Protecting our Lifeways

Lushness and Complexities

 In Jan and Feb 2012 I visited the Zamora river basin for two months, to live with and learn from the indigenous Shuar people lifeways of sustainability.  While I was there, the peace, stillness, and incredible biodiversity of the region melted into my heart.  Going through my life there with a canopy above me, banana trees beside me - laughing at my size, the river rushing below me, the clouds about my shoulders, and the insects in my ears I found that a path of balance is possible.  In the beauties of the lifeway there, I encountered divinity.  In the hardships of the life, I encountered my human self.  People have been living in this land for thousands of years, and yet it remains as thus for me today, an incredible concept for someone from Europe.  

During my stay the quiet strength of the place became regularly interrupted by helicopters surveying the area in development of plans for an open pit copper mine (though I didn't know that's what they were for at the time).  The sound of the helicopters could be heard far off, and then they would arrive, flying so close you could almost see the people in the cockpit, back and forth across the valley.  The old ones would look, bow their heads, and get more quiet.  The young ones would run about yelling and pointing.  There was general ill at ease.  And then, without any explanation, the copter was off, another one to come again a few days later, and a few days later....

There are complexities at play in the developing world, where the race to join a global economic community demands product or industry for export, and where a lack of developed industry leaves nothing but raw materials to offer a hungry and impatient market.  While local communities love and appreciate the earth they live in just as I did while I was there, they also want access to schooling, technology, and opportunity just as we have in the West.  What I have come to feel from my time there is that different knowledge bases and lifeways have much to offer each other.  As we in the West seek to re-green our living spaces, to move into sustainable housing and energy production, and to redevelop ourselves in relationship to the land, the indigenous peoples have much to teach us.  As the indigenous peoples seek to share their knowledge with the world, they require effective tools for doing so, and the same opportunity to re-imagine new lifeways. 

The sort of industry of the past, which exploits the earth for raw materials in order to build and profit, is industry which is dirty, harmful, and without a long term future.  If we can set precedent with the mining industry in Ecuador, that exchange must honour first the earth and her peoples, then a model for future exchange has room to grow.  As the treasures of the Amazon are sought out more and more, we can say no to corporate pillaging, and yes to shared creation of new sustainable models for housing, schooling, healing/healthcare, community, and work.

Raping the Land

From my time in Ecuador, these photos show the beauty and richness of The Cordillera de Condor.  This land sits in the vicinity of the proposed mine and will be directly affected by it.   

This is what it's like to live inside this land.  

This is how an open pit copper mine ravishes the land.

Bingham Canyon Mine, Arizona

The Mirador Open Pit Copper Mine is set to be the deepest open pit copper mine in the world. The Bingham Canyon Mine, pictured above, is the largest open pit copper mine so far at a depth of at 1.2 kilometres deep. Mirador is set to be 1.25 kilometres deep and 4 kilometres across.

Bingham County Mine - Ariel View- Ren Shore

This is an ariel view of the Bingham County Mine - note the perspective of the site to the fields around it.  As a mine of this size the Mirador Mine would most assuredly displace the local population, permanently damage the 5,000 acres of land required to build the mine, and poison the water sources of not only the locals, but many more as The Cordillera de Condor is at the headwaters of the River Amazon.  

More on open pit mining.    The Mirador Mine factsheet.

Against the wishes of the Ecuadorian people and the Shuar Nation who inhabits El Cordilliera de Condor, the government of Ecuador signed a contract with investors Corriente Resources of Canada and mining co. CRCC Resources Tongguan of China to move ahead with the mine. 

In March of 2012 the indigenous people of Ecuador marched over 400 kilometres from the mine site in Zamorra to Quito, over two weeks, to show protest to this decision. This autumn, concerned members came together to push for legal action and bring international awareness to the situation.  At this time legal action has been filed in Quito.  On Tuesday the case was submitted to the courts re The Rights of Nature and the decision whether or not to proceed is now in the hands of the courts. We will get an answer within the week. 

The second case will be held in Zamorra on Feb 4th and this one is against the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If it is not accepted then the case will go to the International Court in Costa Rica who ruled against the Government this last April. 
We aim to get our petitions to the appointed judges and government officials before Feb 4th.

