native musicians Cris Derksen & Swil Kanim

A rising star on the Canadian classical/jazz/folk/pop/electronic scenes, cellist Derksen’s music (listen here) draws from traditional classical training, her Aboriginal ancestry and new school electronics, to create genre-defying music. (cross-posted from CBC's 8th Fire series.]
I am a half Cree, half Mennonite person living in East Vancouver. I come from North Tallcree First Nation and this little Mennonite town called La Crete in Northern Alberta. I grew up mostly in Edmonton, Alberta where I learned how to play the cello. I’m pretty glad I did, it is a pretty great and weird job to have.
One thing I liked about growing up in a city is that I had access to things I wouldn’t have living on a reserve far north like mine, such as music lessons. But I also missed out on things I would have learned growing up on a reserve and I wasn’t able to see my Kokum and Mosom very often. I’m not sad about it; it is just how my path was laid out for me. These days I travel a lot and have gotten to see a lot of the world through playing music with many great musicians. I am lucky that many of the people I travel with are also Indigenous, because this makes for good times, great laughs and deep understanding. I hope you enjoy 8TH FIRE as much as I did. I am very grateful to be part of this series. It seems to have come at a very poignant time in Canadian Aboriginal history.

She set this classic Haida tale to music, in collaboration with Red Haida graphic novelist Yahgulanaas aka Michael Nicoll.

from her website crisderksen.virb.com

Salish violinist-composer-storyteller Swil Kanim is from the Lummi reserve near Bellingham WA.

credit: JavaColleen blog

Like many native children he was taken from his parents and spent the remainder of his childhood in foster homes. One of his teachers encouraged him to enroll in a music program, and the violin became his music instrument of choice. Through music, he found his path to healing childhood wounds and reconnect to his native roots.

Swil Kanim's compositions incorporate classical influences as well as musical interpretations of his journey from depression and despair to spiritual and emotional freedom. Listen to his Works for the People (2003) at swilkanim.com

His workshops, The Elements of Honor,  inspire people of all origins to express themselves at conferences, workshops, school assemblies, and rehabilitation centers. He travels extensively throughout the United States, enchanting audiences with his original composition music and native storytelling. The Tree Story is an example of this work.

For more contemporary native artists, see Beat Nation.

Everyday miracles 4: transforming trauma in community -- by Lucy Duncan, AFSC

Cross-posted with the author's permission from the American Friends Service Committee website. This is the first of a series of blog posts on a Healing and Rebuilding our Communities workshop in May 2013. It shows what N. Americans can learn from HROC developed by Quakers in Africa. See our previous posts about AGLI.

"Unless pain is transformed, it will be transferred." -- Richard Rohr, quoted by Amy Rakusin
When I was in Burundi after the World Conference of Friends in 2012, I visited a Peace Village outside Bujumbura where Hutu and Tutsi refugees were living. AFSC staff Triphonie Habonimana and Florence Ntakarutimana of Healing and Rebuilding our Communities (HROC) program served as my hosts. They brought together perpetrators and victims of the decades-long conflict that had participated in the trauma healing workshops that HROC conducts in Bujumbura and elsewhere, sometimes in partnership with AFSC. The participants gathered in a small Friends church in the village and told me how the workshops had impacted them.

Each of them told stories of transformation: victims talked of forgiving horrendous acts perpetrated on them, and perpetrators talked about how they had reconnected with those they had harmed and had been healed from the shock of their acts. Listening to these stories of such deep and seemingly lasting change, it sounded like the workshops must work magic for there to be such healing. I wanted to learn more.

In mid-May three of us from AFSC participated in one of these three-day HROC workshops in Baltimore at Stony Run Meeting, led by one of my hosts in Burundi, Florence Ntakarutimana, as well as Americans Amy Rakusin and Bill Jacobsen.

During the workshop a woman who was a trauma nurse talked about how, with physical trauma, the wound often needs to be abraded, opened, exposed in order for there to be healing; if the wound isn't cleaned and opened, it festers and can get worse or cause the loss of a limb, or even death.

This is true with wounds of the spirit, too. People can suffer spiritual death if they hold their wounds too tightly; they can let their hearts turn to stone.
In one activity on the first day, Florence provided a vivid demonstration of how stress and trauma operate in individuals and impact the community. She put a large glass on a tray in the middle of the room, with a pitcher of water next to it. She said, "Things happen that cause stress."
"In Burundi, it's sometimes not so easy to get breakfast for your children. They go to school without tea. One day you might not have bread."
She filled the glass about a quarter full of water--the water was the stress, and the cup was the person without bread for their child.
She said, "You don't have bread, but the next day you get some and feed your children. You feel better."
Florence poured most of the water back out of the glass. She said, "You feel better, but not all of the stress is gone, the stress you've known."

Florence said, "Normal stress comes and goes."
"But let's say, I am here in the United States and I get a phone call that my first born is in the hospital." Florence filled the glass nearly to the top with water.
"And then I get another call, my son has died. Now I have no more space to hold the stress." Florence filled the glass until it overflowed, the water spilled out onto the tray.
"Then I return to Burundi and my husband is hit by a car and dies. This kind of stress is hard, it makes a hard place in my belly." She added a piece of wood to the cup and more water spilled out onto the tray. The wood represented repeated, difficult events in one’s life, but not necessarily ones that people planned.

Florence said, "And some stress is like stones, it breaks me."
"What if some parents raped their own children and killed them… this is like a stone, a stone in one's heart."
Florence put a large stone into the glass. The water overflowed into the tray.
"This kind of stress is beyond what we can hold, beyond our capacity to hold."
"This is traumatic stress. Sometimes we experience or perpetrate such hard things, sometimes our heart is broken, there are scars and they remain. Some wounds are fresh, others aren't fresh, but they are still there."


"Some are caused by natural disasters, but the hardest are those that people planned. This kind of stress causes trauma, because of what we have heard, what we have seen, or what we have done. There is also cumulative stress; all together things are so hard to bear. When you live on the edge of stress, it can be what seems to be a small thing that puts you over the edge."
"What if your parents experienced trauma and haven't healed, then you could be born with a stone in your belly, and that makes it hard to bear stress, to be resilient."

Florence invited us to look at the tray. The tray holding the glass was full of water. "The family and community around the person who has experienced or is experiencing stress and trauma also is affected because the trauma, the pain, the stress overflows into the community."

Sharing, she said, is critical in the healing process. In order for people to heal, it is important for them to expose the trauma they’ve experienced to the light and re-discover the threads of human care and connection. "The more we are able to open our hearts, the more we can let love in," Florence said. As people share in community, the more all can sit together in the mystery and face what is unknown together.

