Eco-Matrix's topics - tribe.net

We can't grow food? We are TERRORISTS!?!?!? (H.R. 875 & S.425)

2009-04-02T05:56:25Z

Regarding: H.R. 875 S.425

I cannot believe my eyes and ears! This bill would give Monsanto the power to stop us from growing food... That is right, NO MORE GROWING FOOD. No more supporting ORGANIC FARMING. NO MORE BACK-UP PLAN.

If that is not enough, Monsanto also tried to own the patient on PIGS!
Own… Pigs

Please:
*Read this information
*Do your own research
*Tell EVERYONE
*Organize a mass call-in/ protest/ boycott

> Dear Friends,
> We feel the unhealthful consequences of the legislation discussed below to
> be so disconcerting it was important to send it to the entire Holistic
> Community.
> Snopes and other sources indicate this is real.
> The US House and Senate are about (in a week and a half) to vote on bill
> that will OUTLAW ORGANIC FARMING (bill HR 875).
> There is an enormous rush to get this into law within the next 2 weeks
> before people realize what is happening.
> Main backer and lobbyist is Monsanto – chemical and genetic engineering
> giant corporation (and Cargill, ADM, and about 35 other related
> agri-giants). This bill will require organic farms to use specific
> fertilizers and poisonous insect sprays dictated by the newly formed agency
> to "make sure there is no danger to the public food supply". This will
> include backyard gardens that grow food only for a family and not for sales.
> If this passes then NO more heirloom clean seeds but only Monsanto
> genetically altered seeds that are now showing up with unexpected diseases
> in humans.
> There is a video on the subject.
> http://pr1.netatlantic.com/t/9661579/7793682/598242/0/
> And another one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeWVkTU1s1E
> The name on this outrageous food plan is Food Safety Modernization Act of
> 2009 (bill HR 875).
> PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO ALL CONCERNED ON YOUR MAILING LISTS & CALL YOUR
> SENATE REPRESENTETIVES TODAY!
> Get on that phone and burn up the wires. Get anyone else you can to do the
> same thing. The House and Senate WILL pass this if they are not massively
> threatened with loss of their position....they only fear your voice and your
> vote.
> The best thing to do is go to
> http://pr1.netatlantic.com/t/9661579/7793682/598244/0/
> All you have to do is put in your zip and it will give you your
> congressperson and how to get in touch with them.
> When you call their office someone will answer the phone, politely and
> respectfully just tell them that you are calling to express your views on HR
> 875. Tell them your views, they'll take your name and address and pass your
> comments along to the congressperson. The following link
> http://pr1.netatlantic.com/t/9661579/7793682/598245/0/ is a list of the U.S.
> senators with their contact info.
> Thank you all for taking such quick action on this important threat to our
> health and wellness.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Elementals...What Gives?

2009-03-02T07:46:11Z

In her book Eco-Spirit, Levanah Bdolak recalls other ages in which humanity was much more connected to Nature than in the present day. This connection was not just to natural settings and animals, but to the elements as well. Then she introduces the elementals, which are the guardians of the elements, such that Gnomes are the guardians of the Earth, Faeries or Sylphs are the guardians of the Air, Mermaids or Undines are the guardians of the Water, and Salamanders are the guardians of Fire. She goes on to say these representatives still exist, but because of human destructiveness, pollution and overpopulation, they have become shy and harder to communicate with. These are followed by some excellent grounding and centering techniques, which in this context are designed not only to heal ourselves but this beautiful planet as well.

Being thoroughly steeped in the modern age and higher levels of education, I appreciate the symbolism of the elementals, and even think I can communicate with the elements themselves, but seeing gnomes, mermaids and fairies is a bit of a stretch for me. If I were to stretch at all, it would be from the standpoint of Jeremy Jaynes’s work “The Origin of Consciousness and the breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.” He proposed that back in the Middle Ages, the left and right hemispheres of the human brain were more closely fused, and therefore people were able to perceive things in a way far different than we can today. As we see from what remains from that era, there was much belief in dragons, wizards, leprechauns, faeries, witches and the like.

Has anyone seen elementals? Is it possible that brain hemispheres are beginning to fuse again?

posted in Eco-Matrix - 11 replies

The Cascadian Guidebook Project

2008-12-03T03:25:46Z

Please check out the new blog which serves as our preliminary promotion for a bioregional guidebook project now one year in the works. The is based around a bioregional model of the cascadian region, and will serve as a tool for re-envisioning the Pacific Northwest. Get involved! Write to cascadianculture@gmail.com and see the blog at cascadianculture.blogspot.com

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Ancient Futures: Learning From Ladakh (now on Google videos)

2008-07-16T00:45:15Z

Ancient Futures: Learning From Ladakh (now on Google videos)

So you are sick of the Saviour Kings that cheap Soda Pop Democracy claims will save us. You know no government on the federal, state or even county or city level will save us. You know nearly seven billion people surviving on cheap oil for fertilizers, farming machines, transportation and plastics ould die off tomorrow if it all came to a head. You know your future has been mortgaged, indebted and spent by the wealthy elite. You know universal healthcare and universal higher education was a human rights issues. But you do not know what to do? Watch "Ancient Futures." Call the neighbors over for a picnic and share food. Grow food. Talk. THe only way to survive this one Girls and Boys is by creating small communities of sharing. Time for that picnic with the neighbor and to grow food on the window sill to share. Lets call it a "Cascadian Picnic" and its way overdue.

This is a MUST watch by all Cascadians. I would suggest crowd around the computer monitor with family, friends, lovers, cats, dogs, goldfish, bigffot and neighbors and watch this film (in 3 parts):

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Ancient+Futures&hl=en&sitesearch=#q=Ancient%20Futures%20Ladakh&hl=en&sitesearch=

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Ancient+Futures&hl=en&sitesearch=#q=Ancient%20Futures%20Ladakh&hl=en&sitesearch=

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Ancient+Futures&hl=en&sitesearch=#q=Ancient%20Futures%20Ladakh&hl=en&sitesearch=

and join
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Cascadian_Bioregionalism/
http://cascadians.tribe.net/
http://republic-of-cascadia.tripod.com/

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Invitation to an EcoVillage in Belize

2008-03-29T00:11:58Z

Hello Eco-friendlies,

On Christmas day of 2007 I headed down to Belize. Here in Belize I have been working on a few interesting projects, the focus of which is building a permaculture ecovillage in the tropical rainforest jungles of Belize within the heartland of the once powerful Mayan empire.

The rainforest here is filled with an abundance of foods, medicines, beautiful animals, and of course sun, rain, and very rich soil.

As part of the founding member team that is creating the ecovillage on 130 acres of pristine jungle, I would like to invite any and all who may be interested in coming down to visit and/or do a work-trade helping to co-create this wonderful place. Whether you'd like to actually come for a visit or not, I recommend at least becoming a member of the Better In Belize tribe at:

http://tribes.tribe.net/betterinbelize

We're particularly looking for people who have knowledge of permaculture, gardening, eco-friendly off-grid living, and of course lively fun-loving spirits who are willing to learn and help. Spread the word to friends if you know someone who may be interested. ;)

The property is located on one of the major rivers (The Macal) which flow out of the Mayan mountains. The site already has tropical fruits growing (Bananas, Jackfruit, Breadfruit, and more). Lots within the ecovillage are being sold for $29,000 an acre with specific rules for keeping 50% of it as greenspace, and any house plans must be passed by the community before allowing construction to make sure they fit the standard of eco-friendly. For $129,000 one can purchase 1 acre and get a 2 bedroom eco-home built as well that is fully self-sufficient on eco-power (Hydro/solar), bio-digester plumbing (includes methane production), and either filtered water from the river or a rainwater catchment system depending on the location within the community. It also comes with high-speed satellite internet hooked-up as well as access to other community resources.

If you'd like to learn more, please check out the evergrowing website at: http://BetterInBelize.com

and be sure to join the Better In Belize tribe at: http://tribes.tribe.net/betterinbelize

Peace, Love, Unity, Respect,
Indra

P.S.- Feel free to message me with any questions you might have.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Outdoor Educators

2008-03-02T21:12:04Z

You might like my tribe - "Outdoor Educators", a place to share resources, ideas, inspiring and/or amusing anecdotes - all so we can learn to do what we love to do even better! Anyone involved in environmental/outdoor/experiential/adventure ed - anyone who gets kids outdoors - is welcome.

http://tribes.tribe.net/outdooreducators

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

A Language Older Than Words

2008-01-31T08:32:34Z

By Derrick Jentzen.

Once too often this book was recommended by a friend or two, and I finally took it off the shelf and am halfway through it. How refreshing...it's the most honest book I've ever read and put into words what I knew to be true deep down. In a Vancouver bookstore I was surprised to find it in the ecopsychology section; it has a really wide scope, but it does address interspecies communication.

In a sense humans are autistic...just turn on the tube and count how many humans you see in an hour and how many animals you see in an hour. Don't be surprised if you see animals only in the second hour.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 2 replies

Sorry to drop this one on yaz.../ send in the clones...?

2008-01-24T05:57:35Z

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011402941.html?wpisrc=rss_print

posted in Eco-Matrix - 3 replies

Autumn ceremony.

