Thanks for this. I am in your group and a longtime activist living in Ecuador since 2010, founder of a mostly latino, artist eco-community since 2012 (chambalabamba.org).
The indigenous have been kept in poverty, abused, and their lands contaminated for far too long. When is enough, enough? The problem is the corrupt government (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oilxI6Dgoy8&t=5s), and like you say, the huge debt. Horizontal governance must be radically transparent and it is virtually incorruptible. It is a strategy/solution. It puts the power back into the hands of the people.
Most people have never thought of this idea. But once the indigenous and campesinos unite with this demand, the public will begin to become informed and then perhaps a referendum could be held. It is an ambitious strategy, and we are in touch with all of the indigenous and the campesinos and awaiting their responses to this strategy to restructure the government from vertical to horizontal (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wywMhg604W8).
In addition, some activists from Vilcabamba helped the Shuar just recently to annul a terrible agreement their president (now x president) made with Amazon One, a company that Bill Gates is involved in, after the x-president was paid $100,000. Through the help of the Vilcabamba activists (I was one), the former president lost the election and the agreement was annulled. This was just a few weeks ago.
Now, the pres. of Ecuador is under impeachment, just recently. Some indig. nations are thinking of disassociating from Ecuador. But what would be the best solution would be the restructuring to horizontal, which could take place in one day. Nothing would initially be different. The main difference is that the people making the decisions will be the people involved and not some corrupt authority. And of course, extreme transparency is essential.
You could help Charles, by letting your extensive influential contacts to become aware of this as a way for humanity to begin escaping from the mortal grip of the controllers. What is your opinion?
Thank you for adding this important information. A lot of reason the status quo can be maintained is the artificial division between the indigenous and the other campesinos. I love the thought of a united movement. Let me figure out if I can pin this comment to the top to bring it more attention.
It's interesting that what struck me the most is that it was ME that killed this forest protector because of MY lifestyle that depends heavily on petroleum to continue living the comfortable life that I live and for creating the demand for the resources that are stripped out of the forests that Eduardo was attempting to protect. The gunmen were only the ones that we sent to pull the trigger to clear the way to get what our flesh craves despite that our spirit and soul despise what happened.
I don't want to be pessimistic AND reality is that nobody is going to do anything about this tragedy because most people are just like you and me and people like you and me aren't going to stop driving cars to work or using Solvents, Diesel fuel, Motor Oil, Bearing Grease, Ink, Floor Wax, Ballpoint Pens, Football Cleats, Upholstery, Sweaters that explains the itchy sweater I have at home), Boats, Insecticides, Bicycle Tires, Sports Car Bodies, Nail Polish, Fishing lures, Dresses, Tires, Golf Bags, Perfumes, Cassettes, Dishwasher parts, Tool Boxes, Shoe Polish, Motorcycle Helmets, Caulking, Petroleum Jelly, Transparent Tape, CD Player (do people still have these?), Faucet Washers, Antiseptics, Clothesline, Curtains, Food Preservatives, Basketballs, Soap (that explains why soap doesn’t clean oil off your hands), Vitamin Capsules, Antihistamines, Purses, Shoes, Dashboards, Cortisone, Deodorant Footballs, Putty. Dyes, Panty Hose, Refrigerant, Percolators, Life Jackets, Rubbing Alcohol, Linings, Skis, TV Cabinets, Shag Rugs, Electrician’s Tape, Tool Racks, Car Battery Cases, Epoxy, Paint, Mops, Slacks, Insect Repellent, Oil Filters, Umbrellas, Yarn, Fertilizers, Hair Coloring, Roofing, Toilet Seats, Fishing Rods, Lipstick, Denture Adhesive, Linoleum, Ice Cube Trays, Synthetic Rubber, Speakers, Plastic Wood, Electric Blankets, Glycerin, Tennis Rackets, Rubber Cement, Fishing Boots, Dice, Nylon Rope, Candles, Trash Bags, House Paint, Water Pipes, Hand Lotion, Roller Skates, Surf Boards, Shampoo, Wheels, Paint Rollers, Shower Curtains, Guitar Strings, Luggage, Aspirin, Safety Glasses, Antifreeze, Football Helmets, Awnings, Eyeglasses (I thought they were made from glass), Clothes, Toothbrushes, Ice Chests, Footballs, Combs, CD’s & DVD’s, Paint Brushes, Detergents, Vaporizers, Balloons, Sun Glasses, Tents, Heart Valves, Crayons, Parachutes, Telephones, Enamel, Pillows, Dishes, Cameras, Anesthetics, Artificial Turf, Artificial limbs, Bandages, Dentures, Model Cars, Folding Doors, Hair Curlers, Cold cream, Movie film, Soft Contact lenses, Drinking Cups, Fan Belts, Car Enamel, Shaving Cream, Ammonia, Refrigerators, Golf Balls, Toothpaste (Yuck), and Gasoline just to name a few.
You see, Eduardo's murder, was a death of a thousand cuts. Unfortunately, we are left holding the knife.
Whatever our means, we can all pare down on the trinkets and travel.
A way to move beyond consumerist guilt is to start eliminating what isn't necessary + making or growing what you can + re-using and re-purposing + sharing with your neighbours.
It can be creative and satisfying like... turning an old trashed swing set into a pumpkin trellis.
I understand your point. On the other side, in the US where I am from, I feel the government has made decisions over a long time to not develop cross country and local affordable public transportation. At this time it's nearly impossible to survive and do what you need to do without a car in the vast majority of places in the US. These govt decisions were made to support the myriad of car business in the industry including car makers and likely the oil industry as well, so again we find big business winning over what could have been very useful public services that could have lowered the demand for fuel. In addition the cost of domestic private transportation (taxis, rentals, buses, trains, planes) is so high and city planning so far from creating walkable cities/towns to reach your needs (suburban sprawl for ex.) it's like... some kind of loop.... nearly impossible to live with the ethics one may prefer. Other than to divest completely and live in the forest or a developing country, the latter I chose for these reasons and many more,. we all must do the best we can in the world as it is at this time.
Understood, Nicki. Certain necessities are just that - a necessity.
Urban sprawl is certainly a design flaw.
I have the same issue - live 70 kilometers from the nearest town. Simplified it for now to go in only once a fortnight as I work from home. For the long term - if petrol gets rationed - I'll sort out an arrangement with my neighbours who have horses! 😂
Both of your posts this week challenged me to think differently about how to engage with the wider world. I tend to stay insulated from news of all kinds, despite a long-standing interest in indigenous rights, ancient cultures, and societal change. It's just too difficult to keep my own "spirits" in a good place when I focus on all that is so terribly wrong. Your invitation to view the pictures of men in the Ecuadorian prison without judgement for anybody, and your reporting on the murder of another forest protector actually give me a kind of hope. Hope that our collective consciousness IS shifting toward compassion for our fellow humans AND for the land. I still won't be looking at news, too much, but I will be planning my local cultural and agricultural activities despite the 4 feet of snow still covering my field and gardens and blizzards that cancel my music lessons weekly. And I'll hope to remain without judgement for all of us as we negotiate our way out of the mess that extractive attitudes impose on our way of living on the planet. Thank you for the perspective. It's essential to our current and future well-being. I read about a South-American Tribe, maybe the Tupinamba, maybe not, who say of their families "we are sick" when an individual is not well. May we all begin to recognize the sanity of this frame of mind and notice that if any of us are sick, then we are all sick, and put our minds, bodies, and spirits to the work of healing.