This was the first day of three. In the next two days we explored how the stones of trauma can be softened and melted. We learned how the water in that overflowing glass can be replaced by healing waters from the community through sharing and that as each person heals, they can support the healing of others.

On that first day I was already beginning to see that through this very intentional and powerful, but quite simple, process the healing that occurs isn’t magic, but is miraculous nonetheless.

Continuing Rev_l_tion -- by Emily Higgs

A Young Adult Conference on Ministry, Earthcare and Social Action

Throughout the spring of 2012 we began asking young adults all over North America if they wanted to explore revelation, and revolution, through a six-day intensive training program at Pendle Hill designed for young adult Friends with an interest in social action and environmental justice. The answer was a resounding YES!, and thus Pendle Hill embarked on designing an innovative and powerful new iteration of the Young Adult Leadership Development program. Co-sponsored by Quaker Earthcare Witness, the Clarence and Lilly Pickett Endowment, and Willistown Monthly Meeting, the conference was held from June 15 – 21, 2012, and through worship, workshops, games, service, reflection, speakers, musicians, art and fellowship, dove into the weighty and complex work of creating a more just, sustainable and spiritually connected world. We are now planning another  training program in June 2013: Simplicity – “Be Brought Low, and Back to the Root”.

The participants

30 young adults participated in the 2012 Continuing Rev_l_tion program. Of those 30 participants, the average age was 24 and there were 9 men and 21 women. We welcomed young adults from Canada, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Indiana, Oklahoma, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and we even had one participant from Korea. Our participants were exceptionally passionate about leaning into the intersection of faith and activism, and the following quotes were excerpted from their applications to the program:

“I have a fervent belief that our world has to change drastically…I would like to find how my faith as a Quaker and my spirituality with this earth can inform the way I live and walk on our planet.”

“The future of Quakerism is being and will be defined by the young adults. I want my activism to be led not just by the philosophy of my faith, but also by the spirit of it.”

Program and Activities

Our six days together were packed with opportunities for personal and communal growth, and were designed to be an intensive and fast-paced training-oriented program. In so doing, Pendle Hill established a new model and framework for young adult gatherings – demonstrating the power and potential of skill-building and thematically focused conferences for the younger generations of Friends. Here is a small snapshot of our activities:

Awakening the Dreamer Symposium

The program began with a day-long multi-media training designed to educate citizens about the biggest problems facing our planet today, to empower them to move beyond the fear and grief often accompanying that awakening, and then to inspire them to bring forth an environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling world. We welcomed long-time environmental activist, Hollister Knowlton, former clerk of Quaker Earthcare Witness as the symposium facilitator.

“Creative Maladjustment,” A Talk from Steve Chase

Well-known Quaker scholar and activist, Steve Chase, joined us for several days of the program. Steve was our keynote speaker, offering a talk entitled, “Creative Maladjustment: The Prophetic Call of Quaker Faith and Activism.” Steve is the educational director of the environmental studies master’s program in Advocacy for Social Justice and Sustainability at Antioch University of New England. Steve’s words and presence were energizing and inspiriting for participants. Steve has continued to stay in touch with all 30 participants through the program’s Facebook group and new book club!

Evalyn Parry Concert

For many, the highlight of the week was the public concert with Evalyn Parry. Evalyn has toured music, storytelling, pride, poetry, and theatre festivals across the continent over the past decade, taking her unique perspective on the world and transforming it into art that spans genres, genders, and generations. Much of Evalyn’s music has a social justice or environmental focus, and she did a phenomenal job of picking both songs and stories that dovetailed beautifully with the conference trajectory. Evalyn also stayed on campus as a sojourner for several days following her performance, allowing our participants to engage with Evalyn informally and talk with her more about her own creative process and what it means to her to be an artist and an activist.

Called to Action and Campaign Design Workshops

The Called to Action workshop with Michael Gagne and Viv Hawkins allowed our participants to experiment with bold, spirit-rooted activism, theories of social change and social movements, group work and the resistance to change, skill building around nonviolent direct action, and personal sustainability in seeking to live in Right Relationship. Building upon Michael and Viv’s workshop, we were later joined by Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) organizer Zachary Hershman, who led two workshops about creating and implementing a successful social action campaigns. Our participants had the opportunity to practice designing their own campaigns about issues close to their hearts and their home communities, and to present them to one another for feedback.

Lobbying and Legislative Advocacy

Social, economic and environmental justice requires people working for change from all sides, and we were fortunate to have Friends Committee on National Legislation staffer Jose Aguto, Legislative Secretary for Sustainable Energy and the Environment, join us to lead a workshop on the ins and outs of legislative advocacy, the policy arena and how to lobby. Fellow FCNL staff member, and YALD participant, Sandy Robson, joined Jose and was able to share about her experiences working at FCNL as a young adult.

Art for Social Change with Spiral Q

Participants had the opportunity to get their hands dirty and be creative with Tracy Broyles, Executive Director of Spiral Q Puppet Theater in Philadelphia. Spiral Q led a three-hour workshop on the intersection of art and social change, providing the materials for the young adults to plan, create and run their own mock demonstrations. Spiral Q’s work is nationally recognized for its originality, its capacity to inspire individuals of all ages and backgrounds, and its ability to creatively revitalize communities throughout Philadelphia.

Discernment Workshop and Pickett Endowment Panel

Participants were invited to explore how they felt called or drawn to particular work, and to listen to how this has come about for them. Using spiritual discernment tools, participants engaged with one another through some guided reflection, small group sharing, journaling and worship. Building upon the exploration of one’s own calling and path, the Pickett Endowment Board led a panel and large-group discussion about the nature of leadings and how Quaker organizations can best serve and support young adults in their work for justice, peace and sustainability.

Did we inspire revelation and revolution?

The program was challenging, energizing, full of laughter and fun, creative, generative, transformative and packed with opportunities for participants to go inward for self-reflection and reach out for help brainstorming about their own personal social justice work and goals. Here are just a few comments from the evaluations we received:

“We’re part of an incredible young adult movement, and if the first conference was this awesome, I see great things for its future.”

“The conference tapped into the deep pain and the exhilarating opportunity that many young adults feel about the daunting tasks that rest upon this generation's shoulders when it comes to creating a more just and sustainable world for the future.  The group gathered laughed together, cried together, struggled, debated, sang, worked, planned social change campaigns.”

“I felt that our presence was really held and cherished by all the support of Pendle Hill and our other allies, and can’t thank them enough for it.”

