Right now the local utility company is chainsawing a lovely palm tree down at the edge of the canyon view lot I live on.

They’re killing it because it’s beginning to interfere with the utility pole. That pole holds my internet connection so it’s important to me.

So why do I feel a real sadness? The sound of the saw hurts me!

The tree is down and now they are cutting it up to get rid of it somehow.

I hate this.

I hate that the first thing they (we) think of is the tree has to go!

I know it would cost more to move the pole, but that would be my choice and I truly believe it is the right choice.

I don’t know when the palm was planted. I don’t know if it was planted deliberately or just grew there on it’s own.

I don’t know when the pole went in so I have no way of knowing if this killing could have been prevented by some forethought.

I can make a case that opening up that corner will actually be good for the other plants and trees. And it may be so. Pruning is often necessary.

I’m glad, and grateful for my internet connection. And I’ll probably quit noticing the gap, which is considerable, in a month or two.

My wish is that all beings be happy and free from fear.

Darn! I want to apologize not only to that palm but to all the other plant beings humans wantonly destroy.

When they’re done I’ll go down to the spot and do some sort of ritual to heal at least me.

Thanks for listening.

Love and blessings,

Today the U.S. Supreme Court began to, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “mull” over life sentences for juveniles.

What’s to mull? How in the world can putting juveniles in prison for life make any sense at all? Even if they’ve murdered someone?

In 2010 the court decided that putting them to death was indeed a bad idea. I was horrified that it had ever happened or even needed to be heard in this country which used to pride itself on progressive ideas. But at least the Supremes made it illegal.

The cases the court is deciding today both involve black boys who were 14 when the killings occurred. Do you remember what it was like to be 14 years old?

According to the Journal article, Alabama’s solicitor general, John Neiman responded to a question by Justice Kennedy, “”Retribution, Justice Kennedy, would be the primary goal, bringing society’s retributive force to bear on those who commit the worst sort of crimes.”

Retribution? Against 14 year-olds?

Whatever happened to rehabilitation? Whatever happened to forgiveness? Whatever happened to a sense of proportion, that the ‘punishment should fit the crime’? How about some compassion?

The same article states we have 2,300 juveniles in prision without the possibility of parole. As far as I’m concerned one is too many.

I don’t know any more than what I read about these two cases. I can’t imagine what the relatives of the victims must feel.

I am convinced however that retribution isn’t the answer.

How do we protect ourselves from kids? We address proactively the problems that make them crazy. We turn the other cheek and teach love not hate. We learn to stop racism and to provide as much real equal opportunity as we can figure out how to do – and then we do some more.

We work to protect black children as much as we work to protect white children. And we start that by admitting there is a problem – in Alabama, in Florida and in my own back yard right here in San Diego – everywhere in the country in fact.

I work to confront my own now largely unconscious racism and to spot the institutional racism that’s so hard to see. I also work for social justice, largely through presenting Awakening The Dreamer symposiums. I also talk about these issues with my friends and work to have friends that don’t look like me.

Each and every one of us can help restore sanity to this country if we get involved – if we register people to vote, if we insist our elected representatives from the most local to the very top act in rational ways. Call, write, and talk with each other.

What will you do?

Love and blessings,

Anthropologist Margaret Mead said “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” (I looked for and found that quote at Brainy Quote.)

What isn’t clear, of course, is exactly how many a small group of thoughtful people might be.

We’re watching what might become the right sized group in the round the world Occupy movement.

Four Years Go claims over 13,000 committed to shifting humanities direction to a more sustainable world.

Awakening The Dreamer has a goal of delivering its Symposium to millions by 2014. It’s goal is helping humanity move toward a thriving, just and sustainable world.

The Shift Network is helping folks mover toward roughly the same goal.

And there are more – you probably know some I’m not aware of and visa versa.

What each of these networks, or movements or organizations offers is a way for each of us, as individuals, but not alone, to make a personal commitment to the change we all sense is needed. None of these organizations pretends to have all the answers or the only answers, which I think is great.

I suspect you’re like me, just tired to people who say they know exactly what we should do. The problems are too new, and too vast for any single approach to be the only right one.

We do know, however, it will take commitment, a change of heart, a willingness to change and encourage others to do the same.

How many will it take? That’s unknown. Will it work? I certainly hope so.

I know I’m committed; how about you?

Love and abundance,

The Occupy movement has started a conversation here in the United States that’s perhaps overdue. Although often accused of not having an agenda, they do have a unifying agreement on their home page which says in part:

The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.

