Solstice Wishes

In these times we are facing unprecedented change in virtually every area of our lives. Perhaps this is why so many folks are "clinging to their guns and religion".
I have been aware of and studying the stock market and economics generally for over thirty years and the amount of upheaval and change there is negligible considering the pressing need for us to significantly change our approach to finance, business and industry. In education, food systems and transportation we are seeing change, just not enough to alter the course of dire projections that have been in the wind for the last thirty years or more.

We have available technologies that could bring transport costs and emissions down significantly while providing a better quality of life for millions. We just can't muster the will to mandate necessary change. Educational systems are failing. Many school systems exhibit falling budgets and test scores but we try to reclaim the high ground by focusing on the "Three 'R's" an the institution of national "standards" or curricula. What is needed is a new approach to our beloved children. We must stop warehousing them as a means to subsidize industry with "free" child care. Let them guide their own education and pursue their interests with the help of trained guides and mentors. Foodies try to transform the American Diet, but as long "eat local" folks are seen as fringe metrosexuals and people with odd looking glasses, footwear or hairstyles, we cannot hope to get the average consumer to know or care where their carrots come from. My favorite, by the way, are from either the back yard, or local farmer's market. The rape of our soils and the packing of our gullet for profit only makes the situation worse. As our very flesh becomes marbled, fat cats keep making decisions that allow them to laugh all the way to the bank.

My solstice Wish is for the sun to enlighten not only the globe, but the hearts of man/womankind. We need to realign ourselves, perhaps by worshiping this flaming ball in our sky. Recognize that all life flows from it and to respect what it has the power to do as well as what it cannot provide. All of our energy and food are produced by the sun. Even the "non-solar" aspects of nuclear energy pale when compared to the exploration and mining of uranium, carried out with fossil fuel derived energy, the processing and enrichment, again performed through massive fossil-fuel energy inputs, the transport and waste handling, also provided through conventional fossil fuel consuming processes. Without solar energy, the fires it can fuel, air and clean water, we are doomed death upon a lifeless rock. We need to thank the sun daily for the essential role it plays in our lives.

I have taken the commuter trains that exist out east. I have seen the effects of the "Main-line" on local communities, where for generations families have been able to exist without the drain of a second car on their budgets. I remember the last passenger train service pulling out of my town, and as the town has died, I have not been able to make it to the other social and commercial centers where we used to go when I was a child. I want these opportunities back, not only for me, but for my children and grand children. As more and more of our lives are spent disengaged from the world, I would like to see more honest interaction. Sharing where our food has come from, what we have learned from and taught our children, and what we learned on our way to work. Just as the Sun allows us to get a glimpse of our environment, I hope that we can see in one another little steps that we can all make to create a more appropriate future, one that honors people and the environment above profit, one that values things on a scale of the heart rather than the pocketbook and find ways to enrich one another's lives as well as our own.