A call from the Shuar was put out this summer.  These people are ready to put their lives on the line for the earth and their community.  Let's not allow another corporate travesty in our developing world.  Let us stand with them.

  

Activism and Linked Communities of Power

Here I would like to speak to activism as clearly embedded in local ecology.

The ecology of a community organism includes the emotional health and happiness of individuals in the community, connection of the community to the land and her resources, and flow between the community and the world's global sites - ecological concerns.  

When we fall deeply in love with any local manifestation, we become woven into the lifeways of that system, and as such share a responsibility for its total ecology.  Demonstration and petition by the developed West is vital to the health of local communities in all developing nations, in this way we form linked communities of power.  

Speaking to the global stretch toward modernity and progress, it is important to be out about our collective fears of being pushed back to the tribe - where life is simpler, harder, slower, where our access to change, communication, and the wider world can feel limited.  In short our fears of the natural world, of being confined to local spaces, and all that indigenous belonging represents.  These fears are false.

Love is not limited.  Our new lifeways must necessarily emerge in harmony with the land. Our technologies will not be abandoned, but will be put to better use.  People will continue to travel the world in communities small and large, and as individuals between communities, as they have always done. Do not be afraid of falling in love with communities again and again and again, of attending to the ecology of all that you love, and of championing the local wherever you may find yourself.  My life, your life, here in the West, is intimately tied to the local life of all indigenous peoples, and for me especially, the Shuar in Ecuador.  

From my heart to yours -  sign the petition started by local communities in Ecuador
And the Avaaz petition here.

And keep a look out for further action to take.  More petitions are to come.  A film is being produced to heighten awareness at the international level.  The people of Ecuador are marching and preparing for war.  And hundreds of light workers are in a constant state of meditation on this matter.  

These things together will pressure the governing bodies of Ecuador to protect the Nature within her boundaries and the people who inhabit that Nature.  

Thank you for being hearts in action.  

Protect Ecuador

The Council of Canadians supports the protection of Earth and her peoples in Ecuador.
Solidarity supports the protection of Earth and her peoples in Ecuador.
The International Federation for Human Rights supports the protection of Earth and her peoples in Ecuador.
CONAIE supports the protection of Earth and her peoples in Ecuador. 
The Citizens of Quito support the protection of Earth and her peoples in Ecuador.

Full Harvest

Happy Halloween!  Samhain, ancient evening to remember those who have come before us, who have passed through the ecstasies and the shadows of this human condition, whose knowledge and power is available.  A reminder to witness and harness that power. Ohm.  

On this day I tire of endless conversations regarding the shadow.  I rest in light. Soaking up peace, where truth and harmony are wound as sheepswool in the yarn of our story where 'everything is all right, everything is just fine'.  Remembering Ecuador, where dirt roads full of potholes lead to wild untamed beauty and broken flower pots produce glorious flowers.  

Explication dissolves.  Here, some beautiful photos from my neighbourhood at the end of summer, as fall presses herself into the bosom of the earth...  

Peace~

Cracking Seeds

Radish seeds

The seed of the heart yearns to be cracked open, receive water, sprout and grow roots.  Each of us will find our own path or paths to cracking open the heart. When it happens it can feel scary, ebullient, joyous, crazy, difficult, and strange.  If we are lucky, it is a slow process which pries the tissues of the self with gentle nudges until a nice open space seems to emerge from nowhere.
  
Sometimes, it is sudden.  This is truly a year for sudden openings, and I have witnessed several in the past few weeks.  

One of my friends was actually sectioned after going out in public following intensive meditation.  Filled to the brim with a happiness he could neither contain nor describe he did indeed appear crazy, wandering around offering smiles and hugs and good wishes to all he met.  Because he wasn't aware of the dis-congruency of his state with modern confinements to the human condition, he perhaps made choices that led to a bizarre hospitalisation. Known as a serious meditator to all his friends, he reached out, and they responded in droves to help him.  He has now been released and is actively working to tell his story and inform people of the difference between so called 'spiritual emergencies' and actual mental disorders. 

