Capitalism destroys the source of life; Indigenous resistance tries to save it
“Thousands have lived without love. Not one without water.” W.H. Auden
Water is the most precious substance on Earth. There is nothing else like it in the universe. Without water, there is no life; with water, life is everywhere. Indigenous people know water is life, and they are putting their lives on the line to protect water from the profit-driven machines polluting and destroying it.
For capitalists, oil and minerals are valuable, but water is worthless until you put it in a bottle to sell. For people and other living things, the opposite is true. …
They lie, terrify, confuse, and divide us
The world’s top “influencers” aren’t sexy people on TikTok. They are the CIA, the military-industrial complex, and the corporate owners of broadcast and print media. The media they control influences billions of people. For our own health and the world’s, we need to stop watching, listening to, and reading them.
How do you feel when you watch Fox, MSNBC, CNN, PBS, or other corporate news? Are you afraid, confused, sad, angry, discouraged? Maybe with a little American patriotism mixed in? If you have such a reaction, they’re doing their job.
Social critic Jessica Wildfire wrote, “You are always being shown…
Sometimes the best way to resist is to adapt
Lao-Tzu wrote:
Living people are soft and tender
Corpses are hard and stiff
The living grass, the trees, are soft and pliant
Dead they’re dry and brittleSo hardness and stiffness go with death
Tenderness, softness go with lifeAnd the hard sword fails
The stiff tree is felled
The hard and great go under
The soft and weak stay up.Tao Te Ching Chapter 76
Is this strange idea the way the world really works? Though it’s a comforting thought for those of us who aren’t “hard and great,” it often seems the hardest of people are ruling, while…
How we relate to food has a big effect on our Earth.
If we would like life on Earth to continue, what should we eat? On one level, this question look silly: how can one person’s diet make a difference in climate change and mass extinction? On a deeper level, our food choices are crucial. They determine our relationship with Earth and with all living things.
Not that your personal diet makes a big difference to anyone except you and those you eat. But changing social norms of eating could make the world healthier and happier. …
How a Nature-based economy could save us
“There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation.” Herman E. Daly
Modern market economies are based on a series of lies, and these lies have brought us to the brink of disaster. We may have gone over the brink already, but Nature has formidable healing powers. If we replace a market system based on maximizing wealth, with a sharing economy based on the well-being of all, our sacred planet may still recover.
The most blatant lies say that Earth’s resources are inexhaustible free goods…
Reverence for Nature could stop Big Money’s destroying the world
“Indigenous people hold on to their wisdom, because they know the day will come when their knowledge is needed for Earth to survive.” Robin Wall Kimmerer
[Author’s Note: I am not indigenous to North America. I have two generations of ancestors buried here, and two more born here. I cannot speak for indigenous Americans or anyone else, but I have been trying to learn from them and other wise people. We are all indigenous to Planet Earth.]
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Industrial civilization and its religion of wealth have brought…
In what bandages have you wrapped yourself?
What splints do you wear to protect your injured places?
How does that padding limit you?
What have you lost in trying to be safe?
…
Remember as a child, when you ran free, tumbled and played
Remember being yourself, before the world taught you how to be
Someone else?
Before you were wounded, before you were
Bullied, chastised, ignored,
Into the splints and casts you wear now?
…
You may have forgotten those feelings; we all forget sometimes.
But your body knows who you are. Maybe
You still need those bandages, maybe…
As with people, toxic chemicals cause their weight gain
We’ve all heard about the obesity epidemic. People are getting fatter, and some heavy people are getting sick. But did you know animals are getting fat too? What do fat animals tell us about human weight issues?
In people, fat is always blamed on eating too much and not moving enough. Or maybe their genes have something to do with it. Anyway, it’s their fault. But would you say that to an overweight raccoon?
You’ve probably seen fat pets. Some owners over-feed their cats and dogs. Farm animals’ increased weights could also be due to increased feeding.
Giving up technological fantasies, getting back to reality
Yesterday I met Nicole, a lovely woman in her 30s who was visiting from Las Vegas. We had a good conversation, but her words filled me with sadness and fear.
I asked her what it was like living in this summer’s heat, which has reached over 116 degrees F (46.6 Celsius). Nicole’s smile faded and she looked toward the floor. “I’m grateful,” she said. “I’ve got a garage and air conditioning. Things are OK.” I got the sense that she was happy to be in San Francisco where the temperature was closer to 60 degrees (15.5 C), but things were…
We’re not making money, but we are contributing.
The good thing about getting old is people don’t expect as much of us. But even when we’re not doing, I believe we still have responsibilities to the people around us and the world that has given us so much.
The world is going on without us, but we still have valuable parts to play. We can be active in ways we don’t always recognize. These 11 practices can help seniors play our roles well, make us valuable contributors to society, and might make our own lives more rewarding.
1. Keep growing…
