Archive for Grandfather’s Wisdom
Keystone XL: What Grandmother Found Out in Nebraska
Posted by: | CommentsWe 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.
True Gifts of the Holidays
Posted by: | CommentsWe never had a lot of money to use for gifts for the Holidays in our family. There have been times I minded that, when I wanted the newest what-ever as a teen, particularly. I also minded when I wanted to go out and buy all sorts of stuff for my children. Now? I have a very different perspective.
Those years of making things for Christmas, keeping the secret of what I was making from others, the small noises behind closed doors that signaled someone was working on something exciting, built an air of anticipation that was palpable. Just like making Christmas in “Little House on the Prairie”, each of us found time to do something special for the others in the family.
Making gifts for the others in our far flung family was also both time consuming and rewarding. One year we made soft stuffed cloth mobiles for the family on the East coast. We lived in the desert at the time and had an assortment of cactus, lightening and thunder, sun, moon, and coyote hanging from a branch. Another time I made pot holders of old jeans padded with an worn out cotton mattress pad and decorated with various motifs: pears, cherries, braid, stars, and apples. Some of these are still in use 30 years later! There were wall hangings, sweaters, mittens cut from old sweaters, and knit scarfs. Some years focused on elderberry jelly, spiced peach jam and various chutneys. There was even the year of homemade Kahlua!
I remember my Mother and Father making screen printed Christmas cards, carved wooden reindeer, and lots of different Christmas cookies. My grown children still ask for the Swedish wreath of sweet dough, raisins, and pecans that was always a holiday tradition when I was a girl. I’ll be making it again this year for Christmas morning! Yum Yum!
In our large family (we are up to 20) there is a premium on creativity. There is a tradition of re-gifting (I loved this, and I hope you like it too) and passing stuff down (younger cousins always love the books, toys, and treasures from older cousins). We also love second-hand stores, unusual clothing, and funny surprises.
This year we are doing something really special. Each of the ‘kids’ is writing a story from the days of the Green Van and my oldest daughter is putting it together with old pictures as a book for each of us. We are so excited by this it has taken on a life of its own! What an exciting project, and what a lovely present! You can’t find this in any store nor get it for love nor money – unless you put the time into it and make it yourself.
And that, my friends, is Christmas! We do get a few things for the kids to play with, and Santa always comes! There is an orange in the toe, a silly game, a special food, and we always hope for the bit of music, the new puzzle, a good book and a warm fire to toast our toes by after a while. The real joy comes from not having to go out shopping, no frantic tally of who gets what, and the steady joy of doing something for someone that cannot be duplicated anywhere else.
Peace, friends! Joy of the season, a joy that comes from the return of the Light after the darkest day of the year! A gathering of hearts and kids and the warmth of remembrance for what has been; a pure wish for what is most dear to us all for the future; and a great love for what is now! That’s what this Holiday season is all about! It has been celebrated since the beginning of our human family, embroidered on by life and times, and still holding true today. Gift yourself with pleasure in the love that is in your life. Create a special moment of surprise for those you love, and leave out a plate of cookies for Santa, and a few carrots for the reindeer.
Adding My Voice In
Posted by: | CommentsThere have been many conversations with friends about the ‘state of the Union’ lately. That’s the good news! At least the disparity of the situation between the 1% and the 99% has become so evident, we now get it. Or do we? I wonder if the whole truth and depth of this attempt to overturn the form of Democracy our country was founded on is really sinking in?
Whatever do I mean? What does this refer too? Well, our food contains poisons that are compromising our health, and damaging our children. Babies are now born with up to 200 chemicals in their bodies at last count. The various state and federal governmental bodies are in the grip of international companies, international financial institutions, and large organizations with even larger self interests. None of these are human, so there is no ethical code, integrity, honor, or morals involved in their point of view or their dealings with all of us. We have become chaff in the wind and whatever money we have is the only thing left in the basket when the harvest is done. We, as people, have been blown away in the winds of very Big Business doing the one thing they are geared to do: make profits above all else.
We’re in BIG TROUBLE, Folks! And it’s going to take a large turnout of ordinary citizens to get this wagon turned around. We can do this, and have to do it now – if we value the high principles this nation was founded on. That means we have to show up!
Showing up comes in many forms, so don’t think you have to join rallies, occupy Wall Street, or sleep in a tent to make a difference. Those things all help and it is a huge part of showing up. Spending some time on your closest capitol steps with others will show up as a signal of how fed-up we are with being stripped of power. There are many other ways to get this idea across and actively join the 99%. So I’ll talk about a few.
Stop consuming goods from ALL the big box stores. Trade with each other, barter, find things on FreeCycle and Craigs List. For the Holidays, ReGift to all the people on your gift lists. Think of recycling, repurposing, and renewing as political and critical acts to alert the Big Companies that we mean it when we say we are fed-up with being treated like ciphers, sheep, and cannon fodder. Allow the GNP to take a dump this year!
Start connecting with others to establish a local economy (Denver Dollars for instance), local food, and learn what you can eat that you never considered as a source of food. There is wild food in the city, you know. Relearn what Grand parents and Great-Grandparents always knew and did. We have the skills, we have the talents, and we also have the teachers. Don’t let the rhetoric of the Big Company Journalists affect or effect you! We have people who know what to do. Seek them out and become an interdependent force to be reckoned with!
That’s how we started and those sweet juices of community and cohesion are still running through our veins. We know what we need to do. So just start…start acting out of honor and morality…start joining rallies…start unplugging from the Machine!! Just tell ’em: “Grandmother Said So!”
