Tears of Delight PM of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern’s Well-Being Budget & Maori Guardianship | Friendship Bench

I am in tears of delight as I listen to the statements of the Prime Minister of New Zealand and leader of the Labour Party, Jacinda Ardern, speaking of well-being as the measuring stick at the Davos, Switzerland World Economic Forum. She speaks honestly and earnestly – brilliantly revealing to the other diplomats a lens through which to look that is not measuring the quantity of profits through the GDP, but the quality of life and well-being of the people.

Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand, politics of kindness, empathy, well-being

New Zealand politics of kindness, empathy and well-being

Among the leaders of the prohibitively expensive and exclusive Davos World Economic Forum, here is yet another example of a leader stepping outside of the dictates of the norm, to instead be a spokesperson for the quality of life. She states that numbers mean nothing, if people are homeless, if the teen suicide rate is high, if people are emotionally and physically ill. It’s another great step for humanity to have an excellent female leader with the bravery to speak the truth. She’s naturally a tremendous advocate for making changes to avert climate catastrophe.

We all know what disasters continue to strike due to industrial practices that are bent on wielding the highest profits, at the cost of health and life of human and species loss and environmental degradation.

Instead of complete lies, such as what comes from the USA present reality-show-muppet-leader, everything that she says speaks truth, conviction and dignity, from the content of her words to her tone and mannerisms. She speaks honestly, as do a number of recently elected female congresswomen in the US. Hurray for the people who are electing these women leaders throughout the world. It is great news.

Not unprecedented in her ideas, the government of Bhutan conceived of the model of Gross National Happiness as a more real measuring stick than the GDP. You can have a high GDP with great numbers, sales and profits that are off the charts…and as you focus the lens in close, you see that the Amazons and Walmarts that are employing high numbers of stressed people, have paved all of the pristine land; expanded their enterprises along with their parking lots stinking of tar and asphalt and wiped out swaths of land that are habitat to creatures who share the planet.

Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index

The construction of the GNH Index includes nine domains

Psychological wellbeing
Health
Education
Time use
Cultural diversity and resilience
Good governance
Community vitality
Ecological diversity and resilience
Living standards

We no longer need an economy bent on profit, so that the computer that I’m using has to be replaced every x amount of years, because of it being built to become obsolete in that short amount of time, as the Superfund sites where the minerals are harvested or skeletons of older models of trash accumulate, to litter and poison water and air. There is absolutely a different paradigm waiting for us around the corner.

Jacinda Ardern aims to to bring the New Zealand Maori philosophy of ‘guardianship’ of the environment into politics.

nothing to fear jacinda ardern urges world leaders

nothing to fear jacinda ardern urges world leaders

weforum Prince William aka HRH Duke of Cambridge, Prime Minister of New Zealand and Labor Party leader Jacinda Ardern, Dr. Dixon Chibanda of Zimbabwe discuss mental health and friendship bench

weforum Prince William aka HRH Duke of Cambridge, Prime Minister of New Zealand and Labor Party leader
Jacinda Ardern, Dr. Dixon Chibanda of Zimbabwe discuss mental health and friendship bench

One of the panelists was Dr. Dixon Chibanda of Zimbabwe. He is one of a total of 12 psychiatrists in the country of Zimbabwe, to serve a population of more than 16 million. He conceived of the idea of training grandmothers to essentially – listen – and the program has been wildly successful. HE created and implemented the ‘practice’ called a Friendship Bench. He talks of the Friendship Bench in this TED talk. Grandmothers in Zimbabwe are trained in cognitive behavioral evidence based talk-therapy; empowering them with the skills to listen, show empathy and provide emotional support.

The grandmothers have actually been more effective than doctors, in treating depression, anxiety, addictions and for patients’ overall success rates.

Grandmother Jack in Zimbabwe helped to pioneer the Friendship Bench program

Grandmother Jack in Zimbabwe helped to pioneer the Friendship Bench program

Grandmother Jack was one of the first grandmothers in Zimbabwe, empowered to provide evidence-based talk therapy. She saw 256 clients whose lives were improved dramatically. She is now deceased.

The Friendship Bench has since been adopted worldwide.

It has morphed to not be simply Grandmothers, but for peers to sit with each other to listen and show their support.  Certainly it helps dramatically the people who are suffering from physical or mental illness, or addiction and emotional trauma. And most brilliantly it also empowers the person who is trained as the listener, who can provide emotional support and empathy.

The Friendship Bench looks to get peers talking to each other about depression, suicide and mental health

The Friendship Bench looks to get peers talking to each other about depression, suicide and mental health

mental illness, friendship bench london for peers to talk to each other about depression

friendship bench london for peers to talk to each other openly

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

PayPal Donate Button

bicycle before sunflowers

bicycle before sunflowers

Have you Heard of Global Warming? | Apparently 60% of Providence Hasn’t | Simple Solutions | Turn off Your Idling Engines

Make America Cool Again

Make America Cool Again

You know that Facebook post a little while back in which a kid in his rear car seat was sobbing about the fact that people are killing animals? Well I’m feeling that way, except that the devastation is channelling into bewilderment and anger.

Although I had already heard that various oil companies had known of the dangers of extracting and burning petroleum…it wasn’t until I read this article two days ago “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change” By Nathaniel Rich
Photographs and Videos by George Steinmetz….that laid it all out so clearly, that I feel fully incensed.

As I bicycle by idling cars continually and witness the complete disconnect – I realize that they are completely unaware.

My feeling of exasperation is not going away.

Losing Earth the Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

Losing Earth the Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

Talking to a German woman today I asked her if Germans leave their car engines idling, to which she retorted, that they always turn them off, and are aware that their individual and collective actions affect the environment.

Is the USA the United States of Amnesia or Apathy? Certainly the populace who have not been informed are not to blame? Whose responsibility is it? Parents? Teachers? Leaders? Media?

Whew! Glad that the internet has still not been reined in by corporate buyers as the rest of the mainstream media, for the remaining population of the US of A appears to be as misinformed and mislead by unimportant information as China or North Korea. Thing is, we’re a continent so removed and insulated from the rest of the world that few are aware of the impact of how phat they are living compared to the rest of the world and the damage has already been seeded.

Witnessing the exorbitant number of people I pass sitting in their cars with their engines idling, it is clearly apparent, that the people are clueless about how their actions are tied in to the climate crisis that is like a mirage, no one really quite grasping that it is real, nor particularly concerned or aware that there is even a problem. I hear the play of revving engines and motorized machoism hitting the streets regularly along with the routine beeping of car horns to signal the rest of the world that someone is locking their car. It is utterly baffling that no one is aware of their individual and collective impact on noise and air pollution of their immediate environment, much less how their actions affect the rest of the planet.

With reference to the media or governments’ lack of response, talk about betrayal. The likelihood of climate ruin through rampant fossil fuel use was first acknowledged over 150 years ago and fully understood and undeniably something to act upon 50 years ago, but informed bureaucrats and the media machine, did nothing.

US Govts Misleading Public 50 years

US Government administrationss Misleading Public over 50 years regarding the connection between petroleum extraction and burning and subsequent climate catastrophe

In addition to polluting the immediate environment, idling cars and indiscriminate use of plastics are collectively suffocating the planet.

I was creating a letter, which I was not able to send through the form within the RI governor’s office website.

Climate change is real, enforce laws against idling engines to generate income.

This article should be required reading for someone running a US State government office. I have been riding bicycle every day and night for the last 13 weeks throughout the city of Providence, RI. I have discovered that no matter where I go – regardless of age, gender, race, socio economic class (in fact it seems to be more pronounced among middle class professionals), 60% to 80% or more of the population are habitually sitting in their cars with their engines idling. This is not for a quick pickup, but for sustained periods, leaving their engines running. I encounter, regardless of district or neighborhood, a startling number of cars, per block, per minute, with people sitting in their cars, or on top of their cars, or walking away from their vehicles, with their engine left idling. Perpetually running engines. I feel the heat as I cycle by and smell the fumes.

idling cars contribute to global warming

idling cars contribute to global warming

I created this sign and printed some, but decided to focus on addressing the issue to the mayor, legislature and now governor, since not too many people (being facetious here) like zero, were interested in hearing what I had to say – even with kindness in my eyes and heart filled intent.

In fact, there appears to be a complete lack of awareness among the population of the fact

1) that global warming exists at all, and is happening all over the planet, now, every minute.
2) that people in Providence (collectively), affect the air quality of not only other people and animals (if they still exist) in the immediate vicinity of their vehicle but are contributing to the ecological disaster that is happening all over the globe
3) that their actions as a privileged and ignorant few (or their parent’s generation) are most responsible for the inception of the warming process in the first place

street art by Banksy I Don't Believe in Global Warming

street art by Banksy
I Don’t Believe in Global Warming


What is going on?

• 31 other US states have anti-idling legislation; either statewide or in a particular municipality or county
• The NYC metropolitan area have $2,000 fines per bus if caught idling.
• Citizens in Germany, Scandinavia and some Central American countries turn off their engines, ALWAYS, some even during red lights. They are completely cognizant of the ecological emergency and climate crisis, with which the United States is perpetually not dealing with, regardless of the fact that we are the primary perpetrators of this crime to humanity and to all other life forms and systems that had inherited life on this planet.

What are you going to do about it?

It is unconscionable that this is happening and no one is doing anything – and just a small percentage of scientists and individuals are even aware. Continued political deadlocks and misinformation due to participation in an economic system based on perpetual growth and profit that has already killed 87% of the species that have been on this planet. Large swaths of the US turned into a dustbowl and submersion of most coastal cities.

This is not an economic issue, this is above economics or the Gross Domestic Product.