The changes in the economy in the United States over the last roughly three decades have diminished the middle class and made things rougher for the poor. One way to demonstrate this is to look at the increasing income gap. According to the Congressional Budget Office  income of the richest one percent increased some 275 percent between 1979 and 2007.

People in their 60s and older remember clearly when it was unusual to have two working adults in a home. And that generation put a whole bunch of kids through college on a single wage. Although there are families in the US that make it on a single income, it’s been pretty rare – until recently, that is. Today a single income family with a poor credit report is more likely to be the result of unemployment, I suspect, rather than a thoughtful decision.

As the Occupy movement spreads around the world. According to The Atlantic the movement is now in 80+ countries.

In fact I think it’s safe to say that the Occupy movement has started a conversation around the world that’s perhaps overdue.

We Americans have grown up with the idea that free markets and capitalism make wealth and create a strong middle class. Prior to the 1980s or so this seemed to be true.  Following World War II the United States became the so-called economic engine of the world. What we were doing in terms of democracy, job growth, safety nets and, yes, even government regulation worked, for awhile. Then things began to change.

First of all, understand that when people talk about free markets here they are really referring to business – both large and small, but mostly big business. Starting in the 1980s regulations which used to put breaks on banking greed and create business irresponsibility in other arenas began to be removed under the banner of free markets. The Bhopal disaster is an example of free markets running amuck. So was the Exxon Valdez oil spill, and the more recent BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Or think about the food recalls or drug recalls or even how the tobacco industry resisted any regulation and manipulated public opinion at all. Or how many of our jobs have been off-shored in the name of free trade.

Each instance  is an example of exactly what the Occupy movement is talking about. The owners of one percent of the wealth, left to their own devices, with few exceptions, seem to only want more and are willing to tromp all over everyone and everything to get it.

As our western way of doing business spread around the world, the good things and the bad things spread with it. As big business became less and less responsible for their actions, more and more of the world got trashed looking for oil or fighting wars with US company-supplied weaponry and the like.

Although it’s difficult a direct cause and effect relationship between say deregulation in the United States and the various disasters in Uganda where charities like Just Like My Child struggle to help, the Occupy movement is on to something. They are voicing the voice of the here-to-for voiceless.

Karl Marx and Pope John II referred to it as “unbridled capitalism.” One was communist, one wasn’t – both had a point.

It’s not that all markets are wrong or that all businesses are greedy, it’s that apparently people on planet earth have not yet learned to live in peace with each other without some sort of break on their baser instincts. Here in the US unions and the government, while far from perfect, have until recently acted as a decent break. We can get that back if we really want it.

I don’t know what will come out of the Occupy movement. Change I expect, change that moves us more toward a sustainable future in a world that works for everyone. That’s my fondest wish and hope, and I’m willing to help work for it.

How do you think the Occupy movement will change things?

Love, blessings and abundance,

Years ago I was fortunate enough to do a workshop with Joanna Macy. Sometimes referred to as an Eco-philosopher with a PhD, she put me in touch with the grief I feel over the continuing destruction of the planet. That grief, which many, even most share, consciously or unconsciously, has informed at least some of what I do even today.

I went to her site today and found this quote by her on the front page:

The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world — we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.

And right below it is a link to continuing information on the nuclear disaster that continues to unfold in Japan – what a combination!

It was through Macy that I first learned of the Nuclear Guardianship Project, which started in the 1980s and continues today in an effort to both end the use of particularly nuclear weapons and guard them for all time.

Her Corporate History Timeline gives an overview of some of the ways we got here – a view I subscribe to even though it needs some updating, like the recent Supreme Court decision called referred to as Citizens United that affirmed corporations as people. (Google repeal corporate personhood to find petitions to sign and other actions to take.

She offers workshops, shares songs and generally makes the world a better place because she’s in it. Take a look at her site and see if you don’t agree. Then take some action.

Who inspires you?

I’ve set my browsers (yes, I use both Google’s Chrome and FireFox) to open on TheHungerSite. I can click on a link and 1.1 cups of food are donated, totally free to me. I also occasionally buy t-shirts and such from the site and each purchase donates as well. Good way to start the day with a gift.

Recently they commemorated the death of Wangari Maathai. She founded the Green Belt Movement which developed a method of raising and planting hundreds of thousands of trees that not only help the environment but provide a living for the people who plant them. First African winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, I miss her on the planet already.