2007-10-20T20:30:46Z

....the wind sung softly...........
answered by a rustling and whispering in the trees.
Awake! Awake!....it is time
for the ceremonies to begin.
And in timely fashion the dancers assent
to unfold their Autumn gowns....
flashing red and gold at the edges.
The air crackles with electric anticipation....
and the wind proceeds to slowly caress
each one....enticing,
till gentle sways give way
to bold swirls
and ecstatic shivers
in ever changing colours and hues.
Empassioned by the moment and
ablaze with the knowledge of summers waning.....
they salute the golden sun....
and in winds sweet symphony, dance.......
their thanks,
for the gift of life that has brought them to their fullness,
and bless its passage....
as it marches on it's journey.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 6 replies

More on Water fuels...

2007-09-18T18:13:21Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLgpOtriN0E
Free Energy-Equinox
I was captivated by this series of videos, specifically ,the second inventor,Stanley Meyers. This video came out around 95,at the time NASA took a serious interest in Meyers work. I wonder what the past twelve years have yielded.Are we in the midst of an energy revolution?

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Saltwater fuel

2007-09-14T15:49:32Z

Breakthrough? Interesting to say the least.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0vycQ06a04

posted in Eco-Matrix - 9 replies

The Beginning of Racism

2007-09-14T14:42:33Z

"Ultimately, to acknowledge the life of the body, and to affirm our solidarity with its physical form, is to acknowledge our existence as one of earth's animals, and so to remember and rejuvenate the organic basis of our thoughts and our intelligence...

Human beings alone are possessed of an incorporeal intellect, a 'rational soul' or mind which, by virtue of its affinity with an eternal or divine dimension outside the bodily world, sets us radically apart from, or above, all other forms of life. In Aristotle's writings, for instance, while plants are endowed with a VEGETAL SOUL (which enables nourishment, growth, and reproduction) and while animals possess, in addition to the vegetal soul, an ANIMAL SOUL (which provides sensation and locomotion) these souls remain inseparable form the earthly world of generation and decay humans, however, possess along with these other souls a RATIONAL SOUL, or intellect...

In Descartes's hands, two thousand years later, this hierarchical continuum of living forms, commonly called 'The Great Chain of Being' was polarized into a thorough dichotomy between mechanical, unthinking matter (including all minerals, plants and animals, as well as the human body) and pure, thinking mind (the exclusive province of humans and God)...

Meanwhile, all other organisms, consisting solely of extended matter, are in truth nothing more than automatons, incapable of actual experience, unable to feel pleasure or suffer pain...According to Aristotle, for example, women are deficient in the rational soul, and hence 'the relation of male to female is naturally that of the superior to inferior-- of the ruling to the ruled'. Such justifications for social exploitation draw their force from the prior hierarchalization of the natural landscape, from the hierarchical ordering that locates 'humans', by virtue of our incorporeal intellect, above and apart from all other, 'merely corporeal' entities. ---David Abram, "The Spell of the Sensuous"

When the animal world got carved up into higher and lower forms, it was only a matter of time before humans themselves began carving each other up into higher and lower forms.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 1 reply

Eco-dictionary!

2007-08-19T23:05:58Z

How about a sort of a thread that builds on and creates a lexicon of eco-terms. Hopefully this will increase our understanding of temrs from different perspectives, as we relay our impressions of a word. The word could have 'eco' in it, or 'green', 'wilderness', 'nature', etcetera. Feel free to respond with your understanding of the word and add your own. I'll start:

Greenwash:
Propaganda or advertising from political or commercial sources that depict goods and/or services to be environmentally friendly when in fact they are not, and possibly dangerous.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 16 replies

Signs of the Times?

2007-07-29T03:07:25Z

Just got back from camping on the beach on the south coast of Vancouver Island. The first thing that disturbed me was how there's hardly any snow at all on the Olympic Mountains across the strait. Most of then were snow-capped 15 years ago, and now only the very tallest seem to have any. Reminded me of those comparitive before and after 1950s/1990s photos of well-known mountains around the world in Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth".

Another thing I noticed, however, was the odd behaviour of cloud patterns. Many of the clouds were backlit by a full moon. All evening there may have been 1 or 2 passenger jets going over, yet most of the clouds seem to behave like contrails-- long, and wispy streaks across the sky. I found an example which I posted in the photo abum for this tribe.
I read on the internet somewhere that in 20 years, we will not be able to see the stars because of the haze caused by commercial jet contrails. If clouds are now forming in a way that imitates contrails, perhaps as a result of turbulence, I wonder how true this prediction will be. That will certianly screw up sattelites and GPS.

When I was a kid I was a bird-watcher...I could dentify many different species from their appearance or song. These days it seems that 3/4 ofthe birds are either crows or sparrows, though I'm grateful to spot eagles fairly regularly.

What sorts of things have you been noticing first hand?

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

The Rape of the Well Maidens

2007-07-17T17:51:01Z

"There is an old Grail story [by this title] that speaks to many of our current environmental dilemmas. The story goes as follows:
'Long, long ago, even before the reign of King Arthur, the land was blessed with enchantment and great fertility. Throughout the realm, maidens stood guard over the sacred wells, offering their healing waters with golden cups to any journeyers who might pass. Indeed, some say that these were the very waters of inspiration, offering transport between the worlds. The maidens themselves may have been Otherworldly, but the tale does not say. In those days, when the veil between the worlds was thinner, these distinctions were not so sharp.

All was well, and the land bounteous and the people content, until the King conceived a desire to possess one of the well-maidens. He stole her sacred cup, carried her off, and raped her. His men followed his example, raping the other maidens. In response to these unheard-of acts, these violations against Nature itself, the maidens withdrew themselves and their magic from the world. The wells dried up, and the regenerative powers of the land were destroyed, leaving it barren and devoid of enchantment. By seeking domination over others, the King and his men had diminished the world'.[1]

This story illustrates a key insight of ecofeminism: that the despoiling of the Earth and the subjugation of women are intimately connected".

---Excerpt from Theodore Roszak's "Ecopsychology" Restoring the Earth and Healing the Mind"
[1] Adapted from Caitlin Matthews "Arthur and the Sovereignty of britain: King and Goddess in the Mabinogion (London: Arkana 1989)

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Synchronicity

2007-07-11T20:42:45Z

Nice to have found this Tribe. In recent weeks my sense of eco-awareness ,and the serious lack of it, on the part of so many others I have had dealings with,has really instilled that sense of doom and gloom. I must be getting old,for I keep finding myself complaining about "young"people,all wired up to cell phones,i pods,game systems everywhere they go, distracted,and oblivious to anything in reality,going on around them,ignorant of all the wonders of the natural world,slipping away as they burrow deeper into what I deem as self absorbed, plastic fantasy.How can any one be conscious of what is being lost when they dont even realize its existence?Even those who would claim to be "Earthspirits"seem deluded by fantasy.Nature needs no embellishment ,its totally beyond anything we can imagine,and its real! Tangible.Upon approaching these issues with those I am referring to I find fears. It would take me far too long to elaborate,but,silly like little Susie in her Sunday school dress,"I might get dirty" kinda stuff. Granted we are not all outdoors types,botanists,gardeners,etc.but...wow.Savages. Sorry if my attitude is somewhat holier than thou, sounding but this is survival,for all of us.Education,blended with example is probably the best way to make converts,rather than downin people.Im just glad to tap into a proactive reminder you're out there. Good timing.Thanks Folks.Look forward to your posts.

SUN DOG

posted in Eco-Matrix - 1 reply

Request from Hopi elders for 07/07/07

2007-07-11T19:45:11Z

I have a small request to make for the Hopi elders - in particular an elder by the name of Grandfather Martin.

As early as possible in the day of July 7th 2007 PLEASE send a small prayer and/or extend best wishes to the Hopi and Hopi elders.

This can also take the form of best wishes on behalf of Mother Earth. Please do whatever inspires you, and feels right to do.

kwakha (thank you).

P.S. Please pass along this request to others if you feel inspired to do so.

A Mayan Message of One Love
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDBcgt1q8Cs

posted in Eco-Matrix - 1 reply

Animal Speak

2007-05-29T20:30:46Z

Anyone have interesting anecdotes about how they communicated with beings from other species (Other than domestic pets)?

posted in Eco-Matrix - 21 replies

geothermal power

2007-05-26T04:23:30Z

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power
http://geothermal.marin.org/pwrheat.html
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/powerplants.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15749933/

http://www.cogeneration.net/geothermal_powerplants.htm
http://www.geo-energy.org/aboutGE/powerPlantCost.asp
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/2003/geothermal_discussion20031205.htm

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/geopower_landuse.html
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/pdfs/conversion.pdf

posted in Eco-Matrix - 5 replies

The City Rut

2007-05-17T21:43:28Z

How did 2 years slide by me without a camping trip?? I used to camp without fail every year and then the pace of modern life took hold of me. And then like Tony Robbins once said, "We wake up in our box, make a box lunch, climb into a box and drive to our box office, get in a box to go up to the floor...and every once in a while we'll try a cylinder just to change our state!"
Anyone else struggling with this?

posted in Eco-Matrix - 10 replies

Wolves in much danger now..we can act!

2007-04-25T04:22:20Z

Wolves in danger
Tell the Bush Administration to Protect Gray Wolves!