Prior to being released Raaz was asked to participate in an exhibition at the Tate Modern involving visual monitoring of meditative states. Monitors hooked up to persons in deep states of meditation displayed graphs of nueronal activity: the information was processed in such a way as to trigger different sound and visual images upon the walls.  Shadows of visitors projected themselves onto the same walls and an incredible installation of livetime neuronal activity and empathic nervous system mapping 'happened'. :D  

Here is a link to Raaz's awareness and support group. To contact Raaz regarding his experience please email him here.  

Yucca seeds

As mentioned previously, this friend is not the only one with such an experience in the past few weeks.  If you, or anyone you know, is experiencing an opening in the heart or any level of the self, here are some tips for you.

How do you know if what you are experiencing is real?  
       If you are experiencing it then it is real to you.  Managing the experience is key as this will assist you to keep a foot in both worlds as you learn to navigate your new landscapes.  

What does cracking open feel like?

      I experience opening shifts as large waves of shaking energies moving down my spine.  They cause me to jerk, as when you are first falling asleep, or to tremble.  Sometimes I get waves of hot or cold sensations throughout my body, my eyes begin to perceive different shades of sharpness/contrast/colour/pattern in the world around me, or I drift off into mild trance states.  Tingling sensations are common among my students, as are sensations of aching or rolling through the muscle tissues.  Some people experience vivid wakefulness while others feel the need to eat or sleep a great deal more.  Depending on the history of your body and the schemata within your mind your experience will shape itself accordingly.  

Is it wise or recommended to try to induce openings in self-perception-sensation?
     Opening cannot be forced.  Nothing will open until it is good and ready to do so.  If you are desirous of such an experience then just relax and appreciate yourself and your life, knowing that the paths which suit your journey will present themselves when you are ready for them.  

When I am in the midst of a big opening what skills help me to manage it over the ebb and flow of its duration?

1. Track your nervous system as you experience, by following sensations of hot, cold, tingling, ache, itchiness, pulsing, rushing, etc.  Don’t direct or respond to it but let it rise, climax and move through in its own timing.  Sensation happens in the sensory-motor and parasympathetic-sympathetic feedback loops of the nervous system: when we allow them space to complete their cycles, natural integration can happen.    
2. Be absolutely totally still as often as you need during or between opening sessions.  Wrap yourself in a blanket and focus on your stillness, observe it and hang out with it as a good friend, allow yourself to be recuperated.
3. Surround yourself with community, people who know and trust you and vice versa.  Place being with them as a priority.  Share your experiences when appropriate and ask for help when needed.  
4. Choose a path with a history.  Get to know its teachers and its past, and allow that sense of continuity to ground you. Keep that continuity going in your own body through a regular practice connected to your path.          *If* your path appears to be one of modern invention, search it out a little deeper.  People have been opening since we began, and much of our journeys are traceable at least back to the first cave paintings if not longer. You are not alone.  

dandelion 'gone to seed'

Eckhart Toole writes "Although body-identification is one of the most basic forms of ego, the good news is that it is also the one that you can most easily go beyond.  This is not done by trying to convince yourself that you are not your body, but by shifting your attention from the external form of your body and from thoughts about your body-beautiful, ugly, strong, weak, too fat, too thin-to the feeling of aliveness inside it. No matter what your body's appearance is on the outer level, beyond the outer form it is an intensely alive energy field." and also "Body awareness anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego." A New Earth 2005 pages 52-53

sunflowers Luddesdown UK

Always check your inner state

with the lord of your heart.

Copper doesn't know it's copper,

until it's changing into gold.

Your loving doesn't know majesty,

until it knows its helplessness.  

-Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi-

Shifting Magnetisms

We've heard alot in the past year about the end of time.  Indeed, the past year saw the rise and forward thrust of the Occupy movement, which gave voice to concerns which have been fermenting for decades.  Studies of the earths changes, climate shift, and our human role in it have been prominent in popular discourse since the 1980's at least.  A topic that often comes up in these conversations, and what I would like to focus attention on today, is the shifting of the earths magnetic poles.

