Friday 23 February 2018

The End of Humanity?


Rick Salutin wrote a thoughtful piece in the Toronto Star about Americans who still support the NRA after the shooting in Florida which killed 17 students.
The title read "Gun Enthusiasts Would Rather Lose Their Kids Than Their Guns".

The title is, of course, overreach. Who would ever think this in a country that holds the richest, most political and economic power in the world?

I think the problem is addiction not reason. Those whose self interests are bound in the status quo cling to it like heroin.  
Think of how a mind might sober up to realize they prefer guns to children? Other children maybe but not ours.

Most power systems are based on the problems of the other. It's other people's children who have a different religion or different colour skin that we scrutinize and judge. Ours we will excuse and defend no matter what they do.

Our children grow into adults who learn to be increasingly aggressive in business and politics.

On a different but related issue the CBC news reported that Rachel Notley won the war against BC by banning BC wines.  Further scrutiny will tell you the oil companies that already rule global economic policies won and small local business lost. Rachel Notley like so many politicians can win by promoting the interests of the biggest bullies, while leaders who defend justice are attacked, ridiculed and tossed out.

CBC has been under tremendous criticism by broadcasting the stories of the underdogs - those who are threatened simply because of who they are - women, gay, Muslim, first nations.  Now the hourly news broadcasts the values of big lobbies by ridiculing people for things that don't matter - such as the clothes Justin Trudeau wore in India with headlines that say his visit was a fiasco.  That's a judgement call.  That sounds more like Fox News than CBC. But its a testament to our eroding social values just like the charge that Americans love their guns more than their children.

Lobbies funded by big corporations say small businesses cannot afford $15 an hour minimum wage, cannot afford to provide affordable housing. What you see in these charges really is throwing humanity under the bus.  Oil pipelines and bitumen will destroy the local economies of fishing, tourism and entertainment while making Kinder Morgan even more powerful than it is.

Democracy cannot survive while fake news and contempt for life pollutes the fragile society. Justice for all cannot survive when oligarchs rule like demi gods and kings. When power is centralized we all become prisoners who must suck it up or be prepared to die.

Why is my example so extreme? Because our values slip away while we are not looking. How many people have found themselves giving up their values for the sake of keeping their jobs? How many who rise to the top become psychopaths because the pain of weighing their interests against the greater good cripples them. How many gang members learn that in order to survive you must serve the alpha male no matter how cruel his demands.

The best soldiers are fine people who were trained to kill and who came home broken because their nature was destroyed. Nations that rise to the top train their people to be brutal by brutalizing the most vulnerable in their society. They look strong and fearless but their GDP rises at the cost of their people.

What is called great is really that power to intimidate, to demand absolute obedience from their citizens. Now huge wealth is created by making workers slaves, but punishing those who think and who stand up to the bosses. At all costs, even our children, we are ordered to bow down to power.

We are becoming a world in which literature, culture, health and happiness are swallowed into slogans. Nestle is run by a CEO who believes water is not a human right. Large corporate interests believe human sensibilities get in the way of their control. They secretly fund think tanks and movements to shut down civil society. Hitler's fascism was a religion of killing and nihilism. The NRA is the department of everlasting fear.

What will happen to literature, music, philosophy, family and love, if this planet becomes a fascist corporation? What will happen to humanity if there is no other example of how to be in this world? 

Monday 19 February 2018

Poetry That Heals by Naomi Beth Wakan - a review


How can poetry heal? Naomi Beth Wakan shows us through a tour of the different forms of Japanese poetry and ultimately answers the question.

Each chapter pairs the poetic form with the way healing intersects with reading and writing. But first the author asks “Who has not at times of distress sighed, groaned, cried and let out an anguished “Why?””

Chapter headings read like a self help guide: Being Here Now, Reading Haiku, How to Write a Haiku, The Haiku Walk, Healing the Earth, Loosening with Laughter, Freeing the Artist, Letting it all out, The Journey.

But it’s not shallow advice, not a quick-fix-buy-this kind of magical thinking.

Writers throughout the ages took to writing stuff down as a powerful antidote to despair even in the most sad and tragic times. Even sadness expressed at a particular event can fight against depression.  Poems that witness minutes, seconds, days or years, without rushing toward a solution, are revealing an element about life which the ego matures and understands - we are not in control.

Having experienced that catatonic flood. That rock in the stomach that prevents a move forward, that inner system bunged up with too much information for the mind and heart to process, I have turned to something unrelated to gain balance, and it has often given me new insights.