A new Bush Administration proposal to strip gray wolves of federal protection would pave the way for mass killings of wolves in Yellowstone's wild country and central Idaho. This reckless plan would turn over wolf management to state agencies. Idaho is already gearing up to kill off the majority of its wolves. With oil and gas drilling, logging and road building chipping away at crucial wildlife habitat across the Rockies, leaving wolves unprotected could drive them back to the brink of extinction.

Submit your Official Citizen Comment opposing any plan that would strip wolves of federal protection and leave them vulnerable to mass killing.

Go to: www.nrdconline.org/campaign...wolf_0407

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Chee Savish and Dancing Hawk Native Lifeways

2007-04-16T16:36:44Z

Chee Savish and Dancing Hawk Native Lifeways

The following are two groups that I think are very very valubale:

http://www.cheesiwash.net/

This is so so SKOOKUM (cool), I just stumbled across this site and its
exactly what I would like Cascadians to return to be. Take a look at
their recipes and basic ideas.

Chee Siwash
Portland Aboriginal Lifeways
http://www.cheesiwash.net/

The word "chee" is Chinook Wawa for "new" and "siwash" is Chinook Wawa
for "Indiginous Person" (meaning "American Indian") derrived from the
French word for "savage". Ok Chinook Jargon is not up to modern
Cascadian English political correctness standards, but I believe if we
can re-incorporate Chinook Wawa into our daily language we will end up
with a new synthesis of Chee Chinook or a very very distinct Cascadian
English.

__________

http://www.dancinghawk.com/

This is another site that seems to be connected with "Chee Siwash"

Dancing Hawk Native Lifeways
http://www.dancinghawk.com/

about the school

Dancing Hawk School of Simple Living is a school dedicated to
helping people learn to capture happiness, and live in tune with the
world around them. We are in the process of becoming a 501c(3) non-
profit institution.

Our primary focus is running native living programs and classes. We
have several different types of classes, from workshops a few hours
long to longer-term primitive projects.

Dancing Hawk also likes to bring the joy and wisdom found in the
wilderness to the greater community. We do outreach talks and events
both formal and festive.

Last, but not least, be sure to see the photos in our gallery.
Nothing tells the story of experience like our photos do.

Your wild guides, past and present: Kiliii Yu & Troy Julian
kiliii@dancinghawk. com

Kiliii has taught primitive skills and indigenous cultural teachings
at the Rabbitstick and Wintercount Rendezvous, the Falling Leaves
Rendezvous and Oberlin University. He has also spent time among the
Haida of the Northwest Coast, Aborigines of Central Australia, and
several indigenous peoples of Ecuador's highlands and rainforest. He
considers his mentors: Lynx Vilden, Jon Young, David Jagamarra, and
Margaret Matthewson.

Troy has been a longtime field instructor at the Outback (formerly
Walkabout) program in Salt Lake City as well as Outward Bound in
North Carolina. He has also taught at the Rabbitstick Rendezvous.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 1 reply

Geomantic / Traumatic Amnesia

2007-04-04T19:09:37Z

In Devereux's Book "Earthmind", about deep ecology, he mentioned the phenomenon of geomantic amnesia:

"Geomantic amnesia [is] a double forgetting wherein a culture forgets, and then forgets it has forgotten how to live in harmony with the planet. But awareness always leaves tracks through the sands of time. The literal tracks may be obliterated, but there's always a seed of perrenial wisdom which endures through the millenia like some mythic spore awaiting the time for its revival".

That time is now.

In Ralph Metzner's essay "The Psychopathology of the Human-Nature Relationship" (In Roszak's 'Ecopsychology') he takes it a step further:

"As an elaboration of the amnesia metaphor we might consider the possibility of a 'traumatic amnesia'. We know from studies of the effects of child abuse and rape, of combat, of accidents and natural disasters, that where the person experiencing the trauma is in a completely helpless position, the memory of the experience can be completely lost [in order to protect oneself from overwhelm]-- even though physical effects on the body and symptoms, such as nightmares and panic attacks, may remain." Western culture, with its relentless profit orientation and consumerist bias, re-traumatizes people, animals and the environment constantly.

The 'mythic spore' looks like recovering these memories, not of the ugliness but of our connection to Nature-- through the dreamtime, a state brought on by the shamanic rituals of old-- just as effective today if presented in an updated way. What are counsellors but modern day shamans or secular priests? Sure, there are just as many charlatans and con artists as any other profession, but as E. Fuller Torre pointed out systematically in his book "Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists", the role is the same: To return the Spirit to the body and mind of someone who had it stolen from them, whether by one's job, polluted environment, or exposure to toxic people. Peter A. Levine has now discovered how animals 'immunize' themselves to trauma and has found that dreamtime/ alpha state/ bodymind awareness is the key to immunizing humans. We have the means and have but to use them!

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Five Principles of Empowerment

2007-03-01T19:55:13Z

Yet another excerpt of Joanna Macy’s essay in Roszak’s “Ecopsychology”:

1. Feelings of pain for our world are natural and healthy.
Not to experience it would be a sign of moral atrophy, but that is academic, for I have met no one who is immune to this pain.

2. Fear is morbid only if denied.
Despair, like any emotion, is dynamic—once experienced, it flows though us. It is only our refusal to acknowledge and feel it that keeps it in place.

3. Information alone is not enough.
We need to process this information on the psychological and emotional level in order to fully respond on the cognitive level. We already know we are in danger. The essential question is can we free ourselves to respond?

4. Unblocking repressed feelings releases energy and clears the mind.

5. Unblocking our pain for the world reconnects us with the larger web of life.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

The Fears That Hold Us Captive

2007-03-01T19:53:12Z

Another excerpt of Joanna Macy’s essay in Roszak’s “Ecopsychology”:

Fear of Pain:
Our culture conditions us to view pain as dysfunctional. As Kevin McVeigh says in his despair-and-empowerment workshops: “Instead of survival being the issue, it is the feelings aroused by possible destruction that loom as most fearful. And as they are judged to be too unpleasant to endure, they are turned off completely. This is a state of psychic numbing”.

Fear of Appearing Morbid:
In such a cultural setting, feelings of anguish and despair for our world can appear to be a failure to maintain stamina or even competence.

Fear of Appearing Stupid:
People are inhibited from expressing their anxieties because they feel that in order to do so they need to be walking data banks and skilful debaters. Taking action on behalf of our common world has unfortunately become confused with winning an argument.

Fear of Guilt:
Few of us are exempt from the suspicion that as a society—through expedience, lifestyle, and dreams of power—we are accomplices to catastrophe.

Fear of Causing Distress:
Pain for the world is repressed not only out of embarrassment and guilt, bout out of compassion as well….And so, partly out of concern for [our loved ones] we keep up a pretense of ‘life as usual’…Aware of what their parents find too painful to confront, [children] learn not to voice their own dread.

Fear of Provoking Disaster:
“To speak of catastrophe will just make it more likely to happen.” Actually, the contrary is nearer the truth. Psychoanalytic theory and personal experience show us that it is precisely what we repress that eludes our conscious control and tends to erupt into behaviour.

Fear of Appearing Unpatriotic:
In a time of crisis, some would have us silence our fears and doubts, lest they erode the belief in the American dream.

Fear of Religious Doubt:
Throughout history, human suffering has always tested our belief in a divine order. The issue is known as theodicy: how to square the existence of evil with the existence of a benign and powerful God. That question has brought us back again and again to a core truth in each major religious heritage: the deep, sacred power within each of us to open the needs and suffering of humanity.

Fear of Appearing Too Emotional:
Many of us, schooled in the separation of reason from feeling, discount our deepest responses to the condition of our world.

Fear of Feeling Powerless:
A frequent response that people make to the mention of acid rain, world hunger, or other ominous developments is, “I don’t think about that, because there is nothing I can do about it”. Logically, this is a non-sequitur; it confuses what can be thought with what can be done. When forces are seen as so vast that they cannot be consciously contemplated or seriously discussed, we are doubly victimized; we are impeded in thought as well as action.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

The Three D's

2007-03-01T19:51:39Z

An excerpt of Joanna Macy’s essay in Roszak’s “Ecopsychology”:

As a society we are caught between a sense of impending apocalypse and the fear of acknowledging it. In this ‘caught’ place, our responses are blocked and confused. The result is three widespread psychological strategies: disbelief, denial, and double life.

Disbelief:
The toxins in the air, food and water are hard to taste or smell. The spreading acreage of clear-cuts and landfills are mostly screened from public view…The things that disappear—the frogs or topsoil or bird song—are not as likely to catch our attention as what remains for me to perceive. And the more perceptible changes, like the smog layer over my city or the oil globs on the beach, accrue so gradually they seem to become a normal part of life. Although ubiquitous, these changes are subtle, making it hard to believe the gravity and immediacy of the crisis we are in.

Denial:
Denial is facilitated…by the sheer multiplicity of factors at play in the planetary crisis. Conditions worsen in many dimensions simultaneously: water shortages, toxic dumping, loss of wetlands, deforestation, the greenhouse effect, and so forth. Although each issue is critical in its own right, it is their interplay that most threatens our biosphere, for they compound each other systemically. However, it is precisely these systemic interactions that are hard to see, especially for a culture untutored in the perception of relationships.

