"It Is Sacred"

I sat through nearly nine of the twelve hours of testimony that was given yesterday to a subcommittee of Wisconsin State Legislators whose task is to pass mining legislation that has been written by, for the very first time in state history, the regulated industry. An entity that goes by the name of GTAC had a representative there to speak as well, but virtually nothing he had to say made any sense to those who know the history of mining in the state. I have participated in several rounds of public comments, working through the legislative process to help craft regulations and assisting in educating the public about the nature of trying to mine in sensitive areas and the headwaters of river systems that we all hold in common as citizens. What was just as stunning now as it was thirty years ago, when I began my own involvement in environmental issues, was the absolute disconnect between those who believe in their dominion over nature and those who realize that we are integral to the ecology of Mother Earth. The outright lies, about the nature of the geology, the proposed changes to wetlands protection, the air and water quality that mining would affect, the number of jobs that a mine would "create" and the impacts on local communities were bad enough. Serious questions arise about the validity of any position taken by the corporation, (GTAC) because they have already acted in ways that would normally be prosecuted.
It is an crime to tell someone that if they do what you want them to, something good will happen and if you do not do what they want, bad things will happen. When they ask for money, that is called extortion, organized crime is often prosecuted for engaging in this type of crime. Racketeering is enlisting enough people as to control a market. I see no reason why enlisting the government to help steal from the public should be any different from using any other group of organized criminals to do so. What will be stolen, in this case is two-fold. First off, by having a mining company re-write the laws, the company has already stolen our democratic process. The sham of only allowing twelve hours of testimony to be heard from the public, hundreds of miles from where the mine would operate, with only two business days warning has also stolen rights that belong to the public and have been well-established by time-honored practices that have served us well since Wisconsin has been organized as a state. The second thing that has been stolen from the people of Wisconsin are the laws that have sought to protect the environment from mining interests, who leave social distortion, cultural mayhem and environmental destruction in their wake. This assault on state law also renders useless, the hundreds of thousands of hours spent crafting the laws than now partially protect state resources like clean air and water.
I am writing in parlance that the average person might understand, but the deepest assault is a bit more esoteric. First, the history buffs and folks enamored by the "good old days" spoke about the need to recover the boom times that mining provided the north woods. What these people forget is that instead of prostrating themselves to set dynamite in warrens of tunnels, or shoveling the ore into carts, the way mining used to take place, modern mining allows a single guy in a truck to cart away more pulverized rock powder in a minute than a whole community used to be able to produce in a day. Forgetting the fact that the geology that led to mining certain parts of our state was the exact same geology that led to the end of mining, did not seem to be enough, the supporters also had to parrot back the same ignorant statements that they rest their arguments upon. One supporter hastened to say that the town of "Wakefield gets it's water from the (now-closed) Montreal mine". This may be true but has absolutely nothing to do with the proposed mine that lies under sulfide bearing rock that will be blasted to powder, creating acid mine drainage in the next watershed over.
The people who clung to the "jobs" issue failed to mention that the problems that they have always had with shrinking population is that the first extraction was the forest itself, then the mineral wealth under their feet. They do not understand that the low-grade ore that is left is just that. One person "in favor of the mine", bemoaned the "fact" that their children will all have to move away if they want to get jobs and another said that six homes on one lake alone had been foreclosed on and were now sitting empty. Hmmmm, sounds like a vacation retreat center about to happen, but that would require a bit of investment and commitment to finding creative ways of making a living. There are many flourishing vacation rental businesses across the north...One wondered if their children just wanted to get away from the land of not much to do. One fellow who, as I recall, was a school board chairman, said that if just six families would move into their school district it would help the school to hang on in spite of dwindling enrollment and plummeting state aid. Keep in mind that these same voices doubted the integrity of the science behind the opposition to the mine and the sentiment that most folks spoke out about that was we need to take our time and protect the environment, rather than bowing to corporate power and promises.
This is the second round for this law, even though it was reintroduced this session as AB 1 and SB 1, none of the prior testimony, which ran 348 against environmental destruction to 24 in favor of mine development, will be allowed to be considered in the new fight spear-headed by governor scott Walker, to reduce the effectiveness of Wisconsin state law.
Two particular interactions during the hearing yesterday were most telling, one was the question, late in the day by the committee chair. "Why is this issue more important in Ashland County than in Iron County?" Iron county is not even in the watershed that would be affected by acid mine drainage. 2/3 of the proposed mine and all of the acid mine drainage would be in Ashland County. To date, there has not been a single public hearing on this issue there. Secondly, and perhaps most sadly, was the representative who spoke against changing the current laws. You would think that someone who wants to protect the state would have a better grasp on the situation. They said that the wild rice which grows in the floodplain of the Bad River is "almost sacred" to native people. Luckily, there were folks close by who chimed in, "It IS Sacred!" Several times during the hearing, the relationship between the sanctity of the land and sacred rites and/or objects came out. Just the sheer amount of TNT that would be used to blast the rock to the consistency of talcum powder would unleash a toxic legacy that would last beyond seven generations. I am sorry if I misquote Mike Wiggins, but he said something like, Imagine wiping the Vatican from the face of the earth, that is what the headwaters of our reservation are to us.
Several times, it was brought to light that the rights of native populations were guaranteed by a government much older than that of the State of Wisconsin. The treaties entered into by their nations and the nation of the United States of America explicitly state that there is a responsibility of the federal government to assure protection of the resources upon which their culture, their nation, and their subsistence way of life depend. Because of these treaties, the relationship between the people and their land may not be taken for granted, cannot be infringed and certainly by this understanding, must not be ruined by releasing toxic substances into the air or water of one nation by negligence or design by the other. The air, the water, the earth, rock and the intact ecosystem upon which life thrives is sacred. This needs to be made clear to the temporary custodians of our state. Our interest is in protecting this land forever.

