Archive for Earth Wisdom
Posted by:
Kate
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We got up between 3:30 and 4:30 am yesterday to get the bus going to Grand Island, NE. We wanted to make sure our voices were heard at the one and only open public meeting for comments on the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. The bus was quiet as we headed East into the sun. Some slept, some worked on their 3 minute speeches, and others kept tabs on what was already happening at the Fair Grounds in Grand Island. As our bus was leaving Denver, people were already lined up in the snowy cold to get their names on the list to make a comment.
It wasn’t a huge crowd of 50,000 like the protest in Washington, DC in February. It was a determined crowd; it was a quietly passionate crowd; a crowd dedicated to being heard! Our bus arrived at 2 pm CDT, and we rushed in to sign up to have our voices heard. I was #265. Right then speaker #35 was commenting and the crowd of more than 500 was listening attentively.
During the first few hours, it became clear that opposition to the KXL was in the majority by far. In the next 9 hours I heard almost 200 people comment. I listened to 23 people speak in favor of the pipeline and all spoke in the first few hours. By 5 pm, only one Union Pipefitter remained. “This will bring jobs and revenue.” they said. “This will be good for the economy.” The rest of us spoke among, around and through these empty statements. Notably there were no Transcanada/Keystone representatives anywhere to be seen for the entire time I was there. If they spoke, it was in the first 34 people, and then they were gone!
This hearing was run by three representatives of the State Department, who were attentive, respectful, and compassionate to the end! As the hours slipped away, it became obvious they wanted each of us to be heard. The three minutes was extended when need be. At 8 pm, the supposed end to the comment period, it was extended so all may be heard. And the people stayed! They came from all over Nebraska. They came from Chicago, Kalamazoo, Detroit, Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Kansas and Virginia to name a few. Some drove all night and would drive all night home just to be heard for 3 minutes. Most/all paid for it out of their own pockets.
The over whelming and passionate opinion of this body of Americans was: NO! This pipeline will do no good. It is not necessary. It is a climate disaster, a farming disaster, and an accident waiting to happen that cannot be easily (or ever) cleaned up! Fifth generation farmers on their family land talked about how carefully they had to treat the earth because it is so fragile in the Sand Hills of Nebraska. We heard about the tricks, lies, and coercion used by the Keystone XL company to make these farmers give up their land. People who had been directly affected and effected by the oil spills in Kalamazoo, MI and Mayfair, AK gave us ‘on the ground’ information about their disasters.
Three years later, the Kalamazoo neighborhood has not been cleaned up. 150 homes were lost, contaminated beyond use. In Mayfair the immediate increase in illness among children, the elderly, and the sick was addressed. On and on it went; nursing Mothers to Grandfathers spoke eloquently and plainly; teachers, doctors, lawyers, farmers, and hippies all had one voice: NO! We don’t need this! We don’t want this! This is a hideous, damaging, unnecessary and evil scheme that has no redeeming virtues what-so-ever! From experts to everyday folks, professors to Native Americans, the message was to reject this awful travesty. We are all very solid about that!
I had tears in my eyes many times during the hours and hours of testimony, not because of tragedy but because these people were describing their lives, their love of the land, the simple beauty of a fragile ecosystem with good water, and how it could all be destroyed forever by the KXL. Worst of all, neither this company (nor any other) has to clean up a spill when it happens! Since it is not technically ‘oil’, they are not responsible for clean-up or paying into the clean-up fund!!
President Obama, your Grandmother died just before you were elected. She was your ‘Wisdom Keeper’, and you lost that blessed voice of reason and love. Listen now to the voices of the Grandmothers everywhere! Deeply in our hearts we know this is wrong and so do you! We do not need this awful, dirty oil! We need clean water, living soils, and healthy children. We know this, you know this, and we are begging you and John Kerry to do the right thing! Please don’t go down in history as the President who sold our good earth to a foreign oil company for 50 pieces of silver.
Posted by:
Kate
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Dear Women Friends and Sacred Sisters,
Come and join with other women in a MOON LODGE once a month during the New Moon. This will be a Dreaming Circle where we learn how to dream our own best life into being, share dreaming with our lodge of dreamers, and join in the dreaming with other Moon Lodges across the continent.
We dream and intend our next month on the New Moon. This is the time of the pregnant void, the darkness where all dissolves and all is created. This is the perfect time for women to connect with their beauty and power within themselves and each other.
