Pass it on : five stories that can change the world
Joanna Macy
Contents
STORIES THAT NEED TO BE TOLD
- NORTH AMERICA: The Power of Gratitude
- RUSSIA: A Path into the Forest
- INDIA: An Unexpected Encounter with My Mother
- AUSTRALIA: The Rainforest Recognizes Itself TIBET: One Stone on Another
- WALKING THE TALK: A Conversation about Taking Action About the Authors
1] NORTH AMERICA: The Power of Gratitude
Peace is not just the opposite of war or the time between the wars.
Peace is the law of human life.
Peace is when we treat nature well and justice rules between all of the people and all of the nations.
-AUDREY SHENANDOAH, ONONDAGA
IN MY CHILDHOOD and adolescent years, I spent summers on my grandfather's farm in western NewYork State. I learned how my paternal ances¬tors journeyed west from New England in the early eighteen hundreds when the Erie Canal was dug, and how they planted the fields and orchards I roamed in, and built the church where I'd sit to hear the gospel they brought with them. But I heard no stories about the people who were native
to the land and had been dwelling there for thou¬sands of years. I recall no mention of their indig
enous way of life, or of the teachings that sustained
their intricate and peaceful culture. They were the Haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois,
whose peoples of the region are recognized the world over as the oldest example of democratic self-governance.
A quarter century later in my life, while attend¬ing graduate school in Syrcause, NewYork, I began
to open my eyes to the history and wisdom of these people. Despite expropriation of ancestral lands
and constriction to small reservations, the Hauden-osaunee elders have passed down.-through the ages the teachings of the great messenger they call the Peacemaker.
A thousand years ago, the Six Nation Confed¬eracy seemed to be in a state of permanent war,
caught in brutal cycles of attack, revenge, and retal
iation, when Deganawidah, the Peacemaker, came across Lake Ontario in a stone canoe. He came to
remind all the nations of the Creator's "original instructions." Gradually his words and actions won them over, and they accepted the Great Law of Peace.The Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, and
Mohawk buried their weapons by Onondaga Lake under a white pine they called the Peace Tree. For governance by consensus decision-making, they formed councils of chiefs to be selected, advised, and, if necessary, removed by the women elders or clan mothers. The Long House was built and designated as the venue for these councils, where choices were deliberated with concern for their effect on the seventh generation into the future. The very name Haudenosaunee means "People of the Long House." Their federation came to com¬prise six nations when joined centuries later by the Tuscarora.
In the Haudenosaunee, historians recognize the oldest known participatory democracy and point to the inspiration it provided to those drafting the Constitution of the United States. The white men's government did not emulate the power and respect the Haudenosaunee accorded to women, but in uniting their thirteen colonies, they bor¬rowed not only principles of confederacy and bal¬ance of powers but symbols as well. They took, for example, the eagle, instructed by the Peacemaker to watch over and protect the people, and the bun¬dle of separate arrows it grasps that had represented
the tribes'-solidarity as well as' their distinctiveness. In 1992 the United States Congress passed a joint (House and Senate) resolution concluding that "the confederation of the thirteen colonies into one republic was explicitly modeled upon the Iro¬quois confederacy as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the Con¬stitution itself."
That reality did not impede white settlers and soldiers from taking by force most of the Haude-nosaunees' land and decimating their populations. Soon after his inauguration, George Washington, seeking to clear the lands for westward expansion, ordered the burning of Onondaga crops and vil¬lages. He changed his mind after the massacres had been set in motion, but illegal "takings" by the state of NewYork continued. The vast ancestral lands of the Onondaga extended in a wide sweep through New York State from Pennsylvania to Canada. In the fifty years following American independence, the Onondaga Nation, known as the "Keepers of the Central Fire" and conveners of the Haudeno-saunee Grand Council of Chiefs, lost 95 percent of its land.
Eventually accorded sovereign status, the Hau- denosaunee nations—except for the Onondaga—have proceeded in recent decades to sue state and federal governments for some measure of recom¬pense for their expropriated territory. They've won various settlements in cash and licenses for casinos. But the Onondagan elders and clan moth¬ers continued to deliberate year after year, seeking consensus on this issue that would shape the life of their people for generations to come. Finally, in the spring of 2005, their decision was announced at a press conference in the nearby city of Syracuse.
In their land rights action, unlike that of any other indigenous group in America, the Onondaga Nation did not demand return of any ancestral
land or monetary compensation for it. They asked for one thing only: that the land be cleaned up and
restored to health for the sake of all who presently live on it, and for the sake of their children and children's children. As a step toward achieving this, they showed that New York State had taken their land in violation of federal law.
"In this land rights action we seek justice" said Audrey Shenandoah at the news conference. "Jus
tice for the waters. Justice for the four leggeds and the wingeds, whose habitats have been taken. We
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seek justice, not just for ourselves, but justice for the whole creation."
