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| Paul Delvaux - Women Trees (1937) |
“When I first came to Africa and I flew over Kilimanjaro, even in the height of the summer there was a great cap of snow. The snows of Kilimanjaro,” she recalled. “I just read the other day that we should rather be talking about the dusts of Kilimanjaro. That is just one signal and this is all around the world that the glaciers are melting,” she went on. For Goodall, one of the world’s leading chimpanzee experts, “something has gone wrong” in the relationship between man and the planet. “We’ve just been stealing, stealing, stealing from our children, and it’s shocking. But is it true that there’s nothing that can be done? No absolutely not,” she goes on, explaining how her latest project, Roots and Shoots, began." Jane Goodall on climate change, Agence France Press, 2-10-13
"This is the Beginning of the Change ..." - A Female Water Snake has Coiled Around the Future, One Billion have Risen, & the Legion of Reality & Love has Marched on Beltwayistan
By Richard Power
Tibetan New Year (Losar), Vietnamese New Year, Chinese New Year have come and gone. Another threshold. Another portal. Another octave. The Mayan calendar ran out months ago. We are into it now. Just as the Dragon Year (2012) brought many of us dynamic change and radical re-alignment in our inner lives, this Snake Year (2013) will ground that dynamic change and radical re-alignment, coiling around it, and threading it into the tapestries of our circumstances with undulating power. Just as this last Dragon Year was fire and air, this Snake Year is water and earth.
Can you feel how the Great Shift as it deepens, settling into the foundations of its axis? I don't know what the scrolls say, but this is what Psyche whispers to me. Yes, we are into it now.
Since Losar, two significant notches have been cut into the timeline of this global non-violent evolution, on 2-14-13 and 2-17-13.
On 2-14-13, people in over 200 countries took to the streets for Eve Ensler's One Billion Rising; they danced for an end to violence against women and girls throughout the world. (One out of every three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in this lifetime.) This event shook the earth and shook the human psyche; yes, for it is these women and girls who will lead the self-salvation of the species and the healing of the planet.
Eve Ensler: I could never have dreamed up the diversity of this movement. We have queen of the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro and the queen mother of Bhutan. We have prime ministers of Croatia and Australia. We have lamas. We have nuns. We have Zumba dancers. We have an extraordinary dancer in Pakistan who will be dancing in Karachi, where it is dangerous. We have women who have never danced before and women who will literally be risking their lives to dance. We have movie stars, and we have domestic workers. We have migrant workers. We have union leaders. We have nurses. We have doctors. We have every type of person on the planet and every person on the planet. And I really believe this day will literally change the mindset, the paradigm and the energy of the planet. Democracy Now, 2-14-13
And on 2-17-20, the forces of Reality and Love, 50,000 strong, descended on the great Mall to confront our political "leaders" on the Climate Crisis, and to specifically demand that POTUS and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry put an end to the Keystone XL pipeline. This action was led by 350.org, the Sierra Club and the Hip-Hop Caucus.
Many strong men (black and white) spoke at this event, including Van Jones ("if it goes through—the first thing that the pipeline runs over is the credibility of the president of the United States"), Bill McKibben ("easiest, simplest, purest action [POTUS] could take is to not build this long fuse to one of the biggest carbon bombs on earth"), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse ("the polluters think they've got it under control, and then you show up") and Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. (who MC'd).
Michael Brune, Executive Director of Sierra Club, put the challenge directly to POTUS, "Mr. President, we have heard what you said, but what will you do?"
But it was the women leaders of the indigenous peoples of North America who defined, sanctified and exalted this moment in human history.
Chief Jacqueline Thomas of Saik'uz First Nation said, "I need someone to stand with me if the bulldozers come. I will lay down my life."
Crystal Lameman of Beaver Lake Cree First Nations said, "We can not eat money, and we can not drink oil."
And Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma, blessing that legion of Reality and Love, said "... I see you my relatives, I see you my red relatives back here, I see you my black relatives out there, I see you my white relatives out there, I see you my yellow relatives out there, I see you my thunder relatives, I see you my grass relatives, I see you my four-legged relatives, I see you my water relatives. You could be anywhere, you could be doing anything, that's what my people say, but instead you chose this day to be here, you chose this day to stand in solidarity with each other, the human race. Because we know, our mother, the Earth, with merely a shrug of her shoulders could shake us off; with merely a talk to her thunder nation she could wash us away. But instead she nurtures us, instead she gives us strength, instead she feeds us the power to come together. We are allied with the greatest powers that are. We are allied with the Father Sun, we are allied with the Mother Earth, we are allied with the relatives of the Moon and Stars. And my relatives, you are winners. My relatives, this is the beginning of the Change. My relatives, what you do today makes the difference. And I love you ..."
CASEY CAMP-HORINEK: "THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE CHANGE ..."
Yes. Watching Casey Camp-Horinek: "This is the Beginning of the Change ..." @cspanvl cs.pn/UvyZnw #forwardonclimate #climatechange
— Richard Power (@wordsofpower) February 17, 2013
Yes. We are into it now. May the Goddess bless us all. "This is the Beginning of the Change ..."
There is forward movement throughout the world. But you are not hearing about it from Infotainmentstan ...
Bhutan plans to become the first country in the world to turn its agriculture completely organic, banning the sales of pesticides and herbicides and relying on its own animals and farm waste for fertilisers ... John Vidal & Annie Kelly, Guardian, 2-11-13
Something interesting is happening in Australia. A new study by the research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance has found that unsubsidized renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels like coal and gas. In fact, it’s a lot cheaper ... Thom Hartmann, Time to Take Notice: How Renewable Energy Is Becoming Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels, AlterNet, 2-10-13
And there is much POTUS can do, without Congress, much that he MUST do without Congress (because they won't act) ...
The president, McKibben argued, should "put the full power of the federal government behind a crash program to insulate homes, scale up energy efficiency" and move the US toward a renewable energy future immediately. Sierra Club president Michael Brune championed the president's ability to "inspire millions to believe in the possibility of change and the power of hope" and said he should use his position to prove that solving the climate crisis is an incredible opportunity for the country rather than a burden ... Frances Beinecke, President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, says Obama must now move from rhetoric to precise action, calling on him to take up a plan offered by the NRDC to use his executive authority and the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to curb the carbon pollution caused by the nation's coal and gas-fired power plants ... The Center for Biological Diversity also urged Obama to move swiftly from strong words to strong action. Acknowledging the impossible congressional scenario for passing meaningful legislation, the group also recommended a push from the executive branch ... CBD urged five specific actions the president could take, which included: setting a national carbon pollution cap; banning fracking and end fossil fuel development on public lands; rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline; protecting the Arctic from offshore drilling; and joining the world in efforts to forge a fair, ambitious and binding climate treaty. Jon Queally, On Climate, A Call for Obama to Speak Forcefully and Act Urgently, Common Dreams, 2-12-13
Yes, POTUS, if you do not deliver for the future you will be lost to history, both are now, this IS the future, and this IS the great pivot of history.
"This is the Beginning of the Change ..."
Do you know why 350 is the most important number in your life and the lives of everyone you love? Go to 350.org for the answer.
Richard Power is the author of eight books, including Humanifesto: A Guide to Primal Reality in an Era of Global Peril, Between Shadow and Night: The Singularity in Anticipation of Itself and True North on the Pathless Path: Towards a 21st Century Yoga. Power writes and speaks on spirituality, sustainability, human rights, and security. He blogs at http://words-of-power.blogspot.com and http://primalwordsofpower.blogspot.com, and is a member of the Truthout Board of Advisors. He also teaches yoga.
