From Eric's post: "To see and empathize with the outrage that is being
inflicted on our world, that is what is all about my friends!"
While watching this 10 min video a few days ago about the Dongria Kondh
<http://www.survivalinternational.org/films/mine> people, who live in a
remote area of India, I found myself experiencing a keen sense of
kinship with them. Their plight isn't that far removed from ours in
Tompkins County. The Dongria Kondh are trying to keep a bauxite company
from destroying their sacred mountaintop. Having seen firsthand what
the introduction of the London-based mining company, Vedanta, will mean
to them by way of watching a nearby village succumb to the false
promises of industrialization, the Dongria Kondh are holding firm. They
intend to defend their mountaintop, risking imprisonment and violence if
necessary.
I guess the major difference between our situation and the Dongria
Kondh's, is that our livelihoods are predicated on the very forces that
are threatening our habitat. Something the Marcellus Challenge is
attempting to address. But as the Dongria Kondh's (and historically
many other people's) struggle painfully illustrates, not participating
in the forces of resource extraction doesn't exempt a people from
suffering at the hands of it. I couldn't help feeling the despair
Joanna Macy articulates so well in spite of the wonderful evening last
Wednesday.
Found this NYT piece "Is there an ecological unconscious?" speaks to the
emotional impact of losing place: "In a 2004 essay, (Glenn Albrecht)
coined a term to describe it: “solastalgia,” a combination of the Latin
word solacium (comfort) and the Greek root –algia (pain), which he
defined as “the pain experienced when there is recognition that the
place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault .
. . a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at ‘home.’ ”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31ecopsych-t.html
-- Katie Quinn-Jacobs
Eric Banford wrote:
I came away from Wednesday's event really energized, it was just what this tired activist
needed! As I walked around talking to people, I kept picturing something like
"activist stew", where we are each ingredients with vast flavor profiles. As
the stew is stirred, each ingredient mixes and matches with other ingredients, creating
new and exciting flavors of possibility. We are each greater than the sum of the parts,
making for a delicious evening! LOL! Thanks to all involved, it was a blessed event.
And speaking of stew..on the way home I heard my favorite deep ecologist Joanna
Macy on the radio, and she eluded to stew as well. It was a rebroadcast of her
talk at Bioneers last year, if you didn't hear it or want to re-listen, it is
incredibly relevant to the struggles we each face. She talks about “The Gifts
of Uncertainty” in this dark age, my favorite part from the talk is this:
"Thirdly, talking about the gifts of uncertainty, is the courage to feel, what
you feel in the present moment. As you become present to your world then you feel
what are are carrying. Usually if you are being rushed and hurried out of your
minds, you don't bother paying attention, you try to pave it over, block it out,
shut it down, turn away, turn it off. But try as we might, it comes up again. The
grief, the outrage. The raw fear. What in god's name are we doing to our world and
to each other? And you now are not going to fall for the ploy of the industrial
growth society to pathologize that pain. You hear me? Don't let people, therapists
or well meaning friends try to explain it away in terms of your personal biography
or that time of month. It is a measure of your evolution, a measure of your
humanity, it is a measure of your nobility that you have a heart-mind big enough to
see and empathize with the outrage that is being inflicted on our world and
on all our relations."
http://www.joannamacy.net/multimedia/81-video/212-bioneers-video.html
To see and empathize with the outrage that is being inflicted on our world,
that is what is all about my friends!
In solidarity,
Eric
_______________________________________________
For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please
visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
[email protected]
http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
Questions about the list? ask [email protected]
free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
--
_______________________________________________
For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please
visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
[email protected]
http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
Questions about the list? ask [email protected]
free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
