.)
* All plants with an asterisk are Northwest natives. Here is my favorite pairing (fern and bunchberry):
Um, I also may have bought a few plants at the garden store.
More information here.
I'll be attending with a couple classmates. Anyone else interested?
The outstanding 3-minute video asks the question “What’s the greatest threat to our planet?” and shows how reimagining our cities and suburbs to be sustainable and walkable will cut carbon emissions, commutes and calories. "When it comes to saving the planet, what we build is the greatest threat…or the greatest hope," say the filmmakers in Built to Last.
Also, on a similar topic: The Next American Dream, a special report from American Public Media's Marketplace program, looking the "four pillars of the American Dream" and how they're changing:
Although the phrase "The American Dream" was not coined until 1931, the idea is older than America itself. But somewhere between the economic expansion of the 1950s and the bubble economies of the last 20 years, the American Dream has changed. The ideals of hard work and advancement through achievement, and the idea that anyone could be middle class have given way to house flippers, debt speculators and never-ending consumption.
These are issues we are learning about in one of my classes this quarter, and worth sharing. I'm wondering
From http://www.fremontartscouncil.org:
MAY DAY!!! MAY DAY!!! MAY DAY!!! MAY DAY!!! MAY DAY!!!
Hello Everyone!
The weather forecast for Friday is calling for 72 degrees!
The Spring has sprung and the birds and bees are getting their engines rev'ed up! Let's join them!
The FAC May Day celebration is this Friday starting at 6PM at Woodland Park. Here's a link to a map of the location - http://www.seattle.gov/parks/_images/ma
We will be delighted with the "Sound and Fury Morris Dance" group to kick things off. Then, Yellow Hat Band will lead us in the dance around the May Pole. Food and libations and, of course, the Beltain Fire will be stoked and ready for jumping!
Please bring a potluck dish and some wood for the fire. We will not be eating until after the May Pole dance, so please do not arrive hungry. Consider bringing a blanket for sitting and warmer clothes for when the sun goes down.
Wear your finest, white garb, and your bright spirit for celebrating this season of renewal and fertility. Bring a friend!
See you there!
There are over 150 local restaurants participating. Invite your friends and enjoy good company and good food for a good cause. The more the merrier!
This course introduces you to the unity of effort necessary to achieve ecological and social sustainability. Its theme is that the way we treat the earth is a reflection of the way we treat each other. Social organization and ecological action are shared aspects of human cultures. As such the relationship between social institutions and ecological actions is not causal as much as systemic. Both are manifestations of historically constructed cultural patterns that characterize different societies. This is what Wendell Berry seems to be referring to when he writes that,
"Our present economy does not account for affection at all, which is to say that it does not account for value. It is simply a description of the career of money as it preys upon both nature and human society." From "Preserving Wildness" in The Landscape of Harmony, 1987.
This course is about preserving affection in a culture of money. It is equally relevant whether your interest is sustaining natural or human relationships. It is about our humanity in natural relationships and the naturalness of human relationships. The cultural patterns we have developed in recent centuries are disrespectful of both nature and people. This makes the challenge of shaping sustainable human relationships in groups and organizations directly relevant to ecological sustainability. And ecological sustainability depends upon similar shifts in the way we act toward each other. Social and ecological sustainability depend upon the same changes in habits, attitudes and values — new American cultural patterns. We’ll discover many of those in the next ten weeks!
“It is by knowing where you stand, that you grow able to judge where you are.”
– Eudora Welty
We feel that the best way to address social and ecological sustainability is to do so in a particular place. So much of our lives are carried out without reference to the unique community and ecology where we live and work. Thus we often feel no attachment to the land, other creatures and even the people we associate with every day. This course offers you the story of two places on the earth that have been shaped by closely related cultures and institutions. In Soil and Soul, Alistair McIntosh tells us of his experience growing up on the isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides and then how the people of these islands organized for sustainability in the face of centuries of social dominance and ecological exploitation. You will then read a social and ecological history of the City of Seattle while getting to know the land, people and communities of the Duwamish River watershed in South Seattle. Like the communities in the Hebrides, these too are organizing for greater sustainability after a century and a half of abuse and exploitation.
