.JPG "Earthen Spirituality")
Living within a living, loving planet
We participate in the Universe as Earthlings
10 days
by sky
in Living Universe
We participate in the Universe as Earthlings
Space, Time & Medicine by Larry Dossey
Chapter Four Bell’s Theorem
“The mystic’s vision of a world in which man participates in a seamless existence, indivisible, united with the universe around him, resonates through a discovery called Bell’s theorem.”
Man, an Earth creature, is enveloped not in the universe, but in the loving and sustaining cloak of a great and powerful being called Earth. Our seamless and indivisible unification is with the Earth. Although we are a multifaceted organism composed of subsystems within subsytems – resonating parts within a whole- we are entirely dependent on the composition of Earth’s outer few thousand feet of sustenance. Earth is the next higher holon in a vast holarchy extending outward into the cosmos. We are inextricably bound in a vast community of beings – all earthlings. Our sense organs, along with other Earthlings, both physical and psychic, are fine tuned to Earthly structures from which we evolved.
I am weary of reading about my cosmic connection. Obviously, I’m part of the Universe; so is everything else. Yes, I am made of the material of stars that exploded long ago but knowing that does not comfort me as I choke in the smog and wretch from fracked up drinking water. I have no desire to check out my connectivity to other galaxies or even Mars for that matter. Interesting, yes, but knowing that an elephant is killed every fifteen minutes by ivory hunters severely limits my appreciation. Perhaps more emphasis needs to be placed on our Earthly connections.
Sky McCain
29 March, 2014
Council could close half of Devon’s libraries
Council could close half of Devon’s libraries
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-26840248
“We just need to evolve the way we support them and move forward.”
“The library service in Devon has to save another £1.5m due to spending cuts, the briefing paper says, in addition to a £3m cut over the last three years.”
What’s with these “moving forward” and “evolve” euphemisms? There is nothing forward moving or evolutionary about these cuts on top of previous cuts. This is blatantly penalising the poor for the excesses of the rich.
“Plans to award MPs an 11% pay rise have been criticised across Westminster, with one minister describing them as ‘utterly incomprehensible’”.
“All three party leaders disagreed with the move when it was first proposed earlier this year but the watchdog is expected to say it will press ahead with the rise – expected to cost the public purse £4.6m.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25287108
“HSBC to unveil highest profits since start of crisis Thursday 03 April 2014” The banks are back in profit whilst social services are still being cut. Why is this?
What will become of those who cannot learn the terrible knowledge of cities?
25 days
by sky
in Gaia Consciousness
Taken from “Requiem for Sonora” by Richard Shelton
I guess you must have been there and learned to love the place for this poem to bring you undone.
If this poem is the only blessing I had ever received I would die happily.
Amazon Rainforest Breathes In More Than It Breathes Out
26 days
by sky
in Global Warming
Amazon Rainforest Breathes In More Than It Breathes Out
By Becky Oskin, Senior Writer | March 20, 2014
http://www.livescience.com/44235-amazon-rainforest-carbon-cycle-measured.html
“Pristine Amazon forests pull in more carbon dioxide than they put back into the atmosphere, according to a new study. The findings confirm that natural Amazon forests help reduce global warming by lowering the planet’s greenhouse gas levels, the researchers said.”
Let’s cease spending money on further research on a subject that has been fully covered and instead spend the money paying people to NOT cut the trees and plant more. In earlier interglacial cycles, it was the millions of trees and extensive savanna that gradually lowered CO2 enough to boost the downward cycle into the much longer glacial part of the cycle.
I hear many people asking themselves, “Why would we want to support long glacial periods?” Because that’s how Earth, a living being, has decided to counter the effects of the sun’s expanding heat. Let’s work with the planet, not just rape and pillage as if the Earth came into being for our benefit.
Use Trains and Ferries
41 days
by sky
in Environmental Protection
A lot of us despair realizing that one person can do so little about CO2 emissions. However, one thing we can do is switch to trains and ferries. Yes, they are more expensive, but with an increase in market share, costs will go down. There must be exceptions such as “love miles” when loved ones live overseas, but leisure travel could be by train and ferry. It costs more but what is the health of our Earth worth?
10 March 2014, 6.03am GMT
Morphing is one way to make aircrafts more efficient
“The transport sector as a whole is increasing CO2 emissions at such a rate that it has cancelled out two decades’ worth of green gains made across the manufacturing, power generation, district heating, residential, services and agriculture sectors combined. This devastating disparity is forecast to grow.”
“…the annual growth rate of the number of flights within Europe has remained consistent at 3.9%. The rise of Asia and cheap flight carriers, like Ryanair, making weekend trips away affordable to the masses have pushed the rate up. This is expected to level out at 5.3%.”
“The goal set by the EU to reduce aircraft CO2 emissions by 75% by 2050 is totally unrealistic. Even if Europe were to meet these goals, its aircraft industry will at the very least double its greenhouse emissions by 2050. The bleak reality is that we will probably see a quadrupling in the aircraft industry CO2 emissions by then – unless it totally reinvents the concept of the commercial aircraft.”