Happy Earthday!

A recent poll found that fully one quarter of us believe that the environmental improvements that we have made since the first Earthday have been inadequate. We still have tens of thousands of people dying prematurely from environmental contamination such as fly ash from coal burning, photochemical smog and clouds of toxic dust and fumes from foundries, asphalt and even fumes from commercial products and their packaging. The first tier of environmental protection revolved around the lowest hanging fruit as it were. If we could put another layer of filtration, or perhaps something as minor as a finer screen on the point sources that abounded a few decades ago, we could claim that we were doing all that we could to clean up our mess. In fact, the most hazardous contaminants often are small enough that our immune systems are unable to detect them and therefore, unable to clear them from our bodies. Some poisonous compounds are integrated into our bodies in such a way as to cause their damage over the long term, some actually skipping a generation before causing harm to our children.

The long list of people who said that they wanted a cleaner environment has been dwarfed by the billions of dollars that have been spent by those who wish to continue polluting for the profit that it means to them. How this can be justified as a "responsibility to stockholders", I may never know, but even today, I saw a commercial that was touting fracking as "less polluting" than other methods of energy production. Conoco Phillips, the company that implied, through this morning's commercial, that our children would have jobs if we continue to extract oil at higher and higher cost, wasting vast amounts of energy to pump high pressure steam far below the surface to extract the last residues of natural gas from rock that has locked it away for millennea, completely neglected to posit that there are other, less damaging ways to meet our needs through conservation, efficiency improvements and rethinking our dependence on fossil fuel. I know that it is their business to bring to the market oil and natural gas, but they should not be allowed to use public airwaves to lie to millions of people for the purpose of fattening their wallets. Those who have had the freedom to risk the lives of others for profit will not relinquish that right without a fight. Just as the child who is used to getting their way, the corporations and businesses that have been spoiled in this way will throw tantrums each and every time that they are urged to clean up their act. These corporate giants do not care who they hurt, they have proven that by their actions.

The economic terrorism that corporate business leaders employ in each and every case, is treason. Their commitment to inaction, and willingness to pay fines rather than do the right thing show that they are happy to operate outside existing law because they can. There has never been a study proving that effective environmental regulation leads to reduction of jobs, wages, profits or economic activity. In fact, when government regulations have reduced environmental hazards, it has increased jobs, created even higher profits (through waste reduction), created more higher skill jobs and bolstered economic activity. Then, why the morass between what we know is necessary and what industry is willing to do? The common knowledge that most parents come to find is operating on an international level with corporations, virtually worldwide. The more you bend and sacrifice to "get along" with a tyrant, the more often and more violently they will protest conventions of civility. Spoiled brat is a term that has come to be known because we all have seen them. It is completely possible to stop bad behavior, but yet, many parents think that by giving in, "peace" will be arrived at sooner and at lower "cost". What stops this tragic cycle is when a parent, or in this case the government, (which is, after all, the people) stops ameliorating the spoiled brat and makes them tow the line with regard to socially acceptable behavior, developing awareness of the rights of others and in the most tragic cases, developing the listening skills required to understand the needs of others, rather than only attending to their own.

The din that has erupted from the general public has been toned down, padded if you will, through the inaction of decades, leniency on the part of regulators, an extremely well-funded opposition to real and meaningful change and the contempt that polluting industries continue to have for our right to clean soil,  air and water. I continue to encourage my readers to check out the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). This is a national network that requires polluters to self report their emissions and document them with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). This tool allows the average citizen to type in their zip code or location and find out who is pumping what into the air around where they live. It was an eye opener for me and I assume others will be equally interested in who the corporate outlaws are in their neighborhoods. We humans often have to carry an inter-generational legacy that we are ashamed of. In the case of how we treat our environment, we have the power to set things right for the generations that follow, but it will require taking measures that have not been used yet. We can no longer afford to sit idly by, waiting for the world to change. We need to turn our voices and wallets to the task of changing the world from the grass roots up. If the government refuses to protect us from foes who are killing off the population from within, then we have to step outside the realm of their influence and change things without their help.

Dollars seem to be the only language that corporations understand. When you get wind of who the sources of toxic compounds in your community are, use your voice to educate others about the real and despicable actions of those bad neighbors. If there were a pedophile living next door to a local single mother of two, who worked dawn to dusk every day to keep her family off welfare, you would let her know, right? The same holds true for the devilish money-grubbers who seek to make their profits by sacrificing our health and our welfare. We need to let others know, through social media, heart-felt discussions with our loved-ones and even with people we don't know that well. This behavior is wrong and must not be tolerated. With the spoiled child, a mere look might be enough to stop their bad behavior. Corporations only have eyes for cash, so as their profits fall and eventually dry up, the vast pools of money that they have used to convince us that we cannot get along without their bad behavior will dry up as well. This Earthday, make it your business to know who is operating in your community, recognize the spreaders of poison for what they are. There was a time when we were not even treated as well as slaves. Those who profit from our pain and the premature loss of our loved ones need to bow out. We are the only ones with the power to change what we spend our dollars on. Do not treat your decisions lightly, every dollar spent or invested supports a cascading series of events that allows each and every thing we use to be made and come to us. This goes for energy, products, foods and even our sources of entertainment. Learn as much as you can about this complex world and act according to your conscience, this will improve the environment more than government regulations. It will help more than you can measure, perhaps more than you can imagine. It may help just enough to save your life, the life of someone you love, or maybe even the life of a stranger. We are well past the point of cleaning up trash and telling one another that this is enough, or all we can hope for. Now is the time to remove the bad actors, stand up for our right to clean soil, air and water, and to invest our own time in making lifestyles that keep our hard-earned dollars out of the hands of rogues and scallywags. 