Thanks for sharing Ellen. I understand wanting to stay insulated from the news as well, the current state of our mainstream media and information dissemination feels very unhealthy. But like you mention, I also feel there is hope in our collective consciousness shifting. As well as having some of these more difficult discussions in a new way.
My heart breaks for the whole world when I think about how we convert everything innocent, natural, and beautiful into "capital." Capitalism as it is at this point in time is extractive and destructive. I don't care what its original intent may or may not have been. The fruits of capitalism are there for all to see. This story is just one more example of this system being rotten to the core. We definitely need creativity and imagination to tell a better story here.
Capitalism has been like this since it’s beginnings. For a very well written detailed account, check out Sylvia Federici’s book, Caliban and the Witch.
Thank you for the recommendation. I checked out one of two copies from our public library. I see that overnight, someone has placed a hold on the title. Another reader of these comments I’d wager!
Kieron or Shagbark, are you aware of any discussion or interviews about the book or the author that are available (before jumping into the book? - have quite a few on the table right now). Thanks for any suggestions!
Thank you deeply for taking the time to research and share the larger story around this. It feels much better to both understand the background and the possible resolution.
I also feel that while these are good and viable answers, they are probably impossible while the privileged world is still working from such a place of personal deficiency. Meaning- only feeling powerful (important, valuable et al) when taking power from another.
Forgiving debt to these countries is akin to giving them back their power. It would allow these fellow humans to begin to flourish in their potency and vibrancy. It would give them a position of power and stewardship which would threaten the underdeveloped consciousness of humans in current “power positions”.
My question is : how can we initiate the individual healing of people in decision making roles so that they feel personally safe, valuable and worthy regardless of their title, role, bank account, position?
No one is able to give if they are already in scarcity.
And if they end up doing it in one area, they will need to re-fill the hole from another areas.
How can we nurture humans back to their innate wholeness so that they don’t need outside circumstances to make them feel viable and valuable?
I don’t believe the root of the problem is really just money. I believe people are equating money and position with their personal value/worth.
I understand it is huge and maybe not fast enough. And we need fast results.
But then, given the tools and the understanding everyone can heal inside a lifetime… if if if they are willing.
Can we nurture willingness?
If we heal these individual holes, then we have a fullness from which the desire for balance and human connection becomes the natural outcome.
I have less answers than I would like around how this is done. I am taking personal responsibility for mine and hope it will free up space in my
mind and heart for answers and opportunities to flow in.
Like you, I don’t feel like filling those spaces with anger and blame - not because I’m not angry and not because I don’t see who is to blame- but because I don’t want to define myself in a polarized opinion that may blind me from open contemplation and new roads of opportunity and, hopefully, efficacy.
Perhaps it is the combination of money (created as debt and by people that schemed their way into creating a transnational fractional reserve lending racketeering cartel) and the dominant anthropocentric world view which has led us to where we are today?
Robin Wall Kimmerer speaks to the implications of this shift from the Aminate worldview (which was the cornerstone of many indigenous culture's worldviews) to the anthropocentric world view that was imported to Mshike Mnise (which means “Turtle Island” in the Anishinaabemowin language) otherwise known as "North America" in the following quote from an essay:
“It is a hallmark of our time in human history that we think we are alone, perched at the top of the pyramid of life, in charge of it all.. ..Aided by religion that made God in the image of man, humans alone were perceived to have the capacity for reason, for sentience, for choice, for language. But long before that error was promulgated, people knew the trees were storytellers. But then we forgot. Or were made to forget by the ones who chased divinity out of the forest and forced it into the sky. The stories of trees were erased from our knowing..” (quoted from https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2021/10/29/hearing-the-language-of-trees )
Perhaps our path to "nurture humans back to their innate wholeness so that they don’t need outside circumstances to make them feel viable and valuable" begins with each of us remembering the wisdom of our ancient ancestors who cultivated an intimate relationship with the land where they lived to cultivate and (honorably/gratefully) forage for that which they needed to survive and to see our fellow non-human beings on Earth as wise teachers with important stories to tell?
As the plutocracy now sets it's "sustainable development" gaze upon the Boreal Forest in my back yard (under which are deep lithium and cobalt veins in the bones of our Mother Earth), the questions you posed above are questions I ask my self each day. I also contemplate dropping everything I am doing and going up to camp out in the forest and put my body in between the pillaging machines and our revered elders in the photosynthetic kingdom, but then I think of stories like the one Charles shared above, and countless others here in Canada where indigenous peoples did that, only to be stomped on by the RCMP (having been militarized by a corporation captured government and used as mercenaries) and I wonder how my time and energy would most effectively be spent (as I strive to live in a way that embodies People Care-Earth Care and Future Care).
I do not know the answer at this point, but I appreciate you caring enough to ask the questions.
Our current world is spinning into a vortex and everything needs care and attention - all at the same time.
There is no 'one-size-fits-all-issues' choice - but there is the imperative for each of us to choose where and how we are going to do our bit of the work that needs doing.
Each of us need to choose the hill we are prepared to die on - figuratively (ie: lifestyle) or literally (ie: eco-frontline).
Peace is the prerequisite to clarity. Clarity is the prerequisite to sacred choice.
Greetings Watersnake. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I agree that we each come here with our own unique gifts to offer.
I like to think that each of us came to this Earth carrying a little piece of the puzzle that we can put together to form a road map towards a better future (where integrity, courage, truth, abundance, equality, health and peace are the norms in our society). Each piece of that road map is something we carry within, a unique gift only we can chose to uncover and then come together with others to join with other pieces in order to create an effective trail map.
Thank you for endeavoring to discover and share your piece of that puzzle.
Please don’t go camp. We need humans like you as much as we need the stories trees tell. Let’s keep with resting open and contemplative as the stories are still unfolding. Let’s be here in fullness to receive and pass the baton in a timing more divine than pushing.
Thanks Kristen, I appreciate your response as well.
I am also grateful for you sharing your visions, insights and suggestions.
May the more beautiful world you hold a vision for in your heart and mind begin to manifest more an more in your day to day life in the coming months and years ahead. *hug*
I’m going to hop on here, I’ve spent a lot of time in Ecuador, from my angle it sums up alot of the complexity we don’t often hear about including the ties to the IMF.
Secondly, I would LOVE to see a follow up Charles about FairyCreek on Vancouver Island. This is the (second) biggest “act of civil disobedience” in Canadian history, yet most Canadians have no idea about the protest or the old growth, the financing for the RCMP to dismantle on behalf of the private logging company, the violence, the unseeded territory much of it is on. Why, when there is so much second logging ready nee growth are they clearing lands of trees so large they end up as chip...maybe some insight on docile “socialized” Canadian culture.
This is playing out in different ways all over. Whether to extract resources or to make way for more easily (this is a hunch) monitored and commodified lands.
He was arrested like the other 1,000 people. I wanted to go but I'm caring for my mom with Alzheimer's. RCMP have spent $18.7 million on the old-growth logging operation at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island, where forestry firm Teal Cedar estimated the value of timber products at roughly $20 million. RCMP spending near $50M on resource standoffs. See: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/rcmp-cirg-injunctions-brewer-1.6713168
I’m sorry to hear that, but also proud of him. I couldn’t make it from Ontario. The economics don’t make sense, even production on trees with that girth (there are no mills that can refine them). The only way I can see them making this investment is to clear for second growth and create land that is easy for monitoring and surveillance.
Hi Mia, are you aware that here in Ontario we have healthy old growth White Pine and Hemlock (300 year old plus) that are zoned for logging within Algonquin Provincial park?
