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Watching the geese
go south I find
that
even in silence
and even in stillness
and even in my home
alone
without a thought
or a movement
I am part
of a great migration
that will take me to another place.
It is the time of the great migrations;
I attended the 2008 Bioneers conference in San Rafael again this year, and blogged a complete report in the Beauty Dialogues for those of you who did not make it to San Rafael, or one of the 17 other Beaming Bioneer satellite locations around the US.
There was quite a lot of arts-related material this year, and you might be particularly interested in the EcoArts Strategies (1st day - 1st afternoon session) and Indigenous Arts sessions (3rd day - last afternoon session).
In addition, there was a wonderful piece of environmental art on the grounds, created from a field of leek blossoms from an 'excess crop' that would have otherwise been just plowed under.
It was a "gratitude hut", with a dark interior where you could go to sit and ponder the miracles of your life, and remember what you were most grateful for. Inside it was full of 'milagros' or little charms and notes hanging from the walls in representation of all those miracles.
Just a heads up about a book that seems to really resonate with Joanna Macy-style teachings...
Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn
No, it's not about just sending out "good energy" and sitting back and doing nothing! It's about living, really living, your life as if it actually mattered: to you, your loved ones, your community, the world... Because, as we know, it DOES!
Only have just finished the introduction, but so far, so very good. :)
I'm going to be at an online conference this Friday - October 12 - called The Art of Engagement. It's about art that engages with the community, with the environment, and with the issues of our time. There is a 'Focus on Environmental Art' session between 1 - 3pm (PST). This online conference, being produced in Vancouver, is an integral part of a concurrent face-to-face gathering on the same subject happening there on the ground.
I'm excited to see this kind of thing happening, because it shows an awareness of the environmental impact of large public events like conferences and offers a way to partake without pollution.
If you're interested, please come! The online component is free but you do have to register ahead of time. Do it right away so you have time to set up your profile and check out the wonderfully rich conversation that is already starting there.
They're using Ning to power the online conference, which is free software that looks great. I'll let you know how it worked after the conference...
Country diary
Combs Edge, Derbyshire
by Mark Cocker
Monday October 8, 2007
Suddenly from the last rowan on the hillside rose a long-winged, lean blackbird-like thrush with a call that sounded like stone upon stone. It was a ring ouzel and as this shy bird speared its way to the ridge on the moorland edge, it also drilled down through 35 years of memory, to my first ever encounter with the species. It was April 1972. I was 12.
Initially I'd no idea what I was seeing. I was separated from the mystery bird, a female, by a steep-sided clough above Buxton. After 20 minutes' close scrutiny a great wave of excitement began to rise within as its identity dawned on me. I now understand the exact constituents of that thrill.
One part was matching the features of the living creature to the two-dimensional illustrations in The Observer's Book of Birds - the key detail separating it from its relative, the blackbird, was a quarter-moon patch of cream upon its chest. The other part was a realisation that those 20-30 cream feathers implied a wholly separate genetic history and lifestyle. And in the ring ouzel's millennial-long journey through time, this was the first moment that I personally had intercepted it.
It's a moment I still cherish. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this experience is one of the great gifts to humankind, because within it lies an appreciation of our own unique identity. Simultaneously we are made aware of how we share with other species the same neighbourly time and space. Aldous Huxley suggested that this sense of communion with our fellow-creatures had given rise to half the poetry in the English canon. I suspect the poets are proclaiming what we all feel and what I felt when that ring ouzel rose from the rowan tree. How miraculous that we are all here, now, in this one small place.
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