Drawing on Our Inner Mother Bear - A Guest Post (and a Reminder to Women Everywhere)

Joanne Green's mother bear
is a mother bird!

A wonderful friend sent this heartfelt missive to several of us recently. It struck a chord, so I asked if I could print it here and she said yes.

Also, since the 2012 climate change negotiations begin tomorrow in Doha (no one has held out any hope for these talks since the COP held in HopelessnessHagen back in 2009), please visit / forward this link if you're a woman who cares about safeguarding the future for our children: A Request to All Women Attending the Copenhagen Climate Talks. The same beseeching can hold true at any time. 

GUEST POST

Over the past few months I've been in a place of deep feeling – triggered by world events, government and environmental issues, elections, proposed pipelines, etc....  Times feel urgent. Consequently, I've been riled up like never before. 

Going to the Defend Our Coast rally sparked something in me. While in the sea of people, the sense of connection I felt to each of them and to the planet, well... at that point I felt called to live my life in true accordance to my deep feelings and to do "something." To take a stand! 

However, the more I learn about issues that I care about, the more anger and fear I experience. I can sink into moments of hopelessness, and despair. Then I can be quickly picked up again by the gratitude and beauty in my life. It's been a roller coaster ride lately.

I would be shy to mention all this, but in talking with many of my friends, this seems to be very common lately. And so we ask, "How do we stay grounded and open in all of the intensity around us?" Maybe we cope by reaching out, connecting with community, and by being inspired! I see so many of you taking a stand in your lives – for your passions, for your creativity, for the environment, for each other. For Love. Thank you, thank you, for this inspiration.

And thank you for making me believe that I, too, can be strong enough to take a stand for these things in my life and taking them to a deeper level. And to do this from a heart-centred place. My friend calls these folk Peaceful Warriors. Whatever you call it, I feel change and momentum in the air.  

— Joanne Green, of Elysium Studio and Crying Bird (scroll down) fame

See also Compassion and Courage: Mother Bears are Strong, Protective, and Not Self-Conscious, and read Joanne's comment attached.

The Lesson in Aikido? Envelop Your Adversaries

"If your heart is large enough to envelop your adversaries, you can see right through them and avoid their attacks. And once you envelop them, you will be able to guide them along a path indicated to you by heaven and earth." 

— Morihei Ueshiba, O Sensei, Founder of Aikido 

What, oh what, do I do with that lovely thought? Sure, it's useful in everyday situations in my small circle. It's helping me help a girlfriend dealing with a greedy landlord. It's good to keep in mind at work sometimes. It's great for when my hubby and I are feeling pissy with each other (envelop = big hug) (the "guiding" part being more difficult with a spouse, however, especially a Taurus ;-). And I'll even be able to use it when I make community presentations about the climate change emergency.   

But I don't think my heart is large enough to envelop our true climate change adversaries. You know them: the ones who keep pushing inaction, delay, "more research," economic development versus environmental protection, and thinly-veiled greed as rationale for not giving a crap about the future.  

Given how little we humans can literally survive on, it's so obscene, mean-spirited and harsh how much some people live on. That they would commit progenycide by deliberately and knowingly killing off the viability of the future ... grrrrr! That these people (and their corporations) would go to such expensive lengths to maintain their obscene wealth ... grrrrr! I just can't get beyond being really freaking angry at them!  

And my little squeak of anger doesn't seem to effect any change other than upsetting friends who "don't want to hear about it"! Alas. So how do I make my Mother Bear anger roar????   

Holding the anger in a safe container (it's righteous anger, so I don't feel the need to get rid of it, though I must be ever vigilant to ensure that I'm transmuting it into action instead of passive, negative energy), what do I do next? 

I feel that my anger is held in balance with my compassion. And my life energy feels strong (even if I am tired of all the struggle). It's the way, or the path, that has me stumped. An online friend has asked what that "next" might look like. But besides carrying on with my Climate Reality presentations (my third one coming up soon; forewarned that there are some "unbelievers" in the group), and my writing and talking and sharing, I honestly don't know what my "next" will be, could be, should be.  

Any ideas? How can we simply (ahem) enlarge this kind of goodness and decency to embrace and envelop the more climate change vulnerable around the world (including our farmers and, soon, ourselves), and all future generations, of all species? 