If you feel drawn to join in ceremony and community with women at the New Moon, this is the Sacred Space to do that in. We, the women, are to help create the next world of peace and harmony by supporting each other, supporting our community, and supporting the world. We do this best in a group.
The first meeting of the Horse Dream Circle of the Sisters of Honua Project will be Monday night, January 23, 2012 on the New Moon. We will meet from 6:45 pm to 8:45 pm at For Heaven’s Sake, 4900 West 46th Avenue, Denver, CO 80212. There is a suggested donation of $15.00 per evening, although no one is turned away.
This will be a powerful and joyful way to dream 2012! Come enjoy the Beauty Way!
P.S. Please feel free to pass the word for me!
Posted by:
Kate
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The pale cold skies of January always bring me thoughts of the dense comfort foods of mid-Winter. I started off the New Year with these in my belly, and that feels good! Oatmeal cooked with diced apples and raisins filled the kitchen this morning with delicious smells. It got even better with the addition of chopped pecans (from Ridge Spring, SC – thanks cousin Joe Cal Watson), cinnamon, nutmeg, and a dash of ginger. I eat this with a sterling cereal spoon that belonged to my Great Grandmother Kate Hyde Sloan. There’s a crack in it I was always warned to be careful about, and I have been, for over 60 years. This oatmeal was so good, I ate small bites for a long time!
Lunch was as good – if not better! A bowl of rice and spicy baked butter beans (or lima beans) is still warm in my belly. These are not summer foods for me. They are too dense and heavy for the deep heat and light clothes of summer. And that reminds me of a question a friend from California asked me: “What is seasonal eating ?”
She was referring specifically to being able to buy strawberries in November where she lives. What an interesting question! I’ve spent time thinking about this, because it is different for different parts of our broad, wide country. And yet, there are similarities as well.
In the broadest terms, eating seasonally means eating what is ripe and ready, at that moment, in your locale. It means seeing foods in their freshest state come and go from your menu. It means paying attention to the local farmers world around you day by day. And it means listening to your body and it’s demands. California will be different than New York, Minnesota will be different than Texas.
Here in an area where there are four very distinct seasons it is much more obvious: yummy cold hardy leafy greens in the Spring are an ecstatic addition to any meal at the end of Winter! However it is more than that. During the growing season we eat all of the fresh foods we can, sometimes gorging ourselves with the bounty. The surplus gets dried, frozen, pickled, cured, preserved, canned, smoked, fermented, hung in the pantry or put in a root cellar for the Winter. As one of my Canadian friends said in his Year End letter: “Our search for food these days is fairly simple. What we have is stored in our pantry although there is a stray turnip or two under the foot of snow that finally arrived.” [Thank you, Graham!]
Our bodies have spent millennium adapting and adjusting to what is available, when, and what is not. We have long histories of ‘putting foods by’ so that we have enough to eat all of the time. The temperature and the light tell the cells in our bodies that there is a change in the seasons and we get ready for it. Growing up in a cold winter climate in an uninsulated farm house established a pattern in my body that the first true cold snap brings on. When there is skim ice on the water, my taste for winter foods kicks in – casseroles, baking, hearty soups, and steaming cups of spiced cider. I gain ten pounds each winter (except when I lived in Tucson) and lose it in the Spring once the weather gets warm. I’m used to it. My body obviously needs it. I don’t keep a scale!
My body is primed for seasonal eating, and now that I have added wild foods to my diet, it all makes so much more sense! At the end of winter, there are a few shriveled apples, potatoes, carrots, beets, turnips and parsnips. The garlic and onions are sprouting, and the pantry is becoming full of empty jars. When those first sprouts of green emerge, be they dandelions, wood sorrel, green onions, or lambsquarters, I want them! My body craves them to help purge the heavy winter foods from my body. I don’t want the tomatoes of high summer at that moment, I want new peas, asparagus and strawberries, and the wild baby greens that help me regain my summer figure!
Think of the time and money you save by only going to the store once a week for a few staples. It’s so much simpler once you remember to think about your food ahead of time. Just before bed grab something out of the freezer, put a cup of dried beans in to soak, and even soak the grains for a morning bowl of hot cereal in apple juice or cider! That’s ‘instant’ oatmeal that really counts! If you are not shopping on the way home, you have another 30 minutes to cook an outstanding evening meal.
So think ahead; make menus or find them on line; keep track of the seasons; and have a bright and abundant New Year!
