Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean That You Should.

 

You can't always get what you want,

You can't always get what you want,

You can't always get what you want,

But if you try sometimes you just might find

You just might find

You'll get what you need.

            Mick Jagger/Keith Richards

 

With the constant barrage of awareness of our environ­mental and social challenges, it would be safe to assume that most of us are suffering from a form of psychic numbing. How else can our minds cope with the overwhelming knowledge that we are destroy­ing our health and that those who have been charged to protect us have other interests in mind? How can we heal from this numbing? How can we feel alive again?

It seems so hard sometimes to choose the right path. Whether or not we should support this cause or that new technology seems like an impossi­ble question. Yet the answers to our questions may be closer than we think. The very Earth beneath our feet may offer us the means and the wisdom we need all during the year.

As our home planet travels around the Sun on its yearly journey through space, we experience changes in our weather and have to adjust our lives accordingly. The seasons affect some of us dramati­cally while others of us, who live in relative isolation from the forces of nature, experience little more than mild discomfort. For millennia, though. humans have created rituals around the seasonal changes and accepted them as gifts from our Mother Earth. In our complex, modern world, these wis­doms can provide us great comfort and even solutions to our dilemmas. The Wheel of the Year can be a vital agent for our reconnection with the natural world and the starting point for our healing journey.

For example, on the Autumnal Equinox (September 21), or Mabon as it was called in the ancient times, we are called by the Earth to give thanks for the bounty of the harvest and to look ahead to the winter to come. It is a time to examine our hopes and to measure our dreams against our accomplishments. Maybe this year it should also be a time to ask ourselves what may be the most powerful question of our century and the next one to come: Just because we can, should we?

I am always amazed at the power of the Earth’s seasonal cycles to ground and center me as well as provide lucid metaphors for the happenings of my own life. They are times to celebrate, times to embrace the lifeforce, and times to reflect on the bounty of our lives. But in our troubled era, they must also be times for reflection on the challenges we face and the suffering of others. I am convinced, though, that if we all took time, at least during the important seasonal holidays, to appreciate their power and reflect on how they fit into our lives, we would find many less pressures on our paths.

We must examine the idea that because of the constant environmental and social pressures in our lives, we have had to become partially numb in order to survive. This psychic numbing has clouded our connection with ourselves and the Earth.

With the toxic load our bodies are faced with every day, many believe that we may all be suffering to some extent. Yet how often do we ignore our ill health, brushing it off as “the flu” because of a lack of evidence to the contrary? Some believe that the problem of environ­mentally induced illnesses cannot be understood by apply­ing traditional scientific methodology to the problem. The answer may lie not in looking for a microscopic solution, but a macroscopic one that involves an attempt to understand the complex interactions and interdepen­dencies that exist between life forms and life cycles on Earth.

Our challenges are great.

The National Academy of Sciences, back in 1984, reported that the lack of health information made it impossible to prepare a complete health hazard assessment for any of the more than 48,000 industrial chemicals in commercial use. Partial toxicity data was available for only 25 percent of those chemicals at that time. Very little has changed since then. In Los Angeles alone, more than 40 air toxins are known to cause cancer and studies estimate that at least 20,000 people will contract cancer over the next 70 years due to exposure to hazardous chemicals in the air. In the Los Angeles area alone, it is esti­mated that an additional 5,873 people will die prematurely because of particulate air pollution alone.

It will take decisive action to eliminate our environmental and social issues, to be sure. It will take letters to elected representatives, boycotts of socially irresponsible companies, and changes in behaviors for all of us. But we need energy for those actions, fuel for our hearts and our souls. That energy can only come from a connection with the Earth, the source of all our strength, and from a deep appreciation of the web of life that we are all a part of. The celebration of seasonal cycles can be an easy and meaningful way to create the energy we all need for action.

This book and its stories, observations and reports is an attempt to gives us all an excuse to build a happy, healthy community again. It is a collection of short articles that were originally written between 1997 and 2001 for the Environment News Service as a weekly column on the Internet called "Healing Our World." At the end of each article were numerous links to other Internet sites that helped the reader more closely exam­ine the issue. This book also contains those Internet links and they were all active at the time of publication. Since Internet websites often disappear without warning, a companion website, http://www.healingourworld.com, contains all the Internet links presented in this book. They will be periodically updated, eliminating outdated links and including new ones. 

Sadly, all the issues addressed in this book are still with us. The temptation to just go on and hope everything will turn out alright is strong since the pain of acknowledging all that we face feels so great. The greed and shortsightedness of our political and industrial leaders will also insure that this volume will be relevent well into this century. I wish it were not the case.

Each chapter will take you on a journey of eye-opening revelations of the environmental and social injustices at work in our world. The effects of the greed and self interest of our world's political, corporate and industrial leaders will shock you, depress you, infuriate you, and maybe, move you to action and profound personal examination. But you will also be presented with many ideas about how to get personally involved in healing these wounds. Many alternative sources of information are presented as Resources at the end of each section, providing the Internet links for much of the information presented.

Throughout the book, you will find examples of how our disconnection from the natural world and from the rhythms of the Earth have created an intense longing in us for home. Chapter 1 addresses a multitude of issues ranging from the effects of urbanization to the impact of classism on our world. The continuing nuclear contamination of our world is discussed in Chapter 2. Sadly, the threat of nuclear devistation may be as real as it ever was. Our troubled relationship with our fellow travelers on this Earth is considered in Chapter 3, and many tragic examples are given to illustrate the suffering humans cause so many species.