Dare I Say It?

The time has come for action. I know that the vast majority of "Americans" shun any mention of responsibility for the supposed freedoms that they love to claim. I also know that the major media sources that feed our country information try like the devil to strangle public discourse rather than encourage it. Considerable experience has also taught me that no matter what obvious path to a better way of life that I mention, probably because they all require hard work and sacrifice in the short run, are ruthlessly rejected out of hand. There is little excuse for the way we have treated one another, no justification for the raping of the planet and no cogent argument for saddling future generations with the lasting effects of war, extractive economic methods that foist boom and bust burdens on those who do not benefit from the boom times, but are crippled by the bust, poverty, ignorance and debt, but I fear, chances are that we will continue to do all of these things if we do not take a stand now for what is right and good in our civilization. Believe me, we are not, as we are told, isolated pawns in a rich man's game, unless we let ourselves be. Taking our civil rights back will be an extremely hard road and there may be more blood shed on freedom's path. Rest assured that there will be sweat, toil and sacrifice, but the change must come at whatever the price. If we continue to let the powers that be railroad us in the directions of their choosing, we are going to fall deeper and deeper into the chasm of ruthlessness and hate, remain at odds with planet Earth and succumb to the evil that drives the ultra rich to pick the pockets of our elderly, ransack the stores of knowledge that we have developed over centuries to pass on to our children and continue to exploit and confound both mothers and fathers who, after all, made a commitment to the future just by having children.

Frequently, when people ask what I do for a living, I say, "I am a living manifestation of the infinite." I say it not so much to enlighten them, because, let's face it, most folks don't have the background or level of understanding to decipher that truth, but for myself, to help remind me of what I do for a living. We are all facing terribly complex ciphers. The puzzles themselves are usually manufactured by various different interests and the pieces rarely seem to fit or have distinct information on them to give us clues about where they go or even whether they "fit" with the puzzle that we may be working on at the time. Recognizing that we are part of a centuries long struggle and that our responsibility is to the next seven generations seems to be a good place to start for many. With this basic starting point, it is easy to see that atomic energy, whether for electric power generation or war, cannot stand the basic test for safety over future generations. The radioactivity that results from our need in this moment will be a dangerous legacy for thousands of generations. One of the pieces of the puzzle will be finding our way to generating energy that does not kill, maim or saddle future generations with the cost of providing us comfort.

Transportation, as well, needs to be transformed. As we learn to reestablish connections to the locations in which we live, produce more of our food locally and begin to re-think the last generations decision to separate people from capital, goods and services, we will have to use triage in dealing with the empty suburbs. When I was a child, even tiny towns had bakeries, medium sized ones had several and it was rare to find a neighborhood that didn't have fresh bread within walking distance. Try that today and chances are you would be wearing out a lot of shoes. The right wingers seem to be overjoyed with their own voices chanting the mantra of "mass transit can't work", yet in truth, it is the greed of folks who live on the city edge that forces us to expand every other service to the point of recklessness and whatever the opposite of thrift is. The properties that lie beyond city services are going for inflated prices because everyone seems to want their little piece of heaven, but then the trash needs to be picked up, eventually hey want curb and gutter and fresh clean water like the rest of us, so we pay for their wants by sacrificing our own needs. Them subsidization of suburban fringe communities is at once a greedy money grab for the outlying communities, hoping for increased revenues from taxes and a multi-generational sentence for those who cannot afford to flee the cities. It has been frequently pointed out by people far smarter than I that the ultra-rich only call it class warfare when we fight back. I am somewhat resolved to the fact that I may forever be a city mouse, but I should not bear the burden of contaminated air, water and soil left behind by the wealthy exploiters of planet earth. We need their wealth and education to help us solve the pressing problems of the city, not having them squander their money and time mowing acre and a half lots that used to produce food.

It is hard to tell a farmer who has struggled all their life that they are not entitled to millions in retirement because they sell their land to Target, Costco or Wal-mart, only to have it paved over and ruined for ever, but one can look back just a few generations and find people who went into farming because of a deep connection to the earth and a desire to do what was right for their communities. Now, many have been kow towed into thinking that it is every person for themselves and if their greed is not as over the top as the next guy, they will end up losing everything. Some say that growing population will inevitably force the further degradation of the planet, but improving the efficiency with which we do business and increasing quality of life for all people, our needs will become much easier to meet and with far less environmental damage as well. We need to stand up and let local decision makers know that we will not tolerate another back room deal to sell out the towns and cities of our great nation for he sake of another get rich quick scheme that only benefits the few at the expense of the many. All of this is hard work that needs doing if we are to leave our children anything worthwhile.

We have been told that the generation gap is inevitable, but that is another popular lie foisted upon us by those who really don't care about us. If your children see you working for a better world, and you explain to them that all of your efforts are to salvage a liveable world for them, you will be surprised at how quickly they will respond to the great and pressing needs as well. if they see you buying into the lies and deception that "business as usual" wants to sell you, they will see what you are made of and hate you to the core. Fortunately, there are more voices joined in the cry for justice than ever. With a bit of work and taking some time to get involved, we are making change happen. It comes at a time when the inertia of bad decision making has all but overwhelmed us, but there are those all across the globe who realize that we must take one last gaps and fight our way back to shore, or we will surely perish. This is truly a fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not only for ourselves, but for the coming generations as well. The time has come to stop standing idly by and "waiting for the world to change". We have every right and the responsibility to take charge, not only of our own lives, but the direction of the governments that we supposedly elect and the discourse about what will make this a better place and time to live in. Get involved, become agents of change and remember, the hardest part is starting. Once you resolve to give your life to the betterment of others, the rewards are nearly infinite and the difficulties along the way transform from boogey men into temporary hiccups and gems along our spiral path.