According to some very good science the earths magnetic poles shift their charge from north to south and back again at regular, though unpredictable intervals. While the actual moment of shift may itself take only a moment, a weakening of the earths outer magnetic field occurs for 60-80 thousand years prior to a shift and then re-establishes itself within just a few thousand years of the tip of the scales. The last shift geologists speak of with confidence happened 780,000 years ago.  

nasa.gov - link to full article

My simplified understanding of process of pole reversal is that as the overall magnetic field of the earth weakens the outer charge begins to fall in on itself, mixing with the charge of the inner core.  A period of discoherence then ensues during which time the magnetic field is dispersed in pockets around the surface of the earth.  The physical placement of the poles begin to separate and multiple locations emerge.  Eventually the inner and outer charges of the earth trade places, and the magnetic poles realign themselves at opposite ends of the planet.  For a fantastic computer simulation of this process please see Projects in Scientific Computing.  

One thing that is interesting about the current changing of the poles is the hot spot at the Southern tip.  See this image from 2005 for a visual description Hot Spot.  For some reason the magnetic field is increasing in strength at the south pole, and in my survey of literature on the topic no reason is given.  I do know that in Polarity Therapy, the healing modality which I am trained in and had a practice in for six years, the southern pole of the human body is the one in which grounding of magnetic charges occurs.  As therapists, when we open and ground the south pole of the client, alignment within the energy fields happens in a fashion which is less likely to reactivate the trauma history.  I find this to be an interesting correlation, though not conclusive.  

"Polarity Therapy is truly a complimentary science. It recognises that energy has to move from a positive to a negative pole, through a neutral field - a concept which was applied by Dr Stone to the human constitution.

This scientific 'law' is fundamental to the movement of energy throughout the Universe and the Earth around us: it manifests in our physical body as energetic currents, which Dr Stone referred to as the 'Wireless Anatomy of Man'." polarity.tk 

Below is a chart, written and drawn by Dr. Randolph Stone, the founder of Polarity Therapy.  It depicts the electromagnetic energy forces which comprise the human.  Notice here the holographic similarity between microcosm and macrocosm, and how the ultrasonic core balances the outer toroidal shape just as the inner magnetic pulse of the earth balances the outer polarity of north and south. 

There is alot of apocalyptic hype about the shifting of the poles and how this dovetails with changes in the long count on the mayan calendar.  The conflation of magnetic shifts, the mayan calendar, and very real climate changes caused by human displacement of fossil fuels puts these elements into a conversation with each other that can lead to dire predictions.  

Because I grew up in California, where every other person talks to angels, sings with whales, and uses crystals for divination, I have a healthy skepticism for drastic spiritual pronouncements.   What I can testify to, based on my own observations, is that there are profound shifts happening both geologically over immense periods of linear time and immediately in the way we experience ourselves, and this necessitates a healthy attention...  a grounded attention which is filled with a sense of gratitude that changes are possible, and perhaps even initiated by physical forces to which we are simply responding. If these changes happen now, when we most need to realign our hearts with the resources of our planet and with each other, this is good timing.
  
Following is a video based on the teachings of Don Alejandro, a leader of the Maya of Guatemala.

If our elders who remember our distant past say that the sun will go dark for 30 hours then I will keep that in the back of my mind, I will tell my children and my friends, and if it does happen, then I will recognise it in the moment and respond with an appropriate quietness.  

Like the ayahuasca ceremony, we wait through the long night, attending to the love within us, and in the morning receive the sun into ourselves.  It is the same with the peyote ceremony of the North American brothers and sisters, who walk out of the darkness to receive the morning sun, who sing to the divine mother and the cleansing of her waters as the long awaited light returns.  Death, rebirth, and seasonality do happen along axis lines and points, and we have been here to say hello to each cycle but for a moment.   

For more information on polarity therapy and how it functions please see this informative article by my friend and colleague Graham Whiteman: The Polarity Principle of Unity

Full academic references for pole reversal discussions can be found at Valet et. al (2005) Nature 435, p. 802-805 and Knudsen et. al (2008) Earth and Planetary Science Letters 272, 1-2, p. 319-329 

Utilities

Today is the new moon.  A time for seeding what will come to pass in the fullness of the moon two weeks from now.  As we enter autumn, this is also a time to relish the end of summer and look ahead to the darkness of approaching winter.  Cycles upon cycles from micro to macro whisper ends and beginnings in this moment.  I wax poetic, and laugh hysterically at myself in the same moment...