We hope that your study of a particular place and people will give you both hope and a wealth of ideas and strategies for constructing more sustainable cultural patterns and social structures.
My last post was from five weeks ago, saying that winter quarter was done and I was looking forward to spring break. And then I completely disappeared. I decided the computer was not where I wanted to spend my break, and so stayed away.
Work was very busy over my break, so I got less of a break than I wanted. I did get some good social time with people I haven't seen in a while, went to Quaker Meeting twice, and also spent some time with a borrowed spinning wheel and spun some dyed wool into yarn. (Click pics to see each one larger).
For those that follow such things, I was also initiated as a first degree in the Georgian Wicca tradition. That was a long time in coming (I've been studying for a while - by some counts, over three years, by other counts over ten). My preparation for the initiation had me pretty full of anxiety, but I think the ritual will go down as a high point in my life.
I had someone come out and consult with me recently about creating some new raised beds for vegetable gardening. Give that school is back in session and I'm not too skilled with a hammer and saw, I need to find some folks willing to help me construct them. (I'm willing to pay, too, let me know if you are interested!) I also want to put in an herb/roses/lavender garden.
In addition to taking Pilates since last fall, CK and I started a yoga class two weeks ago. I'm liking both of them a lot and am trying to develop a routine for more frequent practice.
So, yes, spring quarter started two weeks ago. I was in class all weekend, and am now buried under a pile of books for school and unread emails and blog posts that I'm all sorts of behind in.
The quarter is looking very interesting. We are learning about history of the environmental movement, the environmental and social history of Seattle (with a focus on the Duwamish River and surrounding communities), and transformational leadership. I'll be doing in-depth studies on women & leadership and working with a community organization in Georgetown (south Seattle) that is trying to get a natural drainage/biofiltration project installed in an industrial area. They have a lot of community and business support but the City is not moving through with permits, which has thrown a wrench into the plans.
And, just within the last hour, I received news that the grant proposal I spent most of February writing was successful. Yay job security!
(PS will catch up with email, etc. tomorrow. Am going elsewhere to relax now.)
Snowdrops, my yard, 2/19/2009 (ah, those lovely sunny days from last week!)
Plus, I just finished a major project that has been dominating my life for the last 4 & 1/2 weeks. If that isn't a sign of things just about to get brighter, I don't know what is.
- Mood:
happy
I should remember that. Talk about the nature, not about business.
ARTISTS' RECEPTION
Tuesday, February 10, 6:00-7:00 pm
Hyatt at Olive 8 Hotel
8th and Olive
There is no charge for this event and it is open to the public.
Amateur and professional photographers take aim at the scenes they feel best capture the Salish Sea, and student artists depict what the ocean means to them. Explore artists' inspiration, thoughts on the state of the Salish Sea, and how their work might integrate with your own. Refreshments will be provided.
http://depts.washington.edu/uwconf/p
Can wolves restore an ecosystem?
Wolves last roamed the Olympic Peninsula nearly a century ago. A controversial new study argues the absence of these predators has led to dramatic and often destructive shifts in the area's ecology.
... Beschta and Ripple walked transects in the park's valleys, counting and aging every cottonwood and big leaf maple. They found that after wolves were eradicated, very few seedlings made it past the knee-high stage. Along one 3-mile stretch of the Hoh [River], not a single new cottonwood survived the ravenous elk in the last half-century. "It's totally out of whack," Beschta said.
Where elk browsing is lighter and the animals are regularly hunted — a stretch of the lower Quinault River outside the park — he and Ripple estimate thousands of cottonwoods have taken root in the decades since wolves were killed off. And the fact that cottonwoods are thriving on the lower Quinault indicates that changing climate can't explain the drop in tree survival inside the park.
