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July 22, 2013

Climate Summer Riders Help Bill McKibben and 359 Maine Keep Tar Sands Oil Pipeline from Polluting Maine Waters

By Burl Hall

How many of us wonder about the future of our planet, including future generations of human beings? It has been reported that ancient tribal cultures would judge their actions according to how they would effect the future unto the 7th generation. Bill McKibben of 350 Dot Org and New England Climate Summer Riders converge at Sebago Lake in Maine on 7/20/13 to rally regarding tar sands oil and its environmental impact.

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(Article changed on July 22, 2013 at 16:58)


Maine's Climate Summer Riders by Climate Summer Riders

Maine's Contingent of Climate Change Riders includes (left to right): Rebecca Newman, Team Leader; Shaun Carland, Outreach Coordinator; Eleana Fanco, Events Coordinator; Garrett Blad, Media Coordinator; Mariah Chen, Video Coordinator

http://climatesummer.net/team-pages/maine-team-2013/

How many of us wonder about the future of our planet, including future generations of human beings? It has been reported that ancient tribal cultures would judge their actions according to how they would effect the future unto the 7th generation. Thus, if we were to determine what we are about to do now, we would judge that action in accordance to how it would effect those living 490 years from now (based on people living to 70 years of age for 7 generations). That's almost a half of millennium. And our businesses take pride and see themselves as the cat's meow in evolutionary progress?

Look into the faces of the young women and men in the picture above. They will one day likely become moms and dads. What do they want for their descendants? Obviously, they want a sustainable, resilient and equitable future, given that they are biking across Maine to identify what people are doing for future generations. Yes, they all have a stake at seeing what WE in Maine and across the country are doing. We take responsibility alongside them for the quality of life handed down to their children, our children, and the children of future generations.

What effect is your driving a car here and there having on the future of your and their childrens' children? What effect is that television with commercials, presentations of cheap sexuality, and violence linked to sadistic sexuality having on how our children relate to each other, and to the world? What about every autumn our watching grown men (and women) scream at the television as men in tight pants fall on top of one another in the sport of football? And, these jock happy men are followed up by corporations' commercialized images of what we are supposed to look and dress like as women and men? Thus, we appear to be square faced sports jocks while our women look like Barbie Dolls housed in anorexic bodies with tons of make up on their face hiding their true persona.

Even when presented nude, never do we see each other for who we truly are. Gaze into the eyes of a Playboy model and ask "am I truly seeing a human being, a woman with power who will become a mother of future generations." Yes, her commercialized eyes will become the mother of children and, in essence, the foundations of culture. But what kinds of children will she raise? Anorexic models dressed up in the latest fads have become role models for our daughters to look up to. Playboy models are simply Barbie Dolls without a dress manufactured cheaply in China, where thousands of people are making less than minimum wage while slaving for hours on end.

But, alas, they have busted unions and the wages here in the US are falling relative to prices. Who then will man/woman the factories? Your children, perhaps...at Chinese wages and no health insurance?

But, that's only if we allow it to happen. Perhaps we need to move beyond the system that even needs health insurance?

These questions are reasons why we need kids like the Climate Summer Riders to remind us of our responsibility to the future and the planet--not to mention keeping our own drinking/swimming/fishing waters clear and non-toxic!

There is a reason that Nature means Essence and is identified as a Mother. Nature is the Self. Even developmental psychologists get this when they realize that the Mother is seen as the child's self and, that after birth, the child sees the self as being within her just as he was within her as a fetus. What we see as Self in infancy translates to all of Nature as an adult....at least that's how it was for ancients. Even the egg becomes the baby's/child's/adult's body....the sperm only marries his genetic materials. Our foundations, our Nature, is the female. Thus girls have two feminine genes "XX" while boys have one feminine and one masculine, "XY". What is a "Y" if not an "X" with a leg removed. Have some fun discussing what that became!