This is about whether we want to take steps ourselves, together, to do what our federal government has not been able to achieve, and in fact has turned a blind eye to and deliberately not informed the public.

Human actions are creating an inhospitable planet for all other life forms through headlong consumption and a complete disconnection with the natural world and complete manipulation from the advertising machine.

We are destroying the habitats of most life forms on the planet. At this rate, the inevitable 4 degrees of warming will wipe out the human race. It is your responsibility as a leader, to take measures to impose legislations that will raise the awareness of idling and censure the actions of your populace.

https://sustainableamerica.org/blog/anti-idling-laws-around-the-nation/

https://www.edf.org/attention-drivers-turn-your-idling-engines

http://ksltv.com/394228/students-test-ozone-levels-cars-idle-schools/?

Officially the population of Providence is 179,300. 60 to 70 percent of the people who are in their vehicles, leave their engine on. Let’s say 60% of the inhabitants regularly sit in their vehicles with their engines idling = that’s about 107,500 people.

A fine to cars for idling of $50 x 107,500 residents = $5,375,000. That’s 5 million. Fines to diesel engines – city, state and independent contractors caught idling could be $200 + per vehicle. Fines for cutting down trees, $1,000, for endangering other creatures’ habitats through negligence or pollutants, ranging from $300 per individual to $10,000’s per business.

If nothing else, imposing fines would be a deterrent, and would immediately alert and inform people of their participation in increasing global temperatures and carbon monoxide levels, contributing to the continued increase CO2 levels and global temperatures rising to levels that in 30 years could prohibit human life. If citizens are not informed of this through education or the media outlets, it is your responsibility as a leader to recognize the crisis, and to enforce education and implementation of penalties as deterrents. Ecocide and homicide continues to take place, by ignoring the issue. Fines to coal and petroleum companies, could be in the $100, millions.

India planted 66 Million trees in 12 hours, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/india-plant-66-million-trees-12-hours-environment-campaign-madhya-pradesh-global-warming-climate-a7820416.html by creating the possibility and enforcing it, certainly in a manner that brought people together to do something that will benefit each.

We could have many simple solutions through seemingly small actions, in steps that could make an enormous difference. Such as;

asking people to turn off their air conditioning units (except for hospitals and care facilities) – 3 days of the week – as a starter.
To attempt car pooling, public transportation, bicycling or walking several days of the week
To authorize penalties to the use of plastics
Create jobs for people to educate people about plastics
To inform people about how their participation in using plastics and idling cars are collectively suffocating the planet in addition to polluting the immediate environment

Measures could be taken globally to do this together as the human race, instead of being in competition with one another in terms of a race to increase the GDP.

With the fines, you could use the money to pay a fleet of bicycle cops to enforce the law and establish a safe bicycle infrastructure in various municipalities and between them as well as money to invest in public transportation.

After approaching people individually, talking to the mayor, sending a letter to the mayor’s office, talking to someone in a state legislative office to convey the message about the need to enact legislation to raise peoples awareness, I find it necessary to contact the governor.

Let’s do this together and make America a global leader in dealing with a crisis that we have alone caused, instead of turning a blind eye.

https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/peoples-climate-march-in-nyc-ww-september-21st-2014-flood-wall-street/

Rising Tide of Awareness, Great Pacific Garbage Patch, NYC Climate March 2014

Rising Tide of Awareness blogger talking about Great Pacific Garbage Patch at NYC Climate March 2014

PayPal Donate Button

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Storytelling and Stories-Not-Sold in The Politics of Economics | Systems Theory | Social Commons | Happy Planet Index | feat: Rife, Harari, Capra, McKenna, Brewer, Monbiot

The recent mass shooting in Las Vegas lead me to pursue the alternative press because of various allegations that the mainstream media had a completely different reportage than what had been disclosed from other sources. Once I extracted myself from this subject and came up for air, the winding alt digital path lead me to information I certainly hadn’t heard about in any text books.

By entering into alternative media, we are introduced to information that not surprisingly, is quite different from what the main cultural avenues of information have surmised our history to be. Fortunately, we can see clearly how the various sectors of culture play out – from history books, to learning institutions, to government organizations – when only a few are privy to what stories are told. I mention stories-are-sold, because it comes down to economic censorship. The understanding of a needed systems approach to observing all things, is an emergence of the recognition of what is lacking in a one-sided, atomized, mechanistic and hierarchical view of life; from within which our current cultural myths have developed. And as we embrace the realization that all of life is a shared network, upon which humans have arbitrarily exercised domain by collectively believing in our fictional stories, the concept of a commons – of an intellectual and natural resources heritage shared by all – we will have more of a commitment to protect that which is rightfully ours, and to want to extend and share our abundance and happiness, outside of the domain of pure economics. As this balance shifts, we will see the earth and its inhabitants not as a commodity to be used, but as a paradise to love and protect. And as this moves towards a celebration of autonomy while building on the shared intellectual and spiritual network, we will evolve a new way of valuing all life, information, invention, our selves and our communication and motions on this planet.

Did you know that there was a proven cure for cancer, in the 1930’s? And that news of the man whose discoveries and experiments, which were lauded at the time, fell into silence, suppressed by the politics of economics, or the economics of politics? His name, Dr. Royal Rife was suspended from the history books, just as that of Nikola Tesla, a contemporary of Einstein, whose fantastic inventions and successful discoveries were inconvenient for the narrative of the time.

Royal Rife’s genius was the creation of a multi-faceted (thousands of parts) 200 pound microscope design. He was able to observe intercellular activity for the first time, rivaling current technology, with the exception that his microscopes were able to view live material. “Electron microscopes made today are capable of distinguishing even individual atoms, yet they can not be used to image living cells because the process of viewing with electrons, destroy the samples.”

Royal Raymond Rife was specifically focused on the fact that all life vibrates. He proceeded to do thousands of experiments with the optical microscopes he designed; observing, identifying and testing the resonances of pathogens of different organisms with varying frequencies. His aim was to find the corresponding vibration that would single out a specific pathogen, to eradicate it.

Dr. Royal Rife's Beam Ray Machine

Dr. Royal Rife’s Beam Ray Machine

His experiments in the 1930’s lead him to creating the ‘Beam Ray’, which was proven to effectively eradicate cancer and to cure people of a host of different diseases. He measured and utilized specific frequencies to attack specific pathogens through finding the appropriate resonance. “Rife claimed to have discovered the frequencies which destroyed herpes, polio, spinal meningitis, tetanus, influenza, and many other dangerous, disease-causing organisms. His high success rates with different types of cancer were what particularly brought him a great deal of attention and notoriety. Rife used different optical vibrations which he revealed were able to disintegrate specific pathogens, leaving all other activity within the cell unaltered. There were over 50 infectious diseases that he apparently discovered cures for.”

“The ‘Rife machine’ is an electronic device which emits audio and/or radio waves applied to an individual with the intent of bettering the individual’s health. By finding the proper resonance, Rife was able to shatter the virus, just as a singer can use it to break a wine glass. This is why he called it the Mortal Oscillatory Rate.”

vibration

vibration

It works on the principle of sympathetic vibration and resonance, which states that if there are two similar objects and one of them is vibrating, the other will begin to vibrate as well, even if they are not touching. Seems like people as a group could coordinate their efforts and tackle quite tremendous enterprises! It has been proven that people who meditate in unison, and focus their attention together in coherence, produces a distinctly stronger result than if they act independently.

Here’s a video describing Rife’s work and challenges.

Royal Rife musician, inventor, doctor used frequencies in his microscope to detect and disintegrate, cancer, pathogens

Royal Rife musician, inventor, doctor used frequencies in his microscope to detect and disintegrate cancer and other pathogens

Rife’s work was more or less erased from our modern day awareness, due to the influence of one man in particular, who had come to lead the American Medical Association (founded in 1847), Dr. Morris Fishbein. Fishbein had ulterior motives. Morris Fishbein began running the AMA in 1924, and by 1934 owned all the stock in the company. He used his authoritative position as director of the AMA to crush competition and choose what medical approaches would be funded or whether they would even be acknowledged. Initially, he tried to buy out Rife’s machine and when Rife refused to sell his plans, Fishbein proceeded to destroy his work and then his reputation, stealing his records and physically destroying his machines. He used his position of power to dissolve and eradicate Rife from history, just as Rife has used resonances to eradicate cancer.

History, as the word describes, is a story. And the angle of the story, how the information is conveyed and whether or not it is conveyed, depends on who is telling it.

There was another man with hundreds of inventions whose genius would be purged from history until his name emerged again a century later, Nikola Tesla. Edison’s (DC) direct current rivaled Tesla’s (AC) alternating current. Tesla was a fantastic and copious inventor. Notably, his Tesla coil was able to capture and transmit energy with very basic instruments, capturing it for free, from within the electromagnetic field which permeates the entire planet. Tesla recognized that the space around us, everywhere, is not a vacuum, but filled with energy. However, his inexpensive tools to extract and conduct energy were wiped from the slate of possibility, by those who envisioned establishing a monopoly on generating power. They didn’t want free or inexpensively acquired power, they wanted to charge the public. Similarly, Rife’s machine not only was a demonstrable cure for cancer, but an inexpensive device in which patients needed only stand near the machine for several minutes, every few days. They merely needed to have the frequencies of waves wash over their bodies in a non-invasive and non-toxic manner.

By preventing these inventions from reaching media or scientific evaluation, they were effectively obliterated from public awareness, merely by the dictates of a few people. The art of withholding the story, annihilated competition and allowed their profits to flow.

A little bit later I reference Andreas Weber, a biologist who states

“Nothing is more open-source than DNA.”