Double Life:
On one level we maintain a more or less upbeat capacity to carry on as usual…All the while, there is an unformed awareness in the background that our world could be extensively damaged at any moment…Until we find ways of acknowledging and integrating that level of anguished awareness, we repress it; and with that repression we are drained of the energy we need for action and clear thinking…Each of us has the capacity to drop everything and act.

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Spread the word

2007-02-27T15:34:25Z

http://www.polarbearsos.org/

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Help the Ocean

2007-02-25T14:21:52Z

Very important!!! I highly suggest one download the pdf.

www.mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp

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You Said It

2007-02-13T21:22:32Z

"Nature is inconvenient, you know. Its temperature is often uncomfortable, its weather disuptive and occasionally dangerous. It is dirty. And tending to the body's demands can be so tedious. 'This hurts; do something,' it whines. 'Eat this but not that. I'm thirsty. Pee soon. Tired, go to sleep.' Civilized life is so much more comfortable, so much easier. How wonderful to be able to protect the body from Nature's vagaries and from its own sharp needs. How luxurious then to have one's attention free for other things-- for the complexities of civilized life, for example. To live in the woods for a time with only what can be carried on my back is intentionally to strip away the comfort and control that protect me (and wall me off) from Nature. Although I enjoy being outside at other times, those are essentially quite controlled experiences: to walk outside when the weather's nice is to keep Nature as an adjunct to my experince, with myself still at the centre. But to live outside day after day is to experience Nature as central. My small barriers of sleeping bag or dry socks are so minor compared to my usual protection of a house with a hot shower.

When I hike in trhe rain, my first response is to run for cover. I'm in the real world, remember, not my contrived world. Eventually I accept, my body accepts, that if it rains I'll get wet. It might even feel good. With the consistent force of pressure that Nature acquires under these circumstances, I have no choice but to give in. My sense of myself as ending at my skin fades, my boundaries diffuse. My illusion of centrality and control dwindle down to something small and silly. I talk less, laugh more and louder. I live in and for my body. Where else? Why else?"

--Marcia Hill

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Introductions

2007-01-26T15:50:08Z

Since this tribe came to being there seems to be a marked increase in members, so perhaps we can say as much or as little as we want with regards to who we are and how we live, or would like to.

Me first. Many thanks to my incredibly organized and well-traveled parents, who thought nothing of regularly packing off five kids to go camping. Now it seems strange to fall out of touch with the natural world. It feels like 'mental floss' and if I go too long without a nature hit I get strangely fuzzy and/or cynical. My siblings are all urban professionals like myself, but I moved form Ottawa to be close to the mountains, forest and waterways of Victoria. Now I'm a stone's throw form the trail head, where I work as an (eco) somatic therapist. The human body is a wonderful thing, and like our dear planet, it is self-regulating and mostly water.

I eventually would like to live in a natural setting where i can't see the neighbours, unless of course they happen to be eagles or seals. Right now i live on the city's edge.

Welcome one and all.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 13 replies

We have lived as if in a trance.

2006-10-20T04:55:57Z

"The Beginning of the End of America."

SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
Countdown
Updated: 3:00 p.m. ET Oct. 19, 2006

On Tuesday, President Bush signed legislation authorizing tough interrogation of terror suspects and paving the way for trials before military commissions.

Tonight, "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann addresses the legislation in a special comment entitled "The Beginning of the End of America."

You can read an excerpt of Olbermann's comment below.

We have lived as if in a trance.

We have lived as people in fear.

And now—our rights and our freedoms in peril—we slowly awaken to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing.

Therefore, tonight have we truly become the inheritors of our American legacy.

For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering:

A government more dangerous to our liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from.

We have been here before—and we have been here before, led here by men better and wiser and nobler than George W. Bush.

We have been here when President John Adams insisted that the Alien and Sedition Acts were necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use those acts to jail newspaper editors.

American newspaper editors, in American jails, for things they wrote about America.

We have been here when President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that Act to prosecute 2,000 Americans, especially those he disparaged as “Hyphenated Americans,” most of whom were guilty only of advocating peace in a time of war.

American public speakers, in American jails, for things they said about America.

And we have been here when President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives, only to watch him use that order to imprison and pauperize 110,000 Americans while his man in charge, General DeWitt, told Congress: “It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen—he is still a Japanese.”

American citizens, in American camps, for something they neither wrote nor said nor did, but for the choices they or their ancestors had made about coming to America.

Each of these actions was undertaken for the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And each was a betrayal of that for which the president who advocated them claimed to be fighting.

Adams and his party were swept from office, and the Alien and Sedition Acts erased.

Many of the very people Wilson silenced survived him, and one of them even ran to succeed him, and got 900,000 votes, though his presidential campaign was conducted entirely from his jail cell.

And Roosevelt’s internment of the Japanese was not merely the worst blight on his record, but it would necessitate a formal apology from the government of the United States to the citizens of the United States whose lives it ruined.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

In times of fright, we have been only human.

We have let Roosevelt’s “fear of fear itself” overtake us.

We have listened to the little voice inside that has said, “the wolf is at the door; this will be temporary; this will be precise; this too shall pass.”

We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.

Just the way we once accepted that the only way to stop the Soviets was to let the government become just a little bit like the Soviets.

Or substitute the Japanese.

Or the Germans.

Or the Socialists.

Or the Anarchists.

Or the Immigrants.

Or the British.

Or the Aliens.

The most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And, always, always wrong.

“With the distance of history, the questions will be narrowed and few: Did this generation of Americans take the threat seriously, and did we do what it takes to defeat that threat?”

Wise words.

And ironic ones, Mr. Bush.

Your own, of course, yesterday, in signing the Military Commissions Act.

You spoke so much more than you know, Sir.

Sadly—of course—the distance of history will recognize that the threat this generation of Americans needed to take seriously was you.

We have a long and painful history of ignoring the prophecy attributed to Benjamin Franklin that “those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

But even within this history we have not before codified the poisoning of habeas corpus, that wellspring of protection from which all essential liberties flow.

You, sir, have now befouled that spring.

You, sir, have now given us chaos and called it order.

You, sir, have now imposed subjugation and called it freedom.

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And — again, Mr. Bush — all of them, wrong.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that “the United States does not torture. It’s against our laws and it’s against our values” and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens “unlawful enemy combatants” and ship them somewhere—anywhere -- but may now, if he so decides, declare you an “unlawful enemy combatant” and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

And if you think this hyperbole or hysteria, ask the newspaper editors when John Adams was president or the pacifists when Woodrow Wilson was president or the Japanese at Manzanar when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

And if you somehow think habeas corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an “unlawful enemy combatant”—exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this attorney general is going to help you?

This President now has his blank check.

He lied to get it.

He lied as he received it.

Is there any reason to even hope he has not lied about how he intends to use it nor who he intends to use it against?

“These military commissions will provide a fair trial,” you told us yesterday, Mr. Bush, “in which the accused are presumed innocent, have access to an attorney and can hear all the evidence against them.”

"Presumed innocent," Mr. Bush?

The very piece of paper you signed as you said that, allows for the detainees to be abused up to the point just before they sustain “serious mental and physical trauma” in the hope of getting them to incriminate themselves, and may no longer even invoke The Geneva Conventions in their own defense.

"Access to an attorney," Mr. Bush?

Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift said on this program, Sir, and to the Supreme Court, that he was only granted access to his detainee defendant on the promise that the detainee would plead guilty.

"Hearing all the evidence," Mr. Bush?

The Military Commissions Act specifically permits the introduction of classified evidence not made available to the defense.

Your words are lies, Sir.

They are lies that imperil us all.

“One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks,” you told us yesterday, “said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America.”

That terrorist, sir, could only hope.

Not his actions, nor the actions of a ceaseless line of terrorists (real or imagined), could measure up to what you have wrought.

Habeas corpus? Gone.

The Geneva Conventions? Optional.

The moral force we shined outwards to the world as an eternal beacon, and inwards at ourselves as an eternal protection? Snuffed out.

These things you have done, Mr. Bush, they would be “the beginning of the end of America.”

And did it even occur to you once, sir — somewhere in amidst those eight separate, gruesome, intentional, terroristic invocations of the horrors of 9/11 -- that with only a little further shift in this world we now know—just a touch more repudiation of all of that for which our patriots died --- did it ever occur to you once that in just 27 months and two days from now when you leave office, some irresponsible future president and a “competent tribunal” of lackeys would be entitled, by the actions of your own hand, to declare the status of “unlawful enemy combatant” for -- and convene a Military Commission to try -- not John Walker Lindh, but George Walker Bush?

For the most vital, the most urgent, the most inescapable of reasons.

And doubtless, Sir, all of them—as always—wrong.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15321167/

audio:

http://podcast.msnbc.com/audio/podcast/pd_countdown-10-18-2006-180800.mp3

posted in Eco-Matrix - 1 reply

Ecotopia the utopian novel that inspired Cascadia

2006-10-08T18:39:45Z

Ecotopia the utopian novel that inspired Cascadia

I came across a pirated copy of Ecotopia in
pdf format for anyone to download and get others interested (maybe
as wall paper the whole book on a public accessable wall might be an
idea). I would recommend dowloading it and passing it on before it
is yank from the site:

http://www.indybay.org/uploads/aipotoce.pdf

Sorry Ernest Callenbach .. but I think the need for the paradigm
shift should out weight the payment for royalties in this case.