For state and federal powerholders, that is asking a lot. The land is heavily contaminated by indus¬trial development, from huge chemical Processing plants to neglected toxic waste dumps. Onondaga Lake, on whose shores stood the sacred Peace Tree, is rated as the most polluted with heavy metals of any body of water in the country Within a year; at the urging of the governor of NewYork, the state court dismissed the Onondaga action as invalid, stating that it was too late and that it would be
disruptive to the larger community.Lawyers
awyer for the
plaintiffs have submitted strong counterarguments on both points. The appeal is now pending due to the possibility that the Department ofJustice in the Obama administration might join the Onondaga.
On a bleak November afternoon, while on a teach¬ing tour of the eastern United States, I drive out from Syracuse to visit the Onondaga Nation-a big name for a scrap of land whose seven thou¬sand acres appear like a postage stamp on maps of Central Newyork. I come because I was moved by the integrity and vision of their land rights action.
Now I see how few material resources they have to pursue it. In a community clinic, native counselors offer mental health and self-esteem programs, and bring young people from all the Haudenosaunee together for camps and ceremony. The women cheerfully describe how they solicit funds from the other nations, and how few contributions have been received from those made richer by casinos. They are eager for me to see the new school where young Onondagans, who choose not to go off the Nation to U.S. public schools, can receive an edu¬cation.
I run through the rain and dash through a door to where a teacher named Freida has been waiting after hours to show me around. She leads me into a central atrium where a skylight lets in the dimming afternoon light and illumines, on the floor, a large green turtle exquisitely fashioned of inlaid wood. It is good to be reminded of where we stand: onTur-tie Island. I think of the creation story that threads through the indigenous lore of this continent—of the woman who fell from the sky, of the support from the deep that appeared as turtle, and the crea¬tures like muskrat who dove into the sea for the soil to make Turtle Island. My gaze moves to the shields
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around the room representing the clans: wolf, bear, beaver, snipe, eel, heron.
Each clan is presided over by a clan mother and Freida, I learn, is acting mother of the turtle clan.
"Our students gather here regularly for the thanksgiving address," she tells me. "We just do a short version, ten minutes or so, not the traditional form which takes over an hour and a half." I sense a longing within me and, turning to gaze at her face, I sink down on a bench. She hears my silent request and sits down beside me. Raising her right hand in a circling gesture that spirals downward as the fin¬gers close, she begins. "Let us gather our minds as one mind and give thanks for each other as people with whom to live in balance and harmony. And now our minds are one." Repeating the movement of her hand, she speaks, "Greetings and thanks to our eldest brother the Sun, who rises each day to bring light so we can see each others' faces and
warmth for the seeds to grow." She continues on,
greeting and thanking the life-bringing presences
that bless and nourish us all. With each presence—
moon, waters, trees, animals—that lovely gesture
repeats itself. "We gather our minds as one mind." My eyes stay riveted upon her. What I receive
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through her words and gesture feels like an intra¬venous injection, right into my bloodstream. This, it occurs to me, can teach us how to survive.When our comforts and our accustomed place in the world have been lost, a practice such as this can hold us together in dignity and clear mind.
I think of the dispossessions and humiliations visited upon the Haudenosaunee in recent cen¬turies, of how their health and well being, their whole way of life, have been torn from them. I sud¬denly thought, "These people have gone through a holocaust."Yet they are not defeated, their spirit triumphs. For they give thanks. Is their prac¬tice of gratitude the secret of their nobility and endurance?
In any case, that practice is embedded in the story of their people, a story that I wanted now to learn in more detail.The mission of the Peacemakerover a thousand years ago became very relevant to me, as I saw his continuing impact on the present-day life of the Onondaga. From his formative encounters and choices stem the guiding role of women and the figure of a spiritual leader known as Tadodaho.
When he came across Lake Ontario to teach peace to the feuding tribes, Deganawidah chanced
upon a woman who, though not Participating in the waffare, profited from it and fostered it through lies and rumors. She received his message and served his mission from that moment on, facilitat¬ing contacts with the warring chiefs so his teachings could spread to all five nations. In consequene the Peacemaker, in laying out the Great Law of Peace, assigned special authority to women in the preemi
nent role of the clan mothers.
The most feared man of the five nations was an Onondagan named Tadodaho, a bloodthirsty sha¬man said to be so evil that snakes grew from his head. As the Peacemaker influence began to change the minds of the people, Tadodaho was infuriated and vented his wrath on a tribesman called Haion_ whatha (Hiawatha) -To stop him from following the Peacemaker Tadodaho killed his daughters. As he grieved, heartbroken Hiawatha found words that would help console others who lost loved ones, fashioning the words into a belt made of white and purple clamshells, creating the first wampum. This cleared Hiawatha mind, and together he and the Peacemaker, joined by forty-nine other lead¬ers from all five nations, won Tadodaho over. They are said to have "combed the snakes" from his hair.
Thereupon Tadodaho became the fifth chief of the confederacy and was named its spiritual leader, a role bearing his name to be continued through the centuries.