Earthday at 40

I remember my parents not allowing me to attend the first Earthday. They said it was part of the conspiracy to placate the masses and distract the public from what was really going on. The river in our backyard was a colloidal suspension, (like mixing milk and orange juice, but it was green) After forty years, dredging toxic compounds that accumulated all those years ago has begun. The fish are still not safe to eat, nor the waters to swim. I have seen a vast improvement in the look, but not the smell of our river. As a child I wondered how large must the Great Lakes be, to be able to handle the incredible volume of toxic waste that flowed past our door.

In 1987, I got a chance to ride bicycle around all five Great Lakes and all I can say is that they are not very big! Even now the water that we drink contains prescription drugs. We didn't even know about the possibility of these contaminants being able to "make it" into the environment back then. I was able to get the message of sustainability , though we called it living better for less back then, to about ten million people. Six million on a single day through CBC radio during a morning commute. Cheap and simple ways to "Go Green" like substituting baking soda for chlorine tainted cleansers, combining trips, carpooling or bicycling rather than firing up the old fossil fuel burner unnecessarily. Back then, a family could save about seven thousand dollars per year by going from two cars down to one.

The air when I was a child was terrible, and is no better today, in spite of effectively cutting new lead emissions, sulfur dioxide and dry cleaning compounds many other contaminants have increased. We did score a noteworthy victory when the local electric generating station wanted to raise their smoke stack to "protect local air quality". Public interest groups said in court that the air farther away should not be negatively impacted to keep our air cleaner, so the stack raising project was put on hold. The courts interpreted the clean air act rules to mean that pollution should be reduced, not just diluted and to this day, the stack remains unfinished.

Burning of fossil fuels has increased exponentially at times in the last forty years. Each time we increase mileage standards, we increase the fleet size to offset any ecological gains. Infrastructure improvements have created millions more miles upon which people can now drive. Current government incentives go to larger and larger interests who more and more people drive farther to patronize.

Soils are still under attack. Mega-farm agribusiness is not concerned at all about naturally stable and ecologically diverse micro-climates. Drive through any agricultural land and you will see the stark reality that nearly every farmer has sterilized the soils and tilled wet and /or erosion prone areas to the point of having only dirt where a complex relationship of organisms once existed.

I truly hope that in forty more years my children won't say "Things are as bad as they ever were." At least when the first Earthday happened, there were still old timers who had not given up the old ways of farming that respected the earth, understood stewardship and at least rotated crops and left fallow land that "needed a rest." Farmers are under such pressure today that they can't possibly do what is best for their land. It would cost billions to reestablish hedgerows, intersperse forest cover to protect the fields from the ravages of wind and extremes of hot and cold as well as wet and dry.

We have had forty years to make a difference, but have mostly chosen to look the other way. If you are a child reading this, hold your parents to a higher standard. If nothing changes, protest like we did against the Vietnam War. If you are adults, hold your elected officials to the task of cleaning up the mess, stabilizing the cities and allowing local areas to support themselves. No one is served when the cities collapse. Before the next Wal-mart is subsidized, we need to make sure the urban core has decent food, water, shelter and air. If that means mass transit, so be it. If that means high speed rail, lets step up. We are living in a country whose people were told that the Erie Canal was just a pipe dream, The Mississippi could not be tamed, that they would never be able to lay railroad track over the Rockies, that a Trans-Atlantic cable was impossible, and other things that could have limited us, or what we could do. If anyone can reclaim a mutually beneficial relationship with Earth, it only makes sense that it should be us.

We have been lucky to have people looking out for us through the last forty years, but the lack of effective action to reign in the destruction of our planet has been staggering. Our efforts need to be more than redoubled. Effective action is much more than fair-trade coffee and reuse-able shopping bags. It lies in a complex matrix of relationships with one another, with community and with resources. As we learned as children about the water cycle, we need to look at the cycles of capital, of energy, of nutrients and of all the gifts that the natural world provides each discreet location. The give back needs to be reintegrated into our daily lives. That is what enriches community and raises our quality of life while reducing costs.

Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit

Initially I wanted to write Earth week entries about each of these forces separately. Each deserves an entry to explore more deeply it's significance to our culture this Spring, but for lack of time and the busy nature of my schedule, I am going to have to combine these elements into a single post. Much like in our own lives, we must balance and integrate forces like these daily. It is time that we reevaluate what we are willing to call reality and reassess the value and meanings behind our relationship with these forces. In spite of the brief introduction to each of these natural forces that I will attempt here, remember that a lifetime of study and awareness is required to begin to understand fully the part these forces play in our lives.

Happily, the Earth is getting lots of attention this week, but we often allow our connection with Mother Earth to slide out of focus, or drop off our radar completely. As you may have noticed, my own focus, in life and blogs is on the Earth and her gifts, sustainable development and patterns that connect us with the planet, her resources and our relationship with Starship Earth, our fellow passengers on our flight around the Sun, and the island mentality that must come to light if we are to survive here without poisoning ourselves or tearing at the web of life that sustains us until it can no longer hold the weight of our species.

With gardening season upon us here in the Northern Hemisphere, many millions will be turning the soil, many for the first time. This simple act can grow within us new respect for creatures that share their space with us, as well as the life that goes on all around us on this miraculous planet. In a single cup of healthy soil more organisms can live than the number of people we typically meet in a lifetime. Protecting the earth and her soils from the harsh effects of sun and rain are paramount in the gardener's mind. Mulch your gardens to conserve moisture, retain fertility and protect soil life. If anyone has ever laid in the sun too long, or been stuck out in the rain with no shelter, they know that nature can be harsh. Single celled critters and soil microbes are even less able to cope with sunburn or direct hits from raindrops than we are. Protecting the Earth takes on a whole new meaning when you realize that soils are alive. Once sterilized, it is just dirt.