Also, there are HUGE areas of the Boreal forest further north that have been purchased by Lithium Mining corporations that are intending on clear cutting the old growth Black Spruce and Balsam Fir to carve into the bones of our Mother Earth to get Lithium so they can sell people EVs (for more info on the intended lithium mines see: https://archive.org/details/blood4lithiumborealforestpillaging )
I grew up on the west coast and remember hearing about how my grandparents got arrested for putting their bodies in between the ancient tree killers and their intended prize. They were also arrested among hundreds (in the early 90-s) and their valiant efforts inspired me to cherish the wilderness and write a book about my love for Mother Earth (to provide people with the tools and knowledge to help regenerate her body).
Now it appears the armies of corporate lawyers and militant corporations looking to transform the living world into dead money are back (in force) and they have even more corrupt RCMP with them this time. I am grateful for you shining a light onto these atrocities and I pray to God that forces beyond the reach of the corporate goons help the brave forest protectors to preserve the last remaining elder trees.
Thank you for sharing your love with our Mother Earth through your words and your actions.
Yes, exactly. This further relates to the media control in Canada and censorship, very little slips out past the veil of the CBC. Behind the protest in Ottawa last year this is it and has been going on for a long time. Whole make shift, on site communities have set up on location. The violence by police has been unreal. There were trolls placed within to split the protestors amongst themselves. I’ll reply later today with links to the internal accounts.
I wonder if looking into how Norway built its reserve fund based on a resource bank (I may have this inaccurately described if anyone wants to correct me) ...it’s a totally different culture and economy but I wonder if there’s wisdom to be drawn from that example.
Thanks for this heartbreaking story of a man who gave his life in service to save the forest. More and more, Charles, I think that the ideas you write about so eloquently in Sacred Economics are what we all need to take up as seriously as we can, in our own places, at our own levels. I constantly think about the ideas in that book. I absolutely agree that the Scarcity/Slavery Based Economy is a huge driver of the destruction. In fact, it's so clear to me that I often feel like it has to be obvious to everyone (It's not) ! Wendell Berry is also writing about this in his new book, "The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice". It goes all the way up to big economic systems, and all the way down to, for example, Mr Berry's family history in Kentucky, and our own particular family histories. In the US, it absolutely involves the larger family history of understanding the (unfinished) Civil War, which brought about the dominance of industrialism and forced explicit racism underground (but preserved all the controlling elements of the slave economy). I'm also in favor of stopgap measures that will work to preserve what can be preserved. But I also agree with you that the mindshift and heartshift needed for true healing is complete and total. Every single one of us has to, in our own way, as we feel we can, let go of control and give in to service.
Thank you so much for writing this. The only time I’ve travelled outside of Canada except for going over the boarder close to where I live, was to Ecuador about five years ago. I went to do plant medicine with the Shaur but the Shaman didn’t speak English and I have zero Spanish but the whole thing was an incredible experience so much so I wanted to go home shortly after but I’d booked a month there because I’d never been to place like that before. So I travelled by myself for weeks in busses and staying in hostels and sometimes bus stations. The people and the way they share among themselves and the way people helped me over and over just by us noticing each other is not something I I’m used to in Canada. It’s a different world and I talked to people about the currency collapse situation in 2000 and how it effected them and I talked to American ex pats who have bought property and are living around Villacambamba. I can understand what you are talking about. And I believe the Shaur people understand also. But it was something to experience the power of the American dollar even if I would be considered a poor person in North America. Many people live like my grandparents lived when they came to Canada well before the age of of petrochemicals.
40 years of fighting the logging insanity here in western wa state has shown me at the end of the day it is not really about the money in regards to rampant resource 'extraction'. Or at least only peripherally. It is fundamentally about power, control and domination. Our tax dollars have subsidized unsustainable logging and other industries for generations, both at home and abroad. There are guys who run the logging industry who have a real hard on for cutting down old growth trees. I have witnessed this over and over, both at the top and at the bottom of the industry. They literally go to war with the forest. This is deep primal archetypal stuff . By destroying the forest they force any holdout communities to assimilate and be brought into the fold. They also feel empowered and righteous in conquering 'the wilderness' and thus overcome the fear so many have of the deep dark mysterious and unknowable wild. And no, an ordinary person forced to use fossil fuels to survive is not the problem. It they don't cut the forest down for oil, the PTB's will cut it down to burn the trees directly to fuel electric plants and call it renewable 'biofuels' , or they will destroy the forest to plant corn for ethanol, or they will build a dam that floods the forest or cut the trees to install hundreds of acres of wind turbines. etc etc. It is the forest itself they see as needing to be tamed. It is Mother Earth herself who must be conquered. And well the Mayans destroyed the rainforest around them 6,000 years ago to build their own empire. Those wonderful stone temples we ooh and ah over were built at a huge environmental and human rights expense. We think we are in a new story, but this is a very old one. Decentralized living close to nature that is sustainable for eons vs centralized empire building which eventually consumes it's own young and dies a horrible death.
(and as you have repeatedly pointed out in your writings about the age of separation and the commodification of nature/relationships) what we are witnessing now all around us is just the leading edge of the sword in a war that humans began waging on nature centuries (in fact, in many cases millennia) ago. The faces and names of those wielding that sword may have changed slightly, but the mentality and momentum behind it have only increased in their intensity in recent decades. Instead of soldiers mass murdering villages and slaughtering millions of buffalo so they can steal land and then extract ‘resources’ from the land, we now have a corrupt judicial system and corporation/bankster captured governments, covert wet-work teams and corporate hitmen, the militarization of the police and unleashing their propaganda tools to pacify the resistance so the bulldozers and refineries can move in to turn the living Earth into dead products (which people will then throw in a big garbage heap a few years later).
Even in the early 90-s (before the internet) this method of perpetuating the pillaging and corporate profiteering was very effective. My grandparents (restaurant owners and artists that lived on a small island near Vancouver Island) did their part to stand up to corporate tyranny and anthropocentrism by laying down in front of heavy machinery and chaining themselves to 900 year old Douglas Fir trees in the rainforest of Vancouver island. They were not murdered like the man described in your essay above, here in the west the corporations try to avoid using such tactics. Rather the RCMP were weaponized by corporate lawyers and my grandparents were arrested several times (along with hundreds of others). Though their efforts managed to protect small patches of that ancient forest, 30 years later, when the armies of corporate lawyers using legal loopholes and corrupt police overwhelmed the current forest protectors, now this is happening https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-old-growth-forest-vancouver-island-caycuse/
Does this mean I suggest we should give up hope and that my grandparent's and Eduardo Mendúa's valiant efforts have not made a difference? No, for even given the extremely grim situation we are currently facing, that does not negate the value of using one’s free will and one’s moments on this Earth to defend life, to stand up and give a voice to those that cannot speak for themselves and to choose hope, courage, love and peace in the face of fear, hubris, anthropocentrism, apathy, violence and cowardice.
Each choice we make leaves a mark, not only in the lives of those we share this world with (as my grandparents did with their courageous and selfless actions, inspiring me to learn from nature, explore and protect wilderness places and to write a book about gardening and creating in the kitchen, and as Eduardo Mendúa's choices will inevitably inspire many) but perhaps more importantly, each choice we make leaves a mark on our soul. Regardless of what happens in this life on the Earth, each time we choose love and courage over fear and apathy, and each time we choose to plant seeds and do that which is life affirming, rather than capitulating to the pressures of our sick materialistic and anthropocentric modern mainstream culture, we are enriching a part of our selves that we will carry with us always, beyond this life, beyond space and time, to a place one might call ‘home’.