At that point, the weapons were buried beneath the great white pine tree on the shore of Onon¬daga Lake, and the Great Law of Peace took hold, laying the basis for self-governance by council, and enshrining two traditions so faithfully followed that they have become identified with the Haudeno-saunee. One is the duty to weigh every decision in terms of its impact on the seventh generation. And the other is the duty of thanksgiving.
Social and environmental thinkers of today point to these traditions as the kind of ethic we desperately need for evolving a life-sustaining soci¬ety. "The Great Law," writes Professor Manno of the State University of New York School of For¬estry, "includes and reinforces an ethic of respon¬sible resource management, a perspective of respect and gratitude toward the natural world, a require¬ment to consider the impacts of decisions on future generations (those 'whose faces are coming from beneath the earth') and clear assignment of stewardship responsibilities. Presently throughout
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the Lake Ontario Plain, western Lake Erie, the St. Lawrence and Niagara Rivers, and the Finger Lakes Watersheds of northern, central and western NewYork State in the United States and southern Ontario, Canada, the six Haudenosaunee Nations continue to be represented in the Grand Coun¬cil of Chiefs at its capital, the Longhouse of the
Onondaga Nation.*
As I recall my visit to the school of the Onondaga Nation, it is my exposure to the power of gratitude that I am most grateful for. I continue to be struck by the ways it can make us more fully present to our world, jolting us awake to our own aliveness, and charging our will with possibilities for choice. For one thing, gratitude for the gift of life is the primary wellspring of all religions, the hallmark of the mystic, the source of true art. To open to it unblocks our base chakra, ignites energy and eros.
For another thing, gratitude is a choice we can make at any moment. It is not dependent on exter¬nal circumstances. Things don't have to meet with our approval or be just to our liking for gratitude
* Jack P. Manno, "Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace: A Model for Global Environmental Governance?" in State Sovereignty, Inter¬national Lau and Ecological Integrity, 2010.
to kick in, strong and real. Indeed, moments of dis¬content and frustration can be the best times for
dialing it up.
Finally, gratitude is subversive to consumer soci¬ety. Late capitalism, fated to strive for growth in corporate profits, conditions us to acquire and to keep on feeling insufficient so we can keep on acquiring. In such a political economy, gratitude is a revolutionary act.
What Freida gave me is a staple of Haudeno-saunee culture, recited extemporaneously at the outset of every council meeting and ceremony. The Mohawks have written down similar words, in an equally short form, so the rest of us can have
it too.
THE MOHAWK THANKSGIVING PRAYER
The People
Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles
of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and
* For more information see wwpeace4turtleisland.0rWPage5/ Thanks.htm.
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all living things. So now we connect our minds and we give greetings and thanks to each other as people.
Now our minds are one.
The Earth Mother
We are all thankful to our mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time. To our mother, we send greet¬ings and thanks.
Now our minds are one.
The Water
We give thanks to all the Waters of the world for quenching our thirst and providing us with strength. Water is life. We know its power in many forms—waterfalls and rain, mists and streams, rivers and oceans. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the spirit of water:
Now our minds are one.
The Fish
We turn our minds to all the Fish life in the water. They were instructed to cleanse and purify the water. They also give themselves to us as food. We are grateful that we can still find pure water. So, we turn now to the Fish and send our greetings and
thanks.
Now our minds are one.
The Plants
Now we turn toward the vast fields of Plant life. As far as the eye can see, the Plants grow, work¬ing many wonders. They make us happy with a multitude of colors and shapes They sustain many life forms. They give us an abundance of materials from which we can make useful things for our lives. Medicinal herbs are the pharmacy of nature and there is an herb for every disease. With our minds gathered together, we give thanks and look forward to seeing Plant life for many future generations to
come.
Now our minds are one.
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The Food Plants
With one mind, we turn to honor and thank all the Plant Foods we harvest from the garden. Since the beginning of time, the grains, vegetables, beans, and berries have helped the people survive. Many other living things draw strength from them too. We gather all the Food Plants together as one and send them a greeting and thanks.
Now our minds are one.
The Medicine Herbs
Now we turn to all the Medicine Herbs of the world. From the beginning, they'-were instructed to take away sickness. They are always waiting and ready to heal us.We are happy there are still among us those special few who remember how to use these plants for healing. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the Medicines and to the keepers of the Medicines.
Now our minds are one.
The Animals
We gather our minds together to send greetings and thanks to all Animal life in the world. They
have many things to teach us as people. Animals give us their lives so that they serve as our food. We see them near our homes and in the deep forests. We are glad they are still here and hope that it will
always be so.
Now our minds are one.
The Trees
We now turn our thoughts to the Trees. The Earth has many families of Trees who have their own instructions and uses. Trees store water and cleanse the air.They are the lungs of the Earth. Some pro¬vide us with shelter and shade, others with fruit, beauty, and other useful things. Many peoples of the world use a Tree as a symbol of peace and strength. With one mind, we greet and thank the Tree life.
Now our minds are one.
The Birds
We put our minds together as one and thank all the Birds who move and fly about over our heads. The Creator gave them beautiful songs. Each day they remind us to enjoy and appreciate life. The Eagle was chosen to be their leader. To all the Birds—
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from the smallest to the largest—we send our joy¬ful greetings and thanks.