This video gives an overview of some of her work. You can find many more by searching on youtube.com for Wangari Maathai.

The Girl Effect

Fellow freelance writer John Soares posted The Girl Effect: Why Educating Girls Is Important.

What a pleasure to see the video there and read what a man says about the importance of girls.

I couldn’t help make the connection to Wangari Maathai’s education.

I’ve been aware that we lead the world in percentage of citizens incarcerated, but it didn’t hit home until I saw the picture associated with an article about how the State of California will reduce it’s prison population by filtering many of them into the regular population and to county jails. Somehow that picture, which I could lease from Getty Images but only for 90 days, of five men, mostly black I think, waiting in a small cage just makes me ashamed I’m an American. Or more to the point that I’ve allowed myself to be largely unconscious and inactive about this issue. And there are more cages in the hall, including another with people in it.

We’re doing something wrong.

Of course, I have no idea what this particular group of prisoners is incarcerated for. My guess that they’re probably relatively non-violent is based on seeing the single cages which, I suspect, are for the one’s judged truly violent.

When I read this from Wikipedia and other sources

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. At year-end 2009 it was 743 adults incarcerated per 100,000 population.^{[2][3][4][5][6]}

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) 2,292,133 adults were incarcerated in U.S. federal and state prisons, and county jails at year-end 2009 — about 1% of adults in the U.S. resident population.^[2][3][7][8] Additionally, 4,933,667 adults at year-end 2009 were on probation or on parole.^[2] In total, 7,225,800 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, parole, jail, or prison) in 2009 — about 3.1% of adults in the U.S. resident population.”^[1][2][9] In addition, there were 86,927 juveniles in juvenile detention in 2007.^[10][11]

I’m even more convinced we’re doing something wrong.

My sense is that non-white prisoners are in the vast majority, but the actual numbers are controversial. None-the-less my sense is accurate.

We are doing something wrong.

I don’t know what the problem is, or more likely, the problems.

I do suspect that our war on drugs is a total failure and only supports prison employment and construction. DrugSense states that The U.S. federal government spent over $15 billion dollars in 2010 on the War on Drugs, at a rate of about $500 per second. I’m convinced we could find better ways to spend that money and probably reduce drug use in the process.

The Economist posted an article called Too many laws, too many prisoners in 2010. It’s a horrifying story and the balance of the article points out just how out of wack our so-called justice system really is.

And I’m not even going to get into the death penalty today.

We need to start asking questions. We need to start speaking out. We need to have a real conversation about what we mean by justice and what we’re trying to accomplish with imprisonment and when it’s appropriate and when it’s not.

What’s your reaction to these statistics? What will you do about it? I’m going to contact my congress people.

Love and blessings,

I’ve recently discovered the radio broadcast OnBeing. It’s one of those great broadcasts that makes you glad we support American Public Media and Public Radio.

Hosted and produced by Krista Tippett, it’s an absolutely amazing series of conversations about key issues we, as a society, face today.

So far my favorite has been the discussion Tippett had with Sister Frances Kissling, a pro-choice nun. Called Listening Beyond Life and Choice I was first intrigued by a nun who held the same views I do. But I came back because Kissling shared how she’s learning to have real conversations with people who are totally opposed to her view.

Here are a few quotes from the broadcast that will give you a taste:

• Some people who see some benefit in learning why the other thinks the way they do. (This)  can lead to finding ways to honor their values without giving up mine.
• Demonizing the other speaks against making progress with issues, and it’s not about finding common ground.
• When you can acknowledge that which is good in the position of the person you disagree with.  That’s how civil debate is process. (Sidney Callahan)

These are thoughts worth having and contemplating. They are not easy, at least not for me. I’m only beginning to grope my way toward this sort of understanding.

Somewhere along the line I read something by Tich Natch Hahn that suggested one way to understand someone whose views you oppose is to try to explain their position to someone else, or at least think about how you would.

When I try, for example, this approach with say Rush Limbaugh, I find myself expressing the idea that he’s terribly afraid. A wisp of compassion can start there, and I also find I quickly move to an arrogance which is far from the point. Or maybe it isn’t, exactly. Before the exercise I had no compassion for the man and no idea how arrogant I felt when thinking about him. So much of the change I need starts internally.

This kind of listening goes, I feel, even beyond Nonviolent Communication, although that’s a darned good start. At least for me, this kind of listening requires first that I stop my own inner argument with what’s being said then a deep listening to what the other is saying. It’s not easy, but it may be the only way out of some of our deeper conflicts.