“It was good to have a conversation about what it looks like to make activism a full-time occupation – something I had never really considered before.”

“Steve Chase presented such compelling material in such an inviting way. He helped me internalize and memorize the main things Quakers believe – A love for the Divine, the other, and the creation. I’ve heard of the Perfection Standard idea before, but it’s good to hear again that we can’t let our desire for total and perfect coherency destroy our chances of accomplishing something smaller but still good.”

Following the program, participants brainstormed a list of ways to continue to build upon what they had begun, how to stay in touch with one another, and how to serve as ambassadors to other young adults promoting what they had just experienced. The group formed a private Facebook, complete with a book club to encourage one another to read books about important issues from a spiritual grounding. They use the group to share their individual struggles with activism, organizing and changing the world.

Every single participant told us that they would attend another YALD conference in the future, and more importantly, that they would recommend it to their friends. With such a powerful confirmation that the program was meaningful and valuable, we believe we sent 30 young adults back into the world more grounded, more spiritually whole, and more empowered to “be the change they wish to see in the world” than how they came to us.

Planning for the future

The enthusiasm we felt, the strong call we heard for continuing this program in the future, and our own excitement around the dynamic work of planning such cutting-edge young adult programming, all lead us clearly and unequivocally towards running another training-oriented YALD program in June 2013. We hope to increase our participant enrollment and diversity, deepen the content and capacity-generating focus of the workshops, and build off of our momentum from last summer. While we are still in the visioning phase for Continuing Rev_l_tion 2013, we are planning to focus on Simplicity and use the Quaker testimonies as a lens through which we can examine all the personal, communal and global implications of living in the world, not of the world.

We are seeking program co-sponsors who would be interested in investing financial resources and programmatic expertise in what has already proven to be a critical opportunity for us to nurture, energize and empower the next generation of Friends.

Equator Prize 2012 Winners

The Equator Initiative chose 25 winners from a total pool of over 800 nominations from 113 countries.


Asia & the Pacific

• Chunoti Co-Management Committee – Bangladesh
• Kangmei Institute of Community Development and Marketing (KM) – China
• Namdrik Atoll Local Resources Committee – Marshall Islands
• Pemuteran Bay Coral Protection Foundation, Bali (Yayasan Karang Lestari Teluk Pemuteran Bali) – Indonesia
• Shashwat – India
• Sisi Initiative Site Support Group – Fiji
• Tetepare Descendants’ Association (TDA) – Solomon Islands

Eastern Europe & Central Asia

• Women and Earth (Zan va Zamin) – Tajikistan

Latin America & the Caribbean

• Association of Water Committees of the Southern Sector of Pico Bonito (Asociación de Juntas Administradoras de Agua del Sector Sur del Parque Nacional Pico Bonito – AJAASSPIB) – Honduras
• Centro Alexander von Humboldt – Nicaragua
• Environmental and Social Studies Group (Grupo de Estudios Ambientales y Sociales, AC) – Mexico
• Ixpiyakok Women's Association (Asociación de Mujeres Ixpiyakok – ADEMI) – Guatemala
• Pacari Network (Articulação Pacari) – Brazil
• United Women Artisans' Association of Los Límites (Asociación de Artesanas Unidas de Los Límites – ASOARTESANAS) – Colombia

Middle East & North Africa

• Association Amsing – Morocco
• Medicinal Plants Association, St. Catherine – Egypt
• Zenab for Women in Development – Sudan

Sub-Saharan Africa

• Abrha Weatsbha Natural Resource Management Initiative – Ethiopia
• Association Anja Miray – Madagascar
• Fishers' Association of the Rural Community of Mangagoulack (Association des Pêcheurs de la Communauté Rurale de Mangagoulack – APCRM) – Senegal
• Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust (MWCT) – Kenya
• Swazi Indigenous Products (SIP) – Swaziland
• TRY Oyster Women's Association – Gambia
• Village Development Committee of Ando Kpomey (Comité villageois de développement d’Ando Kpomey) – Togo 
• West Africa Initiative of Liberia (WAIOL) – Liberia

Kairoscanada -- Climate Justice tour, blog and discussion

As the G8/G20, the world's richest nations, squabble miserably about financial re-reg and climate action (with no solutions in sight) the Canadian interfaith organization Kairos is holding a series of 'town meetings' from coast to coast, based on its 5-page discussion paper Charting a road map to a sustainable future (May 2010) that quotes Sally Bingham, Gro Brundtland, Rees and Wackernaegel (inventors of the eco footprint), Herman Daly, Marilyn Waring, Tim Jackson, Sallie McFague, and others. It asks, “Who is my neighbour?”

We are all connected – God, humans, and other-than-humans. We are all in this together. In this worldview Jesus‟ command “to love one another as I have loved you” takes on an even deeper meaning. It expands the answer to the question, “Who is my neighbour?” It calls us to consider the well being of the whole earth community as we make political and economic decisions about how we are to live in the world.

How might we move in this direction? What are the concrete changes that we need to make both in lifestyle and in government policy? How can we create a momentum for change that will take us into the future?

It ends with three queries:
1) What would a sustainable economy look like for Canada? What would be the downside? The upside?
2) What social or political barriers would need to be overcome in the transition to a sustainable economy?
3) What is your response to the Climate Justice Now Network's position that, “Instead of trying to fix a destructive system, we should be leaving fossil fuels in the ground, reasserting peoples’ and community control over resources and production, re-localizing food production, massively reducing over consumption … ”

and invites all people of faith to further online discussion and a blog.

Heartwood: cohousing in Durango -- by Dick Grossman

Cohousing is an attempt to establish old-fashioned community life. It started in Denmark. There are now about 100 projects in the USA. See cohousing.org. Ours is the largest: 250 acres in the foothills of the San Juan Mountains, including 65 acres of irrigated pasture, and woodland. The age range is from 3 to 70, and there have been several home births already. Some members are retired, some work from home, some commute about 20 miles into Durango.
Right now it smells of sage, and manure after rain. We have just put some aged manure on the garden. Real Colorado weather: about 17 inches of rain a year. Today, May 2, we woke up to a light dusting of snow. We are at 7000 feet. At Silverton, at 9500 feet, I've seen snow on the Fourth of July. We had a maypole yesterday on the village green, followed by brunch and a concert by Sally Shuffield, the director of Durango Nature Studies, with which Gail and I are very involved.