Now our minds are one.
The Four Winds
We are all thankful to the powers we know as the Four Winds. We hear their voices in the moving air as they refresh us and purify the air we breathe. They help to bring the change of the seasons. From the four directions they come, bringing us mes¬sages and giving us strength. With one mind, we send our greetings and thanks to the Four Winds.
Now our minds are one.
The Thunderers
Now we turn to the west where our Grandfathers, the Thunder Beings, live. With lightning and thun¬dering voices, they bring with them the water that renews life. We bring our minds together as one to send greetings and thanks to our Grandfathers, the Thunderers.
Now our minds are one Our Eldest Brother, the Sun
We now send greetings and thanks to our Eldest Brother, the Sun. Each day without fail, he travels the sky from east to west, bringing the light of a new day. He is the source of all the fires of life. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to
our Brother, the Sun.
Now our minds are one.
Grandmother Moon
We put our minds together and give thanks to our oldest Grandmother, the Moon, who lights the nighttime sky. She is the leader of women all over the world, and she governs the movements of the ocean tides. By her changing face we measure time, and it is the Moon who watches over the arrival of children here on Earth. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to our Grandmother,
the Moon.
Now our minds are one.
The Stars
We give thanks to the Stars who are spread across the sky like jewelry. We see them in the night, helping the Moon to light the darkness and bring
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dew to the gardens and growing things. When we travel at night, they guide us home.With our minds gathered together as one, we send greetings and thanks to all the Stars.
Now our minds are one.
The Enlightened Teachers
We gather our minds to greet and thank the enlight¬ened Teachers who have come to help throughout the ages.When we forget how to live in harmony, they remind us of the way we were instructed to live in peace as people and remind us of the knowl¬edge that has been given to us.With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to these caring Teachers.
Now our minds are one.
The Creator
Now we turn our thoughts to the Creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on this Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greetings and thanks to the Creator.
Now our minds are one.
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Closing Words
We have now arrived at the place where we end our words. Of all the things we have named, it was not our intention to leave anything out. If something was forgotten, we leave it to each individual to send such greetings and thanks in
their own way.
Now our minds are one.
2] RUSSIA: A Path into the forest
THERE IS a circle dance we do in all of my workshops and classes, whether on systems theory, Buddhism, or deep ecology. We do it to open our minds to the wider world we live in and to strengthen our intention to take part in its heal¬ing. Each time we put on the music and link hands, I think of Novozybkov in the fall of 1992.
Our team of four—two Russians, Harasch and Yuri, my husband Fran and I—had been traveling from one town to another in Belarus and Ukraine, offering workshops to people living in areas con¬taminated by the Chernobyl disaster. Now we had come to our final stop: the town of Novozybkov, an agricultural and light industrial city of 50,000 a hundred miles due east of Chernobyl, in the Bry-ansk region ofRussia.Together with its surrounding
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villages, it is considered to be the most contami¬nated city of its size that is still inhabited.
Drawing on what we learned from years of lead¬ing groups in despair-and-empowerment work, we came to offer, as we put it to the authorities, "psychological tools for coping with the effects of massive, collective trauma." We had entitled the workshops "Building a Strong Post-Chernobyl Culture." The name had a nice Soviet ring to it, but I soon realized that the word "post" was wrong. It suggested that the disaster was over, but it was soon obvious that it was far from over. The radio¬activity was still spreading silently through wind, water, fodder, and food, creating new toxins as it mixed with automotive and industrial pollution, and sickening bodies already weakened from pre¬vious exposures. Our workshops, we soon realized, were not so much to help people recover from a catastrophe as to help them live with an ongoing one.
We came to Novozybkov at the insistence of Harasch; he preferred to be called by his family name rather than his first name, Adolph. A Rus¬sian psychologist practicing in Moscow, he flew ==
Chernobyl within hours of the accident to give support to the operators of the doomed reactor. In the six years that followed, he traveled to towns throughout the region to help the survivors, but no place had touched his heart more deeply than this city and its fate.
On the train, as we headed east from Minsk toward the Russian border, Harasch pulled out the map and told us the story in greater detail. The burning reactor was a volcano of radioactivity when the winds shifted to the northeast, carrying the clouds of poisoned smoke in the direction of Moscow. To save the millions in the metropolitan area, a fast decision at the highest levels of gov¬ernment was, taken to seed the clouds and cause them to precipitate. The towns, fields and forests of the Bryansk region just across the Russian bor¬der from Chernobyl were soaked by an unusually heavy late April rain, bearing intense concen¬trations of radioactive iodine, strontium, cesium, and particles of plutonium. The highest Geiger counter readings were—and still are—around the city of Novozybkov. "The people there were not informed of their government's choice—
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who wants to tell people they're disposable?" said Harasch. "By now it's common knowledge that the clouds were seeded, but it is rarely mentioned, and that silence, too, is part of the tragedy for the people of Novozybkov."