Perhaps we (with our limited human brains) cannot fathom the meaningful ways in which our efforts to protect the natural world and stand up for our fellow beings will be supported by forces beyond our comprehension and (as you suggested in your past writings) we will we will find that “A Path Will Rise To Meet Us”, or perhaps the tremendous momentum of the corporate plutocracy (and billions of humans that have adopted an anthropocentric worldview who are feeding into it) will overwhelm even the most courageous and most cunning forest protectors.
Either way, for me personally, with regards to standing up to protect the forests, creating intentional communities, community gardens, food forests and regenerative residential gardens, it all boils down to “how do I want to spend the remaining time I have on the Earth?”.
Thus, I choose to stand up for life, to speak truth when it is uncomfortable, to expose wounds so they can be fully healed and to take steps to withdraw my support from giving energy to the global corporate monstrosity that relentlessly works to transform the living world into dead products, money and more humans.
I feel that given the obvious atrocities and ecological devastation that is being caused by the Cobalt, Tantalum, Tungsten, and Lithium mining we who honor the sacredness of all life and the sacredness of the few remaining wilderness places are going to have to make some sacrifices in the comforts we have become accustomed to. Those that wish to walk a path guided by any kind of honest moral compass (including but not limited to the permaculture ethical imperative of People Care-Earth Care-Future Care) are going to have to make some hard choices in the coming years if we want our actions to continue to align with the principles we espouse and claim to live by.
Anthropocentric would be an improvement. The real agenda is to turn humans into machines, cattle, tagged and controlled. The future is serfdom in a corporate feudal state unless we find a means to stop it, legal or otherwise. My heroes in this struggle are Charles, David Korten, Catherine Austin Fitts, Foster Gamble, Naomi Wolf.
“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”
― Cree Prophecy
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Thanks for the comment and for sharing your thoughts Jerry.
Did you read the essay I linked in my comment above?
I have a hard time believing you would endorse anthropocentricism after doing so given the clear and plain evidence I present to what that world view has resulted in.
I am fully aware of the mentally deranged transhumanist plutocrats and their various schemes (to either dominate other beings, humans being on of them, or attempt to cheat death with their technological delusions).
The fact that a few psychopathic and fearful oligarchs want to warp, manipulate and/or technologically colonize human beings should be illuminating the inherent dangers of hubris and anthropocentricism, not giving you the impression you should double down on the fallacious viewpoint that puts humans as being of central importance on Earth and beyond.
Only through remembering who and what we are as conscious beings and recognizing the sacredness of all life can we begin to co-create a future where health, peace, abundance, equality and freedom are the norm. If you attempt to make other beings part of your own feudal system (enslaving them, pillaging their families for profit or fun, supporting mentalities and industries that turn the natural world into dead products for profit) you feed into the "serfdom in a corporate feudal state" for yourself that you are afraid of. In order to render the corporate oligarchs obsolete and leave them behind we must cut our ties to the extractive economy and industrial infrastructure and instead build a close knit reciprocal relationship with the living earth (as our ancestors did).
While Charles, Catherine, Foster and many others are indeed wise, compassionate and intelligent humans beings that are offering us important sign posts to navigate the path ahead, there is no "hero", elected official, institution, politician, guru, priest, revolutionary, savior or any other external force or individual who can do this for you. We are the ones that will walk the path ahead of us and co-create the future we live in. Engaging in life on Earth is a voluntary journey that each of us chose willingly. The Creator of all things respects our choice to be here and our free will. We did not come here to see a dramatic dualistic showdown happen and applaud the ‘good guy' for vanquishing the bad guy (from a distance as a spectator). No, each and every one of us (whether we are currently consciously aware of this fact or not) came here to co-author the story. That means no-one else is going to do the hard work for us (not a savior, rebel leader nor a politician) we came here to do that work of transforming this world ourselves.
It is time to move past the era of followers and leaders, heroes and side line cheering fans, peasants and princes, worshipers and saviors, haves and have-nots, minions and tyrants, corporations and consumers and usher in the age of self governed, self reliant, creative, resilient and symbiotically connected human beings which collaborate of their own free will to heal our relationship with Mother Earth and our fellow non-human beings and leave this world a little more beautiful than it was before.
One more observation.. although I was only there for a month I didn’t see anything that compares to the mental illness and homelessness I see in my community in Canada. And people are young in Ecuador… there’s always a wild card in the deck.
oh your opening a pandoras box here ha ha with "mental illness." It is relevant to this discussion insofar as pointing to another societal sickness created by corporations (pharmaceuticals) and the governments in collusion with them. Extreme emotional distress of many kinds is a normal part of the human psyche actually (are not illnesses in the way the DSM describes it), particularly so in the world we current live in (sick world), but when treated with pharmaceuticals to the exclusion of better non-chemical approaches, they create long term disability (there are books about this, check out Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker for ex.) and a huge underclass some of whom are homeless as well. I know I was in this nightmarish vortex for decades, homeless at times as well. I am writing a memoir about it :) it's not finished. I will also add that the loss of community, real community (another huge topic) feeds into both these problems; the lack of western treatment for distress and better communities in the developing world leads to less overall rates of both of these problems in my opinion, tho as normal human experiences and with poverty/stress to survive you find them everywhere. Also most of us are highly sensitive people, think of us like canaries in a coal mine, we can't ignore the sickness around us and it affects us more, be in society-wide or individual traumas. There are no pat answers to these problems but understanding and seeing the truth about what is happening is a good first step. Thanks for your observations!
heartbreaking. all the reasons this is happening and what needs to be done to stop it are valid. but as brian g mentioned it is ultimately the mindshift and the heartshift of every being that is necessary. for a profound change....perhaps we will reach the 100th monkey figure and sanity, love and peace will prevail. speaking of love and peace and sanity. marianne williamson will be running for president in 2024.
Excellent work, and thank you 🙏🏻 With but few exceptions, if any, this same story has played out, or is playing out, globally. Between the Civil War and 1890 the state of Michigan was literally clear cut of its forests; it was called the Northwest Territory then. Not long after governments came in and drained the land for better farming. Now the government protects the pothole in my driveway as a “wetland.” Of course we committed genocide of the indigenous in the process. What we call “civilization” is anything but. We are a weak people now, totally dependent on fossil fuels, electricity, large scale food and water systems, etc. These systems are a matter of life and death for billions. It’s pretty much like Morpheus said, “humans are a virus,” and we are hellbent on killing the host.
Thanks for this. I am in your group and a longtime activist living in Ecuador since 2010, founder of a mostly latino, artist eco-community since 2012 (chambalabamba.org).
The indigenous have been kept in poverty, abused, and their lands contaminated for far too long. When is enough, enough? The problem is the corrupt government (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oilxI6Dgoy8&t=5s), and like you say, the huge debt. Horizontal governance must be radically transparent and it is virtually incorruptible. It is a strategy/solution. It puts the power back into the hands of the people.
Most people have never thought of this idea. But once the indigenous and campesinos unite with this demand, the public will begin to become informed and then perhaps a referendum could be held. It is an ambitious strategy, and we are in touch with all of the indigenous and the campesinos and awaiting their responses to this strategy to restructure the government from vertical to horizontal (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wywMhg604W8).
In addition, some activists from Vilcabamba helped the Shuar just recently to annul a terrible agreement their president (now x president) made with Amazon One, a company that Bill Gates is involved in, after the x-president was paid $100,000. Through the help of the Vilcabamba activists (I was one), the former president lost the election and the agreement was annulled. This was just a few weeks ago.