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Watershed Action Week! October 2-8

2006-10-03T10:24:52Z

Watershed Action Week! October 2-8

from Portland Indy:

Watershed Action Week! October 2-8
author: Josh e-mail: cfd@forestdefenders.org
A week of action, awareness and celebration, in defense of the McKenzie River Watershed, Eugene's source of drinking water.

Watershed
CASCADIA FOREST DEFENDERS, N.E.S.T., CASCADIA EARTH FIRST!, UO's FOREST ACTION, GUARDIANS OF THE MCKENZIE WATERSHED and CASCADIA'S ECOSYSTEM ADVOCATES (CEA) present:

WATERSHED ACTION WEEK

October 2nd - 8th

In defense of the McKenzie River Watershed, Eugene's source of drinking water

Monday, October 2nd: Cascadia Forest Defenders meeting at Grower's Market (4th/Willamette) @ 6 pm
Tuesday, October 3rd: Forest Action meeting/social at the University of Oregon, Survival Center @ 6pm
Wednesday, October 4th: CFD Rally protesting Seneca Jones Lumber's purchase of the "Trapper" logging sale in the McKenzie. Meet at Friendly St. Market (28th/Friendly) @ 5pm
Thursday, October 5th: Reggae band "Sons of Soil" and showing of the film "Fern Gully" at Cozmic Pizza (8th/Charnelton) @ 6pm
Friday, October 6th: Demonstration at the McKenzie Ranger Station. Carpool leaves Grower's Market (4th/Willamette) @ 1pm

For more information or to find out how to get involved, email: forestdefenders@riseup.net
or call Josh at 688-2600

homepage: http://www.forestdefenders.org
phone: 541-688-2600

found at http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/10/346884.shtml

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Walden by Henry David Thoreau free online

2006-09-03T11:02:36Z

Walden by Henry David Thoreau free online

I have been reading (while listening to) Walden by Henry David Thoreau again. I have tried to read this many many years ago (back in my high school years (in the late 70s and earler 80s). I think Walden by Henry David Thoreau is more relavent today in the era of Corporatism, debt slavery and resourse wars; a period of bioregional thinking; an age of needed action (such as civil disobience); a time for a return to the simple, local and the organic (Mother Nature)

free online audio reading:
http://librivox.org/walden-by-henry-david-thoreau

free online text:
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/WALDEN/walden.html

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The Secret Life of Yogurt

2006-08-31T15:52:33Z

Remember that book "The Secret Life of Plants"? In it they spoke of a guy who put the electrodes of a lie detector onto the leaves of a plant, and then thought about dumping his coffee on it. The meter went wild. Well, hold onto your hats....

"During my visit to HeartMath, Rollin McCraty [showed] his ultimate Stupid Heart-Trick. He took some yogurt from the fridge and dumped it, along with its resident colony of acidophilus and bifidus bacteria, into a petri dish. [With a] portable bioresponse meter [he] placed the electrodes in the dish... Then he asked me to think of a deeply disturbing emotional experience. Rummaging through memory, I had a sudden flash of my sister's death, and i was flooded with a surge of grief. At that very moment, all by itself, the needle on the meter buried itself in the red zone, then oscillated wildly back and forth. We hadn't touched anything. The box was hooked up to nothing but the yogurt (strawberry, my favorite). Nothing in the room had changed but my feelings. When I switched my mental focus back to my surroundings, the needle went still."
--Marc Ian Barasch, "Field Notes on the Compassionate Life"

posted in Eco-Matrix - 2 replies

Bush administration sells off public forests to energy companies

2006-07-20T12:52:28Z

Bush administration sells off public forests to energy companies
author: By John Jaccobs
Working with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Bush administration is moving ahead with plans to sell public national forest land to big oil and gas companies, as well as private timber firms. The White House plans to sell over 300,000 acres of publicly owned land, generating $800 million.

The states hardest hit will be California (85,500 acres), Idaho (26,200 acres), Colorado (21,500 acres) and Missouri (21,500 acres).

The administration is justifying these sales by claiming that they will generate funds to continue the Secure Rural Schools program, which is scheduled to run out of money in September. In reality, the Bush administration is plundering publicly owned lands on behalf of big business and the land sales will do nothing to seriously alleviate the mounting economic hardships faced by rural America.
Historically, the Forest Service has given 25 percent of its annual timber sales to local rural communities for schools, roads and other basic civil amenities. However, during the Clinton administration, several concessions were won by environmental groups that limited national forest logging.

The decrease in aid and the general decline of the logging industry devastated many rural counties. In 2000, Congress passed the Secure Rural Schools bill which provided over $1.5 billion to the rural counties to offset their deficits. The SRS bill is set to expire on September 30 of this year, with no source of funding available for its renewal. The Bush administration has seized on this situation, cynically exploiting the plight of rural communities to enrich energy and timber conglomerates.

The Forest Service has attempted to quell the public outcry over the sale of the public lands with its announcement that it intends to sell only small, scattered tracts of land that are hard to manage and, for the most part, closed off from public access by surrounding private property. However, the Forest Service has yet to provide any evidence to substantiate their claims.

A recent Bureau of Land Management auction in Colorado has left little doubt that the land sales will have a devastating impact on communities as well as the environment. Over $11.8 million was raised by the BLM from the sale of 135,000 acres of public land to energy companies in the state. Of the land sold, nearly 17,000 acres are located in the watersheds crucial for the cities of Grand Junction and Palisade.

Grand Junction, a city of 45,000 residents, attempted to buy the watersheds essential to its clean drinking water, but was outbid by an offer of $900,000 for the land by a private bidding company, the employer of which, as of now, is unknown.

While American working people are increasingly squeezed financially, with record oil and gas prices around the country a major contributing factor, a handful of energy conglomerates continue to report record profits. The government has not collected any increase in taxes on this surge of profits. Last year's $60 billion in oil and gas extracted from publicly owned lands should have provided the government with an additional $700 million in taxes. However, carefully crafted federal regulations, or flat-out negligence, have allowed these companies to report lower sales profits to the Interior Department than it did to its stockholders.

The big loser is the American population, who allegedly own the energy resources on these public lands. All profits from oil, natural gas or minerals extracted from these lands are supposed to be regulated and taxed so that the US Treasury can collect compensation for lease of the land. These royalties typically range from 12 percent to 16 percent, when they are actually collected.

However, the New York Times reported that natural gas corporations have yet to provide a credible explanation as to why—given that the price of natural gas nearly doubled from 2001 to 2005—they are paying fewer royalties today then they were in 2001. If both oil and natural gas royalties are combined, the $8 billion paid in 2001 is the same as in 2005. Oil and gas companies have unequivocally denied any wrongdoing.

As part of its energy policy the Bush administration is calling for further incentives for US oil and gas producers to expand output. However, as a report in April by Public Citizen points out, US oil supplies are at their biggest surplus in eight years.

Over the past six years the administration has refused to use spot-market prices to determine the value of energy sales from publicly owed lands, opening the way for producers to more easily sidestep auditing and fraud prevention measures. In addition, Vice President Cheney's energy task force proposed lucrative new incentives for companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico and other high-risk areas.

The already excessive incentives established by the Clinton administration were based on relatively cheap oil and gas prices. As a safeguard, trigger prices were set at $35 a barrel of oil and $4 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas. If oil and gas prices climbed above these thresholds, the legislation would expire and incentives would be reduced. These established thresholds have been exceeded for several years with no effort by the Bush administration to begin enforcing royalty payments.

As a further safeguard to big business interests on federal lands, Bush has appointed Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne as the secretary of the interior—the cabinet officer responsible for managing national parks, public lands and waters, and conserving natural resources. As a "pro-development" Western Republican who once threatened to ask the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to "leave Idaho," Kempthorne has long served big corporations at the expense of environmental and public interests.

Opposing the Idaho governor's appointment, a spokesman for the National Resources Defense Council said, "President Bush could not have made a more anti-environmental choice for his new secretary of the interior. Dirk Kempthorne surely will continue this administration's 'drill first, ask questions later' approach to public land stewardship."

A statement by the NRDC noted that during Kempthorne's first four-and-a-half years in office, the state's air got dirtier, more rivers were polluted, fewer polluters were inspected, and toxic emissions increased, according to a Knight Ridder analysis of Idaho pollution data from Environmental Protection Agency and state records ("Ex-EPA Foe Now In Line to Lead It," Philadelphia Inquirer, June 26, 2003). Kempthorne cut the state's environmental services budget three times in two years.

The League of Conservation Voters was no less unenthusiastic, noting, "During his career in Congress, Gov. Kempthorne earned a paltry 1% lifetime League of Conservation Voters' score. Enough Said," reported LCV vice president Tony Massaro.

Kempthorne is expected to fill the shoes of retiring Secretary Gale Norton—another servant of corporate interests—all too well. As interior secretary he plans to oversee the Bush administration's push for more oil and gas drilling from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska's North Slope.

