Decompressing from three days at Bioneers in the still gorgeous Frank Lloyd Wright Marin Civic Center…felt like I was pushed up against a brick wall waking this am…challenge is too weak a word for what comes next! Exhausted, over-booked brain meets sore throat – but it’s always well worth it!
Saw and talked with one of my heroes, Paul Hawken, editor/co-author of DRAWDOWN, the book which captures 80 solutions to global warming with 20 coming attractions. Hopeful, right? Yes and no…Where’s the update? Oh, he’s on to another project but says “keep doing what yer doing” (taking DRAWDOWN to cities in Sonoma County). A bit puzzled, but looking forward to the book he’s conjuring now on Regeneration. And just maybe concentrating on THAT is exactly what we need to keep sane and make our zig zag way forward through the muck of ongoing FIRE SEASON (now in session) and FLOOD SEASON (in another year or two?) and then drought and climate refugee housing, somehow honoring those whose wellbeing has been surrendered to GLOBALIZATION and CAPITALISM and just plain greed. Gun violence? Part of this dysfunction; opoid crisis? The same. Housing? Yes, that and more.
Boy do we have a load to haul! I feel the weight and work my way out of it with yoga, walks, cooking, meditation! A daylong at Spirit Rock upcoming.
Another keynote @ Bioneers, Bill McKibben, was brilliant as always calling us out to stand up to the fossil fuel companies and also to injustice – there is no Planet B gives way to what comes after the Capitalism that isn’t and can’t by definition, work for a future healthy world based on unending GROWTH on a finite planet. And, of course, we CANNOT get to that healthy state of affairs with corrupt government and weakened political will, consolidation of wealth (3 people in the US hold more wealth than 60 million!) How on This Earth Do We Survive and Sustain? I look to Buddhist Economics where your score is high if you love well and are well loved.
Check out Lion’s Roar, circa 2014. Buddhist Economics, examples (not quite a match) Norway and Sweden where when asked people say they have enough just not enough time with family. First essay on Buddhist Economics found in E.F. Shumacher’s Small is Beautiful. Check the Schumacher Institute in MA or the Society in Great Britain. Beautifully felt programs and a Schumacher guy, Greg, led two panels @ Bioneers!
So what did we learn, feel, come away with? I’d walk miles to hear Climing Poetree and hope to do another workshop with these amazing women! Last year it was writing a sci-fi story on the spot (my idea that the Amazon Rainforest learned a song that wiped out aggression so when Trump and military cronies came to destroy it, the trees held sway and wiped out greed, the General sayinngn “how can I help you?”
Destiny Arts and the Thrive Choir were uplifting as were many report outs from amazing people tackling amazing problems and making headway. Who knew that Jackson, Mississippi holds a marvelous worker-owned co-op with great attitude and projects!
I bought stuff, too, though this Bioneers was not about stuff. I bought wooden utencils for travel, a reuseable sandwich bag, a steel cup, a recipe book from Occidental Arts and Ecology (they use about 100 herbs in their salad???) and Wayne is signed up for the OAEC Permaculture immersion in March, so we’ll learn way more about OAEC!
Moving our Oasis Community Farm toward becoming a permaculture forest/food farm with about 15 residents, healing ceremonies in the barn, the occasional dance party with friends on keyboard, fiddle and digereedoo, pingpong, great food from the farm making us feel for hours that we CAN face the darkness ahead with dear friends and marvelous sunsets.
So I’ll go off into the windy day, 1,000 people evacuated north of us, 10,000+ acres on fire, some in Marin Headlands! Yes, our planet is on fire; Naomi Klein’s ON FIRE explains it and how to overcome..and she’s on book tour WITH Sunrise kids boosting the Green New Deal, a recipe for incredible change in attitude and practice that just might bring us a whole lot closer to the goals of
Climate Justice, Good Jobs, A Liveable Future
And PS: you can catch a whole load of fascinating, uplifting and just plain sensible ideas @ Bioneers.org/radio
more debriefing coming…