The common house
What we like most is that our actual home can be smaller, because many of the facilities are shared. We live independently, but with far more contact with our neighbors than in the average city. The individual homes are in a cluster, which saves on utility costs and leaves land free for green space, pasture, farming and wildlife. There is a common house that serves two meals and a potluck twice weekly, with a large kitchen and communal dining room, exercise room, two rooms for guests, and a store where Heartwood Farm food is sold. We have a greenhouse to grow food plants and flowers, and a wood workshop.

The yurt

We had a yurt which is used as a school. Some have lived there while building their own homes. Now it is also used for men's group ceremonies. We have a village green where a lot of ball games are played -- but we got tired of planting new sod and put in a tree. That doesn't interfere with a very nice ballpark

My wife loves to ride. She keeps two mares, Missy (a chestnut quarterhorse) and Shiloh (a half-Arab gray) in the pasture. Others keep llamas. Last year we started a greenhouse to grow organic vegetables, called Heartwood Farms.
The underlying principles are based on Quaker process. All decisions are made by consensus except in an emergency, If discussion gets heated, there is a silence to cool off and wait for inspiration. It is not specifically a religious group. We have no creed. I am the only Quaker member of the cohousing.

Gail is involved in the Choral Society, and (being a retired teacher) an early learning group. As a volunteer naturalist, she also leads children's nature trips, up into the mountains, into the valleys, and down into the plains. Durango nature studies has the curriculum online. They serve about 7000 kids a year. Because Our housing clusters leave room for other species, there are bears, cougars, mountain lions, bobcats, wild turkeys, deer and elk around us.

One of the Quaker testimonies is Community. I hadn't paid much attention to this but since living in Heartwood I have learned that cohousing requires you to interact and make group decisions. So it is really deepening my faith.

How did it get started? There were monthly get-togethers to recruit people. Gail suggested we go. I said fine, though I have no interest in joining -- because I write a monthly column for the Durango Herald. It turned out to be much more interesting than I thought. So we began to think that for ourselves. Usually we make decisions as a couple. But when we were in the hot springs with a friend, I found myself saying "we're joining", to my wife's great surprise.

The next step was to build a house. 20 years ago we decided not to build a home, because we have seen so many couples build and then divorce, so this was a big decision. We visited several cohousing projects in Denver and decided that our minimum was 1500 sq ft. There were nine plans available. Looking at plan C, I suddenly realized, "I've been in that house". From not being interested, here I was superintending the process. There were few decisions to make, because changes are expensive. All we needed to decide was the color of the carpet, the tiles in the kitchen, and one upstairs bath instead of two. Things went so well during construction that we were able to leave the country for five weeks, and ask neighbors to keep an eye on it.

strawbale passive solar duplex
We moved in about 10 years ago. 14 homes were constructed by Heartwood's contractor: some of packed straw clay, some straw bale, and one mixed the methods. One exception is of pumicrete with bamboo reinforcement. We have the only straw bale duplex in the USA. They are remarkably cool in summer and warm in winter. Kids love packing straw clay (an essential part of construction) because their feet fit in small spaces. We had bees and building parties.

We always had friends who lived as individuals, scattered across the suburbs. Now we have a close circle and visit together a lot, people we wouldn't have got to know otherwise -- a midwife, a very thoughtful and philosophical fridge repairman, the woman across the walkway who knows all the words from 1950s musicals, her new man who is a divorced Mormon who is a hard worker, plumber, builder, gardener, and instigated the farm project.

community brunch at the common house

Our greenhouse produces lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, and potatoes. Last summer we employed WOOFs , and sold produce to restaurants and farmers markets. We didn't make money so this year we have all volunteers, and everybody is eating extremely well.

For more details see Heartwood cohousing.

Making webs -- by David Spangler

This post is from David Spangler's blog May 7, 2010. He is a former director of Findhorn. Along with several friends and colleagues from Findhorn, he returned to the United States in 1973, and with them to create the Lorian Association, a non-profit spiritual educational foundation. In 1984, the Lorian Association moved to Issaquah, Washington where it is today.

*****

We have a large maple tree in our backyard. Its branches overhang our back porch so that in the summer, it can seem as if we are living in a treehouse. In fact, when our children were small, we actually built a treehouse amongst its branches where the kids would go to lie and read or just dream; we even on occasion would have family picnics there. As you can tell, this tree has
been an important part of our family.

As the years went by, I began to notice that some of the higher branches of the tree were dying. We can get strong winds blowing through our valley out of the Cascade Mountains, and I worried that some of these large branches, or even the top of the tree itself, might snap off and come crashing through our roof. So I had a tree expert come out and look the situation over. He gave me various options, and the one we chose was to build a webbing that would enable the branches to support each other. "If you ever see that webbing go tight," he told me, "call me right away because it will mean something has snapped and the top of the tree will have to be cut down." So far all is well.

I thought about this webbing as the events of the past month have unfolded. There's been the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano which shut down air travel throughout Europe for five days causing economic havoc around the globe. There were unusual storms in the Southeast of America that created unprecedented flooding in the State of Tennessee. There is the debt crisis in Greece which threatens the stability of the Euro and could tip other countries such as Spain and Ireland into bankruptcy, damaging the tentative economic recovery occurring in the United States after the crash of two years ago. And there is the oil spill taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to destroy the fragile ecosystems of the wetlands and marshes of coastal Louisiana and bidding to become the worst ecological disaster in America¹s history with enormous economic repercussions of its own.

Winds of change are blowing through our world system, and like the branches of my maple tree, there are lots of places it could break.

We need to build some webbing. We need to build our support system so that in times of crisis and disaster, we have something to hold us up and keep us from crashing through the roof.

Here's the good news. Such webbing isn't another layer of bureaucracy in an already overly complex governmental system; it's not a new organization we need to join. It's not an insurance plan we need to buy into. It's something much simpler than that. It's an attitude of love, compassion, generosity, and mutual caring. With it we can create safety for each other. Without it, we are left to stand alone and at a disadvantage in the face of possible disasters.

Imagine that you and your family have flown to Europe for a vacation. You've had a good time, and now you're headed home. Good thing, too, as you've about run out of cash and your credit card is near its limit. But as you wait to board your aircraft, an announcement tells you that your flight is delayed. Well, that's no fun, but you can wait. However, as an hour or so passes, you are next informed that your flight is cancelled. Indeed, all flights are cancelled as a volcanic ash cloud is grounding all jet planes.