In a big open room of a school for special educa¬tion, fifty people of Novozybkov, mostly teachers and parents, women predominating, were seated in a large circle. Carefully, almost formally dressed, they sat upright, eyes riveted on the speaker, and stood up when they spoke, the way their children stand in school when called to recite.
As I explained the nature and purpose of the work we came to do,Yuri offered swift and cogent translations. A young physician and social activ¬ist, he had used my books extensively in Moscow and had his own things to say about how people can overcome feelings of isolation and powerless¬ness and reconnect to take charge of their lives. To interpret from Russian to English for me, without delaying things, Fran murmured in my ear. By mid¬morning, I was glad for a respite from all the words when I put on the tape of the Elm Dance and demonstrated the simple steps. Then we all joined hands and moved together to the music.
The fifty-four of us were too many to dance in one circle, so we formed concentric rings. The movements are easy to learn, and soon the rings were slowly orbiting to the music; each time we stepped toward the middle, raising our linked hands high, it was like a giant sunflower or a many-pet¬aled lotus.
As we danced I wondered what the mayor of Novozybkov would think to see us. Upon our arrival the previous day, our team had called on him to explain what we'd come to do. The handsome, heavyset man of about forty listened guardedly. "It is good of you to come to undertake psychological rehabilitation," he said.
That was the term now in vogue, "psychologi¬cal rehabilitation." I was glad that the emotional toll of the disaster was at last acknowledged by the authorities, especially since, in the three years
following the accident, doctors were ordered by the Ministry of Health to dismiss its effects.When
people insisted that their sickness and exhaustion, their cancers, miscarriages, and deformed babies,
had something to do with Chernobyl, they were diagnosed as afflicted with "radiophobia," an irra¬tional fear of radiation. Still, the phrase "psycho¬logical rehabilitation" irked me; I considered it an affront to the victims of Chernobyl. It reduced their suffering to a pathology, as if it were some¬thing to be corrected.
How could we convey to the mayor the basic difference in our assumptions? "Mr. Mayor, we do not imagine that we can take away the suffering of your people," I said. "That would be presumptuous on our part. But what we can do is look together at the two main ways we respond to collective suf¬fering. The suffering of a people can bring forth from them new strengths and solidarity. Or it can breed isolation and conflict, turning them against each other. There is always a choice."
At that the mayor's demeanor totally changed. Leaning back in his chair, he spread his hands on the table and said, "There is not a single day, not a single encounter in this office, that does not show the anger stirring just under the surface. Whatever the matter at hand, there is this anger that is barely contained, ready to explode." Then, after a pause, "What can I do to Support your work here?"
On that first day of the workshop, however, it became clear that these people had no desire to talk about Chernobyl and its ongoing presence in their lives. They referred to it in passing as "the event" and went on to speak of other things. People in less contaminated towns had told us in detail of the exhaustion, the chronic infections, the emerging patterns of cancers and birth defects. Now I'd come to this most toxic place to be with these people in their suffering, and they didn't want to talk about it. Even when a married couple took turns leaving in the morning and afternoon, they said nothing 'about their little girl in the hospital, to whose bed¬side they hurried.
The group's silence seemed to say,"This we don't need to talk about.We have to deal with this night¬mare all the rest of our time. Here, at last, we can think about something else. We can look together at how we can achieve some sanity and harmony in family life." On that last point, they were explicit. They wanted to know how to deal with defiant children, sullen and depressed spouses, backbiting neighbors.
Harasch leaned over to me." It's all the same thing," he whispered. "Chernobyl. On the conscious level,
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Chernobyl becomes tension and strife in family relations."
So we focused on family life. It was lively, as peo¬ple took partners to enact encounters between par¬ents and children, switching roles, practicing how to listen to each other. This led them to remember their own childhoods—not only the adolescent frustrations that could help them empathize with their own offspring, but the good times, too. They shared reminiscences of harvest seasons with the grandparents, sleigh parties, and fishing outings to the Dnieper. It all felt so restorative—as if we were partaking together of an excellent and wholesome meal—that Fran set up more exercises where peo¬ple could remember together the old sources of joy.
Why did this suddenly feel so important? "We're strengthening our cultural immune system," I thought to myself, then said it aloud. Just as radia¬tion attacks the integrity of the body, breaking down its capacity for resilience and self-healing, so does it assault our society. Through physical exhaustion and moral despair, it erodes a community's sense of wholeness and continuity. To bolster our cultural immune system, we need to recall who we are and what we love; memories help us do that.
In the evening, before disbanding to go home, we circled once more to the music. A guitar was playing and a woman singing in Latvian, evoking the trees of her land and hopes for its healing. Her words, I was told, disguise other meanings as well—a call for freedom from Soviet occupation and for the will to endure and resist. It didn't matter that we don't know Latvian; it was the lilt of her voice that we danced to and the haunting melody, stately and filled with yearning.
By now the simple steps were so familiar that some people danced with eyes closed. Their faces grew still, as if they were listening for something almost out of-reach. Once they had their own folk dances. When did those traditions die away, rele¬gated to a useless past? Was it under Lenin? Stalin?
