I’m delighted today to publish a guest post by Marian Van Eyk McCain, editor of a new book GreenSpirit, Path to a New Consciousness. Marian has long been one of my favourite writers and I was happy to meet her in real life a few weeks ago and spend time in her beautiful corner of the English countryside. Over to you, Marian:

Another of those gardening catalogues just came. I am forever taking myself off mailing lists but somehow it keeps happening. This one is from the firm that sold me the little fig tree I blogged about last year so they have my address again.

I leaf through the pages as I eat my breakfast. Colour co-ordinated flower beds…shades of blue…or would you prefer shades of pink? Eeek!! Forget it! This is my garden, for goodness’ sake, not my living-room. (Mind you, my living-room is not exactly colour co-ordinated either, I have to tell you. Well why should it be? It is a living room, not a showroom.)

Nature, where I live, is not colour-co-ordinated. Yet everything Nature creates without human intervention, like this tangle in the hedgerow, this glorious, riotous, multi-hued tangle, goes together perfectly. Nature is messy. Life is messy.

Was it because those 19th and 20th Century philosophers had fantasies of ‘taming’ Nature that they so admired the neat and tidy? Think about Victorian gardens, their straight paths, their topiary, their forced, unnatural symmetry. No, that’s not for me. I don’t see beauty in that. Just a misguided desire for control: an overweening arrogance. It is the arrogance that brought us to where we are today, on the brink of environmental freefall as the strain on our ecosystems takes them to a tipping point from which they may never be able to recover.

When I look at the tangle in the hedgerow I see beauty, vibrancy, the life force made abundantly manifest. Messy? Sure.

In fact, as we now know, the process of evolution has always needed—and still needs—messiness.

Complexity theorist Jean Bee, one of the contributors to the new book GreenSpirit: Path to a New Consciousness, writes:

Complexity theory has arisen, over more than half a century, out of the work of many scientists and social scientists who seek to investigate the implications of embracing the world as messy, interconnected, open to influences and change, able to learn…Essentially, this work tells us that:

• Things interrelate, affect each other in a messy, complex, systemic fashion
• Variation and diversity are necessary for creativity, change, evolution, emergence
• Things build on the past, but not with clear one-to-one correspondences and cause-effect relationships
• There is more than one possible future; the future cannot be reliably predicted from the past
• At key moments or tipping points, radically new features and characteristics can emerge
• Top-down design and control will certainly have an effect, but may lead to unintended outcomes

Systems which are diverse, richly connected and open to their environments can evolve a sort of form, or patterning, and this may be more harmoniously in tune with its surroundings that one imposed from above.

This emerging worldview, which seems more in tune with our personal experience of life, creates a powerful new image for all sorts of institutional thinking, including spiritual traditions. It is itself paradoxical and uncertain in that we are less clear how to act, how to intervene. Does it mean there should be no design, no leadership, no control? Is emergent structure always helpful and generative? Might we not just sink into chaos and disorder? Indeed, are our current problems the result of too much control or not enough? It raises issues of ethics, of the politics of participation, of power and domination. There are no easy answers. But imagining that the world is predictable and controllable when it is not is not helpful either; our current economic, social and environmental crises are, perhaps, ample evidence of that.

So we shall, as the contributors to this book suggest, try new ways of being in this 21st Century. We shall search for solutions to the problems that beset us. We shall build new infrastructures. With any luck, we ourselves shall continue to evolve, at least in terms of our awareness, our consciousness our understanding of who and what we are in relation to the rest of Nature. We shall, I hope, finally rid ourselves of the arrogance that has led us so far astray.

Who knows what interesting tangle will result? Let’s hope it is green and lovely and full of vibrant life.

All images by Marian Van Eyk McCain

About Marian:

Marian Van Eyk McCain is the author of three non-fiction books, including The Lilypad List: 7 steps to the simple life (Findhorn Press, 2004), a primer for living simply and lightly on the planet.

