Guest Post: "A Short Rant about LOVE, and the CLIMATE"

When I read Antonia Paquin's "short rant" this morning, I asked her right away if I could post it here for you. Antonia is a young friend nearby who gives her life's energy to ensuring a future for us all. Much love to you, Antonia, with thanks for sharing this with my readers!

Antonia Paquin, in Victoria (with thanks to Creatively United)

A Short Rant about LOVE, and the CLIMATE

Sometimes I find myself disconnecting from the word "climate," because it seems obscure and somewhat nebulous unless you're a scientist who studies this stuff.

I've found the following to be helpful in bringing "climate" into my immediate experience:

• Notice the breath you just took ... now the one you are about to take. You are taking climate into your body.
• Look outside, look around you, really LOOK, noticing the trees, the sky, the soil. You are looking at the climate.
• Feel your heartbeat ... touch your fingers to your wrist, or neck to feel your pulse, or just feel your body moving ever-so-slightly by your heart beating. You are a living creature, interacting with your surroundings. We are also climate.

Remember the Earth is extremely resilient. She knows how to heal herself. Humans are also resilient. We can adapt to change. Though the world feels grim right now, especially with this messy [Canadian federal] election, we are inevitably forced to call into question the major systemic failings that have led us to where we are, which is a good thing!

We are being collectively called to question the ideologies, and the political and economic systems that led us into this mess, the colonial way: "Dominate people, dominate land, YOU SHALL HAVE NO HEART."

This is the movement to end all movements.

We are now being called to decolonize the crap out of ourselves and remember who the hell we are as humans.

Could it be that humans aren't somehow above the natural world?

Could it be that we don't have the right to pillage and rape the Earth?

Could it be that humans are actually inextricably ~connected~ to the Earth?? WOW! You don't say?

David Suzuki, our beloved national man of science, is preaching this message loud and clear. Time to wake up and smell the soil, friends!

Here's how we "fix the climate":

• Tune into what Indigenous land defenders and water protectors have been saying for hundreds of years. Support these movements with your money, time, energy. Uplift voices of black and indigenous folks, people of colour.
• Breathe deep, ground yourself in gentleness and self-compassion so that you feel safe. Then take time to call into question your own belief systems, assumptions, attitudes. We can all do this together.
• Have "adventure conversations" with others. Bring up things like climate, the human condition, hope, guilt, fear, grief, love.
• Vulnerability is powerful. Connect deeply with your fellow humans, know that they probably have similar fears and doubts that you have, and when we share ... it can be so healing.
• Cry and cry and cry, then laugh. It's okay to feel like a mess. [This is my favourite line! JJ]
• Spend time in nature, FOREST BATHING, to remember that Earth is magical and resilient. Every single cell in your body is made of the Earth. The trees and rocks and rivers are your kin. 
• In so many ways you are also magical and resilient. Often our minds forget this, but somehow our hearts can never fully forget this. 

Okay, my rant is over. 

Thank you. I love you. 

*****

And our thanks and love to YOU, Antonia, for these wonderful calls to reconnect ourselves with our first mother.

I'm Becoming More and More Concerned About the State of Things

The Peruvian spectacled bear is facing an uncertain future

Here's a new year's compilation of what's got me feeling more and more worried these days.

We tried to watch Paddington the other night. You know, the live action movie about a sweet little talking bear from Darkest Peru? (It's supposed to be a spectacled bear, known for being playful and mischievous.) For some reason, one of the characters is a evil taxidermist (played by Nicole Kidman) who is not content with the animals she has already stuffed. We might have made it through her nasty scenes except that she suddenly let loose with a not-well-veiled screed against immigrants and refugees. We turned it off immediately, but I was shaken. That sort of manipulative mental violence is pretty insidious. :-(

Next, my hubby put together a film this week showing how little the latest climate talks (in Katovice, Poland) achieved — and then they lied about it, with the media lapping it up. It's bad enough that they haven't accomplished much of anything in 24 years of meetings, but to be deceptive about it, as well? That takes the cake. Perhaps we could blame it on their lack of sleep. Anyway, here's the movie. It's called Life Condemned: The Intolerable Evil Corporate Carbon Corruption. Says it all, eh? :-(

Next, do democratic governments around the world seem to be more and more at the beck and call of fossil fuel corporations? Here in British Columbia, Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted (they're not so mounted anymore) Police have warned that they're moving in soon to forcibly remove a First Nations community that has barred a natural gas pipeline from crossing its unceded territory. This makes me feel sick to my stomach. Sick in my heart. Sick for all the children, and for all that is sacred, healthy and beautiful in the world. :-(

Where is the love? Where is the care and concern? Where are the parents willing to make sacrifices for their kids? Where is any government willing to stand up for the people against Big Money and Big Oil? I never imagined it would play out so blatantly ... so cruelly ... right before our eyes. :-(

Something to Cry For

It's been a weepy week for me. Another few days in bed with the flu gave me lots of opportunity to watch lots of videos that had me alternating between crying, sobbing, whimpering, bawling and blubbering.

As usual for me, most of the tears came when I was reminded of what we're taking away from all the children — of all species. But also what we're inflicting on those more vulnerable and less to blame. 

So this week, instead of blathering on, I'd just like to share two videos with you, both of which have had me weeping this week. After all, if we don't allow ourselves to feel the pain of what we're losing, we probably won't fight to save it.

N'we Jinan Artists - 'SHOW US THE WAY' from Surrey Schools on Vimeo.

