Our Beautiful Ocean

When wondering what to do...let's just start somewhere. Let's laugh more, drive less, dance more, eat less, be more playful, creative, and intelligent in solving the problem.

Waves - From The Inside - Clark Little Photography

Unless you are a surfer, and a good one at that - one who can surf and at the same time take pictures from inside the wave - you will not yet have experienced these breathtakingly beautiful "landscapes" and "waterscapes".

What a gift to us non-surfers! Thank You, Clark Little!

http://www.clarklittlephotography.com/gallery

She Doesn't Know What She's Doing

As Deepak Chopra's pet phrase goes, and as he says in the new PC commercial:"Not a human thinking, not a human doing, but a human being!". In order to respond properly to our planet systems and life on earth, we need to rediscover what it means to be a human being. At present, there is too much doing and thinking, and too much of it is inhuman.

There is a difference between "good men doing nothing" in the face of evil, and non-doing. What that difference is, is for us to discover deep within ourselves. Which brings me back to the way children are trying to process the vast amount of depressing, planet-dying information they are presented with in school, mentioned in my previous post. Worried adults telling them to do, or stop doing - something - not only when they can't, but when their whole being is still peaceful , playful and in a state of wonder. It would be better to teach them how to meditate so they can develop a center from which to act wisely, rather than "informed" and "decisively".

After I had just posted the previous post a few hours ago, we decided to watch the Science Channel, only to come across the possibility of the volcanic magma chamber underneath Yellow Stone National Park exploding into a super eruption. The kind of thing that extinguishes dinosaurs with its explosive power and subsequent global ash clouds. There was no place to run or hide. It could happen tomorrow (for drama), or in the next 100.000 years...but...most likely not in our lifetime. There goes Plan B for cooling the earth down. Although, if you check on Ted.com there are scientists who are thinking about just that.

Just when I was thinking that maybe this particular documentary before bedtime wasn't such a great idea, my little environmentalist said with obvious relief: "Finally, it isn't my fault. Even the Earth doesn't know what she's doing" - and then he fell asleep.

But - she's beautiful!

Environ Mental Wisdom

DON'T PEEL SEALS

NEW POSTERS - Put them up in your classrooms, offices, and businesses.

Would you put this into your child's class room? What would it accomplish regarding the plight of seals? And what would it do to your kid? I very much agree with the message, but not with putting it into anyone's classroom.

The reason I ask is because when I came across this, I was reminded of the misguided efforts in our California school system to make our kids conscientious environmentalists. My fourth grader - for over a year now - looks out at the most beautiful landscape, and forlornly declares "The Earth is dying. Corporations are killing everything." And, no, he is not depressed otherwise, but quite the cheerful, happy earthling.

"Well" - I say - "we can do things about it. Let's sign up for the beach clean-up day, or let's buy fewer toys, let's ride our bikes to school, let's make a list of things we won't buy to send those corporations a message. Let's make earth-friendly cookies" I put all my earth enthusiasm into it, but finally I had to give up. I couldn't keep up with the visiting environmentalists at our school assemblies. The problems presented to our children in school rightfully strike them as way too far beyond their power to change. My son thinks our little efforts are completely "useless" considering the big picture. "Picking up one bag of garbage isn't going to stop the North Pole from melting, Mom. So it's a waste of gas to drive there." Checkmate.

People in California would brand you a planet-callous nutcase, if you were to try to get these programs out of school. So, I just try to save my child, and let them keep saving the planet their way, which I am afraid will prove counter productive because they don't seem to understand the hearts of children.

Whenever "the earth is dying" comes home from school now, my child asks to watch Planet Earth at night. There were weeks last years that we had to watch it every single night. Life looked pretty resilient, especially near hot and poisonous gas spewing underwater ocean volcanoes.

We count the cows, pigs, chicken, and fish we haven't eaten, and all the trips we haven't taken. We read about the things corporations and scientists do to clean up our rivers and lakes. We look at the vast ocean sparkling in the sun to balance the picture of an ocean full of garbage that is in his class room. We grow vegetables - as they do in school (to their credit )- and we drive peacefully, knowing we are way ahead of everybody else who is still eating meat when it comes to global warming, including chubby Al Gore. And, I do think some or our teachers feel the same way and balance some of this with their vegetable gardens and encouragement, but I do think unintentional harm is being done to my child, that I have to then undo.

I think we create the future by the images we put into our children's minds. Therefore I simply disagree with the way this is handled in schools, although I care a great deal about the same issues. There is no wisdom in creating these overwhelming feelings of powerlessness in children when children could so easily be empowered and inspired instead, as seemed to be much easier twenty years ago when my older ones were little.

I also have lost hope in regards to activism. Greenpeace, PETA, and all the organizations that got my attention, my money and my support for many decades have failed because of their own violence. Now "animal rights activist" is close to "terrorists" in people's minds and animals continue to suffer and will do so even more now. Mankind has gone insane and requires a spiritual rebirth of major proportion. Not religion, but an inner transformation to peacefulness. The non-doing the Tao talks about, that gets everything done. We clever ones - corporations or environmentalists alike- have done enough, and look at the mess.

Maybe my kid is onto something. Maybe the school and I are a good bad cop/good cop team after all, and we will create children who know how to turn powerlessness - not into action - but into wisdom.