Joe Brewer recently wrote this article Why Are Universities Failing Humanity? “This is a time of extreme urgency and need, yet almost no major institution on Earth is mobilizing its capacities to address the scale of our predicaments.” Brewer determined through his years of research that in fact not only is the modern approach to studying information too segmented, with each of the avenues of research partitioned from the others, but what information is made available has to do with funding and who is to gain from distributing this information. “The situation is complicated further by the ways that funding mechanisms like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health in the United States (and their analogues in other countries) set agendas for which topics will get financial support.” Brewer talks of the ‘disciplinary silos’ that create funnels for learning, teaching, research. Funding or lack of it, have created barriers to integration across domains of knowledge, which impede the convergence of information and awareness necessary to perceive a crises on a global scale.”

The biophysicist Mae-Wan Ho known for her critical views on genetic engineering and evolution, wrote a book called “The Rainbow and the Worm The Physics of Organisms”. She similarly points to the problem of the reductionist, mechanistic standards of science, that overshadow and subjugate knowledge, so that one is only seeing part of the picture. Ho claims that analytical reductionism doesn’t see things in terms of their coherent relationship. One has to look at the whole system; including the biology, physiology, chemistry, physics and mathematics. Brewer agrees, an interdisciplinary systems approach, is what is missing.

In his article, Brewer writes that “Scholars and researchers who seek to address systemic issues at universities must paddle against huge organizational currents, as is well known by anyone seeking to be both an academic and a transdisciplinary researcher. We need to stop selecting students, faculty, and grant proposals within disciplinary boundaries and start framing problems at systemic levels around which coordination is found to be needed for adequately addressing them. This means funding agencies need to be reorganized around systemic issues. Ecological disharmony and extreme inequality have already been named as two high-profile opportunities yet to be capitalized upon; dealing with exponential technological change would be another.”

The path of science and the means of instituting information and knowledge in the Western World for the last several hundred years has been one which separates, defines and isolates one discipline from another. From this one-sided approach is emerging the recognition of a completely different model other than the linear one, that of systems theory.

The book that the physicist Fritjof Capra and biologist Pier Luigi Luisi recently published after years of research, The Systems View of Life A Unifying Vision, echoes the recognition of the need for a holistic manner of viewing life and the world. Their awareness of the clear inadequacies of the standard, linear, prevailing scientific approach steered them to actually create the alternative that was loudly making itself clear.

Capra and Luisi see a systemic conception of life emerging at the forefront of science. “New emphasis has been given to complexity, networks, and patterns of organization, leading to a novel kind of ‘systemic’ thinking.” What they realize is that everything unto itself is a perfectly functioning and self-healing entity, which works cohesively and is integrally a part of the whole fabric with which it interacts and cooperates.

“The Systems Theory defines life of all kinds, as not a distinct entity which can merely be quantitatively measured and classified into a particular domain, but that the very essence of life is a qualitative interconnected network of relationships, an ecological system of relationships between different species.”

I wrote about this upon discovering their work in a former blog https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2016/01/26/the-new-story-sustainability-fritjof-capra-pier-luigi-luisis-systemic-view-cel/

Rather than isolating disciplines, or organisms, or parts of a cell into singular events, recognize that all of these are part of a vibrant network and must be regarded and studied within this context. Similarly, in education, interdisciplinary approaches to complex situations, is a natural emergence of understanding networked relationships. We’ve had plenty of situations within our culture that reveal deliberate blockage of information, to benefit a few. In fact, culture becomes more sophisticated as the insights, observations, understanding and inventions are shared by all, not privatized and turned into commodities. Cities are like neurosynaptic centers, where concentrations of information come together, leading to inventions and exchanges, new levels of understanding. Which will lead to the point of the Commons.

The Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari in his TED talk, clearly illustrates that human ‘history’ is profoundly and dynamically shaped by the stories that people tell. He mentions that biologically, humans are not terribly different from other species, from fungus to frogs, to chimpanzees. What sets us apart and has allowed homo sapiens to lunge ahead of all other life forms to essentially dominate the planet, is due to our capacity to flexibly cooperate with one another, over large networks. And our capacity to work together is due to our creativity and use of our imagination.

Whatever one imagines, can be created.

Harari states that humans have a dual reality; “They live in an objective reality, but over the centuries have constructed on top of this a second layer of fictional reality; made of fictional entities; like nations, gods, money, corporations. As history unfolded, this fictional reality became more and more powerful. Today, the most powerful forces in the world are these fictional entities.”

George Monbiot has written very often about the challenges of maintaining healthy ecosystems because of the political and economic climate that continually supports large industries (animal, petroleum, agriculture) which disseminate wildlife habitats, destroy environments and lead to more monoculture. http://www.monbiot.com/2017/09/11/how-do-we-get-out-of-this-mess/ In this Monbiot states, “Stories are the means by which we navigate the world. They allow us to interpret its complex and contradictory signals. We all possess a narrative instinct: an innate disposition to listen for an account of who we are and where we stand….Those who tell the stories run the world.

The very survival of rivers and trees, lions and elephants, depends on the decisions and wishes of these fictional entities; like the United States, like Google, like the World Bank, like Palm Oil corporations. Quite brilliantly, Harari says that

“the master storytellers are the big bankers, the finance ministers, the prime ministers.”

“The Burning Paradise: Palm Oil in the Land of the Tree Kangaroo” reveals,
What happened when a giant Korean conglomerate set its eyes on Indonesia’s largest intact rainforest.”

Tree Kangaroos and Birds of Paradise in Papua Losing their habitat to Palm Oil Clearcutting

Tree Kangaroos and Birds of Paradise in Papua Losing their habitat to Palm Oil Clearcutting

Government leaders, finance ministers and corporate executives tell us a very convincing story. And if everyone believes this story, it actually works. Pharmaceutical companies are very slick in their delivery of advertising, with many tentacles in the air waves and a plethora of TV commercials, now surpassing those of the automobile industry. Yet in the case of petroleum corporations, animal or agricultural industries, lumber, palm oil…there’s a distance, and the work that they do is only really witnessed by people whose property is near to the dirty and consuming practices. In the case of Palm Oil companies dismantling and burning up the virgin Rain Forest, very few of us have an inkling of what is really happening in these remote areas, except for through organizations who do the scouting, who trek there, take aerial footage and who risk their lives, in some cases, to get close enough. I rely on the Guardian for example, and more and more alternative press. Like The UTNE READER Propagandopoly: Monopoly as an Ideological Tool and Mongabay, Korean palm oil firm burned large tracts of forestland in Indonesia, NGOs allege and since being informed about the English version of this paper, Le Monde Diplomatique “The century of revolution”

Noam Chomsky stated years ago the concept of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. These fictional realities generate power because of the fact that they are collectively believed and adhered to.

Yuval Noah Harari brilliantly states that “money is the most successful story ever invented and told by humans; it is the only story everybody believes.”

The ecologist Suzanne Simard discerns through her studies that trees communicate with one another regularly and over vast distances. In Simard’s Ted Talk “How Trees Talk to Each Other, she points out that trees are not competitive, but in fact are super cooperators.

Harari points out that stories that we’ve invented and spread around aren’t necessarily ones that are good for the collective species. “States and Nations are not objective reality, same is true of the economic field. The most important actors in the global economy presently are companies which are legal fictions. Corporations mostly want to make money. And our capitalist system is one built on growth as measured by the Gross Domestic Product. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the healthiest manner of cooperation with the ecosystem of the earth.

Terence Mckenna relates in his talk A Species Addicted

“There is no serious plan to deal with what havoc humans have created with the planet, nature, the other creatures, the diminishing rain forests. Through the propaganda and lies created by our most powerful storytellers, the human race, in an ego-driven manner, is following a culture which is a lie.”

Caitlin Johnstone echoes in her article about feminism in our current political environment, is that the patriarchal history was written by men. “Money is the engine room of the patriarchy. Humans have indeed used our superior neurology to out-survive and out-thrive all other competing organisms, but then we’ve also continued to use it to conquer, kill, exploit and enslave one another throughout the entirety of recorded history, and to decimate the ecosystem which we need to survive. If we end up going extinct due to anthropogenic climate chaos or nuclear armageddon, we will have failed as spectacularly as a species can possibly fail in the extremely short time that we have been here.”

Johnstone says in her article “It Is Evolve Or Die Time” “What few problems we encounter which aren’t man-made (natural disasters, some diseases) could be vastly minimized if our species was pouring all its mental energy and creativity into creating a better world for everyone instead of into economic competition and warfare.”

The journalist Chris Hedges in an interview following his publication in Truthdig September 17, titled The Silencing of Dissent, mentions that the same one-way story embraces media and politics, stemming from the forces of corporate capitalism and proponents of American imperialism. “The utopian ideology of neoliberalism and the primacy of corporate power have branded themselves into the human consciousness as inevitable forms of human progress. And those who have had the say, due to their positions and power, have imposed de facto censorship to shut out critics of unfettered capitalism and imperialism, such as Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn. This has rippled from politics, into the media and our learning institutions, as well as government agencies such as the American Medical Association, American Diabetes Association and American Institute of Health.”

“Do not significantly alienate those upon whom we depend for money and access!”

In the interview Hedges states, “Those who rise in the organization and hold power are consummate careerists. Their loyalty is to their advancement and the stature and profitability of the institution. With the bankruptcy of the ruling ideology, and the bankruptcy of the American liberal class and the American left, those who hold fast to intellectual depth and an examination of systems of power, including economics, culture and politics, have to be silenced.”