Hmm, you think, this is more serious, but how long can a volcanic ash cloud last? Surely you'll be up in the air and on your way in a few hours. Except that it's not a few hours. It's a few days, and in the process you exhaust all your remaining money. But your family needs food and water and a place to rest. Surely the airline will provide help. No, it won't. You're told it's not the airline's responsibility; you're on your own. The airport management isn't helping either. Well, perhaps you can squeeze a few more dollars out of your credit card. But wait, restaurants and hotels have just doubled and tripled all their prices for the duration of the crisis. Even that recourse is suddenly beyond your means. And now you have a nightmare vision of you and your family starving to death in the middle of a modern, European airport because no one cares to help and compassion has vanished.

For you, a branch has crashed.

This is exactly the nightmare that many foreign travelers, particularly poorer ones from Africa, were facing only a few days ago as the ash cloud from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano blanketed Europe and shut down all air travel. I learned about this through a number of radio reports. In interview after interview, passengers described running out of money and expressed their anger at the callousness of airline companies and airport personnel who denied any responsibility for providing aid. In some cases, even water was unavailable except for purchase. Restaurants and hotels were raising their prices in exorbitant ways to take advantage of those who had the money to buy food or lodging, and heaven help those who didn't.

Where this took place, it was a stunning demonstration of a lack of compassion and of placing commercial opportunities over human need. By contrast, the Schiphol international airport in Amsterdam put up webbing. The airport administration hired musicians and clowns and brought in movies to entertain the stranded passengers. They installed portable showers and provided food and water, all at its own expense. They created such a festive, supportive atmosphere that passengers who had musical instruments brought them out and added to the entertainment. An international community came spontaneously into being. When some officials arrived from one of the embassys to offer passengers from their nation hotel accommodations, the passengers told them they'd rather stay at the airport. They were having too good a time!

Schiphol

The goodwill this simple act of compassion and generosity generated for the Schiphol airport and for the people of Amsterdam was enormous. Here no branches crashed. Should I ever be trapped in Europe by a disaster, I hope I'm in the Netherlands.

In the final analysis, if our civilization collapses, it won't be because of disasters and catastrophes; it will be because we failed in our compassion for each other. We failed in creating inner webs of support that can translate into outer acts of caring.

There are those who feel the disasters we've seen this past month, whether natural or human-caused, are just the start of what might become an Age of Disasters. This is certainly possible. I have no question, as I said, that winds of change and challenge are blowing through our world. There's also no question that human choices and activities, especially when motivated by fear and greed or by a sense of parochialism, can magnify the problems and turn challenges into catastrophes. We saw this graphically demonstrated when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. The inept and at times self-serving responses of the Federal and State governments to the crisis added to the suffering and the death toll from that disaster. (To read some riveting accounts of how survivors of disasters come together to create compassionate communities to support each other -- and how governmental officials more often than not end up hindering this process and even making matters worse -- I recommend Rebecca Solnit's recent book, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, from Penguin Books.)

The value of being compassionate with each other and caring for each other's welfare sufficiently to be able to help each other -- to help strangers -- in times of emergency is important and probably one of those things most people would agree with. It's certainly not a new idea. But there's another wrinkle to this I'd like to suggest.

As regular readers know, I view the world as having a physical and a non-physical side. (If you want to know in more detail my thoughts in this area, I suggest my book, Subtle Worlds: An Explorer's Field Notes as a place to start.) Working with what I call the "subtle environment" offers additional possibilities for building a supportive web. In my experience, these intermeshing fields of consciousness and spirit, energy and probability surround and influence our world as much as does the planet's magnetic field. While nothing is a substitute for direct physical action and help to deal with physical emergencies, there are few events that do not have a non-physical component that could use help as well or that could be made a supportive environment for physical action.

For example, think of what the emotional and mental atmosphere might have been like in those European airports where people were stranded and had run out of money, food and water. I've been in airports where a flight was simply delayed for an hour or two and have felt the inner environment roiled with feelings of irritation, anger, anxiety and so on. I can only imagine what it might have been like if sheer survival had become an issue.

The nature of the subtle environment is that it affects everyone, though in different degrees and in different ways. It's a sea we all swim in, and when it becomes tainted with hurtful energies, we all have to deal with that contamination just as fish in the Gulf are now having to deal with oil and chemical dispersants in the water in which they live. Generally speaking, there's nothing like a powerful and intentional presence of love and calm radiating in such a subtle environment to transform that kind of psychic pollution and create a better and cleaner flow of subtle energies. The nice thing is that that kind of presence doesn't have to come only from a person on the scene, though it will be very powerful if it does; it can be projected by anyone from anywhere. That's the essence of subtle activism.

So one form of support when you hear of a disaster somewhere is to center yourself in a state of calmness and peace, fill your heart with love, and imagine yourself invisibly present where that disaster is going on, being a presence that contributes that peace and love to the subtle environment. In effect, you're providing another option for the subtle energies in that place or condition, an alternative to condensing around fear and anger or confusion, for instance and an opportunity to configure to the calm that you're providing. This calmness can provide a psychic space for those on the scene to avoid being caught up in emotional and mental turmoil and instead to have an opportunity to think and feel with clarity. This alone can lead to better and wiser decisions being made and compassionate actions being taken.

For example, those who are working to contain the oil spill in the Gulf are doing so under great pressure and are exposed to the anger being directed towards BP and those responsible for the oil spill. Holding those engineers and others in a calm, compassionate, loving presence can do much to support their ability to take wise and appropriate actions. Blaming them or focusing anxiety in their direction accomplishes nothing but to roil the subtle energies around them which can make their task harder.

But there's another form of webbing that subtle activism can provide; after all, subtle activism isn't just for disasters and emergencies. Here is where the analogy of my tree can help. The webbing we put up isn't fixing a specific problem but is a way in which weak branches can mutually support each other and be better supported by the main trunk.

This form of subtle activism is very simple. It consists of creating a line of supportive energy between yourself and another person and the sacredness that is the Ground of Being. Center yourself in sacredness, in the Sacred, whatever that means to you as a universal presence of compassion and love. Center yourself in your own capacity for compassion and love, and link these two together, connecting your branch with the trunk from which all branches come. Then imagine a line of Light extending from you to a neighbor in your community. This line of Light has as its sole intent communicating that that person is not alone but is connected to a source of support, which ultimately is the "trunk", the Sacred. Do this with another neighbor, then another. Build a web of inner support throughout your neighborhood. Remember, this web is not anchored in you but in the Sacred, but you are the one spinning it out into your world.

Once you get the sense of this, you can simply spin these webs of Light out into your world; it need not be limited to your neighborhood, nor to people you know. Do this with the intent that the subtle connections of energy that naturally exist between all of us be filled with Light and "tied to the trunk", so to speak, that is, attuned to the compassion and love within the Sacred. The idea is to support the arising of compassion organically and naturally within people's hearts. You can't make anyone be compassionate, and you wouldn't want to (that would be an act of coercion, not compassion), but you can intentionally add your energy and thought to strengthening the lines of loving support that can weave between us and that bring compassion into the subtle environments in which we live and act.