Air too must be integrated and available in healthy soils. When planting, be careful not to destroy soil tilth or texture. Turning soils that are still wet, treading on planting beds, or killing off beneficial organisms can lead to difficult conditions for many plants. Even roots like to "breathe" and compaction rates as a number one cause of declining fertility in soils. Again, mulch can act as a shock absorber underfoot, protecting delicate structures that plants form to sustain their lives as well as our own. This invisible element, Air, swirls and flows around us all the time. The atmosphere is 1/6 as viscous as water, but has incredible power nonetheless. Just as we understand watersheds, the basins that collect the waters that flow together into local waterways, the air too comes from far away locations bringing substances and qualities with it. Here in the Western Great Lakes Region, we normally get most of our air from Canada in Winter, the Pacific Northwest in Spring and Fall, and the Southwest in Summer. Of course the daily changes that occur in the atmosphere are much more varied than that, but learning to feel the changes and understand them gives one greater insight to weather, pollution issues and intimacy with the vital fluid that we breathe to sustain life. Just this spring, I had a bought with pneumonia that was a direct result of a stagnant bolus of air that stayed over Northeast Wisconsin for ten days. During this time, the air quality continued to be degraded by transportation, energy and industrial contaminants. Lungs are not designed to handle this sort of onslaught. Air is to be revered and Creator intended for us to be blessed with pure and unadulterated air to breathe.

Fire as we know has the unique ability to warm us. The burning of calories in our food are fire on a microscopic level. Metabolism, even of tiny organisms creates heat and this is a by-product of life itself. The most available source of energy that we know is the Sun. The solar furnace that bombards the earth is responsible for most of the swirling winds on our planet, virtually all of the life as we know it on the earth's surface, and for the vast reserves of fossilized carbon which we are burning at rates never imagined in generations past. the fire that burns within each of us is just a chip off the old block. The sun creates virtually every calorie we take in. Even the lowly mushroom, growing on dead roots, or trunks of trees makes it's living from plants that have had their day in the sun. We often use phrases like "burning desire" or "flames of passion", "hot blooded" or "fired up" we all know this force, but often we overlook the ubiquitous nature of fire in our lives. We must learn to honor and respect this powerful energy within us and surrounding us to begin to treat it with the respect it deserves.

Water too has an undeniable place in our existence. Our bodies are made up of roughly the same percentage of water as the rest of the planet's creatures. Without it, we cannot survive. Without clean water in abundant supply, all forms of life must either adapt or perish. This lowly molecule has amazing characteristics that we still do not fully understand. It is an awesome solvent, requires large amounts of energy to change phase, solid to liquid, liquid to gas. it helps moderate temperature because of it's ability to absorb and give off energy slowly. It is made up of only two elements, Hydrogen and Oxygen, and it is extremely tightly bonded, even though each chemical in isolation is highly reactive.

My own fascination with water began as a child. Surface tension, adhesion, cohesion, solubility, the addition of surfactants to this fluid and fluid dynamics absorbed my attentions as far back as I can remember. For many, the commodification of this vital fluid creates vast wealth and destroys the environment. Rather than respecting the power of this element, man has sought to harness the waters that flow, utilize their energies for man's benefit and to not consider what riches lie in the fluid itself, or the watercourses that surround us. Mankind's ability to survive and thrive depend on clean water being available to all people in relatively unlimited quantity. As you look around the planet, there are large areas whose future is being called into question because of this dwindling resource. The first Earthday was brought about because of the gross neglect and poisoning of vast bodies of water. The public got enraged and called for better protection of this essential resource. Now, forty years later, the threats that water faces are much more occult (hidden), mush more pernicious and far more complex than sludge belching out from pipes, draining industrial waste into the local creeks and rivers. We have done a pretty good job of going after folks who desecrated water in that way. What we face now is the withdrawal of trillions of gallons of water from below ground, infiltration of harmful materials into the water table, and deposition of dangerous chemicals that are falling from the sky. A life out of balance harms all creatures great and small, the wisdom of this lies in the waters that make all life possible.

Spirit too is being commodified. It is becoming harder and harder to find communities that are not burdened by mega-churches. Fortunately there are many good folks involved in the reawakening of spirit amongst the people, but the rise of fundamentalists of all flavors is a disturbing trend in World Spirituality. As we grow mentally and emotionally, we need to grow spiritually as well. When you study these relationships, or those facts, it is well to realize that they tie into spiritual practice as well. The Spirit which guides us is not the exclusive domain of any religion. Spirit is like the magician's assistant who climbs into the box, only to be "pierced" with skewers. Each faith tradition thrusts it's way into the box. As we watch, we can be sure that this or that dagger has inflicted the death blow. As the container is run through with more and more skewers, we cannot help but know that the space inside, as we know it can no longer contain a living breathing person. One of the pieces of steel must have surely found it's mark. To our horror, the assistant keeps right on smiling. Then, as if by magic, the daggers are removed and she springs unharmed from the case. The religious leaders of today, many of them, are claiming to have a fast track to salvation and that being a member in good standing of their church will assure us eternal life and favor with "the lord".