-World Socialist Web Site

homepage: http://www.wsws.org

found at http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/07/342840.shtml

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any interest in an independent Cascadia?

2006-07-09T08:55:49Z

any interest in an independent Cascadia?

curious if anyone is interested in creating a independent bioregional Cascadia? Specifically looking for artists and organizers right now. Anyone interested then contact me... artist or not ... organizer or not

http://republic-of-cascadia.tripod.com/

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Marko Pogacnick?

2006-06-30T04:14:57Z

Anyone familiar with the work or books of Marko Pogacnik? I had the honour of spending last evening with him as he shared his profound wisdom on earth consciousness and multidimensionality among other universal messages. I was very impressed and his messages deeply resonated with me.

Anyone else?

For more information about his work visit his web page at

www.ljudmila.org/pogacnik

or info re his workshop and talks in Vancouver check out www.markobc2006.com

posted in Eco-Matrix - 1 reply

Working too hard is hardly working

2006-05-31T05:10:18Z

"For decades, Harper's editor Lewis Lapham, born into an oil fortune, has been asking people how much money they would need to be happy. 'No matter what their income', he reports, 'a depressing number of [people] believe that if they only had TWICE as much, they would inherit the estate of happiness promised them...'

Yet...

"Harvard University economist Juliet Schor writes in 'The Overworked American': 'Since 1948, the level of productivity of the US worker has more than doubled. In other words, we could now produce our 1948 standard of living in less than half the time. Every time productivity increases, we are presented with the possibility of either more free time or more money. We could have chosen the 4 hour day. Or a working year of 6 months. Or every worker in the US could now be taking every other year off work-- with pay'. Instead, Americans work the same hours and earn twice the money.

From "Are We Happy Yet?" by Alan Thein Durning (Roszak 1995)

posted in Eco-Matrix - 4 replies

Green Scare Resources

2006-05-26T13:18:10Z

Green Scare Resources
author: havetheirbacks
this is a list of online resources for greenscare info . . .
GREEN SCARE RESOURCES

Civil Liberties Defense Center: excellent archive of legal papers, updates on indictments.
http://www.cldc.org

Portland Independent Media Center [IMC] Green Scare page
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/topic/greenscare/

Green Scare informational website
http://www.greenscare.org

Wikipedias pages on:
Green Scare:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Scare

Operation Backfire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Backfire_%28FBI%29

Green is the new Red
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/

Providence Green Scare
http://www.myspace.com/greenscarepvd

Media:

BOOM! Who are the real terrorists? BY ALAN PITTMAN
Eugene Weekly, March 9, 2006
http://www.eugeneweekly.com/2006/03/09/coverstory.html

Sourcecodes ..1 Terrorist Threat?
Download Quicktime movie below
http://sourcecode.freespeech.org/sc302EcotageDL

Operational Backfire: Criminalizing Dissent By MICHAEL DONNELLY
Counterpunch.org
http://www.counterpunch.org/donnelly05242006.html

War on the First Amendment
The Great Green Scare By BEN ROSENFELD
Counterpunch.org
http://www.counterpunch.org/rosenfeld03102006.html

The Green Scare by Karen Pickett
http://shiftshapers.gnn.tv/blogs/13536/The_Green_Scare

found at http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/340003.shtml

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While we're on Roszak,...

2006-03-12T07:37:31Z

I joined this tribe without any thought of Roszak in mind, but a year and a half a go, I got around to reading "The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein," thanks to a recommendation on another tribe.

I had read Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" way back in college, and found Roszak's rendition of "The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein" to be a thoroughly resounding piece of fiction, logical follow up to "Frankenstein," and highly recommend it to you all.

It also led me to read "The Gendered Atom" by Roszak, a follow-up (non-fiction) commentary to "The Memoirs," a short yet precise read of civilization's (and more particularly, science's) fundamental invasions into nature. (It also by the way has a foreward by Jane Goodall).

Anyways, both works uncover some "truths" commonly accepted throughout history, psychology, and civilization--particularly, that there is a natural hierarchy, oppositionality, and power inherent to the nature of things--and how each in turn inevitably lead to....the cutting off of a person from reality.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 1 reply

Techno-Addiction

2006-03-11T20:45:42Z

" 'Addiction, in one form or another, characterizes every aspect of industrial society...Dependence on alcohol, food, drugs, tobacco...is not fundamentally different from dependence on prestige, career acheivement, world influence, wealth, the need to build more ingenious bombs, or the need to exercise control over everything' [says social philosopher Morris Berman]...In "Steps to an Ecology of Mind', evolutionary philosopher Gregory Bateson points out that addictive behaviour is consistent with the Western approach to life that pits mind against body". (Glendinning in Roszak 1995)

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Crazy Like a Fox...DSM V?

2006-03-09T21:13:02Z

The definition of insanity has always been a political one... since no one is completely sane or insane, who gets to define it? People with connections who want to advance their theories and make ther marks on psychology, without much regard for the greater good:

"In our culture, listening to the voice o the Earth as if the nonhuman felt, heard, spoke would seem the essence of madness to most people. Is it possible that by asserting that very conception of madness, psychotherapy itself may be defending the deepest of all our repressions, the form of psychic mutilation that is most crucial to the advance of industrial civilization, namely, the assumption that the land is a dead and servile thing that has no feeling, no memory, no intention of its own? With the full authority of modern science, conventional sanity cuts us off from using Stone Age psychiatry as a therapeutic resource. Those who believe that this condition can be easily remedied, say by spending a few hours in a sweat lodge, are simply not in touch with the true dimensions of their own alienation."

Where Psyche Meets Gaia, by Theodore Roszak

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Ecopsychology retreat on Bowen Island

2006-03-09T20:59:03Z

ECOPSYCHOLOGY: Create The Connection!

Join us to re-discover your 'original unity', in the beautiful setting of Rivendell Retreat Centre on Bowen Island.

With Toni Pieroni, MA, RCC and Jennifer Scott,MA, ADTR, RCC, from Vancouver, BC.

Synopsis
This retreat integrates Creation-based Ecopsychology with Joanna Macy's four part process of gratitude, despair, the shift, and going forth. Outdoor exercises using sensory awareness, imagination, ritual, and creativity will compliment indoor group sharing, lecture, ritual, and discussion.

Ecopsychology explores the inter-relationship between humans and the natural world. It recognizes our relationship with nature as inherently healing and facilitates a deeper connection with all Creation.

When:
Thursday 6:00PM, March 30 to Sunday 4:00PM, April 2, 2006
(option to stay at Rivendell Sunday night and leave by Monday noon)

Where:
Rivendell Retreat Center, Bowen Island, BC. (See directions below)

What to bring:
We suggest you bring an outdoor cushion, outdoor clothing, a journal, and a sacred object (optional).

Registration:

Please contact Toni Pieroni at 604-737-0168, tonip@telus.net

or Jennifer Scott at 604-926-5304, jsbc@shaw.ca

Please note the registration deadline is March 15th. Since registration is limited to 22 people, early registration is recommended.

This workshop is for those who:
.....Feel drawn to deepen into a communion with ourselves, each other, and the natural world.
.....Want to connect with like minded people.
.....Want to open the doors of perception to the natural world and ourselves in it.
.....Enjoy group sharing, experiential exercises, creativity and ritual.
.....Want to experience our 'original unity' in the silence of the forest and within our own hearts.
.....Want to nurture and strengthen ourselves to be more in the world and in life.

Following a four path process (adapted from Joanna Macy),
you will creatively:
.....Re-connect nature, the body, energy, and spirit.
.....Experience the healing power of expressing our responses to planetary conditions.
.....Become more fully alive to your authentic gift to creation.
.....Deepen /renew your commitment to a purposeful life.

The Presenters:
Toni Pieroni, MA, RCC, is a Registered Clinical Counselor in private practice working with individuals and couples. She has trained with Joanna Macy and has facilitated workshops based on Joanna's work. She is passionate about accelerating the shifts in consciousness that is needed to shape values and behaviours toward the healing of our world. She volunteers at The David Suzuki Foundation and is on the board of the Earth Revival Society.

Jennifer Scott, MA, ADTR, RCC, is a Registered Clinical Counsellor, Registered Dance/Movement Therapist, and Ecotherapist in private practice. She also offers groups, workshops, and retreats to support people's deepening connection to self, nature, spirit, and community. She is on the board of Movement Matters Association and a Regional Council Representative for Region 4 of the BCACC.

Directions to Rivendell Retreat Center:
When you come off the ferry, get into the left lane. Take a left onto Dorman Road, then a right onto Village Drive. Follow Village Drive up the steep and windy road until you come to Rivendell. There are signs along the way. There are also busses and taxis. Rivendell's phone number is 604-947-0077

posted in Eco-Matrix - 1 reply

Person as Place

2006-01-11T20:10:05Z

A thread named for a chapter in the book "The Power of Place" by Winifred Gallagher. What we have in common with our planet, once we have developed, is that we are homeostatic, or self-regulating. Here are some interesting points:

"The unique feature of our first place, is of course, that it is also a person. For nine months, we dwell in the flesh and fluids of a fellow sensate being who is literally our whole world. This combination person/place handles everything for us, even the climate."