In time you may find yourself naturally and automatically radiating these supportive lines of Light throughout your environment, to animals, plants, and objects as well as people. It primes the subtle environment to be responsive to compassionate and loving actions should an emergency arise.

I'm in the process of creating a free Subtle Activism Starter Kit, which consists of a small PDF booklet with some ideas and instructions on one way to do subtle activism, plus two audio files. One is an example of a specific subtle activism meditation I did with a group recently on behalf of the Gulf oil spill and the other is an example of a more generic subtle activism meditation. You will find the link below as well as posted on our website. If you go there and find it empty, come back in a day or so. As I say, I'm still working on completing it.

Snow is falling, community is breathing -- by Chris Corrigan

BC coast seen from Bowen: photo D. Millar

Bowen Island is 20 square miles of rock lying two miles off the west coast of Canada. It is home to 3700 people, three mountains, two valleys, four lakes, about 15 beaches, two species of salmon, one village and me and my family.

Excerpts from Bowen Island Journal and Bowen Island Ourselves:

Light flurries as I leave the island for my last trip of the year. If you are worried about the road conditions, have a look at the Road Status Map, and update your section to gift information to your neighbours.

13 Dec 09 -- Last night a lovely community gathering at the Library, where 100 of us gathered to hold a candlelight vigil in support of the global call for a real deal on climate change. Caitlin organized the whole thing and she and Aine spoke. Aine talked about the need for world leaders, especially older ones, to make decisions with their grandchildren in mind so that they can tap into the perspective of the youth who are to inherit what we leave for them. The choir sang Dona Nobis Pacem and I helped the group in a rousing rendition of With my own two hands, the great Ben Harper song [click to listen - lyrics here]. We even added an improvised verse, being islanders:

We stand with Tuvalu
With our own two hands
They're an island too
With our own two hands
They're sinking into the blue
With our two hands, we support them with our own two hands.

Pacific Islanders unite!

How a small community organizes

(from the Bowen Island Ourselves online forum)

NYTimes 12 Sep -- Athens on the Net “crowdsourcing”: put citizens’ policy ideas on the Internet and allow them to vote on one another’s proposals. Bowen Island forum is created.

Sally Freeman 15 Oct -- posted a Great Bear Rainforest video.

22 Oct -- twitter to discuss Official Community Plan and later on, Transition Towns.

Paul Rickett 30 Nov -- ideas from Chris Alexander, A Pattern Language.

Richard Smith 3 Dec -- more people idling in the ferry line up this morning (10:30 ferry, you know who you are...). And I picked up garbage on Adams' Road.

Brenda McLuhan 6 dec -- new island group True Green urges managed growth, higher density.

Fitch Cady 9 Dec -- I think we can speculate on future waves of immigration to the island till the two or three cows (that actually enjoy rural living here) come home. Let’s get a nice big clearly color-coded map of what’s already grandfathered - occupied and unoccupied - up on the internet.

James Glave 19 Dec -- video of ferry lineup, requesting drivers to turn off motors.

Suzanne Schoegl 20 Dec -- a potential locum [replacement] MD is interested in working on Bowen from January until May. One of the hurdles is accommodation.

Chris Corrigan 2 Jan 2010 -- a half day Open Space conversation on "What does Green mean for Bowen?"

*****

See also Chris' Bowen pictures on flickr.com

Oaxaca Mexico - environmental conference 19-23 Feb 2009

Oaxacan traditional costumes: photo by Teyacapan
Rolene Walker of Walk With Earth announces a conference for grass roots environmentalists in southern Mexico, in collaboration with the Universidad de la Tierra. She writes,

"It will be February 19 to 23rd in Oaxaca. On Thursday we will have a couple of speakers, On Friday will be site visits to permaculture, water treatment, waste management, and reforestation sites. There will also be presentations by the enviromentalists on Mayan medicine, women´s cooperatives, reforestation projects, preservation of corn seed varieties. Saturday and Sunday there will be workshops and booths by the different organizations, including demonstrations on building dry toilets, alternative energy supplies (solar, biodigesters), rain cachement systems, etc. It will be in a local park, and open to the public. We are inviting groups from 50 organizations outside Oaxaca and all the groups in Oaxaca City. Most of these groups can´t pay for this kind of conference, so Walk With Earth has agreed to pay $5,000.00 US for ground transportation and food for people coming from out of town. Universidad de la Tierra is providing lodging in a local church and with families. WWE has decided it is so valuable to do this conference, that even if it means we have to cut the walk short by a couple of months, it is worth it. It is so exciting to be part of this conference, to let them see how much is going on in southern Mexico, and that they have much to teach the rest of the world.

"Oaxaca is the most advanced area in ecological terms I have seen in Mexico or the United States. There is an indigenous community that has planted 475,000 trees, and aims for a million. There are 20,000 "dry" toilets that separate urine from excrement, use them for fertilizer and compost, and eliminate the need for new sewers. They have a great public transportation system that uses big buses, small buses, vans and collective taxis. There are solar panels and windmills. A trash company in Morelos handles 1000 tons of trash a day and recycles 79%, selling the inorganic stuff to different vendors, the PET plastic they make into thread that can be used to manufacturer things, and uses bacteria from Colombia to make compost of the organic stuff (including disposable baby diapers) in one months time. Most importantly, there are eighteen indigenous cultures that still treat the earth as sacred space."

If you are interested in more information, email Rolene. If you can help with the expenses of the conference, you can make a contribution via Paypal on the website www.walkwithearth.org. See also Wikipedia article, LABD, LANIC on Oaxaca.

Hometown security - a review of Pat Murphy's Plan C

Megan Quinn of The Community Solution speaks of her visit to Cuba, Peak Oil, the opportunity to create the communities we want, warning we must move to a low-energy lifestyle, that biofuels will not save us.


Pat Murphy, Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change (Gabriola Island B.C., New Society Publishers, 2008).

Civilization as we know it is coming to an end – a good thing, Gandhi might say. Personal recycling will never solve the climate crisis. Even if Americans reduced garbage to zero, they could not achieve the reduction of CO2 by 80% by 2050 needed to stop disastrous global warming (see Bill McKibben's 350.org).