Recently I went to visit a Native American elder of the Chippewa Tribe.  We discussed many things including parenting, the society and politics, ceremonial means and ends, and individual lifeways.  At this life juncture, when I am finishing my PhD writing, looking back on a year of intense travel and activism, burning with desire to create the work and life which is most beautiful to me, the ways of the Red Road are marvellously useful.   

The Red Road is the way of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.  They have an enormous and rich set of cosmologies and lifeways.  Their storytelling tradition is one of the best living oral traditions on the planet.  And their dances are bold and direct.  They advocate a practical path and tend not to mess around with platitudes, they are grounded and very real.  And for me, this is invaluable to balancing a personality that is opulent, artistic, emotional, privileged, and generally western.  It gives to me sense, as in mindfulness, to balance the natural strength of my other seven senses*.  And so I am at peace.  I drink coffee, I sleep in, but I also meditate, and I've quit smoking, and I take enormous amounts of time to listen to my children.  Our ideas can bind us, and in the red road we ask not whether an idea fits into our doctrines or philosophies or spiritual conformities, we ask whether it helps us to live a beautiful and honest life of love.  We look directly at ourselves, and as we are honest with what we see, we laugh, take courage, and laugh again, for we are the most paradoxical creatures in 622 galaxies at least!  And the most celebrated as well, for we are very beautiful when we come to.  And grounded in the earth, love finds a nesting place.  I am thankful for the red road.  I am thankful for the sacrifices this path would have me make, for the clear mind that it brings to me, for the shining star that I am next to the billions here... 

And in linking things up, there is an important Mevlevi teaching which is also about 'staying awake'.  As we whirl within the ceremony we constantly attend to the circumstances which surround us: the space between ourselves and the other semazens, the timing and quality of the musical selection, the sensation of our robes/atmospheres/floor surfaces etc, the directions of the sheikh and semazenbashi, the images and workings of our own hearts.  In attending to these details we choose to stay present and awake to the moment at hand.  The opportunity is there to bliss out, to trance deeply, to fly, and yet we ride the wave of opportunity within the world around us.  We walk with two feet, in two worlds at once.  We walk this way, the people of the red road walk this way, and people have been walking thus since time immemorial.  Aho.  

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My experience of the senses thus far includes sight, sound, touch, taste, hearing, kinesthesia, and intuition.  What we consider to be senses will likely expand greatly over the next 10-20 years, in which case it will be impossible to name and number them.  At the current moment my understanding of the senses are changing and expanding rapidly....

Icaros

If I were to distill the last year and a half into one thought, one waveform which is shaping me, moulding the soles of my feet, it is this: Rhythm is Everything.  

There is a resonance which underlies the breath of life.  It is form and formless, cohering into nexuses of energy which then generate movement, or sound.  There is pattern to the coherence which expresses itself through all life.  

The ways in which we observe the pattern occur through the lenses available to each of our brain-bodies, resulting in the 10,000 things of zen philosophies or the multitude of manifest forms in Western esoteric traditions.  Some paint, some sing, some dance - some speak, some play, some teach - some _____.  The main point is that observation-expression is always undeniably creative.  This is what is called living the creative life, and it is available to all of us.  

Harmonic Resonance by Farb

Each nexus of waveforms that is every living thing draws initial resonance into itself, where it meets and is shaped by the histories and pathways of the life.  The resulting interference results in geometries of sound movement which are at once universal, in their impulse and connectivity, and unique, in their blueprinting and expression.  Levels of density express at differentiated frequencies, creating magnetism.  This magnetism draws likeness unto itself, forming groups.  Exchange within the groups further shapes and evolves frequencies and fields emerge.  Fields are stable over time yet continually evolving, allowing each living thing to rest within the shared patterns of the earth while continuing to individually draw down resonance.  Thus shared paths emerge.  In time, we view these as linear progression.  In space, as place.  In the mind, as thought trains or loops.  In the heart, as emotion.  Tides, flows, spirals, skate back over themselves deepening grooves which at once densify into codeable transmissible energies while always and constantly continuing to shift at subtle interfaces.  The basis of all expression is rhythm.  Rhythm is the horse upon which resonance comes to life.  

Untitled by Justin Totemical

When I was in Ecuador sound opened to me!  I have always been a dancer, sensing, feeling, moving rhythms through my bones.  I became big ears in Ecuador.  I learned to sing.