TRAILER Raise A Paddle: A Journey from the Pacific to the Tar Sands

Learning from – and Standing Beside – Our First Nations Sisters and Brothers

Thanks to Nina for writing last week with the title of a book to check out. Reading about it reminded me of something I was told long ago.

Indigenous (Native or aboriginal) North Americans (First Nations and Inuit peoples in Canada) have withstood assault after assault after assault by the marauding European explorers, settlers and resource exploiters. Assaults on their territories, their livelihoods, their health, their sovereignty, their pride and their identities. 

And yet, they're still here. Try as my European ancestors might, they could not eradicate, annihilate, obliterate or even assimilate the people who were here first. The First Nations "won" (if we ignore the attempted genocide, disintegration of families and communities, continued discrimination, rampant poverty and associated widespread health problems) because of their resilience.

Aboriginal peoples around the world showed themselves to be resilient. And now, climate change is testing that resilience once again. Many Native communities are among the most vulnerable to the ravages of climate disruption.

*****

I'd never considered resilience as something that could be asserted. Yet, there it is, in a title: Asserting Native Resilience: Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Face the Climate Crisis. This 2012 book edited by Zoltán Grossman and Alan Parker is a collection of Native and non-Native voices and perspectives on the climate change crisis. From the description:

"Indigenous nations are on the frontline of the current climate crisis. With cultures and economies among the most vulnerable to climate-related catastrophes, Native peoples are developing responses to climate change that serve as a model for Native and non-Native communities alike. 

"Native American nations in the Pacific Northwest, First Nations in Canada, and Indigenous peoples around the Pacific Rim have already been deeply affected by droughts, flooding, reduced glaciers and snowmelts, seasonal shifts in winds and storms, and changes in species on the land and in the ocean. 

"Having survived the historical and ecological wounds inflicted by colonization, industrialization, and urbanization, Indigenous peoples are using tools of resilience that have enabled them to respond to sudden environmental changes and protect the habitat of salmon and other culturally vital species. They are creating defenses to strengthen their communities, mitigate losses, and adapt where possible."

Winona La Duke, executive director of Honor the Earth and White Earth Land Recovery Project, said:

"In the times of the unraveling of our world, it is essential to stand against the combustion, mining and disregard for life. Life is in water, air, and relatives who have wings, fins, roots, and paws, and all of them are threatened by climate change — as are people themselves. 

"Grossman and Parker have done an excellent job in telling the stories of climate change, and the people who are standing to make a difference for all of us. Change is indeed made by people, and climate change must be addressed by a movement, strong, strident, and courageous."

Reviewer Chris Arnett suggests that "in promoting an indigenous worldview, there is a slight tendency throughout the text to essentialize Indigenous people for their unique resilience or capacity to weather change, when resilience is a characteristic of all people." He then admits, "All contributors acknowledge that Indigenous people, or any people in a close relationship with place over time, have unique firsthand knowledge of place and, as this book shows, science supports such a view."

*****

That reminds me of a suggestion that came up at the Council of Canadians AGM a year or two ago. Well, it came up in conversation out in the hallway, with someone who could maybe be considered a little "fringe." He thought that all Canadians should ask to be adopted by a First Nations band (tribe) and then renounce their Canadian citizenship. That way, he said, we could really join together to fight the federal government and their "Tar sands and pipelines of the people, for the people, by the people" philosophy. 

*****

You know how much I like synchronicity. At dinner with a friend last night, she mentioned a 2011 documentary called People of a Feather (see the trailer here), which tells the story of the Sanikiluaq Inuit community in Hudson Bay, whose traditional dependence on the eider duck has been threatened by giant hydro-electric projects. "Inspired by Inuit ingenuity and the technology of a simple feather, the film is a call to action to implement energy solutions that work with nature."

*****

Our friend at dinner also mentioned a segment of CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks science show called The Mental Health Toll of Climate Change. It seems the resilience we spoke of earlier is starting to meet its match among Labrado Inuit as the changing climate impacts their traditional lifestyle so negatively. That's got to feel like a real kick in the teeth, after surviving so much.

Truth and Reconciliation — Past, Present, Future

I've just spent the last few days attending my first meeting of the British Columbia Teachers Federation Committee for Action on Social Justice (it's so cool that my union values social justice), as an environmental justice representative. 

Our meeting coincided with the Truth and Reconciliation events being held here in Vancouver, and so we spent a day there, taking in the Education Day events.

Stories of the abuses that happened in Canada's "Indian" residential schools are harrowing. It's frightening to learn what Canada and its religious institutions did to 150,000 First Nations children who were stolen from their parents. We all need to serve as witnesses and acknowledge this horrifying legacy — and the intergenerational pain and dysfunction it has caused in many families and communities. Part of the pain, and the perpetuation of this pain, has been the denial that these things ever happened.

But the student events that I attended were filled with hope and healing. I started wondering about the right age for children to learn the history of residential schools ... and global climate change. Here's what I realized.

We can and must tell children about the residential school legacy (even though a new First Nations friend was called a liar when he presented this truth during a workshop a few months ago). It's something that happened in the past. And through acknowledgement, witnessing, listening and hearing, we can contribute to reconciliation. 

But how do we tell children about something abusive and harrowing that's happening to their planet right now, something that's killing their future? Something they just can't fix. What do we tell them? There's no hug, no comfort, no witnessing, no reconciliation in the world big enough to make this right for the children as long as we adults remain in denial and disaction.

That's the truth.