Guidelines for Water Protectors

In 1987, when I rode my bicycle around the five Great Lakes to talk to people about the ecological catastrophes along their shores and within the watershed, it was from a proactive perspective, focused on real life solutions to the larger issues that face our planet everywhere, I also added a unique layer of experience with specific threats to our part of the planet. The point I made along my many miles, at virtually each stop along the way, was to perfect the art of the give back, or give-away. I frequently mentioned how the very concept of "Think Globally, Act Locally" misses the point entirely. We humans hit overload before we can get to the point of thinking globally. What good are we for ,ocal action if we have already shut down before we can begin the process?
Decades ago, the climate catastophe was not something most people were conversant about and I focused instead on water use, conservation, energy conservation and buying only products in recycleable or reuseable packaging were concrete things one person could to to reduce ecological harm to the environment. As was often said back then, "Until your own house is in order, don't ask others to clean up their mess". This was often used as a way to undermine public sentiment. Keeping our footprint small reduces resource depletion and degradation of the environment in a variety of ways and with a smaller ecological footprint, it becomes easier to rehabilitate our natural world and stem the flow of toxins into the environment.Back then, the concept of Water Protector had not grown up either, but the impetus and the exemplification of the ideas behind the word were being carried out through every fiber of my being, each pulsation of my heart, the entire power of my genetic code is water-based. Every breath I released helped to feed the forests and grasses, farm crops and plants around the freshwater seas. Knowing what your watershed looks like is helpful but not necessary for Water Protectors, but when we feel it, we know it and it speaks to us. I wish there were more of a step one, attain attributes A,B and C, or just a list of things one needs to know, or to bring with them for an outing sort of thing, but what happens is that each of us brings everything we have to the fight for Mother Earth. Each of us does what we can to work for Nature to have rights. We are transformed when we understand we are because she is and cannot understand why anyone would reduce these issues of survival down to Capitalism vs. Nature or jobs vs. clean water and enlist a littany of lawyers in efforts to not have to do the right thing. If you feel it, say something, do something, even if it is just telling your friends how you feel. If you want to make signs, carry them in fromt of local businesses, or government offices, that can help too, but reaching out to your greater community, others who understand the value of clean air and water, perhaps even some who do not yet, we can build the momentum that has been growing in leaps and bounds!

Twittering Machine

is not just a great name for a painting.

e At one hundred years old, this watercolor and ink drawing, with few lines, expresses all the whimsy of mobiles, the frenetic action, some say even sounds of a man-made mehanical whirleygig, and invites the viewer to turn the crank as it were. In other words, it remains as relevant now as when it was created. It contanis and fully expresses the concept of the Rene' Magritte classic, The Treachery of Images aka "This is not as pipe" or as the painting expresses itself in French, "Ceci est pas une pipe." Twittering machine also calls us diagramatically to participate, turn the crank, to animate the two-dimensional work. This image is a plaything of the impossible, the matrushka doll within the matrushka doll and down to the kernel of the tiniest hope within that this machine can work. Frenzy echoes through the playful and inexplicably active quality of the lines, the deft use of color and the personality of each emblematic mechanical creatures. Are they birds reminiscent of a cuckoo clock? This image creates virtual sound. Notes on paper are the preferred method of doing that! Not with mechanical birds.
The language that Twittering Machine uses to convey its message is as timeless as drawings in caves around the globe, on rock walls and outcrops, in the most primitive art we have yet to "discover". It holds the viewer spellbound just long enough to imagine how the machine must work and to have the delight, wash over us imagining the working device. The thrill of it working draws us in like a fractal, yet for most viewers, we will be able to return to the image a hundred times and still wish that we could play with the model the drawing hints at. It has the immersive effect of earlier noitions of figure/ground, adding atmosphere, a hedge or tree-line for depth, by throwing those cares to the wind, perhaps a hundred lines conspire to carve out a rotating globe of mayhem. Sound familiar? After a hundred years, the Authoritarians are still playing their tricks on the public mind, convincing us that a well-entrenched line drawing can substitute for a living organism. The ultra-wealthy continue to fund systems that define our words for us, telling us what we meant, what to be offended by, telling us we can play, but only following the rules and alternate physical reality one must "believe in" to interact with their impossible device. An extreme minority has perfected the art of capturing the imagination of the majority. Perhaps the twenty-first century schitzoid-man is the only one capaple of turning the crank on this old device, this relic, our "culture" that they have fancifully spun, of candyfloss and angst presented at random intervals.
STEP RIGHT UP! GET YOUR ALTERNATE REALITY! TIME IS RUNNING OUT! LIMITED SUPPLY! TODAY ONLY! As the wheels continue to come off our society, we are beginning to understand that by necessity, we are at the end of the age of fossil energy, Renewables and efficient use of energy needs to be the rule, world-wide. The need for forward thinking, grappling with physics and strategically planning for positive changes now and into the future is undeniably necessary. Sadly, Fascists continue to attempt to remove the important parts of society, like humanity and compassion, while the rest of us are moving toward something better. The small strides we have made toward truth, equality and justice over the past hundred years are being screamed down by a paltry few in an effort to hold on to their perspectives and perceived power. In democratic societies, the goal of the majority need not ever be to oppress the losers, attack the minorities among them or ignore those who cannot hope to win; but to lift everyone to a better place. If we revert back to behaving like rats trying to push one another down to stay alfloat, in a bucket of water, we will most surely squander our most fundasmental humanity and compassion in the process.
Remaining playful in the face of these so-called freedom-lovers and their empty partiotic slogans, laughing in the face of nationalists who deem any difference as an assault on their sensibilities or comfy place, is the corrollary to "If you don't laugh, you will cry." We the people, have all this potential, if we would only reach out and turn the crank. This work has been designed to draw you out. I "see" you there, standing, hands in pockets. Some of you blinking slowly, like deer in headlights. Whatever twittering machine is threatening to go off in your head, please, take a few really deep breaths, ask oyurself what you are willing to put sustained energy into and strike out. Grab the handle and give it a tug. Get into good trouble, raise a ruckus, run for office, fill a need that you see around you, not to be an agitation, but to help heal the wounds inflicted by those bullies who would steal our nation because they didn't like the results of a single election. Seriously. Seriously? Seriously! The majority has always spoken as one. Most of us want these seditionists, the forces who would pray for Armageddon, those who want to take us back a hundred years, or claim they are fighting for their own freedoms while taking the rest of ours away, to just sit down, step off or at least stop fighting what we know works. We've got things to do. We need to get on with them. We just want the oppressors, the big money guys and their willfully ignorant footsoldiers to get out of the way! We don't want to oppress the rich, old, White, males (as they have done to the rest of us for centuries)we just need them to be quiet, step aside and let us graciously take the reins.

Ironic Antics

Like a fish, flopping on the dock, refusing to accept that they are out of water, the right wing nut jobs are flailing without any means of propulsion, no way of moving forward, no idea what to do or where they are, literally out of their depth with no hope of heading in any real direction. The life is gone from their "movement". It has been found to be built on lies. They were never moral or the majority, they sure as hell ain't X-tians and they are definitely not compassionate conservatives as they told us while they tried to beat the rest of us down for decades. When people feel the need to be overt about how good they are, how moral they are or how patriotic they are, it often begs the question, Why do you feel the need to prove it? Are you really that insecure? The same way a liar often says something like "Not one word of this is a lie.", "That's exactly what happened." or "100% true!" It is a cover for their lie. Actions that lead us to question the very logic and proportion of events or the motivations of the participants. All these things swirl into the time in which we are living. Irony heaped on irony with a dash of incomprehensible absurdity seems to be becoming the rule.