Spirit cannot be bought, sold, bartered, renewed, cleansed or in any way destroyed or harmed by human activities. It may be the spark of life, but life is just a mirror that reflects spirit. Coming to know spirit the way that I have begun to, it can be undeniably seen in all living creatures, in each element, in every facet of every action taken by every creature. We speak of spirit of the age, spirit of giving, holiday spirit and the like. What is most profound for me is that as we pass through life we know when our spirit has been touched, but explaining that to anyone else is virtually impossible. Each of us must make peace with the spiritual realm on our own terms. Those who claim to "know the way" at best can only tell you what seems to have worked for them. I heard an analogy once that holds true for many parts of our lives. "We determined what we put into our bodies by the people giving it to us. Once a guy came to the door in a large cowboy hat, silver belt buckle and boots. The first thing he did when he came in the house was to close all the curtains, lock the doors and all the while he was there he kept getting up and pulling back the blinds to look out with obvious paranoia. He put a large bag of pills on the coffee table and said that they were for us. We decided that if they were what he was, we wanted no part of them."

All of our lives must be spent looking critically out into the world for relevant data that can help us along our own path. The idea that someone else can find our personal truth in matters of spirituality would be laughable if so many of us had not been misled into thinking that religions have things figured out. Spirit is alive within us and as such need not be contaminated by any other being or their version of truth, or their understanding of what they have been led to believe. Creator gave us each gifts that we cannot fathom. Many of us go through life never even understanding our full potential. Spirit is ours to explore, it does not belong to anyone else. It is not for others to even understand or dictate. Our souls are ours to "save", and in truth cannot be "sold", "spent" or "squandered". Our spiritual life, as well as the spirits of everything that surrounds us are far too important to trust to others. When God/ess is alive within us, great things happen and no one can mediate our experience with the eternal except our own self.

This Earthweek, challenge yourself to study your own relationship with these five elements. Let me know what you learn. I'm always interested in finding other seekers along the path to enlightenment.

Namaste', Tony C. Saladino

Getting Ready for Spring Planting

As the end of winter approaches, and the frost begins to come out of the ground, many of us look forward to the coming warmth of Spring, the yielding soils and the smells of thawing compost piles.
ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. is looking forward to tree planting excursions and events that center around sustainability and permaculture. Spring is also a good time to reflect on plans for expansion and how far we have come in our pursuit of Eden. At last count we had over two dozen perennial plants that produce food each year with very little weeding, tilling, or trimming. The most work we do is the harvest.
We see our organization as a pollinator of sorts. Each of us and the groups we belong to are wonderfully complete in isolation, but once cross pollination occurs, new awarenesses and new forms begin to emerge. Through continued planting of seeds, we can reestablish life where none had been, create surplus where there had been lack and create life upon the harshest soils. Our home has been a microcosm of what we do on a larger scale across vast acreages. When we arrived here, there was one rotting Apple Tree and several very old Lilacs. The soil was prone to drying out and cracking. It had become so compacted as to only support invasive species, and very few of them. The grass always turned brown in peak summer and the water pooled around the house and made it's way into the basement.
We began a process of loving the Earth back to life, establishing a compost, mulching and introducing clay busters that would look beautiful and provide food for birds, bugs and butterflies. We planted several trees right away and added a few more each year until now there is protection from much of the harshest sun of summer and less of the biting winds o' winter for our bit of land to deal with. The longer we are here, watching what the climate dishes out, the more we see that can be done to make our part of the planet more hospitable.
Pemaculture has allowed us to find food at virtually every season, right near our back door. It has allowed us to see more wildlife, create a healthy, organic, and sustainable oasis in the heart of the city, and has led us to have such abundant harvests as to share our surplus with others. Our ecotours allow us a forum to spread the word about environmental recovery, sustainable approaches to housing, energy, and food so that more and more people can live better while using less. We invite you to share in one of our events or take a tour of our facilities. To arrange a tour, please either write or call ahead, so that we can be ready to make your stay great.
You can contact us through e-mail at: tnsaladino42@hotmail.com, write using snail mail at: 1445 Porlier street Green Bay, WI 54301-3334 or call using our number (920) 884-2224.

New Patriotism: Religion of the Soil

Patriotism has been referred to as the "Religion of the Soil". We do have a mystic relationship with local microbes. After all, we mutually exchange gasses with the same "local" air. We rely on their existence, inhabiting all the spaces around and some within us. Without bacteria, fungi, and primary decomposers, we would drown in waste. In a single handful of living, healthy soil, billions of relationships weave a complex web of life. It is time for us to have a true worshipful attitude toward soil. Earth is a daunting concept to many of us. The sheer scale of our planet trumps our imaginations from grasping the entire globe. Think locally can likewise boggle our ability to appreciate, the full complexity, overwhelming our imaginations. We have virtually sterilized much of our part of North America, leading to much less diversity of species, and far fewer organisms overall.
Imagine, intact forest, towering eighty to over one hundred feet. In this matrix are many thousands of individual plants, a myriad of creatures, living just on the bark of the several hundred trees per acre! Add in the thousands of insects that would inhabit a single dead tree...You can see that in short order, we would find billions of organisms, then trillions. Truly mind boggling. Now, remember the last parking area that you saw. Not only is there a minute area on which life to exist, but the conditions over the entire area are at odds with any sort of ecologic system. We can reclaim paved areas, we just need the will, and respect for the soil that it deserves. The desolation that has been rolled, like dice, out upon the landscape can be reclaimed. By the simple act of respect, for the land, the soil, and our "need" to civilize and control nature on this most basic level.
Our fresh air depends on other living things, our food, many of our clothes, our homes, our very ability to make a living, depends on the Mother, Earth. The earth's systems have developed over millennia to be perfectly suited to their locale. Ours is to find a way to encourage the unity of complexity in and amongst the inhabitants of every thimbleful of soil that we can. We need to develop ways to add verticality to our landscape as well. Trees, vines, herbs and flowers all multiply the area that is available for life to thrive in and on. Profusion of life is the rule rather than the exception in nature. If we are to survive as a species, we need to fit ourselves to the web rather than trying to make it bend to us.
Today, we only got to plant a few trees, but each one made a huge impact on the local landscape. these were larger, specimen trees, and relatively tower above what had been there before. Shade, even dappled shade reduces extremes of both temperature, humidity and wind. This in turn encourages a wider variety of life-forms who add their energetic spin to the vortecies of life. all beings imbibe and sanctify Earth, Air and Water, and through the furnace of metabolism, and harvesting solar energy, Fire. Every organism also brings to the equation Spirit. The will to survive is at the root of all life. Although it has been suggested that the death drive is equal to the drive to life, I see quite the opposite. The death drive is almost always aberrant. Think of the Kamakazi Squirrels, who run under your tires, deer in the headlights, and teenagers for that matter. If they were like that all the time, the species would have died out long ago. We can strive for incremental change to have lasting affects. What we can do now is better than what we hope to do in the future. That being said, each of the trees that we planted to day has a high probability of outliving me. What better way to serve the next seven generations!
Please plant a tree as soon as you can, and if you would like us to plant a tree with your blessings, send donations to ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. 1445 Porlier Street, Green Bay, WI 54301-3334