What do you think? Does this feel right? Or not? Let’s talk about it.

Love and blessings,

If what is needed is to change the dream of western civilization as the Pachamama Alliance in deep cooperation with the Achuar People war tell us and as Awakening The Dreamer Symposiums work for and as Four Years Go and The Shift Network, Barbara Marx Hubbard and a multitude of others point toward, what might that new dream be like?

There seems to be an energy that we humans can feel if we’re  mind too – the vibrational energy of the Universe and it is that energy, confirmed by science, which will help us shift the dream. It is our growing awareness of that energy and who we are as part of it, how we function because of it and within it that will create the dream change needed today.

What might that new dream look like? Perhaps much the same as we experience today, but very different. It’s likely there will be more silence – the quiet of a forest or a desert or a plain or only the sound of waves and children’s laughter and the sound of fish jumping in rivers and of mayflies and flirting butterflies.

Diversity among human beings will be truly honored, not just by lip service, but from deep within and each will know that what the other choses is real choice and an expression of their freedom both without and within – for that’ s how it will actually be.

There will be enough food for all, and clean water and none will go without shelter, although some will choose shelter or the lack of it in ways that will surprise, and delight. And from that sense of security, shared by all, amazing and wondrous happenings will occur.

The religions of the world will return to their roots and their mystical understanding will expand so that seperatenes disappears while differences are cherished. No matter how it’s expressed, all will grock the vibrational energies and inutively know how to use them to honor and support all other beings.

Greed, which is simply expansion poorly expressed will disappear as it transforms into it’s original purpose of expansion, of empowerment and of sharing. Separation-based fear will dissolve,

As this vibraional shift continues, for indeed it has already begun, there will be no technological fixes as such, but our ever growing technology  will help adjust what needs to be adjusted so that each person knows they not only have a right to be here as the Desiderata says, but so does everyone else and that the Dalai Lama is correct – happiness is our job (IgnightYourLife).

When Jesus said “become as little children” (Matthew 18:3 KJV)  he was not only referring to the faith a child has in her parents, but to the joy a child feels just in being alive. And as Mohamed said “What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the wrongs of the injured.” (Ihavefaith) For it has been known since beginingless time that joy is the job or the purpose of the Universe and that consciousness was developed to express that joy.

How do you see the new dream?

Love and blessings,

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What I’m reading: The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability

My friend Ellie, who blogs at Minding The Middle Aged Middle, suggested I read The Vegetarian Myth. It’s turned out to be one of those books I wish I hadn’t read but I’m glad I did. It’s distressing, to say the least.

First of all, I’m not clear on why author, Lierre Keith, targets vegetarians in this book, because what she’s really railing against is agriculture, particularly the way we practice it today. Sure she challenges the idea that a vegetarian diet is good for the planet, and when you look at the statistics beyond just acreage used I suspect she’s right.

For example, in Damaging the Earth to Feed Its People, a post in the New York Times’ Green Blog, the author states: “… agriculture itself is one of the earth’s greatest environmental threats” and proceeds to back it up. It’s far from a pretty picture, even with some hope provided by conservation agriculture.

Lierre Keith makes it clear in her book that she doesn’t believe we can work our way out of the current planetary crisis through technology alone. She believes that waiting on tech is just a form of denial, and she may be right. I know I’m tempted to go to bed and eat cookies when I think of th destruction. I’ll also admit that since I don’t know what to do I find myself hoping that someone will show up with something magical, like zero point energy that will power everything, or Buckminster Fuller’s wonderful world around energy grid powered in part by the earth’s rotation in relation to the sun.

When I’m fortunate enough to remember that grid or other solutions that people talk about I realize that technology will be part of the solution if we’re to really survive what we think is happening with climate change. (Yes, I know there are those who are convinced it isn’t happening – I don’t know why.)

She’s really advocating a whole bunch of stuff that won’t happen, like most of us learning to grow our own food – at least not in our present circumstances.

It’s too easy, however, to say what won’t work or what won’t happen.

There are people working effectively for change. For example, do you know about GINI? They are doing interesting work with networks and energy and they are not alone.

What I believe it that it will be some combination of technology and a new dream, a new way of seeing ourselves and our society. That’s one reason I love Awakening The Dreamer. As we learn to focus on what we want and what we know how to do differently, I strongly suspect we’ll find the solutions, to food, to energy, and even to discovering a world that works for everyone. I’m also convinced we will be surprised!

How do you see the future?

Love and blessings,

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