In a former blog I wrote WTF | “What the Health” documentary: America’s Medical Societies Driven by Corpocrisy | More Inconvenient Truths | Culinary Medicine | Farmacy I was describing the What The Health documentary film that uncovered excellent realizations about ‘standard procedure’ covert operations in funding and information withheld. This film is about the collusion of industries in their misinformation to the public about diet and health.

Same theme: information withheld, mis-information provided, which the film makers uncovered as they approached various American government health organizations, who toe-the-line of their sponsors. Therefore, instead of speaking the truth about diet and health, they withhold it. You can watch it here. The industries which use the land’s resources precipitously, wastefully and inefficiently to maintain the beef, pork and dairy industries, are in fact the same industries who paid off these large institutions who claim to be representing facts to provide the public with information about health. Therefore since their sponsors are the very same industries who operate food industries that are unhealthy, the various organizations maintain a deceptive policy.

Terence Mckenna mentions that ironically regardless of the wealth and GDP of the USA, the level of unhappiness is immense, there’s an utterly unhappy ruling class. Yet what has begun to emerge along with the awareness of the need for cooperation and diversification, is that certainly the dictates of capitalism and consumerism are not what bring health, happiness or progress, but are about continued growth for the purposes of profit, without regard to the entire health of the system. Mae-Wan Ho describes in The Communicative and Integrative Biology of her book concept The Rainbow and the Worm, that “life is essentially quantum coherent systems, based primarily on the degree to which the various parts of organisms are able to work autonomously but still remain highly coordinated.” She mentions that going against the grain of the established story, all lead to problems; such as lack of courage in addressing the big questions or to disagree with the mainstream, lack of imagination, lack of funding, too much concentration on molecular nuts and bolts, domination of reductionist biology, too much specialization and lack of interdisciplinary training, lack of appreciation of the beauty of nature. In my opinion, to really understand nature, one needs to be both a romantic poet and artist at heart.”

In George Monbiot’s article in the Guardian, Common Wealth, he asserts that two critical factions are missing in the standard assumption that the two main actors in the economy are the State and the Market. “In fact there are four major economic sectors: the market, the state, the household and the commons.” The household is almost entirely comprised of the work of women. Both market and state receive a massive subsidy from the household: the unpaid labour of parents and other carers, still provided mostly by women. If children were not looked after, fed, taught basic skills at home and taken to school, there would be no economy. And if people who are ill, elderly or have disabilities were not helped and supported by others, the public care bill would break the state. What is critically misconceived, is the concept of the commonwealth.

The vast wealth of the economic elite has accumulated at the expense of the populace, through their seizure of the fourth sector of the economy: the commons.

A commons is neither state nor market. It has three main elements. First a resource, such as land, water, minerals, scientific research, hardware or software. Second, a community of people who have shared and equal rights to this resource, and organise themselves to manage it. Third, the rules, systems and negotiations they develop to sustain it and allocate the benefits.

A true commons is managed not for the accumulation of capital or profit, but for the steady production of prosperity or wellbeing. The commons have been attacked by both state power and capitalism for centuries.

Resources that no one invented or created, or that a large number of people created together, (or in several cases where inventions have been submerged from collective consciousness by being dismissed or disregarded by the powers to censor them at the time), are stolen by those who sniff an opportunity for profit.

Monbiot states that “Enclosure creates inequality. It produces a rentier economy: those who have captured essential resources force everyone else to pay for access. It shatters communities and alienates people from their labour and their surroundings. The ecosystems commoners sustained are liquidated for cash. Inequality, rent, atomisation, alienation, environmental destruction: the loss of the commons has caused or exacerbated many of the afflictions of our age. A commons, unlike state spending, obliges people to work together, to sustain their resources and decide how the income should be used. It gives community life a clear focus. It depends on democracy in its truest form. It destroys inequality. It provides an incentive to protect the living world. It creates, in sum, a Politics of Belonging.”

The German biologist, philosopher and nature writer Andreas Weber recognizes the interconnectedness of humans to nature. In his talk at the conference on “Economics and the Common(s): From Seed Form to Core Paradigm” Weber mentions that though we can maintain aspects of our modus operandi of the age of enlightenment, we need to make a paradigm shift to enlivenment; seeing all life in continuous interrelationship. “In our question of “what is life?”, we need to look beneath the ‘operating system’ engendered by the enlightenment in which things, life, humans are measured according to efficiency, competition and egoistical agents. This approach is cutting things down into blocks, separate parts, into arbitrary entities and dead objects. What is missing is that there are no feelings involved.”

He claims, “we need a new bios, enlivenment; stressing the expressive and experiential qualities of being alive. Instead of looking at nature and life in a causal way, when we see things as they are, they are constantly changing, in an unfolding process of freedom, autonomy and value. Every commons is a material and knowledge commons.”

 

Nothing is more open-source than DNA.

 

“The economy of the commons is naturally anti-capitalist. From within a cell to a whole organism, all life is in compartments with its own boundary. However it’s not a wall, but a permeable boundary, in which the inhabitants are continuously interrelating and crystalizing into a whole, a unity. Quantum physics demonstrates that we affect the outcome of the experiment by observing. When we’re talking about the biosphere, ecology, economy, we are always talking about ourselves. The new ism, enlivenment, stresses that we need to recognize and incorporate the fact that we are feeling beings, with living experiences, who wish to feel meaning.”

The Venus Project is about a Resource-Based Economy – All Resources are a Common Heritage.

Venus Project Resource-Based Economy - All Resources are a Common Heritage

Venus Project Resource-Based Economy – All Resources are a Common Heritage

The Venus Project – a Resource-Based Economy Blueprint for the genesis of a new world civilization.

This functioning, healthy system that has already been operating in Costa Rica, which Jason Hickel describes in “Want to avert the apocalypse? Take lessons from Costa Rica

Hickel points out, “If we want to have any hope of averting catastrophe, we’re going to have to do something about our addiction to growth. This is tricky, because GDP growth is the main policy objective of virtually every government on the planet. It lies at the heart of everything we’ve been told to believe about how the economy should work: that GDP growth is good, that it’s essential to progress. Costa Rica proves that achieving high levels of human wellbeing has very little to do with GDP and almost everything to do with something very different.

Redistribution can be a substitute for growth

Every few years the New Economics Foundation publishes the Happy Planet Indexa measure of progress that looks at life expectancy, wellbeing and equality rather than the narrow metric of GDP, and plots these measures against ecological impact.

Those factors which contribute to health and happiness do not go together with uninhibited growth of the Gross Domestic Product.

The Happy Planet Index measures what matters: sustainable wellbeing for all.

“In this sense, Costa Rica is the most efficient economy on earth: it produces high standards of living with low GDP and minimal pressure on the environment.

Costa Rica is a thorn in the side of orthodox economics. In fact, the part of Costa Rica where people live the longest, happiest lives – the Nicoya Peninsula – is also the poorest, in terms of GDP per capita. Researchers have concluded that Nicoyans do so well not in spite of their “poverty”, but because of it – because their communities, environment and relationships haven’t been ploughed over by industrial expansion. A series of progressive governments started rolling out healthcare, education and social security in the 1940s and expanded these to the whole population from the 50s onward, after abolishing the military and freeing up more resources for social spending. Costa Rica is one of only a few countries in the global south that enjoys robust universalism.”

Happy Planet Index is not about GDP but lower economic footprint

Happy Planet Index is not about GDP but lower economic footprint

According to their homepage “Wealthy Western countries, often seen as the standard of success, do not rank highly on the Happy Planet Index. Instead, several countries in Latin America and the Asia Pacific region lead the way by achieving high life expectancy and wellbeing with much smaller Ecological Footprints. Costa Rica tops the list of countries every time. With a life expectancy of 79.1 years and levels of wellbeing in the top 7% of the world, Costa Rica matches many Scandinavian nations in these areas and neatly outperforms the United States. And it manages all of this with a GDP per capita of only $10,000 (£7,640), less than one fifth that of the US.”

To recognize that all land, ocean, soil, trees, air and plants that we have not created but are part of the earth, which sustains us, is our home to protect. To shift our activities to maintain these benefits and resources; caring, maintaining, learning and providing to equally distribute to all, making this commons something we integrally work towards nurturing and protecting. And the more we advance in education and awareness towards constructing inventions that are the least toxic and most energy efficient, is something that we can all participate in with pride. The stories we tell, can lead us to a very happy and harmonious planet.

Terence McKenna A Species Addicted TV

Terence McKenna A Species Addicted; our addiction to objects which he calls object fetichism.

Why not live the adventure of creating and doing exactly what you love to do, and celebrating that everyone else is as well. None is to be privatized or controlled from an outside source with money trickling to this outside source, but kindled and honored and redistributed among all. With the priority being not to make an economic profit, but to have the best quality outdoor and indoor environments, the best quality of education, an emphasis towards local and diversification. A stress on creativity and autonomy among individuals who pull together, cooperatively sharing access to resources and benefits. With cohesion, respect and harmony and intimate interaction with all of the natural world. All of the living world adds delight and dimension to our beings, as we put our full awareness towards these with empathy and joy, with all of our senses. Hearing wind, birds, sensing moisture or heat, seeing the design of nature, smelling the fragrances of plants. The thought of doing anything that has a negative environmental impact to ruin our environment, would be as obvious as not putting waste on a valued space.

We can do it, collectively, because that is our nature. Homo sapiens thrive when cooperating. Not with heroes or figureheads pandering to the same old forged industrially, financially entangled world. We simply need to keep dynamically spreading our joy through being the best that we can actively be and imagine ourselves to be and to live celebrating this diversity of spirit among ourselves, rather than crushing or suppressing this.