A Compassion Tune-up, with a Hidden Message

Haven't done a compassion tune-up in a long time, so here goes (for Mother's Day).

What the World Needs Now has long been a favourite song of mine, though I always seem to forget how special until the next time I hear it. Well, I heard it the other day in a coffee shop, and burst into tears at a certain line.

I'm going to include two versions here. The first one had me bawling yesterday (and again just now). I'm old enough to remember the assassinations of John, Martin and Bobby — the end of an era of innocence, it seemed, even at my young age. Please watch this version first, as a general compassion tune-up. Then I'll explain why the song itself made me cry over my chai latté the other day.

This next version focuses on visuals that support the lyrics. (Some of the lyrics aren't quite right, but I applaud this speaker of English as a second language.) See if you can pick out the lyrics that impacted me so much in the café.

Did you guess these two lines?

Lord, we don't need another meadow...

There are corn fields and wheat fields enough to grow (not "glow" ;-).

It's more a curse than a blessing to know how devastating the impacts of climate disruption will be on agriculture. I've realized that the world needs more than love. It's no longer the only thing that there's just too little of. The food security of vulnerable regions and populations around the world is already and increasingly at risk, and even in developed nations, we are only one or two bad crop failures away from chaos. (And this is more and more likely as we allow the Arctic summer sea ice, which serves as an air conditioner for our summer crops, to disappear.)

We forget that we've evolved into an agricultural species, and we could soon be experiencing food shortages that will shake human "civilization" to the core. Indeed, climate change has the potential to turn us into anything but civilized; when food and water are scarce, love and compassion will be the last things on our mind. (That's why the US Pentagon sees climate change as a huge security threat.)

My Mother's Day wish for all the mothers in the world? That our leaders — local, national, international — acknowledge this urgency, and seize the day and take action before it's too late. Perhaps if enough of us become like mother bears — fiercely protective of our children — our leaders will have to listen, "get it" and act. What the world needs now is a very different kind of love.

Compassion and Courage: Mother Bears are Strong, Protective, and Not Self-Conscious

Mother's Day must be coming up. Last week, I talked about phoning my mom, and this week I've realized I'm feeling like a mother bear. (Note to self: get Mother's Day card in the mail tomorrow!)

Yup, I'm a Mother Bear. You know her reputation. She'll stop at nothing to protect her cubs from danger. As Edmonton's Mother Bear Journey to Healing explains, "In a state of self-awareness, our instincts — like those of the mother bear — drive us to nurture and care for one another...."

I've been railing lately against election rhetoric that doesn't mention children (thank you, Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, for remembering the young ones and the future ones). I've been writing searing responses that I never send to friends who just don't grasp the seriousness of the climate change emergency. I've been hopping mad and deeply saddened by ignorant (or evil?) denialist nincompoops who continue to spew the most egregious lies about global warming and climate change. (If I read one more blogger or commenter saying it can't be happening because there's snow in his backyard ... grrrrrrr.)

At the same time, my husband keeps reminding me that the public "know not what they do" because they have been lied to and misinformed by both sides. That I must take pity on them.

Plus, I had no fewer than four girlfriends this past week suggest that I should be taking care of myself first. That is a foreign concept to me ... how can I put myself first when 2 billion children in the world — this Mother Bear's children — face a chaotic future of failed agriculture and famines, floods and water shortages, heat waves and dangerous storms?

The one gift I give myself each week is a Thursday evening event called Spirit Moves: Meditation in Motion. It's a lovely, quiet time to dance, move to music, pray, meditate, stretch, read tarot cards. Last week, I pulled Athena from a deck called Messages from Your Angels (I figure tarot cards tell us what we aren't open to hearing from our own hearts). Here's the message I received:

"It is safe for you to be powerful. You know how to be powerful in a loving way that benefits others as well as yourself."

On the way home, I mused to myself, "Mother Bear never cares what other people think of her. She just does what she needs to do to protect her children."

So, with "loving" being a relative term these days (as in "tough love"), I've decided that the way for me to find and hold onto my courage (the compassion comes easily) is to be a Mother Bear on behalf of all the children — of all species — and I am going to use tough love on people who aren't thinking through the climate change issue rationally or taking the time to deeply learn about it.

"Make of yourself a light," the Buddha suggested. "Make of yourself a Mother Bear," I suggest to all the women in the world!

Thanks to Shirley Reade and Makiko for the artwork.