Now, the pres. of Ecuador is under impeachment, just recently. Some indig. nations are thinking of disassociating from Ecuador. But what would be the best solution would be the restructuring to horizontal, which could take place in one day. Nothing would initially be different. The main difference is that the people making the decisions will be the people involved and not some corrupt authority. And of course, extreme transparency is essential.
You could help Charles, by letting your extensive influential contacts to become aware of this as a way for humanity to begin escaping from the mortal grip of the controllers. What is your opinion?
Thank you for adding this important information. A lot of reason the status quo can be maintained is the artificial division between the indigenous and the other campesinos. I love the thought of a united movement. Let me figure out if I can pin this comment to the top to bring it more attention.
You look familiar! Vilca?
yes
Thank you, brother, for the work you all are doing.
Solutions being forged in the fire - we all can learn from this devotion and send protective prayers.
When we can do more, please let us know.
It's interesting that what struck me the most is that it was ME that killed this forest protector because of MY lifestyle that depends heavily on petroleum to continue living the comfortable life that I live and for creating the demand for the resources that are stripped out of the forests that Eduardo was attempting to protect. The gunmen were only the ones that we sent to pull the trigger to clear the way to get what our flesh craves despite that our spirit and soul despise what happened.
I don't want to be pessimistic AND reality is that nobody is going to do anything about this tragedy because most people are just like you and me and people like you and me aren't going to stop driving cars to work or using Solvents, Diesel fuel, Motor Oil, Bearing Grease, Ink, Floor Wax, Ballpoint Pens, Football Cleats, Upholstery, Sweaters that explains the itchy sweater I have at home), Boats, Insecticides, Bicycle Tires, Sports Car Bodies, Nail Polish, Fishing lures, Dresses, Tires, Golf Bags, Perfumes, Cassettes, Dishwasher parts, Tool Boxes, Shoe Polish, Motorcycle Helmets, Caulking, Petroleum Jelly, Transparent Tape, CD Player (do people still have these?), Faucet Washers, Antiseptics, Clothesline, Curtains, Food Preservatives, Basketballs, Soap (that explains why soap doesn’t clean oil off your hands), Vitamin Capsules, Antihistamines, Purses, Shoes, Dashboards, Cortisone, Deodorant Footballs, Putty. Dyes, Panty Hose, Refrigerant, Percolators, Life Jackets, Rubbing Alcohol, Linings, Skis, TV Cabinets, Shag Rugs, Electrician’s Tape, Tool Racks, Car Battery Cases, Epoxy, Paint, Mops, Slacks, Insect Repellent, Oil Filters, Umbrellas, Yarn, Fertilizers, Hair Coloring, Roofing, Toilet Seats, Fishing Rods, Lipstick, Denture Adhesive, Linoleum, Ice Cube Trays, Synthetic Rubber, Speakers, Plastic Wood, Electric Blankets, Glycerin, Tennis Rackets, Rubber Cement, Fishing Boots, Dice, Nylon Rope, Candles, Trash Bags, House Paint, Water Pipes, Hand Lotion, Roller Skates, Surf Boards, Shampoo, Wheels, Paint Rollers, Shower Curtains, Guitar Strings, Luggage, Aspirin, Safety Glasses, Antifreeze, Football Helmets, Awnings, Eyeglasses (I thought they were made from glass), Clothes, Toothbrushes, Ice Chests, Footballs, Combs, CD’s & DVD’s, Paint Brushes, Detergents, Vaporizers, Balloons, Sun Glasses, Tents, Heart Valves, Crayons, Parachutes, Telephones, Enamel, Pillows, Dishes, Cameras, Anesthetics, Artificial Turf, Artificial limbs, Bandages, Dentures, Model Cars, Folding Doors, Hair Curlers, Cold cream, Movie film, Soft Contact lenses, Drinking Cups, Fan Belts, Car Enamel, Shaving Cream, Ammonia, Refrigerators, Golf Balls, Toothpaste (Yuck), and Gasoline just to name a few.
You see, Eduardo's murder, was a death of a thousand cuts. Unfortunately, we are left holding the knife.
-Jay
Excellent. Death of a thousand cuts. We are all complicit.
Remember the Voluntary Simplicity conversation?
Whatever our means, we can all pare down on the trinkets and travel.
A way to move beyond consumerist guilt is to start eliminating what isn't necessary + making or growing what you can + re-using and re-purposing + sharing with your neighbours.
It can be creative and satisfying like... turning an old trashed swing set into a pumpkin trellis.
I understand your point. On the other side, in the US where I am from, I feel the government has made decisions over a long time to not develop cross country and local affordable public transportation. At this time it's nearly impossible to survive and do what you need to do without a car in the vast majority of places in the US. These govt decisions were made to support the myriad of car business in the industry including car makers and likely the oil industry as well, so again we find big business winning over what could have been very useful public services that could have lowered the demand for fuel. In addition the cost of domestic private transportation (taxis, rentals, buses, trains, planes) is so high and city planning so far from creating walkable cities/towns to reach your needs (suburban sprawl for ex.) it's like... some kind of loop.... nearly impossible to live with the ethics one may prefer. Other than to divest completely and live in the forest or a developing country, the latter I chose for these reasons and many more,. we all must do the best we can in the world as it is at this time.
Understood, Nicki. Certain necessities are just that - a necessity.
Urban sprawl is certainly a design flaw.
I have the same issue - live 70 kilometers from the nearest town. Simplified it for now to go in only once a fortnight as I work from home. For the long term - if petrol gets rationed - I'll sort out an arrangement with my neighbours who have horses! 😂
yeah we can all go back to horse riding and buggies lol. It sounds fun but it's gonna be a long ride for you.. maybe start planting a garden haha.
Dear Charles,
Both of your posts this week challenged me to think differently about how to engage with the wider world. I tend to stay insulated from news of all kinds, despite a long-standing interest in indigenous rights, ancient cultures, and societal change. It's just too difficult to keep my own "spirits" in a good place when I focus on all that is so terribly wrong. Your invitation to view the pictures of men in the Ecuadorian prison without judgement for anybody, and your reporting on the murder of another forest protector actually give me a kind of hope. Hope that our collective consciousness IS shifting toward compassion for our fellow humans AND for the land. I still won't be looking at news, too much, but I will be planning my local cultural and agricultural activities despite the 4 feet of snow still covering my field and gardens and blizzards that cancel my music lessons weekly. And I'll hope to remain without judgement for all of us as we negotiate our way out of the mess that extractive attitudes impose on our way of living on the planet. Thank you for the perspective. It's essential to our current and future well-being. I read about a South-American Tribe, maybe the Tupinamba, maybe not, who say of their families "we are sick" when an individual is not well. May we all begin to recognize the sanity of this frame of mind and notice that if any of us are sick, then we are all sick, and put our minds, bodies, and spirits to the work of healing.
Thanks for sharing Ellen. I understand wanting to stay insulated from the news as well, the current state of our mainstream media and information dissemination feels very unhealthy. But like you mention, I also feel there is hope in our collective consciousness shifting. As well as having some of these more difficult discussions in a new way.
Thank you Ellen and James both for sharing your broadened sense of understanding and hope. Rarely is this valuable sentiment shared.
In Peace,
Tammy Wala'li Antonia-Gray
My heart breaks for the whole world when I think about how we convert everything innocent, natural, and beautiful into "capital." Capitalism as it is at this point in time is extractive and destructive. I don't care what its original intent may or may not have been. The fruits of capitalism are there for all to see. This story is just one more example of this system being rotten to the core. We definitely need creativity and imagination to tell a better story here.