"Delicate researches show that far from waiting inertly for birth to raise the curtain on environment, from its first cellular murmurs the fetus is profoundly attuned to the uterine world, and gradually, to the one beyond."

"There is a degree of continuity between fetal life and life outside, and changes to our earliest environment cause changes in us, just as our later
experiences do".

"For most of human history and in nontechnological cultures still, babies have literally lived on their mothers' bodies, relying on their flesh and blood to keep them warm, fed, dry, safe and stimulated much as we depend on our homes."

"Evolution scaffolds one stage of development on another"

What would you conclude/speculate from this about our relationship to the natural world?

posted in Eco-Matrix - 2 replies

To Be of the Earth

2005-11-29T20:36:33Z

To be of the Earth is to know
the restlessness of being a seed
the darkness of being planted
the struggle toward the light
the pain of growth into the light
the joy of bursting and bearing fruit
the love of being food for someone
the scattering of your seeds
the decay of the seasons
the mystery of death
and the miracle of birth.

--John Soos, in "Earth Prayers from Around the World"

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Relating to the Ecosystem; past, present, future

2005-11-10T19:46:33Z

this will call for opinion, conjecture, and maybe even creative extrapolation; feel free to do some stream of consciousness responding...

how do you think the many human cultures of the world related to the Ecosystem during the millions of years of human existence before the "agricultural revolution" about 10,000 years ago?

what changes do you think the "agricultural revolution" brought, regarding relating to the Ecosystem?

now that we have pretty much one homogeneous globalculture that relates to the Ecosystem in pretty much the same homogeneous way, how would you describe the way that we do now relate to the Ecosystem?

posted in Eco-Matrix - 7 replies

City vs. Backwoods

2005-11-10T19:26:02Z

If we look at the worldviews of indigenous peoples and urbanites, there are some marked differences around feelings of safety that are quite interesting. Do you feel safer in the city than in the backwoods? Safer in your neighbourhood but not downtown? Vice versa? What is your definition of, or what is a requirement for safety? This is more about feeling than common sense.

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Retreat

2005-11-09T20:51:47Z

What would folks expect of a wilderness retreat, if they were to go on one? I'm sure most of us have jobs and routines that are mostly within the context of urban environments, or at least indoor ones. I'm in the planning stages of designing one.

One price would include airfare, equipment rentals, meals, and a guide/facilitator. How rugged would you want it? What would you like to come away with from the trip? What would your expectations be of the guide/facilitator, who could be 2 different people?

posted in Eco-Matrix - 3 replies

Thank You

2005-10-06T07:10:03Z

LISTEN by W.S. Werwin

with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and we say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
looking up from tables we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living on the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

--From "Earth Prayers From Around the World", Elizabeth Roberts et al (Eds.)

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies

Books on My Shelf

2005-10-04T16:11:36Z

Here are some of the books I have that have been a good orientation to the subject:

"Ecopsychology", Edited by Theodore Roszak (the definitive bible!)
"How Nature Works:Regenerating Kinship With Planet Earth" by Michael Cohen
"The Spell of the Sensuous" by David Abran
"The Attentive Heart: Conversations With Trees" by Stephanie Kaza
"Supernature" by Lyall Watson
"Supernature II" by Lyall Watson
"Overshoot" by Mona Clee (Fiction, but thought provoking)
"The Family Tree" by Sherri Tepper (Fiction ")

And ones I have read that have been enlightening and useful:

"Communication With Animals" (Meyers)
"Dark Nature" by Lyall Watson
"Conscious Evolution" (Mitchell)
"Confessions of an Ecowarrior" by Dave Foreman
"The Domestication of the Human Species" by David Livingston
"Earth Honouring" (Lawlor)
"Earthmind" (Devereux)
"Green Delusions: An Environmrntalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism" by Martin Lewis
"Green Rage" (Manes)
"Instinctive Nutrition" (Schaeffer)
"Kinship With All Life" (Boone) Astounding!
"My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery From Western Civilization" by Chellis Glendinning (An all-time favourite)
"The Continuum Concept" by Jean Liedloff
"The Rebirth of Nature" by Rupert Sheldrake
"The Romeo Error" by Lyall Watson
"The Secret Life of Plants" (Tompkins/Bird) Also astounding.
"Talking With Nature" by Michael Roads
"The Voice of the Planet" by Michael Tobias (Fiction)

Anyone read any of these? If so, what did/do you think?

posted in Eco-Matrix - 2 replies

Ecotherapy Community

2005-10-01T01:07:43Z

Hello everyone. for a year or so now, I've been a lapsed member of the Victoria Ecospychology Discussion Group, and a current member who is also a dear friend of mine emailed me the following newsletter. I posted it so folks can see what else is going on with this relatively new discipline, and there are some good resources throughout. It also provides some thought-provoking material. What think you?

Note: If this newsletter doesn't come through clearly, you can also read it after Oct 6 at our website, http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy

THE ECOTHERAPY NEWSLETTER
Healing our relationship with nature
Ecopsychology in Action!
Psychotherapy as if the Whole Earth Mattered
© October 2005
Editor: Linda Buzzell-Saltzman, M.A., M.F.T., lbuzzell@aol.com
Founder, The International Association for Ecotherapy
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, California
OUR WEBSITE: http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy
ECOTHERAPY BLOG: http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ice_seedsÂ every Monday
ONLINE DISCUSSION GROUPS: Join one or both of our NEW LIST-SERVS where you can discuss activist ecopsychology with others interested in this topic:
1. act_ecopsy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com This group is working collectively to develop ecopsychological resources to assist in The Great Turning from life-destroying society to life-sustaining culture.
2. chat_act_ecopsy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com This group is a chat group where activist ecopsychological folk can discuss their activities and interests.

Contents:
1. QUOTES OF THE MONTH: Shierry Weber Nicholsen
2. DAVID KORTEN TO SPEAK ABOUT *THE GREAT TURNING* AT EARTH CHARTER SUMMIT. LISTEN ONLINE.
3. BOOK OF THE MONTH: THE LOVE OF NATURE AND THE END OF THE WORLD: THE UNSPOKEN DIMENSIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN by Shierry Weber Nicholsen.
4. JUNGIAN ANALYST MARY JANE RUST TO SPEAK ON PSYCHOLOGY FOR CHANGE, Bristol, UK
5. THIS WEEK*S ECOTHERAPY BLOG TOPIC: Nature Vitamins. Next week: Winston Churchill’s Ecotherapy http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ice_seeds
6. ECOPSYCHOLOGY COURSES AND DEGREES: Dr. Ed Casey teaches PSYCHE AND NATURE at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California
7. ON THE WEB: Cool websites to check out, including our website at http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy where you’ll find current and past issues of this newsletter, and the International Community for Ecopsychology*s www.ecopsychology.org: the best source of ecopsychology info on the web!