Chapter 4 examines the toxic crisis in our air, water, and earth and Chapter 5 connects out-of-control consumerism with our environmental and social ailments. Nearly all toxic substances that enter the environment will eventually enter our bodies and Chapter 6 discusses this betrayal of our bodies. Our longing for community is examined in Chapter 7 along with the impacts of classism and racism on our environment and on our lives. Chapter 8 will take you on a journey through the Wheel of the Year as the importance of reconnecting with the natural world is considered. Chapter 9 begins the process of reconnection and integration, presenting many examples of the barriers that keep us from connecting with the natural world. Chapter 10 presents a series of pathways for healing and a call to recognize and honor nature's limits.

Through an examination of the darkness that surrounds us all as ecosystems collapse, species disappear, and children die, it is hoped that the wisdom will arise to create the burning desire to move toward the light. There is so much light in our world, so much wonder. But we can­not fully appreciate the beauty, nor will we be motivated to preserve it, unless we first fully take in the implications and consequences of the life so many of us have chosen to lead.

Ideas for change are presented throughout this volume. Stop often and go outside and remind yourself why you are concerned. Take a moment and dance around a maypole, even if it is only in your mind. Take a moment to appreciate the vitality of whatever season it is and to visualize the new roots forming all around you if it is spring or the decay and introspection if it is winter. Take a moment to be grateful for the bounty you have received. And look around you, realizing that each and every day, life begins again. Decide to be an agent of change and transformation. Decide to embrace the darkness and walk into the light.

 

We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed

by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features,

the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living

and its decaying trees, the thundercloud, and the rain which lasts

three weeks . . . We need to witness our own limits transgressed,

and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

Henry David Thoreau

 

RESOURCES  

1.    Visit the Seeds of Simplicity web site at http://www.seedsofsimplicity.org/

2.    Get help reducing your own consuming through the Media Foundation at http:// www.adbusters.org

3.    Keep your eye on corporations through Corporate Watch at http://www.corp­watch.org/

4.   Read a letter written to Bill Gates by Ralph Nader about wealth disparities at http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/corner/worldnews/other/189.html

5.   Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them often. Tell them your hopes and dreams and fears. They work for you.  If you know your Zip code, you can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html

6.    Learn about the issues. Seek out books on the subject. A good source for used (and new) books is Powell’s Bookstore in Portland, Oregon at http://www.pow­ells.com/cgi-bin/associate?assoc_id=212 where you will find a wonderful alter­native to the massive chain bookstores taking over the market.

 A Word About References

This volume is filled with perspectives, observations, and information gathered from a variety of sources. The Resources at the end of each commentary will help you find the information sources, determine the status of an issue, or get involved personally.

 Although the data presented was as current and accurate as possible at the time of publication of this book, it is likely that things will change. Environmental and social issues are very dynamic and it is likely that some of the numbers have changed for some of the issues when you read this book. The issues and perspectives however, will remain for many years—and in some cases millennia—to come.

In fact, it is important to not get too focused on the numbers in any issue. Joanna Macy, psychologist and environmental scholar, has cautioned us that numbers can be “numb-ers,” distracting us from the heart of the situation.

 For example, it matters little if the numbers of nuclear submarines traveling around the world as a first strike capability for their countries changes by one, two, or even ten from what I reported in “Betrayal” (Chapter 2).

What is important is the message behind such a capability and that we are still on the brink of war. It is of little consequence if the numbers of mink coats added to affluent coat racks in the U.S. is the 10,000 per day as I reported in “Still Killing After All These Years” (Chapter 3), or is now 9,000 or 11,000. What matters is that some people still insist on showing their domination over the natural world by brutally killing other species for no other reason than to show control and display their vanity.

 Time is running out for many ecosystems, species, and individuals. We have to cut through the distractions that have keep the solutions to our problems beyond our reach. Now is the time to get up and move towards the solution and to do whatever it takes to restore our connection to the natural world—and to our souls.

 A Word About Repetition

Since the collection of essays in this volume were originally published as weekly commentaries on the Internet over a number of years, some information presented in prior articles was repeated if it was relevant to the article of the week. Since many Internet readers are new each week to the series, they would be seeing the data or idea for the first time, even if it was published before. Some of that repetition has been eliminated from the essays in this volume, but other duplications of an idea or thought have been left in if it was important to the essay at hand. Since one of the  prime tools for learning is repetition, no effort was made to completely eliminate this redundancy. It doesn’t hurt to read an important concept or idea more than once, even in the same volume.

 Internet resources are often repeated as well, since many organizations are involved in multiple issues and it would be cumbersome to search for a resource you remembered seeing in another essay.

 A Word About Copy Editing

This book was published using one of the new print-on-demand publishers that have emerged in the electronic age, allowing complete freedom by the author and eliminating the need to compete with the hundreds of new books that are pitched to publishers every month. The disadvantage of this new way to publish is that no copy editor was available to catch problems with spelling, grammar, structure or organizational issues. While I have done the best I can to catch any problems, I must have missed some. I apologize for any distraction this may cause you while you read. Feel free to email me (jackie@healingourworld .com) with any problems you discover.