Capitalism has been like this since it’s beginnings. For a very well written detailed account, check out Sylvia Federici’s book, Caliban and the Witch.
Thanks for the suggestion. In the midst of a move, but I will try and check out the book after the dust settles, lol.
Thank you for the recommendation. I checked out one of two copies from our public library. I see that overnight, someone has placed a hold on the title. Another reader of these comments I’d wager!
Kieron or Shagbark, are you aware of any discussion or interviews about the book or the author that are available (before jumping into the book? - have quite a few on the table right now). Thanks for any suggestions!
Thanks Kieron!
Thank you deeply for taking the time to research and share the larger story around this. It feels much better to both understand the background and the possible resolution.
I also feel that while these are good and viable answers, they are probably impossible while the privileged world is still working from such a place of personal deficiency. Meaning- only feeling powerful (important, valuable et al) when taking power from another.
Forgiving debt to these countries is akin to giving them back their power. It would allow these fellow humans to begin to flourish in their potency and vibrancy. It would give them a position of power and stewardship which would threaten the underdeveloped consciousness of humans in current “power positions”.
My question is : how can we initiate the individual healing of people in decision making roles so that they feel personally safe, valuable and worthy regardless of their title, role, bank account, position?
No one is able to give if they are already in scarcity.
And if they end up doing it in one area, they will need to re-fill the hole from another areas.
How can we nurture humans back to their innate wholeness so that they don’t need outside circumstances to make them feel viable and valuable?
I don’t believe the root of the problem is really just money. I believe people are equating money and position with their personal value/worth.
I understand it is huge and maybe not fast enough. And we need fast results.
But then, given the tools and the understanding everyone can heal inside a lifetime… if if if they are willing.
Can we nurture willingness?
If we heal these individual holes, then we have a fullness from which the desire for balance and human connection becomes the natural outcome.
I have less answers than I would like around how this is done. I am taking personal responsibility for mine and hope it will free up space in my
mind and heart for answers and opportunities to flow in.
Like you, I don’t feel like filling those spaces with anger and blame - not because I’m not angry and not because I don’t see who is to blame- but because I don’t want to define myself in a polarized opinion that may blind me from open contemplation and new roads of opportunity and, hopefully, efficacy.
Great questions.
Perhaps it is the combination of money (created as debt and by people that schemed their way into creating a transnational fractional reserve lending racketeering cartel) and the dominant anthropocentric world view which has led us to where we are today?
Robin Wall Kimmerer speaks to the implications of this shift from the Aminate worldview (which was the cornerstone of many indigenous culture's worldviews) to the anthropocentric world view that was imported to Mshike Mnise (which means “Turtle Island” in the Anishinaabemowin language) otherwise known as "North America" in the following quote from an essay:
“It is a hallmark of our time in human history that we think we are alone, perched at the top of the pyramid of life, in charge of it all.. ..Aided by religion that made God in the image of man, humans alone were perceived to have the capacity for reason, for sentience, for choice, for language. But long before that error was promulgated, people knew the trees were storytellers. But then we forgot. Or were made to forget by the ones who chased divinity out of the forest and forced it into the sky. The stories of trees were erased from our knowing..” (quoted from https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2021/10/29/hearing-the-language-of-trees )
Perhaps our path to "nurture humans back to their innate wholeness so that they don’t need outside circumstances to make them feel viable and valuable" begins with each of us remembering the wisdom of our ancient ancestors who cultivated an intimate relationship with the land where they lived to cultivate and (honorably/gratefully) forage for that which they needed to survive and to see our fellow non-human beings on Earth as wise teachers with important stories to tell?
As the plutocracy now sets it's "sustainable development" gaze upon the Boreal Forest in my back yard (under which are deep lithium and cobalt veins in the bones of our Mother Earth), the questions you posed above are questions I ask my self each day. I also contemplate dropping everything I am doing and going up to camp out in the forest and put my body in between the pillaging machines and our revered elders in the photosynthetic kingdom, but then I think of stories like the one Charles shared above, and countless others here in Canada where indigenous peoples did that, only to be stomped on by the RCMP (having been militarized by a corporation captured government and used as mercenaries) and I wonder how my time and energy would most effectively be spent (as I strive to live in a way that embodies People Care-Earth Care and Future Care).
I do not know the answer at this point, but I appreciate you caring enough to ask the questions.
Our current world is spinning into a vortex and everything needs care and attention - all at the same time.
There is no 'one-size-fits-all-issues' choice - but there is the imperative for each of us to choose where and how we are going to do our bit of the work that needs doing.
Each of us need to choose the hill we are prepared to die on - figuratively (ie: lifestyle) or literally (ie: eco-frontline).
Peace is the prerequisite to clarity. Clarity is the prerequisite to sacred choice.
Choice around vaccination was just the start.
Greetings Watersnake. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I agree that we each come here with our own unique gifts to offer.
I like to think that each of us came to this Earth carrying a little piece of the puzzle that we can put together to form a road map towards a better future (where integrity, courage, truth, abundance, equality, health and peace are the norms in our society). Each piece of that road map is something we carry within, a unique gift only we can chose to uncover and then come together with others to join with other pieces in order to create an effective trail map.
Thank you for endeavoring to discover and share your piece of that puzzle.
I so deeply appreciate your response.
Please don’t go camp. We need humans like you as much as we need the stories trees tell. Let’s keep with resting open and contemplative as the stories are still unfolding. Let’s be here in fullness to receive and pass the baton in a timing more divine than pushing.
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Gift a subscripti
Thanks Kristen, I appreciate your response as well.
I am also grateful for you sharing your visions, insights and suggestions.
May the more beautiful world you hold a vision for in your heart and mind begin to manifest more an more in your day to day life in the coming months and years ahead. *hug*
I’m going to hop on here, I’ve spent a lot of time in Ecuador, from my angle it sums up alot of the complexity we don’t often hear about including the ties to the IMF.
Secondly, I would LOVE to see a follow up Charles about FairyCreek on Vancouver Island. This is the (second) biggest “act of civil disobedience” in Canadian history, yet most Canadians have no idea about the protest or the old growth, the financing for the RCMP to dismantle on behalf of the private logging company, the violence, the unseeded territory much of it is on. Why, when there is so much second logging ready nee growth are they clearing lands of trees so large they end up as chip...maybe some insight on docile “socialized” Canadian culture.
This is playing out in different ways all over. Whether to extract resources or to make way for more easily (this is a hunch) monitored and commodified lands.
I hadn't heard about it at all
Thanks for calling attention to Fairy Creek! I started following and donating when a friend on Vancouver Island became involved. See: https://www.instagram.com/fairycreekblockade/ It's a big deal Charles. https://laststandforforests.com Please see: https://youtu.be/C-DitozPh98 https://ecologyst.com/blogs/films/before-they-fall
Thanks Marcy! Yes those are the accounts. Blessings to your friend who’s on the ground there.
He was arrested like the other 1,000 people. I wanted to go but I'm caring for my mom with Alzheimer's. RCMP have spent $18.7 million on the old-growth logging operation at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island, where forestry firm Teal Cedar estimated the value of timber products at roughly $20 million. RCMP spending near $50M on resource standoffs. See: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/rcmp-cirg-injunctions-brewer-1.6713168
I’m sorry to hear that, but also proud of him. I couldn’t make it from Ontario. The economics don’t make sense, even production on trees with that girth (there are no mills that can refine them). The only way I can see them making this investment is to clear for second growth and create land that is easy for monitoring and surveillance.