We've destroyed the wisdom of the ancients, but haven't yet fully destroyed infancy. Not quite, anyway. Perhaps bottle feeding is part of the process of alienating the population from Nature to allow for more corporate control? We have devastated huge parts of our Mother Planet and Her flora and fauna, but not everything. These bikers met with 350 Mainers and other activists on crystal clear Sebago Lake to celebrate a beautiful day of sun, shade, and breeze...and to share how and why we can keep it that way. Why the sound system of the rock band that accompanied them was even powered by pedal!

As an adult, what about that time we spent riding about in that new car, or having our nose poked into the drama of CNN News, or, worse yet, the theatrics of Fox News? What about how we spend time with our children? Do we sip our beer while watching television, the "boob tube" that nurses our children along into adulthood while keeping us adults AS children? We men never wean from that "boob tube" and move into true responsible / responsive adulthood, now do we? Nor do we women! What has taken on the role of our surrogate mother is the corporations running and ruining our planet. Thus, our conditioning as men is such that we often don't relate to human women as adults, and instead focus on control and domination, be the Feminine in the form or Nature or one's lover/spouse. Meanwhile, our role as women is to be sexy and shallow, without the depth of a true woman who knows who she is as the foundations for the future of all humankind, and, in fact, the planet.

This is why we need people like Bill McKibben, 350.org, and the Climate Summer riders!

Do we continue to tell our children stories from books written by others, many owned by the corporate media? Or, better yet, do we tell stories from our hearts and souls to allow our children to take part in the story while learning to be "Culture Makers" more so than "Cultural Followers"? This does not negate our denying great stories such as The Wizard of Oz or The Never Ending Story. These kinds of classics can entice meditation and increase depth. But, what of shows like the Flintstones and Jetsons that portray past and present as continuations of corporate consumer induced cultures.

How will all THAT time spent in the various modalities effect future generations of children living on what is daily becoming more and more a "dead planet"? Look around in your suburbs, your box stores and your cities. Do you REALLY see life in the paved-over lands you roam about on? Or do you see a mirror of an anorexic Barbie Doll nearing death? Are even our rural lands as pristine and bio-diverse as they once were? No, not even our wilderness and rain-forests escape our culture of greed!

How are you living? Are you living a life that will be sustainable for future generations? What kind of future are we leaving your children? Do your care? Hey, my mother once said the future generations were not her problem! Do you model her? How do you feel about what many in the past generations have set up for us today? How do we judge the likes of Caesar and his descendents/clones in Western Civilization ranging from the Protestant and Catholic Churches to the United States Government and its rulers: the corporate and banking elite?

Do we really want Rome ruling us? I'm not talking about the Catholic Church. I'm speaking to the essence of Western Civilization in philosophy and behavior. Are we willing to be dominated by an Empire in which more and more of us are excluded from the benefits and forced into labor for our Caesars?

Or, do we follow the likes of Bill McKenna and the Climate Summer Riders and become more than Rome? Do we write our own Declaration of Independence from oppressive, genocidal empire?

We Greek-Roman-Babylonian-Egyptian descendents are creating a wasteland, and are quickly approaching the creation of a lifeless, decimated planet. Does Mother Earth have to start the evolutionary process all over from the level of bacteria and plankton, regenerating waters, soils, and atmosphere supportive of advanced species? The spreading deserts and wastelands are a product of our actions, which are a product of our imagination or lack thereof. They are the product of a culture that values production and monetary wealth over life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Which is more important to us--our possessions or our families, including the family we share with all of Nature?

The spreading deserts and wastelands are also a mirror to our lack of relationship. It is only through love that we can conceive. Thus, our minds ARE reflections of the wasteland that we are creating on this Earth (and vice-versa). When we gaze upon a polluted landscape, or gather in big-box stores or shopping malls to celebrate our Sabbaths, we are viewing a mirror of ourselves.

This is all reminiscent of the song by Bob Dylan titled "My Back Pages". The line saying it all was: "Fearing not, I became my enemy, in the instant that I preached." Thus the Christian became Rome. Yes, we preach about peace, love and even the environment. But, then, we refuse to let go of what we think we are and how we should be. Our conditioning is that strong. Thus the hippies of the 60's and early 70's became the yuppies of the 80's. We are a fad ridden lot with no depth. We only think of ourselves, while leaving the Earth a wasteland for our children.