She is Co-Editor of the GreenSpirit Journal and Editor of GreenSpirit: Path to a New Consciousness (O Books, 2010), a new anthology with a Foreword by Satish Kumar and contributions from Brian Swimme, Matthew Fox, David Korten, Stephan Harding, Cormac Cullinan, Chris Clarke and nineteen other writers. (The book is being launched in London on Wednesday July 14th by Jonathon Porritt – click here for details.)

Marian’s main website, which reflects her keen interest in ‘green and conscious aging’ is at Elderwoman.

Do you want to join me in an experiment to see how much plastic we use and how we can decrease it radically?

Following my last post about earth-based spirituality, I went searching for some intelligent blogs exploring Paganism, and stumbled across Quaker Pagan Reflections. In turn this led me to its offshoot, Chestnut House, by Cat Chapin-Bishop, whose post Small Stuff, about the amount of plastic we use, has got me thinking about how our day-to-day purchasing habits really affect the planet. It includes this harrowing video.

You know, I’m aware of the need to use as little plastic as possible, but I let myself off. I tell myself that just today this ready meal is OK. That it’s impossible to buy vegetables without using plastic bags. That because I forgot my cloth shopping bag it’s OK to pick up a plastic one. Just today.

And there’s a danger in being too fire and brimstone: it sends us into paralysis. Towards the beginning of her fantastic book The Lilypad List: 7 steps to the simple life, Marian Van Eyk McCain says this:

Being forced to dwell on the awfulness of all that, once you already know about it, and already care deeply…is a form of torture…that makes you want to…turn on the TV or get drunk or stoned…

…I know that people on the simplicity path are often highly sensitive people. Because of their sensitivity, they identify so closely with the Earth’s pain that hearing about it again doesn’t stimulate them to action: it numbs them. And that’s the last thing I want you to do: go numb.

So let’s not go numb, let’s do something. Through Cat Chapin-Bishop (above), I found Fake Plastic Fish, and there, you can join a challenge to share your plastic waste and tell others a little bit about it. I’m just about to go and do my grocery shopping, so today is a great day to start tallying. I’ll do a quick cross-post here next week when I unveil my plastic.

It will be interesting to see how I, a single woman in the UK, do compared with, say, a family with small children in Australia.

Are you up for a challenge? Leave your name in the comments and we’ll keep an eye out for you at Fake Plastic Fish.

Image by Horia Varlan

Elsewhere:

Tomorrow is World Ocean Day which is a pretty important day to care about plastic. There was a plastic-less experiment called Month Without Plastic a while back which was really interesting. And Colin Beavan’s book No Impact Man is now out – it looks great.

Addendum: Howard from the Hardware Store has a birthday today. He wants a new reader as a gift. Could it be you?

We’ve just had an election in the UK. There was no clear party majority, and as I write this, horse-trading is going on to form a coalition government.

Tactical voting

I voted, but I didn’t vote for the party I really wanted to win. I wanted to vote for the Green Party, because I really believe in their policies. But they didn’t stand a ghost of a chance in our constituency, so I voted for our local Labour Party candidate who is a good guy with good ideas, my kind of priorities and who had a chance of beating the Conservatives. Sadly, he didn’t beat them.

Why we must vote

My question ‘what’s the point’ isn’t asked out of ennui. I really do wonder whether party politics and national government are as important as we think they are.

I always vote and I always will, people have died to give me that right. But does it do any good? (A friend told me of a radio exchange recently. Woman: “I could never not vote, I’d feel I was betraying Emily Pankhurst“. Teenage girl: “Oh, is she one of your local candidates?” Sigh…)

Green politics

I know the argument for supporting minority parties: if all the people who wanted to vote for them actually did, more minority party candidates would get elected and they would steadily gain power. Greens have gained a growing amount of political influence around the world, and one really bright spot in the UK election was that we now have our first Green Party Member of Parliament, Caroline Lucas. Brilliant news.

But I’m not sure we have time for a steady gain in power. We need strong, imaginative policies for the environment, for social justice, for a sustainable economy, and we need them now.