Hazrat Inayat Khan, Resonance

Hazrat Inayat Khan quote Resonance

Incredibly, the first thing I saw when I was triggered to write this blog, was a quote from a Sufi master whose name I was familiar with. Several years ago I participated in a ‘Heart Rhythm Meditation’ course taught by a South African pediatrician at Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania. This meditation practice was influenced inspired by this Sufi musician, mystic, and healer Hazrat Inayat Khan.

“A person does not hear sound only through the ears; he hears sound through every pore of his body. It permeates the entire being, and according to its particular influence either slows or quickens the rhythm of the blood circulation; it either wakens or soothes the nervous system. It arouses a person to greater passions or it calms him by bringing him peace. According to the sound and its influence a certain effect is produced. Sound becomes visible in the form of radiance. This shows that the same energy which goes into the form of sound before being visible is absorbed by the physical body. In that way the physical body recuperates and becomes charged with new magnetism.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan Sufism and the Mysticism of Music, Charlie Sarafan, Infinity

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan on Sufism and the Mysticism of Music interviewed by Charlie Sarafan for Infinity. Khan speaks of life as a vibration of wave-like patterns, all life having a signature vibration and frequency that can resonate with other life forms. “The tradition of Sufism has been accused of pantheism, as all is considered ‘god’. You can not divide the universe. In as much as something is a fraction of the universe, it has within it the potentiality of all the universe. The origin of all reality is wave-like. Every object in the world has a signature tune. When objects resonate, this is the key to the experience of relationship. One can heal bones by putting them into an electromagnetic field with the same signature vibration.”

PayPal Donate Button

 

 

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

Batman hitting the earth with oil oozing out

Batman hitting the earth with oil oozing out

Carol Keiter the blogger

Carol Keiter the blogger

The New Story | Sustainability | Fritjof Capra & Pier Luigi Luisi’s ‘Systemic View’ | CEL

Sustainability may not be widely discussed in the network news channels, as ‘action’ news stories often focus on human conflicts, disasters and economic problems of immediacy, rather than delving into long-term repercussions or solutions. Often one is not presented with situations from the standpoint of how you, the viewer, can potentially get involved and help to transform the situation.

In fact we have often received information, from the top-down, through a hierarchy of stations delivered by a few news networks, owned by a few individuals. However, even the new story, implies a new way of gleaning information; through social networks. This implies horizontal sharing of information which a person can actively investigate on their own, delving into sources of information that offer alternative views or by talking with one another, sharing ideas or even taking a walk in the woods to contemplate. So rather than being spoon-fed bits of information, it’s a process of actively investigating and sharing. In other words, thinking, for oneself.

You really Are What you Think.

Sustainable Man, A New Story of the People

Sustainable Man A New Story of the People

The “New Story of the People” is narrated breathfully by Charles Eisenstein; his story of ‘a more beautiful world’.

A New Story, being in service to something larger than yourself

A New Story being in service to something larger than yourself

With respect to the ‘Sustainable Human’, Eisenstein talks about how in the last hundred years science has been focused on dissecting and reducing things to their elemental parts in the quest to understand our universe and the matter which makes up our world. Yet during the scientific process, the influence of the subjective viewer has come to be understood as influencing the object of study. In the past, this would have been discounted as something that can not be empirically proven. As the Western World expands beyond its scientific rationalism and objectification of the world in the ‘Industrial Age’ into a new view of the web of connections through the discoveries during the ‘Information Age’, our definitions are changing. And these spill over from the scientific view of the universe, into parallel pursuits in other arenas, such as recognizing that there is really something to the wisdom traditions of Eastern spirituality and mysticism. A perspective that has been compatible to various indigenous people all over the planet for millennium.

Eisenstein metions that “A new paradigm has begun to evolve along with this scientific view that emerged out of physics; a paradigm which sees the universe not as discreet parts with everything distinctly separate, but as interconnected.”

paradigm shift of perception, from separateness to interconnectedness

We are in a paradigm shift of perception, that moves from separateness to interconnectedness

When I was younger, my interest in science as well as consciousness, spirituality and mysticism, drew me to read the book “The Tao of Physics ” written by the physicist Fritjof Capra.

Fritjof Capra, an Austrian-born American physicist, described in this book what the new sciences were disclosing, a completely new way of looking at the universe, particularly looking at the world from the scientist’s perspective of probing the smallest building blocks.

The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra

The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra

Capra went on to write together with biochemist Pier Luigi Luisi “The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision”. The authors mention that the book primarily deals with the question, “What is Life?”. Their years of research reveal that from bacteria, to cells, to organs, to living organisms from plants and insects to birds and mammals involve networks.

At the core of this paradigm shift, is a perception shift from ‘separateness’ to ‘interconnectedness’.

Rather than looking at isolated events or bodies within its skin or shell, the most obvious characteristic of life are the relationships among networks with other bacteria, cells and creatures as well as relationships between different species, organs and colonies of beings. Life of all kinds, is not a distinct entity which can merely be quantitatively measured and classified into a particular domain, but the very essence of life is a qualitative interconnection between others of its kind and the whole ecological system of relationships between different species.

The common thread of all life is that it is the network. the network is a pattern consistent through all of life, the network is a series of relationships. the science that describes this new perspective is called the ‘Systemic View’. Nature sustains itself in the sense that every organism, from a cell, to an organ, to a body, to the social nature of a species, to the planet itself is an autopoietic system that regenerates itself. This works because it is in a set of relationships within a network system.

Vita e Natura - Life and Nature - video intro of Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi's book - The Systems View of Life A Unifying Vision

Vita e Natura – Life and Nature – video intro of Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi’s book – The Systems View of Life A Unifying Vision

Here is an “essay excerpted from The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision”, presented on the (CEL) website Center for Ecoliteracy, which Capra co-founded.

Capra and Luisi argue “that many of the most important problems we face today – from financial instability to climate change and ecological degradation – reflect our collective inability to appreciate just how the world operates as a holistic, networked system in which every part depends on every other. This is something that can be approached and healed, from the systemic view. We need to live in a way that allows the planet itself to regenerate itself naturally. This leads us to consciousness of ecological sustainability and the intent to build and live in sustainable communities.

You are not distinct from Nature, You Are Nature

Having attended the “People and Planet First” conference in September of 2015 presented by the (IPS) Institute for Policies Studies in Baltimore, Maryland, the panelists also talked of a “New Story“. Among the speakers were Annie Leonard “The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard” and historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz who mentioned that though this new stream of activity towards cooperative business and horizontally-shared ownership is happening in discrete communities all over the United States, it isn’t being consciously driven, yet.

This New Story is all about sustainability: the capacity for human individuals and societies to live in a way that reduces the amount of the earth’s resources that they use, to a level that is compatible with the earth’s ability to regenerate itself and maintain a healthy balance.

This recognition of life as a network of relationships that are holistically healthy and regenerative only insofar as each of the interconnected parts are, as articulated in the Systemic View of life, is beginning to emerge in all different aspects of human relationships, as something to aspire to.

• in the individual – recognizing that we are as healthy and strong and happy only insofar as other members of the human community are also compatibly accessing education and opportunities as well as healthy environments
• in the cohesion of the human social community – in which cooperation rather than competition, diversity in participation and sharing between disciplines and groups is a healthy circulatory system
• in the realm of health – towards new ways of gardening and farming as well as the recognition of health sustaining nutrients inherent in foods and spices
• in emotional well-being – bringing the mind and the body into an interactive balance of movement and stillness; movement for healthy circulation, stillness to allow oneself to connect to that dimension which is beyond our immediate focus
• in spiritual continuity – recognizing that diversity is the spice of life; homogeneity breeds incestuous, narrow-mindedness and stagnation
• in economic behavior – towards openness & transparency, collaboration, horizontal sharing of ownership and the subsequent democratization of wealth
• in political systems – the more open and transparent the governing representatives, the more trust and mutual consensus for what is relevant and important in the fabric of existence; which includes humans, a healthy environment and relationship with all species

Diversity is healthy, whereas homogeneity breeds incestuous narrow-mindedness.

The New Story has evolved as our stories about ourselves, and the place of the human being in the world evolves.

You really Are what you Believe.

Ego vs Eco | Ecological Thinking for Business Transformation | The Nature of Business

Ego vs Eco | Ecological Thinking for Business Transformation | The Nature of Business

The premise of the organization “Ecological Thinking for Business Transformation” is that our perception of reality and our worldview has been outdated. “We are witnessing a change in business paradigm from one suited for the industrial era to one suited for the interconnected era.”

In 1995, the physicist Fritjof Capra together with the philanthropist Peter Buckley and think tank director Zenobia Barlow, founded the Center for Ecoliteracy with the intent of sharing the awareness of the systemic view with students, through a series of educational programs that support ecological principles and systems thinking to curricula and projects in habitat restoration, school gardens and cooking classes, partnerships between schools and farms and curricular innovation among K12 schools. Among other things, the center helps to develop projects in habitat restoration, school gardens and cooking classes and partnerships between schools and farms, with the awareness that health begins with a healthy diet.

You really Are what you Eat.

Ecoliteracy dot org Education for Sustainable Living

Ecoliteracy dot org Education for Sustainable Living

The New Story | Sustainability | Capra & Luisi’s ‘Systemic View’ | Heart Dimension

Sustainability may not be widely discussed in the network news channels, as ‘action’ news stories often focus on human conflicts, disasters and economic problems of immediacy, rather than delving into long-term repercussions or solutions. Often one is not presented with situations from the standpoint of how you, the viewer, can potentially get involved and help to transform the situation.