However, as much as our minds are polluted by cultural conditioning, and have generated a polluted world in our wake; so also are our minds filled with lush, creative ideas reflective of a mind sparkling with the clarity of a cloudless sky. The Buddhists call this the Unconditioned Mind. It exists in all of us. We need to let go of our cultural conditioning and become newborn and free of ourselves as the author Lao Tzu speaks in the Tao Te Ching .

Can you see why the various ancient stories manifesting around the time of the Babylonian-Egyptian-Greek and Roman times resulted in various stories of a Savior God born of a Virgin? People were yearning for change! They wanted a new life born of a Psyche that was beyond the conditioning of modern civilization! Yet, that Savior God was often murdered. He was sought as an infant and as an adult was often killed. Thus our creativity and uniqueness is squashed by the corporate powers-that-be through television and computerized drama shows.

Unfortunately, we have externalized the message. By corporate (church and state) deed and teachings, we declare not a story of empowerment, but one of Roman dis-empowerment. Yes, the Romans-turned-Corporations take the children born of women early. First it was the men being taken out of their lives. Now, more and more, it is the women. In place of parents and communities, we have caregivers and educators, carefully indoctrinated to pass along Empiric values. Our children are like the monkeys that psychologist Harry Harlow used in those horrid experiments with wire meshed mothers. What he found was that monkeys raised on a wire meshed mother draped with soft cloth were psychologically healthier than those raised on a mother that had no softness to her. Just think if those monkeys were raised on a real monkey's breast? Imagine hearing the heartbeat, experiencing the softness and the warmth. And, the safety!

Yes, the Romans, the wire mesh mothers, took over the Christians they murdered in the lion dens. They have now taken over all of Europe and have gone on to rule the entire world. In so doing under the guise of the Spanish, English and other European nations--and now the United States--they have destroyed indigenous cultures around the world, and has all but robbed the entire planet of its highly evolved life.

But, its not all doom and gloom! Women still have breasts surrounding the comforting rhythmic beat of their heart to sooth and nurse the future generations of humanity into health. Interesting how nurse means to foster health as well as to breast-feed!

Organizations such as New England Climate Summer and 350.org help us foster change in moving beyond our "growth gone wild" mentality brought about through corporate conditioning (call it brain washing if you will!). Climate Summer sponsors young people who ride through places like Maine to research, observe and even work with others who are fostering a sustainable, resilient and equitable future. At climatesummer.net we learn

Climate Summer is a summer internship program for college students, graduate students, and recent graduates. Climate Summer riders travel exclusively by bicycle in small teams across New England, spending approximately one week in a community before biking on to the next. While in each town, riders connect with community leaders who are actively addressing society's addiction to fossil fuels by crafting local solutions that strengthen communities.

The purpose of Climate Summer is to foster awareness. As they state on their website:

Climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity, and fossil fuels independently are responsible for thousands upon thousands of deaths. Society has failed to meaningfully address the harms of fossil fuels -- coal, oil, and natural gas -- because the fossil fuel industry has blocked our collective progress. We believe the only way we can overcome this inertia is through a potent social movement that is not afraid to challenge the fossil fuel industry and its deadly profit model directly. We seek to work with all those who share both our concerns about this deadly energy industry and our hopes for a better future.

On July 20, 2013, the Climate Summer riders that toured areas of Maine attended and assisted at an event hosted by 350 Maine. At 350maine.org, we learn:

350 Maine is a grassroots movement dedicated to solving the planetary climate crisis. We grow our power collectively to find real and lasting solutions, to end our dependence on fossil fuels, and to build a healthy, sustainable life for people and the planet...350 Maine believes that Maine holds a unique position in this global movement as a gateway to coastal waters and foreign markets. We are in the path of many corporate plans to profit from extreme extraction.