Plan A is business as usual, the quickest route to ecosystem collapse. Plan B is the dream of a green technological fix without giving up infinite growth and consumerism. Plan C is for “curtailment and community" (radically deep cuts in consumption, and a cooperative, convivial post-carbon way of life). Plan D is die-off, nature's answer to any species that exceeds the earth's carrying capacity. Murphy takes this possibility seriously, but his is not a World Without Us exultation about Gaia's revenge on sinful humanity. Pat Murphy is a former computer whiz in aerospace and energy, builder of energy efficient homes, co-writer and producer of the documentary Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. As director of CommunitySolution.org since 2003 he has been urging Americans to deal with peak oil and climate change. Plan C is also a manifesto of the rapidly growing (re)localization movement, aka permaculture, post-carbon, food security (CSA), transition towns, eco-villages.

Not an easy read, his book crunches the numbers from recent scientific studies. It is superbly indexed, for those who need access to the statistics. For instance, world per capita CO2 emission is about 4 tonnes/year, which must be reduced to less than one tonne by 2050. But the average American produces 19.61 tonnes and our level is rising fast! Data in chapters 5 and 6 demolish the consumerist illusions of tech fixes. Mechanized agriculture needs 10 boe (barrel of oil equivalents) to produce 1 calorie; a generation ago it used 1/5 boe per calorie. New green buildings? “too big, very expensive, one-of-a-kind, architect designed,” needed are retrofits and radical cuts beyond mere conservation. He tells the sad story of the Energy Star thermostat – energy-efficient it was not. The private car? A dodo. The fuel cell (flex, hybrid, electric, hydrogen) has been “10 years away for 35 years” -- a mirage. Biofuels, solar, wind, hydrogen-electric, nuclear, cannot solve the coming energy shortage, nor the oxymorons of sustainable development, Zero Energy buildings (50% not 0%), clean coal, and CSS which he calls “carbon bequestration”.

Consider writing this clause into your will: to my darling children. I, being of unsound mind, leave to you my personal legacy of 3,000,000 pounds of CO2 and a few hundred thousand pounds of plastic, glass and miscellaneous toxins; guard them well. And I also leave you a few hundred pounds of plutonium. Be particularly careful with the plutonium. Think of me and remember I loved you even though it may not look that way.

We must also abandon our addiction to fossil fuels, the religion of economic growth, consumerism and rising inequity at home and abroad. The American way of life and Peak Empire have brought us war, hatred, free trade as a rationale for controlling weaker nations, a fortress mentality, recurring world financial and energy crises. Plans A and B guarantee they will continue.

What then must we do? Chapter 13 on "food health and survival" can be summed up in Michael Pollan's advice: don't eat too much, avoid processed foods, eat organic and mostly plants. More to the point, it shows in detail how our habits of production, transportation, cooking and nutrition must be transformed. And in the coming mindshift, community must replace consumerism. Learn from Cuba and Kerala, which provide high education levels, food security and free healthcare.

Values of novelty, comfort, convenience, ease, fashion, indulgence, luxury and competition... must give way to different values such as cooperation, temperance, prudence, moderation, conviviality and charity... those who desire to make the transition successfully with minimal risk must start now to toughen and strengthen themselves physically and psychologically for difficult times to come such people would be more compared to live in a future that is poorer in material goods but richer in spiritual, psychological and community benefits.

Kick the media habit, urges Chapter 15, pointing out how our entertainment teaches consumption, competition and violence, dumbs us down, protects us from reality, and nourishes our illusions:

• America's military superiority is a source of pride....
• Our suffering is most important...
• Patriots are willing to fight... shame on any who disagree.
• Might makes right (if we can take it, it's ours).

Housing (currently responsible for 39% of US CO2): cut heat loss and wasteful appliances, insulate, share space, and retrofit. Chapter 10 has a whole panoply of suggestions. Chapter 11 on transportation argues that mass transit and bicycles, though desirable, cannot meet the challenge of US sprawl; it proposes computerized rideshares, a “smart jitney” which already exists in several parts of the world (for instance, zipcar.com). It would not have scheduled routes, but operate anywhere anytime and anyplace, and allow persons to input preferences, e.g. women could request rides with other women. Murphy meets concerns about security, safety and privacy. What must change is the car culture of power, speed, force – and road rage.

Chapters 16-17 suggest steps toward hometown and neighborhood security: by localizing food, power generation, manufacturing, investment and banking. Quality of life must replace quantity. What are the characteristics of this new low-energy lifestyle?

- community...assumes friendliness
- a feeling of belonging, being at home
- gardening, studies, the arts
- unity and cohesion: people assume they will be cared for if they are in need of help
- mutual concern and mutual assistance: as the fossil economy wanes, a large non-cash sector will emerge
- civic responsibility, joint ownership, shared tasks and bees
- celebrations, traditions and rituals

Though Plan C quotes recent studies by policy wonks, this closing vision is reminiscent of Marge Peircy's novel Woman on the Edge of Time (1976).

Other classics of the localization movement:
EF Schumacher Small Is Beautiful (1973), Wendell Berry The Unsettling of America (1977) and "The idea of a local economy" (online, 2001), Bill Mollison Designer's Manual (1988), Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel Looking Forward (1991), John Kortzman Building Cities from the Inside Out (1997), Richard Douthwaite Short Circuit (1998), Colin Hines Localization (2000), Michael Shuman Going Local (2000), Christopher and Dolores Nyerges Extreme Simplicity (2002), Jim Merkel Radical Simplicity (2003), Daniel Holmgren Permaculture (2003 or online), Bill McKibben Deep Economy (2004), this Richard Heinberg Powerdown (2005), James Kunstler The Long Emergency (2005) and his novel World Made by Hand (2008), Michael Pollan The Omnivore' s Dilemma (2006), Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy (2006), Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon The 100 Mile Diet (2007), Rob Hopkins The Transition Handbook (2008 or on wiki), Chris Carlsson Nowtopia (2008), Andrew Simms From the Ashes of the Crash (2008), Lyle Estill Small Is Possible (2008), Lisa M. Hamilton Deeply Rooted (forthcoming). Orion magazine articles. See also "bioregionalism" by Great River, Wikipedia, and resources at ecofeminism.net, ibiblio.org and worldchanging.com

Breaking promises of international aid

Millenium Development Goals: courtesy of YMCA International

Canada, France and Italy are threatening to break their poverty promises by slashing aid budgets. Sign the Avaaz petition to stop them -- and poverty expert Jeff Sachs will deliver our messages to world leaders gathered at the UN this week!

World leaders gather this Thursday at the United Nations to renew the fight against extreme poverty. But three leaders -- Sarkozy, Harper, and Berlusconi -- are threatening to undermine the world's anti poverty efforts, by slashing their development aid budgets and breaking their international promises.