In fact we have often received information, from the top-down, through a hierarchy of stations delivered by a few news networks, owned by a few individuals. However, even the new story, implies a new way of gleaning information; through social networks. This implies horizontal sharing of information which a person can actively investigate on their own, delving into sources of information that offer alternative views or by talking with one another, sharing ideas or even taking a walk in the woods to contemplate. So rather than being spoon-fed bits of information, it’s a process of actively investigating and sharing. In other words, thinking, for oneself.

You really Are What you Think.

Sustainable Man, A New Story of the People

Sustainable Man A New Story of the People

The “New Story of the People” is narrated breathfully by Charles Eisenstein; his story of ‘a more beautiful world’.

A New Story, being in service to something larger than yourself

A New Story being in service to something larger than yourself

With respect to the ‘Sustainable Human’, Eisenstein talks about how in the last hundred years science has been focused on dissecting and reducing things to their elemental parts in the quest to understand our universe and the matter which makes up our world. Yet during the scientific process, the influence of the subjective viewer has come to be understood as influencing the object of study. In the past, this would have been discounted as something that can not be empirically proven. As the Western World expands beyond its scientific rationalism and objectification of the world in the ‘Industrial Age’ into a new view of the web of connections through the discoveries during the ‘Information Age’, our definitions are changing. And these spill over from the scientific view of the universe, into parallel pursuits in other arenas, such as recognizing that there is really something to the wisdom traditions of Eastern spirituality and mysticism. A perspective that has been compatible to various indigenous people all over the planet for millennium.

Eisenstein metions that “A new paradigm has begun to evolve along with this scientific view that emerged out of physics; a paradigm which sees the universe not as discreet parts with everything distinctly separate, but as interconnected.”

paradigm shift of perception, from separateness to interconnectedness

We are in a paradigm shift of perception, that moves from separateness to interconnectedness

When I was younger, my interest in science as well as consciousness, spirituality and mysticism, drew me to read the book “The Tao of Physics ” written by the physicist Fritjof Capra.

Fritjof Capra, an Austrian-born American physicist, described in this book what the new sciences were disclosing, a completely new way of looking at the universe, particularly looking at the world from the scientist’s perspective of probing the smallest building blocks.

The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra

The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra

Capra went on to write together with biochemist Pier Luigi Luisi “The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision”. The authors mention that the book primarily deals with the question, “What is Life?”. Their years of research reveal that from bacteria, to cells, to organs, to living organisms from plants and insects to birds and mammals involve networks.

At the core of this paradigm shift, is a perception shift from ‘separateness’ to ‘interconnectedness’.

Rather than looking at isolated events or bodies within its skin or shell, the most obvious characteristic of life are the relationships among networks with other bacteria, cells and creatures as well as relationships between different species, organs and colonies of beings. Life of all kinds, is not a distinct entity which can merely be quantitatively measured and classified into a particular domain, but the very essence of life is a qualitative interconnection between others of its kind and the whole ecological system of relationships between different species.

The common thread of all life is that it is the network. the network is a pattern consistent through all of life, the network is a series of relationships. the science that describes this new perspective is called the ‘Systemic View’. Nature sustains itself in the sense that every organism, from a cell, to an organ, to a body, to the social nature of a species, to the planet itself is an autopoietic system that regenerates itself. This works because it is in a set of relationships within a network system.

Vita e Natura - Life and Nature - video intro of Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi's book - The Systems View of Life A Unifying Vision

Vita e Natura – Life and Nature – video intro of Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi’s book – The Systems View of Life A Unifying Vision

Here is an “essay excerpted from The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision”, presented on the (CEL) website Center for Ecoliteracy, which Capra co-founded.

Capra and Luisi argue “that many of the most important problems we face today – from financial instability to climate change and ecological degradation – reflect our collective inability to appreciate just how the world operates as a holistic, networked system in which every part depends on every other. This is something that can be approached and healed, from the systemic view. We need to live in a way that allows the planet itself to regenerate itself naturally. This leads us to consciousness of ecological sustainability and the intent to build and live in sustainable communities.

You are not distinct from Nature, You Are Nature

This New Story is all about sustainability: the capacity for human individuals and societies to live in a way that reduces the amount of the earth’s resources that they use, to a level that is compatible with the earth’s ability to regenerate itself and maintain a healthy balance.

This recognition of life as a network of relationships that are holistically healthy and regenerative only insofar as each of the interconnected parts are, as articulated in the Systemic View of life, is beginning to emerge in all different aspects of human relationships, as something to aspire to.

• in the individual – recognizing that we are as healthy and strong and happy only insofar as other members of the human community are also compatibly accessing education and opportunities as well as healthy environments
• in the cohesion of the human social community – in which cooperation rather than competition, diversity in participation and sharing between disciplines and groups is a healthy circulatory system
• in the realm of health – towards new ways of gardening and farming as well as the recognition of health sustaining nutrients inherent in foods and spices
• in emotional well-being – bringing the mind and the body into an interactive balance of movement and stillness; movement for healthy circulation, stillness to allow oneself to connect to that dimension which is beyond our immediate focus
• in spiritual continuity – recognizing that diversity is the spice of life; homogeneity breeds incestuous, narrow-mindedness and stagnation
• in economic behavior – towards openness & transparency, collaboration, horizontal sharing of ownership and the subsequent democratization of wealth
• in political systems – the more open and transparent the governing representatives, the more trust and mutual consensus for what is relevant and important in the fabric of existence; which includes humans, a healthy environment and relationship with all species

Diversity is healthy, whereas homogeneity breeds incestuous narrow-mindedness.

The New Story has evolved as our stories about ourselves, and the place of the human being in the world evolves.

You really Are what you Believe.

Ego vs Eco | Ecological Thinking for Business Transformation | The Nature of Business

Ego vs Eco | Ecological Thinking for Business Transformation | The Nature of Business

The premise of the organization “Ecological Thinking for Business Transformation” is that our perception of reality and our worldview has been outdated. “We are witnessing a change in business paradigm from one suited for the industrial era to one suited for the interconnected era.”

In 1995, the physicist Fritjof Capra together with the philanthropist Peter Buckley and think tank director Zenobia Barlow, founded the Center for Ecoliteracy with the intent of sharing the awareness of the systemic view with students, through a series of educational programs that support ecological principles and systems thinking to curricula and projects in habitat restoration, school gardens and cooking classes, partnerships between schools and farms and curricular innovation among K12 schools. Among other things, the center helps to develop projects in habitat restoration, school gardens and cooking classes and partnerships between schools and farms, with the awareness that health begins with a healthy diet.

You really Are what you Eat.

Ecoliteracy dot org Education for Sustainable Living

Ecoliteracy dot org Education for Sustainable Living

Frijof Capra says that he has studied agroecology or regenerative agriculture.
Agroecology or agroforestry combines; forestry, agriculture and livestock. It is beyond sustainable, it is actually regenerative.

Jeremy Wickremer’s mentions in his article for The Ecologist Connecting the Dots: the Big Permaculture Picture ”Just like you need a holistic vision for a healthy mind and body, the same applies for a healthy planet. One way of living that seeks to do this is permaculture. To put it simply, permaculture is agricultural and social design principles centered around simulating or directly utilizing the patterns and features observed in natural ecosystems. It is a design system that mimics nature, where everything in the design supports everything else.”

Syntropyc, Regenerative Agriculture, Ernst Götsch

Syntropyc Regenerative Agriculture, Ernst Götsch

In terms of sustainable and regenerative agriculture, Agroforestry is land use management system in which trees or shrubs are grown around or among crops or pastureland. It’s another example of replenishing the environment with nutrients and water, without needing chemicals or pesticides. This encourages growth in biodiversity and is healthier for farmers.

Besides the growth of food and the reflection of these sustainable practices on all of the other creatures with whom we share our planet, there are plenty of business solutions that are as well following this New Story, emulating what already clearly works in nature. One group is “Ecological Thinking for Business Transformation” also speak of the “out-dated worldview, a perception of reality inadequate for dealing with the volatile and globally interconnected business world.”

Having attended the “People and Planet First” conference in September of 2015 presented by the (IPS) Institute for Policies Studies in Baltimore, Maryland, the panelists also talked of a “New Story“. Among the speakers were Annie Leonard “The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard” and historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz who mentioned that though this new stream of activity towards cooperative business and horizontally-shared ownership is happening in discrete communities all over the United States, it isn’t being consciously driven, yet.

Eisenstein, in his Sustainable Man video about The New Story, talks of stepping out of this paradigm of control and allowing oneself to be of service to this larger body of which we all are a part. And that as we direct our questions and intent to ask what we can do to serve having a healthier body, mind, well-being, community and world, that indeed, the answers and direction will arise in response to the intention.

step from paradigm of control, ask how you can serve, and the opportunities will arise

When you feel that you are here in service, and bow to that, opportunities will arise to allow you to act on that intention.

Besides the rational means of digesting information, there is the whole realm of the invisible. I’ll call it the domain of the heart. Herein lies the capacity of a person to intuit something and feel whether the information is in alignment with the words. A person can sense whether they feel good around a person, or uneasy. A person can have an impression beyond the rational, about whether the words of another person seem to convey the same as their gestures, or whether something is not quite in synch. One can sense whether something they read or see feels accurate and sound, or whether there is something amiss. Many animals can sense with a heightened capacity – with sense organs much more highly tuned to frequencies beyond those of human beings – to see, hear, detect movements and subtle alternations in the environment.

I mention the heart literally and figuratively as a metaphor. The heart is the central organ in the body – lets just talk about human beings – that is consistently circulating oxygen, nutrients and carrying away wastes throughout the body. The heart pumping station, is also by its nature generating an electromagnetic field which is larger than that produced by the brain. The heart also has a complex system of neurons, cells that are consistently transmitting information to the rest of the body. When the heart is in synch in the individual with feelings of joy and love, this invisible field expands. When an individual is more channeled into negative emotions of fear and anger, this field constricts.