350 Maine is a local chapter of 350.org, which was founded by Bill McKibben, who wrote one of the first books on global warming for the general public, and a team of university friends.

Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben by 350.org

http://350.org/en/our-team

Among his most notable books are Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future and The End of Nature. On his Amazon page, he sports 19 titles as well as heading up 350.org! Talk about someone caring for the future of the planet and our species! The url for his books is listed in the reference section.

Like Deep Ecologists, people like Arne Ness and Delores LaChappell, Deep Economists focus on relationships between people, economy, land and planet. These movements are also reflective of the movements in biology, such as the Gaia Hypothesis of James Lovelock, in which the Earth appears to be an integrated system designed from the inside out to support life. Life, including human life, is revealed to create and sustain the atmosphere as truly as the atmosphere enables life.

How Lovelock speaks to the development of life on Earth is very much reflective of the interactive nature of our cells in fetal development. The planet in essence develops Herself through an interaction of the parts in the same fashion a fetus builds himself in the protective environment of the womb. Nature's Wisdom thus builds Herself a planet and a species through which She is able to see Herself!

McKibben's work is also reflective of findings in Quantum Physics, which shows that the entire universe appears to act more like an organism than like a machine. as proposed by scientists such as animal torturer, Rene Descarte, and stargazer, Sir Isaac Newton.

Could it be that our economies and technologies are dead and kindling a dead planet in the same image as us? Native Americans such as the Kogis of South America have said that about us upon their initial contact with white folk! We are the walking dead. Perhaps it is not an external God that is to be resurrected into life, but us of the Middle Eastern and European traditions? We are the ones that need to get a life!

McKibben's work also reinforces the likes of author Daniel Quinn. Quinn wrote the book Ishmael where he advocates that our ancestors were more likely to partake in a leaver economy, which contrasts with what we now live within in our corporate economy, which he calls appropriately a taker economy. Personally, I have another name for our economy and that is sociopath . Basically, though, we are calling the same destructive mentality by names that are one and the same. Sociopaths are takers. I would go one further than Quinn and deem the economy of the future--if we are, in deed, to have one--as a Lover's Economy. Love, which entails love of Earth as well as people, needs to be our foundation.

Ever since the beginning of last century, through the findings of Einstein, Bohm, Lovelock and others, there has been a new message being delivered by the universe to us human beings. The question is, do we have the power to let go to our conditioning in order to reclaim our lives. As one of the messages delivered by Lao Tzu, we need to become "newborn and free of ourselves." In like fashion, Christ gazes upon an infant suckling a breast and says, "be like that babe." How many times through how many different cultures do we receive the same message and yet not get it?

Based on the mess the world is in, I personally think its time for us to listen to our prophets, both ancient and modern! It is time for us to voice our inner wisdom, that it may be heard above the clamor of a dying culture.

To listen to an interview with the Maine Bike riders, visit: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/envision-this/2013/07/20/bicyclists-join-maine-activists-to-keep-maine-lakes-clean-1

350 Org is at http://350.org

Links

Climate Change is at: http://climatesummer.net/team-pages/maine-team-2013/

350.org is located at: http://350.org

McKibben's Amazon page is at: http://www.amazon.com/Bill-McKibben/e/B001H6G9ME/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1374438282&sr=8-2-ent

To learn a little bit more about the mission, vision, and passion of climate summer riders, enjoy the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZgWRt689Q8



Authors Bio:
Burl Hall is a retired counselor who is living in a Senior Citizen Housing apartment. Burl has one book to his credit, titled "Sophia's Web: A Passionate Call to Heal our Wounded Nature." For more information, search the book on Amazon.

Burl's philosophy entails the idea that "everything effects and causes everything thing else." His spirituality of Sophia i.e., Wisdom is universal as well as within each of us. He also sees the idea of Chaos as not being "all over the place" but as infinite relationships.

The question I present in my articles speak not so much towards the politicians, but how WE the people can empower ourselves within a planet that is healthy, wealthy and wise.

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