Ring Out The Old, Ring In The New

We stand at a point in time when the Old Ways that deserve respect, honor and preservation are in disarray. Many generations have passed without us paying the attention required to preserve culture that arose from ways that work. Even now these ancient ways contain seeds of truth and practicality that we need at this time. Many of the really old ways have passed silently into time, without documentation, practice or the recognition they deserve. The current worship of the new is a reaction to feelings of loss that are often sub-conscious. The most evident trend toward recovery of these lost ways is the fascination with antiques and retro anything.

The point of time that we inhabit is a fulcrum between past and future. This fulcrum rests on shifting sand for many of us. The victim culture, spawned by psychobabble in the seventies, reached adolescence through constant media attention of daytime television in the eighties and nineties, now flourishes through the overuse of anti-depressants, psychoactive chemicals prescribed for children and young adults, and the rampant number of folks who cannot "feel normal" without one crutch or another. Culture, which formerly made allowances for human tragedy and actual human needs, allowing humans to grow and gain strength from the knowledge of previous generations has been eradicated. Finding our way to health, happiness, even finding a way home is now dictated by commercial interests rather than the individual, shaman, grandmother or tribal elders.

As we pass the torch to the next generations, we need to show them through our actions that there is something here worth being our best for. The planet deserves respect and compassion. Her people, no less so, need to become a focus of our attention. Not their "earning potential", not their "gross national product", not the "natural resources" that lie under their feet, in their pocketbook or over their heads. In these times, there are myriad ways to get grounded, affirm what matters and humanize our culture. I would hazard a guess that there are nearly as many ways to relocate our fulcrum to stable ground as people to traverse them. What has worked for me will most assuredly not be your path, but the realizations that have come to me because I was looking for them, and the routes that helped me find ways out of dangerous belief systems may shed light on a path that has significance for you as well.

Getting out in nature really helped me to understand what is possible, and important in this world. Seeing the profusion of life, the endless accommodation, the abiding harmony between each element, lack of malice (even in carnivores during the stalking and killing of their prey) and the endless expressions of perfection led me to see this as a possibility for human-beings as well. I jokingly tell people that the best evidence for extra-terrestrial life having made contact with humans (and interbreeding with us) is our utter inability to live as all other animals on the planet do. We need to start with the basics, creating no waste, cycling energy and nutrients rather than hoarding them. Taking our place in the web of life, instead of hacking off the threads that support our fellow inhabitants. The lofty arc of the Eagle and the skittering about of the mouse are the shorthand that allow us to remember what is truly important. Appreciation of this deep ecology has the power to change us from exploiters to co-inhabitants. We just need to slow down and pay attention.

Understanding food policies, technologies and systems that make our way of life possible has helped me to see the fallacy of "feeding the world"(through the green revolution), "higher" standards of living that supposedly come from mechanized agri-business, and the myth of increased leisure perpetrated by technocrats. Every calorie that fires our metabolism has to come from somewhere. Knowing where your calories come from might surprise you. It did me! Realizing the morally bankrupt approach that we have taken to Tobacco, Wheat, Corn, Beans, Squash, Sugar, Wheat, Meat, Milk and Eggs as well as a host of other "commodities" has changed the way that I eat and in turn has changed who I am in significant ways. A hopeful trend in this respect has been the tremendous rise of the Farm Markets, subscription farms, and the buy local movements, which honor the fact that science and technology can never find a substitute for Home-grown Tomatoes. Backyard Chickens, Victory Gardens, and Food Co-ops offer some of the surest ways to find a path to sustainability that I have found. Each of these small changes in lifestyle will teach us volumes about how to care for people and the earth, respect natures cycles, and discover a path toward a future that we can be proud of and that matters.

Looking at our housing choices and commercial buildings has taught me a great deal about our estrangement from the earth, her people, and the communities that we destroy in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. More importantly, it has shown a way to a sustainable future as well. It seems that everyone wants the perfect view. Regardless of where the sun rises and sets in relation to the house or where the cold winter winds come from. If you drive through the countryside, look at old buildings compared to newer ones. The greatest number of passive solar homes (having most of their windows facing South) were built in the early nineteen thirties. Have we forgotten that when we need the heat of the sun it is winter and in our hemisphere, that means that the sun is low in the Southern sky? Massive East, or West-facing windows assure our addiction to summer cooling as well. When a lifestyle based on what matters is achieved, one finds that there is much more need for a small window with a nice view over the kitchen sink. My grandmother knew this, her grandmother knew it as well. When did we forget this basic human need? What we love most about Frank Lloyd Wright was his ability to blur the lines between inside and out. To invite nature into the home and blend human lives with their environment. This urge, rather than being new, is universal and has been with humans since the dawn of time. This urge can be the impetus needed to rebirth a culture of nature-loving people who respect one another and the planet.