Hi Mia, are you aware that here in Ontario we have healthy old growth White Pine and Hemlock (300 year old plus) that are zoned for logging within Algonquin Provincial park?
Also, there are HUGE areas of the Boreal forest further north that have been purchased by Lithium Mining corporations that are intending on clear cutting the old growth Black Spruce and Balsam Fir to carve into the bones of our Mother Earth to get Lithium so they can sell people EVs (for more info on the intended lithium mines see: https://archive.org/details/blood4lithiumborealforestpillaging )
Hi Marcy
I grew up on the west coast and remember hearing about how my grandparents got arrested for putting their bodies in between the ancient tree killers and their intended prize. They were also arrested among hundreds (in the early 90-s) and their valiant efforts inspired me to cherish the wilderness and write a book about my love for Mother Earth (to provide people with the tools and knowledge to help regenerate her body).
Now it appears the armies of corporate lawyers and militant corporations looking to transform the living world into dead money are back (in force) and they have even more corrupt RCMP with them this time. I am grateful for you shining a light onto these atrocities and I pray to God that forces beyond the reach of the corporate goons help the brave forest protectors to preserve the last remaining elder trees.
Thank you for sharing your love with our Mother Earth through your words and your actions.
Yes, exactly. This further relates to the media control in Canada and censorship, very little slips out past the veil of the CBC. Behind the protest in Ottawa last year this is it and has been going on for a long time. Whole make shift, on site communities have set up on location. The violence by police has been unreal. There were trolls placed within to split the protestors amongst themselves. I’ll reply later today with links to the internal accounts.
I wonder if looking into how Norway built its reserve fund based on a resource bank (I may have this inaccurately described if anyone wants to correct me) ...it’s a totally different culture and economy but I wonder if there’s wisdom to be drawn from that example.
Grammar pest alert, apologies! 'Unceded' not 'unseeded' x
Yep, thank you. I’m typing on my phone and I make a tonne of typos
Unseeded does have some implied possibilities tho!
Thanks for this heartbreaking story of a man who gave his life in service to save the forest. More and more, Charles, I think that the ideas you write about so eloquently in Sacred Economics are what we all need to take up as seriously as we can, in our own places, at our own levels. I constantly think about the ideas in that book. I absolutely agree that the Scarcity/Slavery Based Economy is a huge driver of the destruction. In fact, it's so clear to me that I often feel like it has to be obvious to everyone (It's not) ! Wendell Berry is also writing about this in his new book, "The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice". It goes all the way up to big economic systems, and all the way down to, for example, Mr Berry's family history in Kentucky, and our own particular family histories. In the US, it absolutely involves the larger family history of understanding the (unfinished) Civil War, which brought about the dominance of industrialism and forced explicit racism underground (but preserved all the controlling elements of the slave economy). I'm also in favor of stopgap measures that will work to preserve what can be preserved. But I also agree with you that the mindshift and heartshift needed for true healing is complete and total. Every single one of us has to, in our own way, as we feel we can, let go of control and give in to service.
Thank you so much for writing this. The only time I’ve travelled outside of Canada except for going over the boarder close to where I live, was to Ecuador about five years ago. I went to do plant medicine with the Shaur but the Shaman didn’t speak English and I have zero Spanish but the whole thing was an incredible experience so much so I wanted to go home shortly after but I’d booked a month there because I’d never been to place like that before. So I travelled by myself for weeks in busses and staying in hostels and sometimes bus stations. The people and the way they share among themselves and the way people helped me over and over just by us noticing each other is not something I I’m used to in Canada. It’s a different world and I talked to people about the currency collapse situation in 2000 and how it effected them and I talked to American ex pats who have bought property and are living around Villacambamba. I can understand what you are talking about. And I believe the Shaur people understand also. But it was something to experience the power of the American dollar even if I would be considered a poor person in North America. Many people live like my grandparents lived when they came to Canada well before the age of of petrochemicals.
40 years of fighting the logging insanity here in western wa state has shown me at the end of the day it is not really about the money in regards to rampant resource 'extraction'. Or at least only peripherally. It is fundamentally about power, control and domination. Our tax dollars have subsidized unsustainable logging and other industries for generations, both at home and abroad. There are guys who run the logging industry who have a real hard on for cutting down old growth trees. I have witnessed this over and over, both at the top and at the bottom of the industry. They literally go to war with the forest. This is deep primal archetypal stuff . By destroying the forest they force any holdout communities to assimilate and be brought into the fold. They also feel empowered and righteous in conquering 'the wilderness' and thus overcome the fear so many have of the deep dark mysterious and unknowable wild. And no, an ordinary person forced to use fossil fuels to survive is not the problem. It they don't cut the forest down for oil, the PTB's will cut it down to burn the trees directly to fuel electric plants and call it renewable 'biofuels' , or they will destroy the forest to plant corn for ethanol, or they will build a dam that floods the forest or cut the trees to install hundreds of acres of wind turbines. etc etc. It is the forest itself they see as needing to be tamed. It is Mother Earth herself who must be conquered. And well the Mayans destroyed the rainforest around them 6,000 years ago to build their own empire. Those wonderful stone temples we ooh and ah over were built at a huge environmental and human rights expense. We think we are in a new story, but this is a very old one. Decentralized living close to nature that is sustainable for eons vs centralized empire building which eventually consumes it's own young and dies a horrible death.
Thank you for exposing this gaping wound in the body of our Mother Earth and in the soul of our modern civilization Charles.
As I outlined in this article https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-anthropocentrism-bright
(and as you have repeatedly pointed out in your writings about the age of separation and the commodification of nature/relationships) what we are witnessing now all around us is just the leading edge of the sword in a war that humans began waging on nature centuries (in fact, in many cases millennia) ago. The faces and names of those wielding that sword may have changed slightly, but the mentality and momentum behind it have only increased in their intensity in recent decades. Instead of soldiers mass murdering villages and slaughtering millions of buffalo so they can steal land and then extract ‘resources’ from the land, we now have a corrupt judicial system and corporation/bankster captured governments, covert wet-work teams and corporate hitmen, the militarization of the police and unleashing their propaganda tools to pacify the resistance so the bulldozers and refineries can move in to turn the living Earth into dead products (which people will then throw in a big garbage heap a few years later).
Even in the early 90-s (before the internet) this method of perpetuating the pillaging and corporate profiteering was very effective. My grandparents (restaurant owners and artists that lived on a small island near Vancouver Island) did their part to stand up to corporate tyranny and anthropocentrism by laying down in front of heavy machinery and chaining themselves to 900 year old Douglas Fir trees in the rainforest of Vancouver island. They were not murdered like the man described in your essay above, here in the west the corporations try to avoid using such tactics. Rather the RCMP were weaponized by corporate lawyers and my grandparents were arrested several times (along with hundreds of others). Though their efforts managed to protect small patches of that ancient forest, 30 years later, when the armies of corporate lawyers using legal loopholes and corrupt police overwhelmed the current forest protectors, now this is happening https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-old-growth-forest-vancouver-island-caycuse/
Does this mean I suggest we should give up hope and that my grandparent's and Eduardo Mendúa's valiant efforts have not made a difference? No, for even given the extremely grim situation we are currently facing, that does not negate the value of using one’s free will and one’s moments on this Earth to defend life, to stand up and give a voice to those that cannot speak for themselves and to choose hope, courage, love and peace in the face of fear, hubris, anthropocentrism, apathy, violence and cowardice.