Taking up our own power

by Duncan Rawlinson

So here’s what I think: we have the power both of the individual and of the communal as never before.

Because of the internet, we’re in a brave new world of communication. It’s not called a web for nothing. It gives us the power to reach out and discover like-minded souls, to discover information, to discover ideas. We can come together as world citizens to influence, to lobby, to ask questions. We can form our own communities. People sans frontieres.

And as individuals, we can live in ways that are kind to the planet, to ourselves and to other creatures that make their homes here. We can live responsible lives. (I know, I know, this sounds a bit preachy. But it is Sunday after all, so here I am sermonising.)

Action, not talk

By CarbonNYC

I don’t advocate anarchy, but the days when we could leave it all to the government are long gone, if they ever existed.

I don’t live up to my own principles nearly as much as I’d like. Mother Teresa said:

There should be less talk; a preaching point is not a meeting point. What do you do then? Take a broom and clean someone’s house. That says enough.

So off I go to take up my broom again. How about you?

Main image by Ben Sutherland

Elsewhere:

I just now discovered the blog Cottage Wytch, and these words quoted there by John Rogers seem to me to say everything needed in any political party manifesto.

And a blessed Mother’s Day to all my friends outside the UK (where we celebrate it earlier in the year).

GreenSpirit, Path to a New Consciousness, is a new book edited by Marian Van Eyk McCain, who many of you will know from the Elderwoman blog and her book The Lilypad List.

The book is a collection of articles about aspects of green spirituality by Satish Kumar, Matthew Fox (the priest, not the actor!), Brian Swimme and many others. How do we define green spirituality? On the back cover is the following blurb:

Only by placing Earth and its ecosystems – about which we now understand so much – at the centre of all our thinking can we avert ecological disaster.

Only by bringing our thinking back into balance with feeling, intuition and awareness and by grounding ourselves in a sense of the sacred in all things can we achieve a new level of consciousness.

I’ll post a proper review of the book soon, but meanwhile, I was delighted to have been asked recently by Marian to compile a promotional video based on materials she sent me. It describes the book and the philosophy behind it.  Here’s the result:

Bee image by Stuart Webster

Elsewhere:

You can become a Facebook fan of GreenSpirit here, and find out more about the book here. And it was coach Sally Lever who introduced me to Marian’s books, so here’s a link to a recent blog post of hers describing an appeal by the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales.

For International Women’s Day 2010

I don’t know about you, but when I was younger I used to get incredibly irritated by older people who ranted on about what things were like in their day.

Well you’ll have to indulge me for a moment…

Revisiting the ’70s

In the 1970s, the excitement and energy of second-wave feminism had many women on a high. Our priestesses were Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer. We relished the extreme possibilities opened to us by Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin.

We bought and contributed to vibrant feminist magazines, the polar opposite of those tedious home-making journals. There was a glorious explosion of feminist and lesbian fiction. Women met in consciousness-raising groups to discuss our lives.

The Personal is Political

We instinctively and intellectually knew the truth of it when Carol Hanisch wrote The Personal is Political. It all matters: what we wear, who we sleep with (or don’t), what we buy, how we raise our children, what we eat, the availability of contraception and abortion, our work, our financial independence, our religious beliefs and practices.

These ideas and ideals are still with us, translated by social justice groups to concepts like purchaser power, political boycott and workers’ rights.

Faith and spirituality

Most of us in the West at the beginning of the ’70s were familiar only with Christianity in all its patriarchal glory. Some had begun to flirt with Buddhism, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had given us transcendental meditation via the Beatles in the late ’60s. Britain at least was far less multi-cultural than today, and few of us were familiar with Islam or Hinduism.

Around this time, groups of women were exploring the origins of goddess worship and the history of witchcraft. Starhawk first published The Spiral Dance in 1979, exploring and affirming ancient/new female spirituality.

Christian women were pushing back against the patriarchs, exploring new language in worship, and fighting for the ordination of women. We still have a very long way to go, of course, especially in the Catholic church.

What the hell are we women doing now?