One night in ceremony my ears extended, they opened and spiralled out, and every sound was available overlapping in harmony.  Insect, upward thrust of plants, gentle mist, breeze, clods of dirt, logs heating and waiting to be burned, rise and fall of bodies breath, huff and heave of animal, hair follicles growing, spheres and angels.  A burning desire opened in me - to know the frequency which is this Hannah with fewer and fewer lenses - to observe in simplicity and detail the tone and lenses of all living things.  

Mevlevi Taksim by Sinan Dogan

The fire of our heart is fanned by the rhythm of our movement.  As its resonance becomes clear the flames grow high.  The songs of the shaman clear the fields, open the lenses of our histories.  As they sing the flames of the fire brighten.  The flames lick the frequency.  Hearts blend.  

Guacamayito by Mira Jempe and Janicka

There, as we built the lodge, hard work, we listened to alot of music!  Pure joy! Beautiful sharing of forms.  And the music provided a thrust which offset the silence, thus making the peace recognisable.  

We Have Arrived by Matt Kirk

Do you hear/see/sense rhythm in your dreams?  Whose dreams are these anyway? 

                                                                                                                          

"Forget everything which did not teach you how to dance." Rumi                   

"Tie yourself to herds of mating camels." Hafiz                                                 

Ayahuasca Vision by Skyer

"Pick up a musical instrument." Rumi                                         

Suns in August

Last weekend we slept on the roof in order to watch the Perseid meteor shower. Banks of fog hung in the sky, and so we had a small fire in the garden, burning paper trash and dried branches of garden trimmings, incense.  We found that if you take dried lilac blossoms and throw them on the fire they are a beautiful beautiful incense :)  On the roof, snuggled under duvets with the sound of many winds whispering in the trees, we looked at the sky.  As we watched the clear sky directly above us widened.  More stars appeared and the fog stayed in patches on the left and right.  As we lay there six large meteors streaked across the heavens!!  Wow. They were either luminous hot white or bold orange with neon yellow edges and they were HUGE.  Each spark lasted only a moment and yet the after wave lasted minutes as the energy surged through our vision and bodies.  Waking up in the morning, bright sun on the face, eyes in the blue, was delightful.

The Perseid meteor shower comes from the constellation Perseus.  A continual stream of comets surges from his heart, and it is at this time of year, when we rotate past his field, that we can observe the Perseids.  This time of year is a special time for the sun, and some of the oldest cultures on the earth date circa 1,000 BC as a time when the sun became prominent in our spiritual ways and means.  

  

Sunday night last I sat in contemplation and the crown on my head opened so that a large funnel of light rays began to flow in.  The were bright and expansive, as if it were the sun itself, and I  momentarily took a moment to let  my brain register this was happening.  Then I let go into the experience and just allowed the sun to wash through me, brightening my entire system until I too shone from the inside with the rays of light pouring into me.  It was spectacular!  The energy which followed lasted several days, and I was just very very zingy, even to point of drinking chamomile tea and remaining alert as ever - no coffee was needed for these couple of days!

The Dakini Sinhamukha
from 'The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation'

I contemplate at this time of year, I remember in my imagination and senses and pauses, the time as it cycles through humanity.  I think on the time when we began to domesticate animals, when women walked with lions, when the horse civilisations began to emerge, when the people of the red road gathered across Asia and walked across the Bering Straight into their new world.  I think on the times when the great temples and structures rose up across the earth, when the push and thrust of the sun directed us in our upward and organisational impulses.  I think of the rise of sun worship and the agricultural turn, our love and dependence on RA shaping our cosmologies and life ways.  And further back, I think on a time when the world was very young and we were not committed as souls to one form yet.  The glory and beauty of changing from an eagle to a tortoise to a rock to a water molecule as Gaia groaned and pushed to create her environment and its inhabitants!  And even then the tiny section of time all this is, the smallness of our own story, the vastness and endlessness of the unfolding mulitverses.  Wow.  

Solar Flare near Tekapo, New Zealnad July 2012

So in August, when the light is softening and the solar flares are strong in our visions, take time to rest and appreciate nature.  Remember the vastness of time and how the one split into the many so that events could unfold at their own frequencies.  Trust your remembering.

Sun!!!  

For last years post on the sun see: Sunshine