Every Small Gesture Has Significance

The perception of the heart has everything to do with the health of all of the other organs of our body, of individual health in general, of the health of societies, permeating into healthy relationships with other organisms and with the health of the earth, which is an organism just as we are.

The heart is also metaphorically an organ of connection with others. Besides wonder, exuberance, joy and gratitude that a person can feel within him or herself, the words love, compassion and empathy typically imply a connection with another.

no external universe, every action we do, we do  to ourselves

And as we begin to take tiny actions that follow the logic of the heart – which knows that each act is significant – the logic of the mind of the older world begins to be replaced. This power of repetition which can physically build muscles, is what occurs mentally, neurologically. Each time you think differently, you are rewiring your brain. This concept called Neuroplasticity has to do with the brain’s ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. This rewiring allows the neurons (nerve cells) in the brain to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new situations or to changes in their environment.

My introduction into the wisdom of the heart probably began through readings of Deepak Chopra. A physician and author, meditation guide and founder of the Chopra Center; who introduced this awareness that has been understood for Millenia in various Eastern spiritual traditions, of the effectiveness of meditation and this connection to the vast unknown dimension of energy. Chopra has teamed more recently with Oprah Winfrey to bring this domain of the spirit, of tapping into the hidden world of energy through stillness and meditation.

I then was introduced to the practice of ‘Heart Rhythm meditation’ which purports a harmonious and healing relationship within oneself and the universe beyond, through simply aligning the rhythm of one’s breathing to the rhythm of one’s heart beat. It is a practice introduced to the West by a Sufi Hazrat inayat Khan who descended from Pashtuns, an ethnic group originally from Afghanistan and Pakistan. This meditation practice was brought to me by a certified AMA physician who understands the multidimensional healing that this practice provides – from reducing stress, to lowering blood pressure, creating a more harmonious heart rate and allowing oneself to access in this stillness, the domain of energy that stretches way beyond the physical heart and body.

It was in this meditative state that I posed questions regarding what I can do of service, which sent me through a leap of faith to Paris during the COP21 Climate talks to the Place to B, an integration of lectures, workshops, panel discussions and barrage of information sharing, attended by 600 people from 40 countries. This sharing of information about climate change and sustainable alternatives took place simultaneously with the COP21 Climate Talks. The Place to B: Place to Brief was conceived of and founded by the journalist and author Anne-Sophie Novel and the director of production Nicolas Bienvenue. They were surrounded by a team of people who coordinated the continuous flurry of learning events and entertainment, with a tremendous group of visiting presenters, entrepreneurs and activists who each delivered their scintillating information and testimonies of successes and inspirational savvy from all corners of the world. 600 people representing 40 countries arrived in Paris to participate in what the Place to B/Place to Brief offered; alternative media, a collective with presentations, speakers and workshops, panel discussions and music and yoga and meditation workshops all happening at one central location throughout the two week duration of the Climate Talks.

One of the workshops I attended was the Transformational Media Summit : Storytelling and Media for a Better World. The New Story summit was hosted by Jeremy Wickremer, co-founder of Transformational Media Initiative In his presentation, Jeremy Wickremer spoke of the fact that each of us are potentially change-agents, with the capacity to do actions that can have a big impact on the environment – our own lives, our communities and the larger environment. And that what is more potent than merely drawing up solutions from a logical methodology, is to start with the right questions, which prompts creativity in itself. Specifically, he mentioned that your intention – within the guise of a question – will often be answered. He more recently wrote in an article “Our Invisible World” about the fact that many things which steer human behavior, emotions, health, psychological and spiritual well-being have to do with the energy that lies beneath the actions. And that the common illnesses which affect modern man and the crisis of violence that threat human cultures, have to do with a disconnect. This disconnect is within our own selves, our patterns and habits of how we live our lives. There is a disconnect within ourselves, among one another and that humans have with other creatures and nature; which is presently resulting in the greatest magnitude of habitat destruction, dissemination of species and global ecological balances and health.

The biggest disharmony of all is perhaps our relationship with the natural world.

Daniel Goleman is the psychologist, science journalist and author of “Emotional Intelligence”. He posits that non-cognitive skills can matter as much as a person’s I.Q. (Intelligence Quotient) for workplace success in “Working with Emotional Intelligence”. In 2007, Goleman wrote about “Social Intelligence” and in 2009, “Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything

So called ‘primitive people’, without having had the use of technological tools that more ‘advanced’ civilizations have had at their disposal and for their distraction, have had thousands of years of penetration into the invisible world that the modern Western world has only been starting to grasp is in the last 50 years. And with the spiritual and emotional well-being deficit that modern man has come to feel, this dis-ease of the human spirit, disconnect with oneself, growing obesity, growing psychological disorders and reliance on quick-fixes such as pharmaceuticals, and growing disharmony and feelings of isolation, have reached towards and cherished many ancient traditions that have evolved in the Eastern World to ease their dis-ease and treat their disharmony with something more than a quick fix of treating the symptoms instead of the disorder. They have reached towards practices of meditation, yoga, t’ai chi and walking into nature and silence, with a visceral understanding that these practices have short and long term benefits.

Listening to Intuition is the Wisdom of the Heart.

There is so much we can do, and we do have the ability to consciously act towards sustainability.

Many little voices make a tremendous noise, and many little gestures, create big changes.

Propose a “Humanity Without Borders” Commission made of Collaborative countries to Create Jobs & Place Refugees Worldwide into 1. Renewable Energy Production Operations 2. Affordable Elderly Care Positions

Propose a “Humanity Without Borders” Commission made of Collaborative countries to Create Jobs>Place Refugees Worldwide into 1. Renewable Energy Production Operations (Wind, Solar, Wave, Geothermal) 2. Affordable Elderly Care Positions

renewable energy wordcloud

renewable energy wordcloud

Given: there are as many opinions as there are fingerprints. Some are more molded into particular alignments with a given fraternity, community, language group or identification with a particular religious, political or economic regime. I’ve listened to a number of different opinions in the last 10 days, all pretty educated ones; ranging from the idealistic to the pragmatic. Each provide lessons.

helping hands elderly care

helping hands elderly care

I think that the whole world needs to make some radical, revolutionary changes in response to all of the things happening right now. There is no choice to maintain the status quo of how things are. People need to step out of their comfort zones and into more proactive than reactive stances. Step out of their insular communities and look and act with a larger incentive; that of recapturing a sense that there is more to life than merely the exchange rate and a particular point of view. What is happening now with the climate, the pollution, the higher levels of economic and racial inequality and the dissemination of species and the mass exodus of peoples from lands all over the world due to economic or political crisis, is unprecedented. And that this flow of migration away from the regions with such bleak circumstances is in many ways connected to and because of what is happening or produced and exported – directly or indirectly – from other more powerful nations of the world. This exodus from lower altitude lying countries, along with Carbon Dioxide levels, will only rise, unless we do something about it.

heart wordcloud ederly care

heart wordcloud ederly care

Everyone is going to have to face this challenge. A challenge beyond aeons of fraternal arguing, religious opposition, power mongering and basing everything on the GDP and finance. Man’s energy choices have resulted in the degradation of the earth and all of its creatures, along with more severe extreme weather patterns. And now, amalgamating into a flood of people from their bleak circumstances. The additional challenge is a growing aging population that also deserve the respect and dignity of having their needs met.

I propose “Humanity Without Borders

I say, create the room and motive to solve several crises with the same goal; to relocate people by establishing a Humanity Without Borders board made up of dozens of different membership countries. Their mission: to relocate refugees with dignity, and placement into work.

The world has been watching a flood of refugees from all over the world; central American towards their Northern neighbors, Syria, North, East and Central Africans into Europe, lured by smugglers, who like drug dealers, are mostly intent on making a profit, by any means possible. We’ve been watching as people have been herded into horrific conditions and treated with anger, fright and contempt.

This is something that is bigger than any one nation can handle, and once again, perhaps created because of these foreign lands that they are fleeing towards, indirectly from the financial model and directly because of the CO2 levels rising, affecting the weather patterns to such an extreme that their resources are depleting as the unrest and political turmoil rises. These small-time smugglers are profiteering on delivering people out of their sordid environments as if they’re fugitives.

Yet we could construct something to solve the tensions, perhaps even slow down the desire to abandon their own countries, by creating a global panel representative of a host of different ethnicities and governments worldwide, to join in this emergent “Humanity Without Borders” mission: to place refugees worldwide into working towards the production of renewable energy plants worldwide, and the service of the elderly in the growing populations of elderly and declining birthrates in several nations of the Western World including the USA and Germany as well as Japan and China in the Eastern Hemisphere, to be trained in healthcare.

This would be creating jobs and placing people into sustainable economic conditions, while helping with the crushing demand of restructuring our infrastucture towards renewable and clean energy to curb the pollution and destructive dirty energy practices of oil and coal, and fulfill the need for human assistance to elderly. Empowerment, a growth in quality of life, a renewal of the environment and a cross-generational reach to honor the dignity of life into old age, would be just some of the positive repercussions of this placement.

Perhaps, a mass transformation of building towards renewable and ecologically sustainable production and practices, would dramatically improve the quality of well, everything.

jobs 2012 renewable energy

jobs 2012 renewable energy

There is no shortage of jobs! There is a shortage of the means of funding a complete restructuring of the industries as we know them. But there are examples of great ingenuity and success stories of renewable energy everywhere.