The International Association for Ecotherapy is a virtual organization of psychotherapy clinicians, students and educators who are practicing or teaching in the new field of ecotherapy (clinical/applied ecopsychology). If you'd like to be removed from this list, please just e-mail back. Or if you'd like to send e-mail addresses to add, news to pass along, or your insights, please do so! Joining is absolutely free.
1. QUOTES OF THE MONTH “ from Sherry Weber Nicholsen book *The Love of Nature* (see below)
Generation X is quite aware that their elders have bequeathed to them a damaged world.
Technology is the vehicle of our contemporary denial of death. While technology is essentially nonhuman and nonemotional, we identify with it, because the nonhuman is invulnerable to death; to opt for material comfort is to opt for the nonhuman, whose representative in the larger world is technology.
Apathy, Joanna Macy reminds us, is the mask of suffering: a way of adapting, of defending oneself in a situation that is utterly overwhelming and where there is no end in sight. We all need this kind of protection in our current environmental situation: in which there is so much destruction of so many kinds, in so many places, affecting so many people and so many other creatures: No wonder environmental activists complain about the widespread apathy that meets their efforts to arouse concern
This sense of being caught in a war without end: is both the unconscious suffering of those who have become apathetic and the frustration of those who feel an urgent concern and try to rouse the others
It behooves us to remember that apathy is indeed the sign of a personality or a society resting in the midst of utter fiasco, and to ask ourselves when and under what conditions it might be able to emerge.
Numbing is a form of dissociation. We split off one part of ourselves from another.Â It is a form of psychic distancing, a denial of intimacy: We need to numb ourselves simply to get through the day. *Within this culture,* (Robert Jay) Lifton says, *you could call the numbing of everyday life a necessary defensive maneuver.*
2. DAVID KORTEN TO SPEAK ABOUT *THE GREAT TURNING*
David Korton's speech at the Earth Charter Summit on Oct 8, 2005 will be archived right away on the website, www.earthchartersummits.org. As you know, he wrote When Corporations Rule the World and he is pre-launching his new book that will be available at a discount via a flyer downloadable from the website. His book is entitled The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. He includes the Earth Charter in his book and here is what a reviewer wrote about it: Not only are we the ones we have been waiting for, THIS is the book we have been waiting for! Korten provides the context and stories that have been missing, leaving us with piecemeal analyses and solutions. The framework of the 5,000 year history of the Empire is very insightful and a big eye-opener about the deliberateness of the enslavement and oppression that has resulted from it. Korten gives *we the people* a definitive and powerful voice. Now, it is up to us to use it.
3. BOOK OF THE MONTH: THE LOVE OF NATURE AND THE END OF THE WORLD: THE UNSPOKEN DIMENSIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN by Shierry Weber Nicholsen.
I picked this book up because it was one of the few that dealt with the psychological issues relating to our current environmental dilemma. What also attracted me was the fact that it takes a depth psychological approach to the topic and doesn’t shy away from extremely complex issues relating to the human soul and psyche.
The central question the book addresses is *How can the public mind relegate matters of the environment, which is the ground of our whole lives, to the periphery of concern, as though they were the private interest of a group called *environmentalists*?
Nicholsen quotes psychoanalyst Harold Searles, who in 1972 said *Even beyond the threat of nuclear warfare: the ecological crisis is the greatest threat mankind collectively has ever faced. ¦My hypothesis is that man (sic) is hampered in his meeting of this environmental crisis by a severe and pervasive apathy which is based largely upon feelings and attitudes of which he is unconscious.* She says this statement is *the basis of what I have tried to do in this book: to explore the psychological reasons for what appears as willful stupidity.*
And this collective apathy is the central problem we face right now. Why are we destroying and colluding in the destruction by others of our own habitat and the habitat of millions of our fellow creatures on this damaged planet? If we can’t answer this question, we are doomed. And who better to answer it than those who supposedly understand deep human psychology?
The most relevant chapter for me is Chapter 5, A Severe and Pervasive Apathy: Trauma, Destructiveness, and the End of the World. Here Nicholson connects the traumas of the last 50 years, including the cumulative psychological effects of large-scale social catastrophes like atomic bomb detonations, the Holocaust, the ongoing nuclear threat, environmental degradation etc. with personal experiences of severe trauma and abuse to address our seemingly inexplicable behavior.
*The intertwining of guilt and victimization, the feeling of being somehow tainted by death, the sense of something fundamental to ongoing life having been ruined, the feeling of being isolated and silenced, the wish to shut off the emotional pain on the one hand and the urgency to reintegrate and make meaning on the other*: all these dimensions she believes are at the root of why most people persist in this *willful stupidity*.
Nicholson believes that Robert Jay Lifton*s ideas about the *apocalyptic* self and the *measured* self can help us understand the split in the modern psyche. *The measured self is the everyday familiar self, concerned with the individual*s life in ordinary time. The apocalyptic self is concerned with the threat to life: It is both terrified and terrifying. We need both selves, she says. *We need the ordinary self to remember that life in its simple living is of value, and we need the apocalyptic self for its awareness of potential catastrophe.*
The psychological concept of trauma is at the center of Nicholson’s explanation for our bizarre behavior. *Trauma destroys the individual*s sense of a safe world in which to live,* she says. *Trauma touches levels from the family to the community to the society to humankind to the natural world to the divine. Evil enters into every trauma, for what is betrayed is ultimately our trust in goodness, or the capacity of goodness to withstand evil, the strength of life as such In environmental degradation we experience the betrayal of the sense that life will continue, a betrayal of our confidence in the strength of the containing natural world that is the mother and life support of us all; this combination of extreme dependency and extreme vulnerability ¦makes the betrayal in trauma so catastrophic.*
From this extreme global trauma comes psychic numbness and even shocking behavior.
I believe this book should be on the shelves of everyone serious about ecotherapy either on the individual or societal level. It*s impossible to summarize all its ideas in this short space, but let me add a few more quotes:
*At some level of awareness, the sense, however illusory, of the security and *ordinariness* provided by confidence in the continuity of life has vanished.*
*We are apathetic about this severe external problem. We go on living in such a way that the problem becomes worse, and we do not put it at the forefront of our consciousness and our concern. This response is highly irrational in terms of our welfare and survival. Such an irrational response signals an internal problem: something is interfering with our ability to deal with an important threat.*
*Long-term obstruction of grief and failure to communalize grief can imprison a person in endless swinging between rage and emotional deadness as a permanent way of being in the world.*
4. JUNGIAN ANALYST MARY JANE RUST TO SPEAK ON PSYCHOLOGY FOR CHANGE IN BRISTOL, U.K.
Mary Jane Rust will be giving an ecopsychology lecture to a large audience in Bristol this month. She comments *It’s interesting that this has been invited into the Green Movement arena, who so often shy away from the psychological.*
Bristol Schumacher Lectures 2005 SHAPING OUR FUTURE Sat 29 Oct 2005, 10am-5pm, St Georges Bristol, Great George Street
THE THEME
The theme of this year*s Bristol Lectures springs out of a growing concern about humanity*s seemingly blind collision course with its own future. We have become used to taking nature*s riches without much concern about the consequences for the world or for future generations. With unprecedented global human populations and use of resources we face the urgent need to consciously shape our future. Are we up to the challenge?
SPEAKERS: JAKOB VON UEXKULL President, World Future Council, BUILDING MORAL POWER From The Right Livelihood Awards to The World Future Council
Mary-Jayne Rust is an ecopsychologist working in North London. Eating problems and addiction have been a major theme in her work as a therapist, and this has naturally led to a wider interest in our addiction to consumerism. She has been a central figure in the emerging Ecopsychology movement in the UK for the past decade, a movement which is using psychology in service to the earth. In her lecture she will speak about the psychological dimensions of making lifestyle changes, and the reasons we may have for not doing what we know is best for us - and for all beings with whom we share this planet.
TIM SMIT Chief Executive, Eden Project, EATING FROM THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE - Recreating Eden
TICKET PRICES NON MEMBERS: £30 standard, £25 restricted view MEMBERS: £20 standard, £15 restricted view
ORDERING TICKETS You can either order tickets online at: http://www.schumacher.org.uk/bsl05.htm OR contact us at the office: Tel: 0117 903 1081
5. THIS WEEK*S ECOTHERAPY BLOG TOPIC: HAVE YOU TAKEN YOUR NATURE VITAMINS? http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ice_seeds Next week’s topic: Winston Churchill’s Ecotherapy.
The ecopsychology blog has been created by the International Community for Ecopsychology and features 5-7 new posts A WEEK! Including Mondays on Ecotherapy by Linda Buzzell-Saltzman. Please check us out and post your comments on any of the blog topics.
6. ECOPSYCHOLOGY COURSES AND DEGREES
PACIFICA GRADUATE INSTITUTE, Santa Barbara, California. Dr. Ed Casey teaches *Psyche and Nature,* which has three parts: exploring ancient notions of the natural and the psychical in myth and philosophy; the ingrediency of place in nature and contemporary life; the wild and wilderness. Water as a basic element is discussed at each phase throughout. Authors range from Plato to Gary Snyder, Ivan Illich to Keith Basso, Susan Griffin to Paul Shepard. www.pacifica.edu
PROJECT NATURE CONNECT*S INSTITUTE OF GLOBAL EDUCATION now has grants that can provide FULL FUNDING of a degree or certification program for those who need it. PNC offers many excellent programs in nature-connected counseling, education and self-help. http://www.ecopsych.com
Note: I'm putting together a list of college and university programs that offer ecopsychology courses and/or degrees: if you’d like to receive the list, please e-mail me.
7. ON THE WEB
* Our website at http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy has current and past issues of Ecotherapy News. Many, many heartfelt thanks to ecopsychology maven Heather Witham for creating and hosting our site! Heather is an amazingly creative person who has some wonderful web offerings and gifts for us all. Check out: www.mymoonster.com -- a delightful way to get yourself back in sync with nature’s cycles and explore radical ecopsychology.
* ONLINE DISCUSSION GROUPS: Join one or both of our NEW LIST-SERVS where you can discuss activist ecopsychology with others interested in this topic:
act_ecopsy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com This group is working collectively to develop ecopsychological resources to assist in The Great Turning from life-destroying society to life-sustaining culture.
chat_act_ecopsy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com This group is a chat group where activist ecopsychological folk can discuss their activities and interests.
* If you haven’t yet discovered it, check out www.ecopsychology.org: the best ecopsychology site on the web! Read *Gatherings* journal; sign up for the list serv to chat. Sign up on the Practitioners page to tell the world about your ecopsychology or ecotherapy practice...
* Check out the great new academic search engine: http://scholar.google.com.Â Look up ecopsychology/ecotherapy for lots of interesting stuff
* http://www.anzjft.com/articles/21=4Burns.pdf will take you to *When Watching a Sunset Can Help a Relationship Dawn Anew: Nature-Guided Therapy for Couples and Families* by George W. Burns, Australia-New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 2000, Vol21, No. 4, pp184-190
* http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/content/v19.2/04_Hibbard.pdf - *Ecopsychology: A Review* by Whit Hibbard. This article reviews the history and current state of the Ecopsychology field. There's tons of interesting stuff, including the issues of whether destroying our habitat is a form of mental illness, the nature of our denial, consumption/techno addictions etc.
Ecopsychology holds the promise of offering original practices for personal, social and ecological renewal.
Andy Fisher, author of Radical Ecopsychology (2002)
How does health care change when symptoms are seen as signals from the larger world or signs of disconnection from it?
Sarah A. Conn, Ph.D., The Ecopsychology Institute at the Center for Psychological & Social Change; Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School

posted in Eco-Matrix - 0 replies