Even our relationship to water can offer clues to who we once were are and who we have become. A dear friend of mine only drinks Fiji Water. Another only drinks Perrier. My protestations have, thus far, remained unheeded. Back in the seventies, I told people that one day, water would come in single serving bottles and cost more than soda-pop. For this, I was ridiculed, labeled crazy, and scoffed at. Now, at a theater where I work, they charge four dollars per 16.9 oz. I recently purchased a caffeine and sugar laced beverage for $3 per two liters! (four times as much liquid for 25% less cost!) Is it any wonder that our bodies, in fact, are mostly water, yet we cannot grasp where our water comes from, it's quality, true cost or value? Long ago I became obsessed with trying to find clean water to drink that would not exacerbate certain health problems that I had been experiencing. City water was definitely out, because of the Chlorine. The last thing my body needed was to be sterilized by the residual chlorination process that would take place by imbibing the essential fluid.

My city water comes from Lake Michigan, thirty miles away, requiring massive electric pumps to raise it out of the lake and over the Niagra Escarpment. Since I first researched it, contaminants that had not been developed yet have made their way into that source anyway, so unless you want a micro-dose of everything from heart medication, birth controll pills and Viagra to psychoactive drugs, anti psychotic drugs and a variety of other pills, City Water here is not for you anyway. Studying the various ways that we use to "clean" water was an education in and of itself. Filtration, distillation and reverse osmosis all have extreme costs associated with them. In the end, I had to resort to finding natural artesian springs, and hoping for the best when it came to farm chemicals and other pollutants. I would make a monthly sojourn to one of several sources nearby, fill several dozen glass jugs, and use that water for cooking and drinking. My health slowly began to improve.

We all rely on Earth, Air, Fire, Water & Spirit. This is elementary. I have taken the bold step, some say it is crazy, to expect my life-support system to be clean, abundant, and protected. In this period of time, perhaps it is unreasonable to expect these things as a birthright. My desire is that in the future, rather than seeming to be ridiculous, these things again become normal. Our gifts from the Great Spirit have been defiled to the point of not being recognizable to the "primitive" cultures who once enjoyed them in a non-threatening way. In modern times we have forgotten that one person's freedom ends where another person's nose begins. My needs need never impinge on another's right to be happy, healthy or well-cared for. As we enter the new year, please put to bed the useless tools of oppression. We can no longer be distracted by the fallout of hatred, misogyny, misunderstanding, misplaced trust in the "powers that be", fallacies such as "boys will be boys" or the endless toil of "keeping up with the Jones' ". Use this time to re-kindle the spark of humanity that makes us social animals. Find out what really matters for yourself. Don't let me (or anyone else) make up your mind for you. Research whatever interests you, look hard and don't take anyone's word for anything. Get the facts, even though some may be hard to find or scare you to death! In the midst of all of this, don't sell yourself short, live your life as if it matters, because it truly does. Let the deep and abiding love that is evidenced by Creator through nature be mirrored in your life through actions and daily rituals that affirm life, rather than blindly tearing at the web of life on Earth. Remember, a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. Don't cop out, all life depends on your participation in the greater scheme of things.

Seven Generations of Service

When we grow, we pass through developmental stages. Things that we see, feel and understand change over time and when I was trained to be an educator, there was a tendency to focus on the young, since educating them was the way most teachers would make their living. My approach to education required a deeper understanding of growth stages that we pass through after the "formal" education process is complete. I have never felt that education should cease because we fulfill the requirements of any school. Luckily, I have found a profession that requires me to continue to learn, adapt and develop both skills and knowledge. Of course, what is harder to teach is attitude. Many feel that this is the hardest part of being a teacher, inspiring a curious attitude. Life long learning seems to me to be redundant, but for many, the idea of stimulating one's brain past high school, or college seems foreign. I often repeat what an older mentor said when I was a young man and a bit more impressionable, "I've forgotten more than most young people have learned." however, as my training has taught me, I do know where to look up much of that information when I need it. Sometimes knowing where to look is as important as what you find there.

We have dug ourselves quite a hole over the past seven generations. Many of our resources, (which I like to think of as gifts) are either waning, or have completely run out. Our species has run out of territory to "move on" into. Our cavalier cowboy approach to economics, land use and "development" have led to a broken economy, broken lives, broken homes and broken cities. The numbers of people falling through the cracks has increased exponentially as has our inability to resolve pressing issues. I feel that some of this is because we have been driven to distraction by stressors in our own lives. Many also find that if they look closely at nearly any problem, it seems to be systemic, and resolving it seems like it will take more effort than they can muster. I still have faith in education. I believe that if we can learn new ways of seeing, new ways of behaving and new ways to be of service to others, we can find our way out of several of the messes that we have made over past generations. What we need is a better framework for valuing our needs and critically investigating our wants.

I feel that we need to ask several important questions about each and every one of our choices, from housing to food and from energy to consumerism generally. Even the causes we support and our volunteerism can have lasting impacts on our planet and our collective future. How much is enough? Will this serve the next seven generations? Where have these things come from, and perhaps, more importantly, where will they end up? Remember that in nature there is no away, the planet works with such elegance that there is no waste, everything serves another purpose when it is passed it's "useful life". Every individual organism is an integral part of the whole. I am confident that if we can learn to become like our brothers and sisters in the natural world, we will fare much better in the coming years. We are taking some baby steps in the right direction, but to make a lasting positive change, we will need to embrace changes that will lead to sustaining the planet, it's essential resources, and the ability of future generations to enjoy a standard of living at least as high as that to which we have become accustomed.