Our host family lived in a fourth-floor apart¬ment in a cement housing block. Covering one wall of their parlor was a beautiful woodland scene: sunlight flickering through birch trees into a grassy glade. In the room crowded with overstuffed
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furniture, that wallpaper vista provided a refreshing sense of space and natural beauty. I commented on it that evening as I took tea with our host's father,* Vladimir Ilyich, who happened to be the Novozybkov school superintendent. Sitting there with his ten-year-old grandson, Vladimir showed me the large Geiger counter he carried in his car; it indicated where the poison had newly appeared, and where to tell the children not to play.
Following my eyes, he said, "That is where the children may not go—or any of us, for that mat-ter.You see, the trees hold the radioactivity a long time. And that is very hard for us because, you see, our ancestors were of the forest, our old stories are of the forest. During the Nazi occupation, our partisans fought from the forest. Even in the hard¬est times under Stalin, we went into the woodlands every holiday, every weekend—walking, picnick¬ing, mushrooming. Yes, we were always people of the forest." Quietly he repeated, "people of the for¬est."
"Vladimir Ilyich," I asked him, "when will you be able to go back into the forest?" With a tired little smile he shrugged. "Not in my lifetime," he said. Looking at his grandson, he added," and not in his lifetime either."Then he gestured to the wallpa-per: "This is our forest now."
It was the second morning of our three days together, and the people entered the school assem¬bly room to take each other's hands and, before any words were spoken, move into the Elm Dance. Every fourth measure, between moving right or left, forward or backward, we paused for four beats, gently swaying. To my eyes that morning, we could have been trees, slender trunks swaying from firm roots, our arms, as we raised them, looking like branches meeting, interlacing. Are we dancing for the forests we can no longer enter?
As I circled in step with all the others, I recalled the connections that brought me this dance—how it came to me from Hannelore, my friend in Ger¬many, who had received it from Anastasia, her Ger¬man friend, who had created it from the Latvian song. The dance is not only for the healing of the elm, said Anastasia to Hannelore to me. It is for intention. It is to strengthen our capacity to choose a purpose, and to follow through on the resolve our hearts have made.
That afternoon the grief broke open.
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It happened unexpectedly, at the close of a guided meditation in which I invited these people
of Novozybkov to connect with their ancestors and harvest their strengths. Moving through the room, as on a vast wheel turning, they went backward in time through all preceding generations, withYuri's voice guiding them.Then they stopped and moved forward, retracing their steps through time, in order to gather the gifts of the ancestors. But when we came up to the year 1986, they balked.They did not want to come any further into the present. They refused to accept the horror of what happened to them then—and that very refusal compelled them to speak of it.
Talk exploded, releasing memories of that unac¬ceptable spring: the searing hot wind from the southwest, the white ash that fell from a clear sky, the children running and playing in it, the drenching rain that followed, the rumors, the fear. Remember how it was? Remember, remember? I saw you standing in your doorway, watching. Our team had laid out paper and colored pencils for people to draw the gifts they'd harvested from the ancestors, but now there was one theme only. A number of the drawings featured trees, and a road to the trees, and across the road a barrier, or large X, blocking the way.
When we finally reassembled in one large., cir-.cle, the good feelings that had grown during the workshop shattered in anger, now directed at me. "Why have you done this to us?" a woman cried out. "What good does it do? I would be willing to feel the sorrow—all the sorrow in the world—if it could save my two little daughters from cancer. Each time I look at them I wonder about tumors growing inside them. Can my tears protect them? What good are my tears if they can't?"
Angry, puzzled statements came from all around me. Our time together had been so good until now, so welcome a respite from what their lives had become; why had I spoiled it?
Listening to them all, I felt deeply chastened and silently blamed myself for my insensitivity. What, now, could I possibly say? To lecture on the value of despair work would be obscene. When I finally broke the silence that followed the long outburst, I was surprised that the words that came were not about them or their suffering under Chernobyl, but about the people of Hannelore and Anastasia.
"I have no wisdom with which to meet your
grief. But I can share this with you: After the war that almost destroyed their country, the German people determined they would do anything to spare their children the suffering they had known. They worked hard to provide them a safe, rich life. They created an economic miracle.They gave their children everything—except for one thing. They did not give them their broken hearts. And their children have never forgiven them."
The next morning, as we took our seats after the Elm Dance, I was relieved to see that all fifty had returned. Behind us, still taped to the walls, hung the drawings of the previous afternoon, the sketches of the trees, and the slashing Xs that barred the way to the trees. "It was hard yesterday," were my open¬ing words. "How is it with you now?"
The first to rise was the woman who had expressed the greatest anger, the mother of the two daughters. "I hardly slept. It feels like my heart is breaking open. Maybe it will keep breaking again and again, I don't know. But somehow—I can't explain—it feels right. It connects me to every¬thing and everyone, as if we were all branches of the same tree."