France, Canada, and Italy promised to contribute 0.7% of national income to help the world's poor reach Millenium Development Goals -- aid money that would save millions of lives, and still leave these donor countries with 99.3% of their money. But apparently, our rightwing leaders think 99.3% is not enough for the world's rich.

Our best chance to make them keep their word on aid delivery is to raise the alarm in New York this week. Noted economist and creator of Millenium Villages in Africa Jeffrey Sachs will deliver the Avaaz petition in speeches to the assembled heads of state at the UN summit this Thursday.

See also:
Millenium Villages Project, UN official blog on the High-Level Event on MDGs, the ultra-right John Birch Society's attack on MDGs and foreign aid, IISD's unofficial but detailed reports from the UN event. Official UNDP news.

Gleaners supply food banks - NY Times

Gleaners deliver to seniors in Berkeley CA Following is a digest of the full text in NYT 14 Sep 08:

The concept of gleaning, leaving a portion of crops for the needy, goes back to Biblical times. Natasha Boissier started North Berkeley Harvest, which collects fruit and delivers it to food banks and senior centers. She noticed the fruit-bearing trees in her neighbours' yards — and how much wound up on the ground. “There was all this fruit going to waste,” she said of the apples, pears and plums in her midst. “It seemed like such a natural way to deal with hunger.”

She is one of many urban gleaners, volunteers who gather surplus fruit and donate it to food banks, centers for the elderly and other nonprofit organizations. “Farmers' markets are great for those who can afford to spend $2 on a peach,” said Aviva Furman of Community Harvest in Seattle. “But a huge percentage of Americans can’t afford the two cups of fruit a day recommended by the government.” In Silicon Valley, Village Harvest uses sophisticated databases and remote telephone answering systems to track the group’s 700 or so volunteers, 1,000 homeowners who report when fruit is ready to be gleaned, and those who receive it: 40 seniors' centers and food banks. “You feel like you’re actually doing something,” sats one volunteer gleaner. “You pick a piece of fruit and know that someone’s going to eat it.” Pickers form something like an internet-driven instant mob: “Their speed is astonishing,” says a local food bank director. “They’ll call and say, ‘Hey, we’re hitting an orchard in San Jose.’ Then they walk in with 1,000 pounds of plums.” The fruit is fresh, and highly nutritious. “It’s really about tying the community together.” In Los Angeles, three “social activist” artists who call themselves Fallen Fruit mapped neighborhood free-fruit zones -- alleys, sidewalks and parking medians -- leaflet neighbours with harvestable treesm and sponsor public “fruit jams”. At the Bay Area Rescue Mission in Richmond CA, Roy Hunderson, homeless for four years, prepares meals in the kitchen. “The fresher the fruit, the better it is,” Mr. Hunderson said. “If I had a backyard with fruit going, I’d bring it here too.”

Feeding America, a nonprofit that supplies more than 200 US food banks around the country, has introduced fresh produce to respond to lack of access to nutritional food in low-income neighborhoods -- 150 million pounds a year. It is well-known that ghetto stores charge more for lower quality food. And Rick Bella, the director of food purchasing, regrets the skewed priorities of the commercial market: "...a package of Twinkies per pound costs a lot less than a pound of fresh apples” !

Back in World War II the private garden became “a place of civic obligation,” says Amy Bentley, an associate professor of food studies at New York University and the author of Eating for Victory. That spirit may be returning.

In Alberta - by David Millar

This morning after the storm the air smelled of sweetgrass. Big sky, flat earth from here to Mexico, home of fundamentalist religions of all kinds, bastion of the cowboy culture (since the 1880s cattle drives, this province has always been an outpost of Texas).

Man is an exclamation mark in an ocean of air. We are on the third prairie level, the shortgrass plain. To get here, you start in the black gumbo around Lake Winnipeg and the Dakotas, or in the Mississippi Valley. Next step is the Missouri breaks, a line of cliffs and badlands, through which you arrive in the breadbasket, the high grass prairie, fertile wheat and corn lands that stretch from Saskatchewan south to Nebraska. Just throw in the seeds and jump back. But the third level should never have been plowed. Low rainfall, buffalo grass (that curly grass like a bison's coat). Cattle country. Oil country. Country of cowboy boots, the ultimate deterrent to ordinary walking.

In town, the first thing you notice is the architecture. Stucco boxes. False fronts. Usefulness trumps beauty. (Exception: 90-year old clapboard houses, prefabs shipped in on the railway when lumber was cheap. Pure arts & crafts style, humble and well-proportioned, now surrounded by tall trees and gardens.) On main street: unmuffled pickup trucks, motorcycles, SUVs, ATVs, personal tractors, all the machines that you need to dominate the endless earth, the overarching sky, to protect yourself from wind and rain and cold. Wide clean avenues, parking lots the size of a quarter-section. Every place you go, you must drive. We're back in the 50s, when gas was going to last forever. It is an oilfull world, where God makes the good, wealthy. Pedestrians, natives and cyclists are immediately suspect. Treehuggers. Subversive, possibly criminal, sympathizers with that Nature which is still alien, unconquered, vaguely threatening.

Don't get me wrong, these are good people. They save for the future, say hello to strangers, care for their aged, go to church, volunteer. And how they volunteer! It's not the state, but neighbors that hold things together here. They have bake sales, fix up the parks, raise money for the hospital, send aid to the Third World. And they work hard at it. A life made up, less of belief, than of good habits.

But having to live like your parents is teenage hell. The only escape is booze at bush parties, doing wheelies in the grass or snow, drugs: cocaine, crystal meth, oxycontin, ecstasy, special K. And the oil boom pays for it all. And some die.

There are oases. Wherever water gleams, a little ecosystem. Birds, wildlife, fish, living at the mercy of the bulldozer.

There are a few who ask questions. A few who think that the invisible hand of the market is not the hand of God. Who talk to the natives. Who listen to the land. Who are thinking seven generations ahead. Who as I write this, are organizing house parties to discuss the tar sands. A few artists: Alex Janvier, with his visions of a chief's son; Joe Fafard, immortalizing cows and men in tractor caps. Poets, musicians. They are ignored until recognized somewhere else, in some big city.

Having lived on the prairies for almost 20 years, I started to write this about Alberta -- seen nostalgically and with new eyes -- of the exile returning. But aside from the land, the place (I suddenly realize) is almost any white North American suburb, writ large.

See Sierra Club - Tar Sands Time Out house parties.
Websites of Alex Janvier and Joe Fafard. Joe is actually from Saskatchewan.