Each choice we make leaves a mark, not only in the lives of those we share this world with (as my grandparents did with their courageous and selfless actions, inspiring me to learn from nature, explore and protect wilderness places and to write a book about gardening and creating in the kitchen, and as Eduardo Mendúa's choices will inevitably inspire many) but perhaps more importantly, each choice we make leaves a mark on our soul. Regardless of what happens in this life on the Earth, each time we choose love and courage over fear and apathy, and each time we choose to plant seeds and do that which is life affirming, rather than capitulating to the pressures of our sick materialistic and anthropocentric modern mainstream culture, we are enriching a part of our selves that we will carry with us always, beyond this life, beyond space and time, to a place one might call ‘home’.
Perhaps we (with our limited human brains) cannot fathom the meaningful ways in which our efforts to protect the natural world and stand up for our fellow beings will be supported by forces beyond our comprehension and (as you suggested in your past writings) we will we will find that “A Path Will Rise To Meet Us”, or perhaps the tremendous momentum of the corporate plutocracy (and billions of humans that have adopted an anthropocentric worldview who are feeding into it) will overwhelm even the most courageous and most cunning forest protectors.
Either way, for me personally, with regards to standing up to protect the forests, creating intentional communities, community gardens, food forests and regenerative residential gardens, it all boils down to “how do I want to spend the remaining time I have on the Earth?”.
Thus, I choose to stand up for life, to speak truth when it is uncomfortable, to expose wounds so they can be fully healed and to take steps to withdraw my support from giving energy to the global corporate monstrosity that relentlessly works to transform the living world into dead products, money and more humans.
I feel that given the obvious atrocities and ecological devastation that is being caused by the Cobalt, Tantalum, Tungsten, and Lithium mining we who honor the sacredness of all life and the sacredness of the few remaining wilderness places are going to have to make some sacrifices in the comforts we have become accustomed to. Those that wish to walk a path guided by any kind of honest moral compass (including but not limited to the permaculture ethical imperative of People Care-Earth Care-Future Care) are going to have to make some hard choices in the coming years if we want our actions to continue to align with the principles we espouse and claim to live by.
Anthropocentric would be an improvement. The real agenda is to turn humans into machines, cattle, tagged and controlled. The future is serfdom in a corporate feudal state unless we find a means to stop it, legal or otherwise. My heroes in this struggle are Charles, David Korten, Catherine Austin Fitts, Foster Gamble, Naomi Wolf.
“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”
― Cree Prophecy
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Thanks for the comment and for sharing your thoughts Jerry.
Did you read the essay I linked in my comment above?
I have a hard time believing you would endorse anthropocentricism after doing so given the clear and plain evidence I present to what that world view has resulted in.
I am fully aware of the mentally deranged transhumanist plutocrats and their various schemes (to either dominate other beings, humans being on of them, or attempt to cheat death with their technological delusions).
The fact that a few psychopathic and fearful oligarchs want to warp, manipulate and/or technologically colonize human beings should be illuminating the inherent dangers of hubris and anthropocentricism, not giving you the impression you should double down on the fallacious viewpoint that puts humans as being of central importance on Earth and beyond.
Only through remembering who and what we are as conscious beings and recognizing the sacredness of all life can we begin to co-create a future where health, peace, abundance, equality and freedom are the norm. If you attempt to make other beings part of your own feudal system (enslaving them, pillaging their families for profit or fun, supporting mentalities and industries that turn the natural world into dead products for profit) you feed into the "serfdom in a corporate feudal state" for yourself that you are afraid of. In order to render the corporate oligarchs obsolete and leave them behind we must cut our ties to the extractive economy and industrial infrastructure and instead build a close knit reciprocal relationship with the living earth (as our ancestors did).
While Charles, Catherine, Foster and many others are indeed wise, compassionate and intelligent humans beings that are offering us important sign posts to navigate the path ahead, there is no "hero", elected official, institution, politician, guru, priest, revolutionary, savior or any other external force or individual who can do this for you. We are the ones that will walk the path ahead of us and co-create the future we live in. Engaging in life on Earth is a voluntary journey that each of us chose willingly. The Creator of all things respects our choice to be here and our free will. We did not come here to see a dramatic dualistic showdown happen and applaud the ‘good guy' for vanquishing the bad guy (from a distance as a spectator). No, each and every one of us (whether we are currently consciously aware of this fact or not) came here to co-author the story. That means no-one else is going to do the hard work for us (not a savior, rebel leader nor a politician) we came here to do that work of transforming this world ourselves.
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/in-pursuit-of-an-antidote-for-parasites
It is time to move past the era of followers and leaders, heroes and side line cheering fans, peasants and princes, worshipers and saviors, haves and have-nots, minions and tyrants, corporations and consumers and usher in the age of self governed, self reliant, creative, resilient and symbiotically connected human beings which collaborate of their own free will to heal our relationship with Mother Earth and our fellow non-human beings and leave this world a little more beautiful than it was before.
That was beautiful. I agree wholeheartedly. Thank you for expressing that so eloquently.
I recommend Guardians of the Trees by Kinari Webb for the process she used and the solutions that resulted. Eye opening, surprising, and hopeful.
thank you. i look forward to reading this book. hopeful.
One more observation.. although I was only there for a month I didn’t see anything that compares to the mental illness and homelessness I see in my community in Canada. And people are young in Ecuador… there’s always a wild card in the deck.
oh your opening a pandoras box here ha ha with "mental illness." It is relevant to this discussion insofar as pointing to another societal sickness created by corporations (pharmaceuticals) and the governments in collusion with them. Extreme emotional distress of many kinds is a normal part of the human psyche actually (are not illnesses in the way the DSM describes it), particularly so in the world we current live in (sick world), but when treated with pharmaceuticals to the exclusion of better non-chemical approaches, they create long term disability (there are books about this, check out Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker for ex.) and a huge underclass some of whom are homeless as well. I know I was in this nightmarish vortex for decades, homeless at times as well. I am writing a memoir about it :) it's not finished. I will also add that the loss of community, real community (another huge topic) feeds into both these problems; the lack of western treatment for distress and better communities in the developing world leads to less overall rates of both of these problems in my opinion, tho as normal human experiences and with poverty/stress to survive you find them everywhere. Also most of us are highly sensitive people, think of us like canaries in a coal mine, we can't ignore the sickness around us and it affects us more, be in society-wide or individual traumas. There are no pat answers to these problems but understanding and seeing the truth about what is happening is a good first step. Thanks for your observations!
heartbreaking. all the reasons this is happening and what needs to be done to stop it are valid. but as brian g mentioned it is ultimately the mindshift and the heartshift of every being that is necessary. for a profound change....perhaps we will reach the 100th monkey figure and sanity, love and peace will prevail. speaking of love and peace and sanity. marianne williamson will be running for president in 2024.
Excellent work, and thank you 🙏🏻 With but few exceptions, if any, this same story has played out, or is playing out, globally. Between the Civil War and 1890 the state of Michigan was literally clear cut of its forests; it was called the Northwest Territory then. Not long after governments came in and drained the land for better farming. Now the government protects the pothole in my driveway as a “wetland.” Of course we committed genocide of the indigenous in the process. What we call “civilization” is anything but. We are a weak people now, totally dependent on fossil fuels, electricity, large scale food and water systems, etc. These systems are a matter of life and death for billions. It’s pretty much like Morpheus said, “humans are a virus,” and we are hellbent on killing the host.
Well, this is a stunning text, in its clarity and intelligence, I am definitely going to spread it far and wide.
By destroying the petro dollar and babylonian bankster system, this will open the way.