Of the others who spoke after her that morning, one was the man who regularly stepped out to visit his little girl in the hospital. This was the first time he had addressed the whole group, and his bearing was as stolid, his face as expressionless, as ever. "Yes, it was hard yesterday," he said. "Hard to look at the pain, hard to feel it, hard to speak it. But the way it feels today—it is like being clean, for the first time in a long time. "The word he used for "clean," chisti, also means "uncontaminated."
At my turn, I spoke of the World Uranium Hearing that I would attend the following week in Salzburg, Austria. People from around the world were coming to testify about their experiences of nuclear contamination. Navajo and Namibian miners would come, Marshall Islanders, Kazakhs, Western Shoshone downwinders from, testing sites, and many others would speak out about the disease and death that follow in the wake of nuclear power and weapons production.
I wanted these men and women of Novozybkov to know that they are not alone in their suffering, but part of a vast web of brothers and sisters who are determined to use their painful experience to help restore the health of our world. "At the hearing, I
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will speak of you," I said. "I will tell your story to my own people back home. I promise you."
I made that vow because I loved them now, and because I knew they felt forgotten by an outside world that prefers to think that the disaster of Cher¬nobyl is over. As the years pass since that fateful April of 1986, the catastrophe can be wiped from our consciousness as easily as the bulldozers razed the old wooden houses of Novozybkov because, as Vladimir Ilyich said, "wood holds the radioactiv¬ity." And now, as their own government proceeds to build more reactors, it can seem to these families that nothing has been learned from all the suffer¬ing. That may be the hardest thing to bear.
I have kept the promise I made to my friends in Novozybkov. I spoke of them at the World Ura¬nium Hearing, and then to every group I met, every class I taught. I found it easier to share their story when I shared the Elm Dance they loved. In Boston and London, in Bonn and Vancouver, in Tokyo and Sydney, and everywhere else I've led workshops, I ask people to imagine they are danc¬ing with the men and women of Novozybkov,
holding the hands of Vladimir, Elena, Olga, Igor, Misha. I want them to feel, more strongly than is possible through words alone, how their lives are interlaced with the people of Chernobyl.
3] INDIA: An Unexpected Encounter with 'My Mother
ITHOUGHT I knew what compassion was—it is a familiar concept, common to all religions. But in the first summer I spent with the Tibetans in India it appeared in dimensions new to my experience. I wasn't a student of Buddhism when I was living in India with my husband and children and first encountered Tibetan refugees in the foothills of the Himalayas. Nor was it, I thought, interest in the Dharma that drew me back to them the following summer—back to that ragtag collection of monks and lamas and laypeople who, with their leader Khamtrul Rinpoche, had come out from Kham in eastern Tibet. I simply wanted to be around them. I felt a kind of wild gladness in their company, and imagined I could be of some use.
Despite their colorful, stirring ceremonies, they were in difficult straits. Prey to diseases unknown in Tibet, they were living hand to mouth, crowded into rented, derelict bungalows in the hill station of Dalhousie.Wjth no remunerative livelihood or land of their own, they were at risk of being separated from each other and shipped off by Indian authori¬ties to different work projects, road gangs, camps, schools, orphanages, and other institutions being set up for the thousands of refugees pouring out ofTibet fleeing the repressive Chinese occupation. So, along with an American Peace Corps volun¬teer, I worked to help them develop an economic base that would enable them to stay together as a community.
When my children were free from school in Delhi, we moved up to Dalhousie for the sum¬mer. Our goal was to help the refugees draw on their rich artistic heritage to produce crafts for sale and to set up a cooperative marketing scheme. In the process, friendships took root that would change my life. It was clear that the Rinpoches, the incarnate lamas of the community, were great masters ofTibetan Buddhism, but I did not ask for teachings. Given the conditions with which they were coping, and the demands on their attention and health, that seemed presumptuous. I wanted to ease their burdens, not add to them. The pre¬cious hours when we were free to be together were devoted to concocting plans for the commu¬nity, applying for government rations, or choos¬ing wools, dyes, and designs for carpet production. Walking between my rented cottage above Dal-housie's upper circle road and the Khampa com¬munity on a lower ridge a mile below with four children, there was no time for reading scriptures or learning meditation. But the teachings came any¬way. They came in simple, unexpected ways. Here are three of them.
One day, after my morning time with the chil¬dren, I was walking down the mountain to meet with my Khampa friends. Before heading off, I had accompanied my older son, then eleven, to an informal Dharma class for westerners at a school for youngTibetan lamas.The founder of the school, an English-born Tibetan nun, was teaching, and she said, "So countless are all sentient beings, and so many their births throughout time, that each at some point was your mother." She then explained a practice for developing compassion: it consisted
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of viewing each person as your mother in a former life.
I played with the idea as I walked on down the mountain, following a narrow road winding through cedar and rhododendron trees. The astro¬nomical number of lifetimes that the nun's words evoked boggled my mind—yet the intent of this quaint practice, for all of its far-fetched fantasy, was touching. What a pity, I thought, that this was not a practice I could use, since reincarnation hardly featured as part of my worldview.Then I paused on the path as the figure of a laborer approached.