There is no shortage of money! Just look at the amount of campaign money in the United States presidential race. A Choice of Billionaires. There are two categories in demand globally in goods and services: 1. restructuring energy production to put large scale renewable energy systems in place – solar, wind, geothermal, wave, etc. and 2. the service of care, particularly for aging populations in the US, Japan, China etc,

My idea to curtail and meet the worldwide refugee challenge: the creation of a non-denominational, non-politically or religiously aligned panel of members of the world community Humanity Without Borders, based at the UN Headquarters for example.

It can be done. China has exemplified achieving massive construction in an astoundingly short period of time. Though clearly not without experiencing the fallout of industrialization, they have also created some quite green enterprises.

This is my proposal, and if you want to read further, here’s how I arrived at this idea, what influenced me.

green planet renewable energy

green planet renewable energy

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

I listened to Annie Leonard’s Story of Solutions; her response to our Western consumer driven capitalistic mode. I’ve listened to the historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz talk of the growing trends that point to the systemic failures of the current model of Capitalism. His book discusses decentralizing alternatives, leading to the democratization of wealth and ownership. “If you don’t like capitalism or state socialism, what do you want?” He talks of systemic change nurturing principles of Democracy, Ownership, Community and Ecological Sustainability; a Pluralist Commonwealth.

I’ve listened to the Pope and read Daily Kos : excerpts of The Popes Encyclical. Time magazine September 28, 2015 issue with Bernie Sanders on the cover, has an article about the Pope by Elizabeth Dias, “The New Roman Empire”, http://time.com in which she describes his impact in the world. “The Pope’s activism will be put to the test on his visit to the U.S.…seen by many as a wellspring of some of the global ills he has attacked – corporate greed, colonial exploitation, economic inequality – and his pronouncements on everything from climate change to immigration…His climate encyclical scope was wide: it talked about everything from individuals’ air-conditioning use to how environmental degradation is causing poverty and migration…calling for a bold cultural revolution, for example, Francis said the rich and powerful were pushing a model of development based on fossil-fuel consumption that ended up hurting the poor.”

I’ve also learned of the Band of Sisters, the Universe Story & Ecotheology, a transformative view of Catholic priests which is becoming a movement, identifying the supremacy of nature and our place in it as ecotheology. Wherein the quality of life is based on our spiritual relationship to the Earth, as opposed to being economically based.

I listened to my brother in law, Graeam Cohen, a well learned British businessman and historian with knowledge and understanding of the conflicts occurring presently between different religious groups in Europe and the Middle East as well as an historic understanding of the roots of the world as it is today. His pragmatic understanding of the status quo, is that the hegemonies of the world are run through economics and power/money and military might. He points out that the history of western civilization stems back to the Greeks and Romans, in which the military was an irrevocable part of the larger scheme of rule and control. Today, corporations as any other business enterprises are ultimately protected under the sovereignty of the land in which they are incorporated. Corporations don’t have military to protect themselves, they have lobbyists, as do every other group.

He spoke casually of the fallouts of an occasional polluted stream or earth quake as being perhaps burdensome, but inevitable natural consequences of moving ahead with the production of the economic machine, which must, must keep producing and making a profit. This is measuring the world’s teetering economic balance with the stick of the GDP. Easier said, when you aren’t living directly next to a petroleum or coal based industry that borders your back yard. I can understand his points, and don’t doubt that they are exceedingly accurate in capturing what most businessmen would also be inclined to view as what is of utmost importance: economic strength, military might which protects the hegemony in a world which is heavily dependent on finance. A world of business that mostly responds to the urgency of making a profit and often with short-sighted, short-term goals and not much of an inspiration to think beyond that model.

Yet I believe, as the speakers at the New Economy forum and https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/economist-john-maynard-keynes-vision-of-the-wto/, that there are indeed alternatives.

What if, everyone would grow gardens in their back yards, along with town, community and neighborhood gardens. What if fruit and nut trees were planted everywhere – with plants and crops suitable climatically and geographically to that region – with the surplus going directly back into the community? what if a massive infrastructure for recycling, waste, water run-off and transportation overhauls were created > with the intention to create cleaner, safer, less polluted, ecologically sustainable and more attractive communities. What if there was an overhaul in creating green transportation alternatives; bike lanes, bicycles, hydrogen cell/solar/electric/salt water powered automobiles, maglev high speed train lines, clean and energy efficient interregional train systems.

And that a new expedient United Nations driven unilaterally representative group help to expedite the strategic placement of people all over the world.
What if it actually could be done?

Climbing Sequoias for Climate Change | off-setting global warming with old growth giant redwoods |

I came upon this article in the New York Times, regarding the fact that David Milarch and his co-workers are Climbing Sequoias for Climate Change. It is good information and worth pedaling out there to more people.

Climbing_Sequoias_for_Climate_change

Climbing_Sequoias_for_Climate_change

Climbing_Sequoias_for_Climate_change

Climbing_Sequoias_for_Climate_change

These giant redwoods, Sequoias, are some of the oldest species on the planet. They are genetically designed to intake carbon dioxide and transform it into oxygen.

David Milarch and his crew are involved in an ambitious global reforestation project, recognizing that these trees have the capability like few other species of trees, to dramatically affect the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, transforming it into oxygen.

On Earth Day 2013, The Archangel Tree Project planted ‘cloned’ California redwoods in six countries around the world. They hope to plant the first sequoias in England and Connecticut on Earth Day 2014.

Climbing_Sequoias_for_Climate_change_2

Giant sequoias whisk in (breath in) CO2 and transform it into oxygen faster than almost any species of trees on the planet; they could be the answer to an attempt to reverse climate change.

The lower branches of these giant sequoias are taller than any tree in the East coast of the United States.

The project takes cuttings from the top branches of these super trees, to make clones, and plant them around the world, with the attempt to reforest the planet with trees that could offset the high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Also working towards off-setting climate change, Bill McKibben created 350.org, to raise peoples’ awareness about the lowest levels (in parts per million) of carbon dioxide that is allowable in our earth’s atmosphere.

Archangel is locating and propagating the largest and most ancient living things, trees. They have a genetic history of 4,000 years of super-growth. Their object is to spread these species in order to off-set the excess CO2 in our environment. What they are not sure about, is if there is still time for the trees to grow in order to affectively make change.

Climbing_Sequoias_for_Climate_change_3

See my former blog on this same site, “GDP | Gross Domestic Problem | Why the measurement of wealth depends on a healthy environment |
This contains info about the term “gross national happiness” GNH, coined by the King at the time of the country Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck.

GDP | Gross Domestic Problem | Why the measurement of wealth depends on a healthy environment |

why trees matter | mushrooms offer solutions | Handprint | Gross National Happiness

When I walk or ride along streets basically every where, I look at trees as I pass them by. I see trees as elegant beings, that besides providing oxygen and shade and beauty, create a home for insects, birds and other animals. They are an integral part of what has created life as we know it on our planet.

This Op-Ed article in the New York times sparked my interest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/opinion/why-trees-matter.html

Walnut tree in a gentleman's yard in Pennsylvania.

As this writer states, “In a bit of natural alchemy called photosynthesis, for example, trees turn one of the seemingly most insubstantial things of all — sunlight — into food for insects, wildlife and people, and use it to create shade, beauty and wood for fuel, furniture and homes.” Ah, and sunlight is hardly insubstantial – as I write about in my other blog regarding plasma cosmology and the electric universe theory.

“Decades ago, Katsuhiko Matsunaga, a marine chemist at Hokkaido University in Japan, discovered that when tree leaves decompose, they leach acids into the ocean that help fertilize plankton. When plankton thrive, so does the rest of the food chain.

Trees are nature’s water filters, capable of cleaning up the most toxic wastes, including explosives, solvents and organic wastes, largely through a dense community of microbes around the tree’s roots that clean water in exchange for nutrients, a process known as phytoremediation. Tree leaves also filter air pollution.”

I will let you read the rest of the article yourself, instead of copying and pasting it ‘-))

Yet, on the same subject, mushrooms also have the capacity to filter and clean toxicities out of the environment, as this article in UTNE reader demonstrates. “Mushrooms Offer Solutions for Environment and Economy

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html?quote=294

An image of mycelium below.

“Human beings are more closely related to fungi, than they are to any other kingdom. Within a single cubic inch of soil, there can be 8 miles of these cells. Mycelium are externalized stomachs and lungs, essentially extended neurological membranes.” Paul goes on to say that mycelium form a fabric which is the biological version of earth’s natural internet. The internet, in turn, is man’s tool, or extension, which can be allocated to protect the biosphere”. It’s kind of like the concept that DNA replicates itself, in order for life to ultimately witness and see itself.

We can not measure the worth and wealth of a country or its peoples through qualifiers like the GDP, Gross Domestic Product; the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders, because this becomes a

Gross Domestic Problem

Gross Domestic Problem

Bhutan has a more enlightened way of approaching the subject, with the King’s assertion of a measure of Gross National Happiness!

Recognize that happiness and environmental health play a much larger role in the attributes which contribute to ‘quality of life’, than ‘wealth’, as measured by economic means alone. Bill McKibben who started 350.org contributed this article about the politics of global warming for the Rolling Stone magazine “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math“.

We need to pay attention to our carbon footprint, showing the detrimental results of our actions on the environment as well as to actively become aware of our social handprint, revealing the benefits of our actions on nature; with the concept of balancing out what we take, through what we share and give!! Our handprint measures the positive impacts we can make, simply by changing the way we do things; at home, at work…

You can read more about this
http://challengingbehaviour.marketingmagazine.co.uk/2012/03/05/forget-your-carbon-footprint-whats-your-handprint/

Why does this matter? Because we don’t inhabit this planet alone.

http://www.joelsartore.com/galleries/the-photo-ark/