Eurostar on fast track to success after a slow start
By: Interview by Philip Waller Published: Sat, April 21, 2012
http://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/315656/Eurostar-on-fast-track-to-success-after-a-slow-start
“Eurostar plans a £700million over- haul in 2014, including 10 new trains and a refurbished existing fleet.”
Without land, water, and culture, we are nothing
43 days
by sky
in Planetary Rights
Without land, water, and culture, we are nothing
“Deranger: The river systems are the life, and … grandmother moon, grandfather sun— everything is alive. When you’re raised with that relationship, that the foxes are your cousins and the eagles are your brothers, you start to have a totally different relationship and interaction with everything around you. And so much of humanity has lost that. But indigenous people have retained it somehow.
If you kill the land, the waterways, the air and culture of those people, you essentially kill those people. And that, in fact, is the definition of genocide.” Eriel Deranger of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation
Setting fire to coal underground
New Scientist 13 February, 2014
Setting fire to coal underground could answer our energy prayers, or start an environmental disaster on a bigger scale than ever before
Surely they wouldn’t do this, or would they?
Ethanol industry is back in the black
Ethanol industry is back in the black after some rough years. Boom times are back in the ethanol business. Major producers of the corn-based fuel are reporting record returns for the fourth quarter thanks to dramatically lower corn prices, increasing demand for motor fuel and strong ethanol exports. Minneapolis Star Tribune, Minnesota
I’ve suspected this all along. Fracking, polluting precious ground water and ethanol production, feeding vehicles instead of people, is not about lower prices for the consumer and a better life for US citizens. No, it is about exports and one of the factors in the 1% which is now .8% and rising.
Why should a corn farmer be concerned about nutrition and soil conservation with poisons readily available and corn prices high enough to afford them, when the crop will be used to feed cars? Wrecking the soil, which is an asset of the people, is ecocide and an insult to our grandchildren.
Oldgrowth is Valuable
83 days
by sky
in Environmental Protection
Woodman, spare that tree!
http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/2014/01/woodman-spare-that-tree/
By Tim Radford
It may seem unlikely, but an international team of researchers has found that most large trees keep absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide even in old age.
LONDON, 26 January – Giant trees could play a giant role in fixing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This counter-intuitive discovery – surely, young faster-growing trees would be more efficient at soaking up carbon? – emerges from a study of more than 403 species by a consortium of 38 scientists in 16 countries who report in Nature.
Nathan Stephenson of the US Geological Survey and his 37 colleagues between them studied data collected from more than 650,000 individual trees on six continents over a span of 80 years to show that the world’s oldest trees actually grow more quickly, and also accumulate carbon more rapidly than younger, smaller trees.
Are We Guardians of the Planet?
91 days
by sky
in Earthenspirituality
Are we Guardians of the Planet?
guardian
n
1. one who looks after, protects, or defends: the guardian of public morals.
Darkening of the Light
Witnessing the End of an Era
by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
In the Introduction to Darkening of the Light by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, we find:
“But this gift of light was also a test for humanity…and has forgotten our ancient purpose as guardians of the planet.”
Not only do I have no idea who or what religion, spirituality or movement decided that we have this ancient purpose. It certainly was not Jewish or Christian. According to Genesis, God has given us the planet to have dominion over. I am aware of my ignorance and will try to find out.
We just cannot have it both ways. Either we see the oneness, the non-dual in our beingness as the Earth, or we see the duality as we, creatures of the Earth protecting the other that we choose to call Earth. The bark is the tree, there is not the bark and the tree as a duality. Yes, our language allows us to split and divide, carve up things so that we can speak of the tree roots, the tree bark, tree limbs, tree leaves, but still without these what we call parts, what we observe wouldn’t be a tree. It is our thinking function that gets hung up on dichotomys. Our science rips living things apart and then pronounces on what “it is.”
Guardianship may have ancient beginnings, but our science supports a non-dual understanding of how we are in the world. Even to see ourselves as IN a world out there is to err.
There is no duality, no “out there” and “in here.” As Vadim Zeland has said, the world is a mirror of your attitude towards it. The Gnostic text The Gospel of St. Thomas that didn’t make the cut by the early “holy” fathers of the church, remarks something like: When the inner becomes as the outer, there is the Kingdom of God. Another biblical source says that the Kingdom of God is within you. [Luke 17:21] So, we may see that actually, the world is also within you, not “out there.” So, if there is no “out there” and “out there” is really within us and we are “within” the planet both physically and spirituality, then what we have is oneness, true oneness. From the perspective of planets, stars and galaxies, they are not “out there” either, so they are a oneness. From here it is not too far out for those who speak of oneness with the Universe.
Now this is my thinking function rattling on. How do I feel? Can I sense oneness in my everyday interaction with what I think of as out there? Well, since I cannot and do not want to part with my mate and buddy, the thinking function, I’ll just call it a both/and and leave it for now as I set forth for my daily bread walking among the birds, insects, grass, trees, bushes, clouds and feeling joyful knowing that I know and I am known.