The women I knew then wanted more than equality. We wanted to reinvent the paradigms, to change society. Hell, we wanted revolution! Kate Millett said It’s more about changing the recipe of the cake than getting an equal slice.

So with this richness behind us, what in the name of the Goddess are women doing?

A search on Amazon this morning gave me 48,000 books under the search term feminism and 105,000 under diet. Our society is addicted to the underbelly of celebrity as explored by the tabloid press (which would not exist if we didn’t buy the papers and celebrity magazines). Young girls are clamouring for pink plastic tat bought at shops catering specifically for them, encouraged by their mothers. Female corporate lawyers are aping their male colleagues, aiming to earn the big bucks by billing 2,500 hours a year (that’s 9.6 hours a day folks, not including holidays, lunches or essential work not billable to clients).  Cosmetic surgery, for men as well as women, is rising inexorably and makeover shows are big business on television.

Why? In the West at least, we are mostly educated women. We have the history and tools to change ourselves and to change the world. We have the huge individual and collective power the internet gives us. Why don’t we change? Why do we allow ourselves to become indoctrinated? Why do I still hear women uttering that famous phrase Well I’m not a feminist but… as they protest injustice? Why on earth would any of us fear to be identified by the finest of the F-words?

Image of Egyptian Goddess statuette by ego technique

Elsewhere:

It’s not all hopeless. Natasha Walter’s book Living Dolls is making waves. Women for Women are helping women survivors of war. The BBC has a new series, Libbers, starting tonight. And I found out about the BBC series via this excellent exploration of feminism today at a blog that’s new to me, Everydaystranger. She also discusses an aspect I haven’t touched on above: the internecine  fighting that is the less glorious side of feminist politics.

A senior British politician has today launched a government review on issues around race, saying that class background is now a more important factor than race as an indicator of disadvantage and discrimination.

Perhaps he’s right, I don’t know, although the comments on the various news sites today demonstrate vividly and depressingly that there are still serious problems around race. What I found most interesting was how many white people wrote in to complain that they are feeling like the odd ones out because they are surrounded by “blacks and Asians”. One woman is disgusted that when she visits her doctor’s surgery, hers is the only white face there.

Well, folks, what a great chance to explore a different perspective. What does it feel like to be in a minority, what can we learn from it, what is really important in life?

In another different perspective, as we wake up in Britain to freezing snow and fog, people in Haiti are waking up to crushing devastation, or not waking up at all. If we were to look at satellite images of the Earth, our perspectives would spin between extremes.

We all bleed the same colour blood.

Image by al-Taqi

Elsewhere:

Hearts breaking for Haiti: Rebecca, Country Parson, Beyond Just Mom, Laurie, Anita, Facebook Folks, Ox Herding and many others. And yours, I know.

Do you enjoy reading Anchors and Masts? Perhaps you’ll consider buying a Christmas present to show your appreciation.

Just £9 (US$15/AU$16) will help Oxfam provide a safe water supply for ten people in Africa:

Niema used to walk miles to the river every day. The water was dirty and often caused sickness. But not anymore.

This gift funds whatever is needed to ensure a safe supply of water for washing, cooking and drinking. In Niema’s case, that was a water pump for her village. Now there’s clean water on tap, and Niema’s seen a clear difference. She says: “The pump has changed our lives. I’ve now got time to collect water and go to school. Thank you.”

Or you could buy health check-ups, packets of seeds, or even a goat!

Go on, you know it’ll make you feel good, and your gift will make a real difference to the lives of those who need it most. So much better than a pair of socks.

Oxfam Unwrapped and I thank you in advance.

Now, please tell us all in the comments which charities you think are important to support this Christmas.

Elsewhere:

Or you could give one of the most precious gifts of all: your blood. Find out where to donate blood locally and go roll your sleeve up – American Red Cross, British National Blood Service, Australian Red Cross.

The following post is my contribution to this year’s Blog Action Day. It should have been published last Thursday while I was away but the pre-scheduled publishing I set up didn’t work!

Helpless?