Being Here Now (the first chapter) shuts the door to all the weather swirling around and points to a particular moment: the heron / looks at its image / shallow waters. Nature offers a  return to the universe. Ah yes, right.  Got it! Vanity is a lonely pursuit.

Reading Haiku and How to Write Haiku makes it clear this book is not a guide on how to become a post-modern Basho. “Haiku don’t tell you what to think or what insights they might offer.” writes Wakan. “Haiku present images for readers to consider and then experience the resonances within themselves that the strong images of the haiku produce.”

The Haiku Walk is about reconnecting with nature, the eyes, the ears and the mind, using our own feet. 

Healing the Earth when there is so much abuse of this planet and its beings, you will find no despairing comments … No “it’s so bad!” or “it’s so terrible! Nor will you find overt comments on the awesome wonder of it all. What you will find is just what someone has sensed intensely at one moment in time.”

This is easier to contemplate than lists of what we can do and what we can’t control, or endless arguments about politics … the promise of a better world and better leaders, and the inevitable hangover after the “drug” wears off.

Anything we cherish needs more care than clever speeches from politicians. It needs a level gaze. It needs to be nurtured.  The difference between sadness and despair is that sadness can evoke our care, whereas despair can lock the heart and mind in a vault.

The poet will share an opinion with humility through careful observation with her senses and her humanity.  “Yes, at such bitter and such sweet times poetry has its uses, I find.” writes Wakan.

This books taps into human nature - the apps that we are born with, that have served us throughout the centuries: the power of humour, freeing the artist, letting it all out, and the journey. 

This book is light in weight and size yet large in its capacity to bring us back to our humanity.

[published by Shanti Arts Publishing 2018
first published in 2014 by Pacific Rim Publishers]
In Canada you can order the book here mail@pagesresort.com 
In US here info@ShantiArts.com

BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Healing / General
POETRY / Haiku

ISBN: 978-1-947067-28-8 (print; softcover; perfect bound)
ISBN: 978-1-947067-29-5 (digital)

LCCN: 2017964362
Released February 2018
104 pages

Thursday 15 February 2018

Who Am I Better Than?


Important because it’s an unconscious question
that sits below the screeching headlines 
yet informs my actions

I am better than the killer who shot an unarmed man
and got off free and the killer of 17 students
with a rifle he cradled like a baby

better than the NRA who say everyone should carry 
then shooters wouldn’t - but feel it doesn’t matter 
who lives and dies as long as the economy is good

and all those who know the economy is a religion 
so that billions die before climate change
and all the suffering will create more mass shooters
more wars, more disease while scientists predict 
the threat of artificial intelligence

and if we manage to arm ourselves to the mind
and not just the teeth we shall see the winners 
stride across an emptied world in triumph

and who will care who is better then?
No-one.

Sunday 11 February 2018

Why the City of Burnaby Opposes Kinder Morgan's Pipeline Route



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZnQNpDbJ3E&feature=youtu.be

If you have 20 minutes to watch this video you will understand why there is such strong opposition to Kinder Morgan's Pipeline. It is easy to understand and the video is well done.

Friday 2 February 2018

From the David Suzuki Foundation - Saving Salish Sea Orcas



Dear Ministers LeBlanc and McKenna,

I am requesting that you recommend an emergency order under the Species at Risk Act for southern resident killer whales. With 76 remaining individuals, I believe that an emergency situation requires an emergency response.

This little-used legal tool has proven to be a flexible, effective way to urgently respond to a species’ specific needs. It provides measures to address imminent threats to a species. Emergency orders helped stop further declines of western chorus frogs and rebuilt greater sage grouse populations. Male greater sage grouses grew in number from 20 to 79 in 2016 following an emergency order.

The emergency order for southern resident killer whales calls for limits to the number of chinook that can be caught and for other restrictions on fishing. It also calls on government to designate whale feeding refuges during spring and summer for a minimum of five years. The refuges would allow the orcas to forage without noise and disturbance from fishing and whale-watching vessels. Protection could also include introducing speed limits for large commercial vessels that travel along key foraging areas. These solutions are supported by Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s own science and are part of recovery strategies and action plans. 

Time for action is running out. 

Research indicates a 24 to 50 per cent risk of southern resident orca extinction this century if conditions don’t change. It’s a colossal failure of policy and will that finds Canada’s wildlife in such dire circumstances. The extinction of these whales, and many other endangered species in Canada, is a tragedy that you have the power to prevent. By recommending an emergency order you will be acting urgently to give these iconic Salish Sea animals their best chance for survival.

Thank you for acting to prevent extinction. 

A second chance for humanity

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