If you Google the phrase “climate change”, you will get 48,000,000 hits. If you read the news over a few months, you’ll get what feel like as many different opinions: the climate is changing; no it isn’t, the planet goes through cyclical changes naturally; mankind is the cause of climate change; or not; climate change has already happened; no it hasn’t; it will be irreversible in six months, six years, 60 years, never; it’s already irreversible; it’s a problem, but science will come up with a solution, it always does.

This sort of confusion, and a certain amount of sensationalism, turns us off. It frightens us, it makes us feel helpless.

But I think we’d have to be irrationally trusting to conclude there’s nothing to worry about. We’re holding our future up to ransom.

The climate is changing

Here’s what a recent Save the Children report has to say:

The consensus on climate change is clear: it is already happening and is likely to lead to an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. It will be people in the poorest countries, especially children in those countries, who will bear the brunt of these disasters, despite having played no role in causing climate change. The resulting impact on children is likely to be dramatic.

• Malaria, currently responsible for the death of around 800,000 children under five years old in Africa each year, is set to increase.
• The number of children dying each year due to the effects of malnutrition – currently 3.5 million – is likely to increase.
• As a result of slow-onset or recurrent natural disasters, parents may feel compelled to withdraw their children from school or send them out to work.

What we can do

So what can we do? Here’s one suggestion, from the World Wildlife Fund:

We can change the way we think, and we can change the way we act. Small changes made by enough people become cumulative and are incredibly powerful.

Why not start by calculating your carbon footprint. There are lots of sites where you can do this. Here’s one.

What else can we do? Here are some concrete suggestions. They’re not new, you’ve probably heard them before. How about picking three to begin with?

• Turn off the light when you leave a room
• In winter, turn the central heating thermostat down a couple of degrees and keep warm by wearing jumpers
• Don’t leave the water running while you clean your teeth
• Don’t leave any electrical device on standby, switch it off
• Cut back on meat and dairy
• Even if you only have a window box, grow a few herbs and vegetables
• Boil only enough water for what you need
• Holiday locally and/or travel by train, fly as little as possible

Then there’s the vexed and serious question of the car. If you must run a car (I do, at the moment), there are many things you can do to mitigate the effect at least in part: plan carefully so you don’t make unnecessary journeys, keep the tyre pressure correct, drive more sedately.

Friends of the Earth have an excellent guide to practical steps we can all take, including lots of information for the driver. You can download their 50 Top Tips here.

Political action

So there are personal habits we can change. But political impact is important as well. Why not choose one of the major environmental charities and join them. Support them financially and if you can, get involved with a local group as well and actually do stuff. Write to your Member of Parliament or Congressional representative. Write to newspapers. If you’re an employee, ask your company what their policies and practices are on environmental issues.

Becoming an activist is not that difficult, and even sounds rather glamorous, n’est pas? You can download a guide here.

It’s tough but not impossible – yet

Writing this post and researching the links has been easy. Taking action is tough. But let me repeat what I said above:

Small changes made by enough people become cumulative and are incredibly powerful.

If you’ve written a Blog Action Day post, do leave me a note in the comments.

Image by asrainman

Elsewhere:

Here are some useful links:

• Guardian newspaper Climate Change Q&A
• BBC Climate Change site
• Explaining climate change to children
• Informed views and ideas from Casaubon’s Book
• Colin Beavan’s seminal blog No Impact Man

Those of us who are not American were unable, of course, to vote for Barack Obama. But I for one feel that just for today I am American. The burden of hope on this one man to rebuild his nation and with it the world is so immense that it cannot be fulfilled. Yet still we do hope.

I have no more words for this, so I will quote here the prayer by openly gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson which began the inaugural concert on Sunday. It was, inexplicably, not broadcast as part of the concert:

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Thanks to Towanda for pointing me to this prayer

Hope: expectation and desire combined; feeling of trust
Jubilation: exultation, making demonstrations of joy
Labour: exert oneself, work hard; strive for purpose, advance with difficulty
Change: making or becoming different; substitution of one for another; give up, get rid of, make different.