• Load-bearing laborers were a familiar sight on the roads of Dalhousie, and the most heavily laden of all were those who struggled up the mountain with mammoth logs on their backs. They were low-caste mountain folk whose bent, gaunt forms were dwarfed by their burdens, many meters long. I had become accustomed to the sight of them, and accustomed as well to the sense of consternation that it triggered in me. I would usually look away in discomfort, and pass by with internally muttered judgments about the kind of social and economic system that so exploited its own population.
That afternoon I stood stock still. I watched the slight, bandy-legged figure move slowly uphill toward me, negotiating his burden—the trunk of a cedar tree—around the bend. Backing up to prop the rear of the log against the bank and ease the weight of it, the laborer paused to catch his breath. "Namaste," I said softly, and stepped hesitantly toward him. I wanted to see his face. But he was still strapped under his log, and I would have had to crouch down under it to look up at his features—which I ached now to see. What face did she now wear, this dear one who had long ago mothered me? My heart trembled with gladness and distress. I wanted to touch that dark, half-glimpsed cheek, and meet those lidded eyes bent to the ground. I wanted to undo and rearrange the straps that I might share his burden up the mountain. Whether out of respect or embarrassment, I did not do that. I simply stood five feet away and drank in every feature of that form—the grizzled chin, the rag turban, the gnarled hands grasping the forward overhang of log.
The customary comments of my internal social scientist evaporated.What appeared now before me
was not an oppressed class or an indictment of an economic system so much as a distinct, irreplace
able, and incomparably precious being. My mother. My child. A thousand questions rose urgently in my mind. Where was he headed? When would he reach home? Would there be loved ones to greet him and a good meal to eat? Was there rest in Store? Songs? Embraces?
When the man heaved the log off the bank to balance its weight on his back again and proceed uphill, I headed on down the mountain path. I had done nothing to change his life or betray my discovery of our relationship. But the Dalhousie mountainside shone in a different light; the fur¬nishings of my mind had been rearranged, my heart broken open. How odd, I thought, that I did not need to believe in reincarnation for such a thing to happen.
The second incident occurred soon after, on a similar summer Dalhousie afternoon. It was one of the many tea times with Khamtrul Rinpoche, the head of the refugee community from Kham, and two of his younger tulkus or incarnate lamas, when we were devising plans for their craft pro¬duction center. As usual, Khamtul Rinpoche had a stretched canvas propped at his side on which, with his customary, affable equanimity, he would be painting as we drank our tea and talked. His great round face exuded a serene confidence that our deliberations would bear fruit,just as the Bud¬dha forms on his canvas would take form under the fine sable brush in his hands.
I, as usual, was seized by urgency to push through plans for the craft cooperative and requests for grants. I could not know then that this work would eventuate in the monastic settlement of Tashi Jong, where in a few years, the 400-member community of Khampa monks and laypeople would sink their roots in exile.
On this particular afternoon a fly fell into my tea.This was, of course, a minor occurrence. After a year in India I considered myself to be unperturbed by insects, be they ants in the sugar bin, spiders in the cupboard, and even scorpions in my shoes in the morning. Still, as I lifted my cup, I must have registered, by my facial expression or a small grunt, the presence of the fly. Choegyal Rinpoche, the eighteen-year-old tulku who was already becom¬ing my friend for life, leaned forward in sympathy and consternation. "What is the matter?"
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"Oh, nothing," I said. "It's nothing—just a fly in my tea." I laughed lightly to convey my acceptance and composure. I did not want him to suppose that mere insects were a problem for me; after all, I was an experienced traveler in India, relatively free of Western phobias and attachments to modern sani¬tation.
Choegyal crooned softly, in apparent commiser¬ation with my plight," Oh, oh, a fly in the tea." "It's
no problem," I reiterated; smiling at him reassur
ingly. But he continued to focus great concern on my cup. Rising from his chair, he leaned over and
inserted his finger into my tea. With great care he
lifted out the offending fly—and then exited from the room. The conversation at the table resumed. I
was eager to secure Khamtrul Rinpoche's agree¬ment on plans to secure the high-altitude wool he desired for the carpet production.
When Choegyal Rinpoche reentered the cot¬tage he was beaming. "He is going to be all right," he told me quietly. He explained how he had placed the fly on the leaf of a branch by the door, where his wings could dry. And the fly was still alive, because he began fanning his wings, and we could confidently expect him to take flight soon
That is what I remember of that afternoon—not the agreements we reached or plans we devised, but Choegyal's report that the fly would live. And I recall, too, the laughter in my heart. I could not, truth to tell, share Choegyal's dimensions of com-passion, but the pleasure in his face revealed how much I was missing by not extending my self-con¬cern to all beings, even to flies. The very notion that it was possible gave me boundless delight.
My third lesson that summer also occurred casually, in passing. In order to help the Tibetans I wanted to tell their story to the world—a story I was just beginning to discover. J had stunning photos of the Tibetans in exile, of their faces and crafts, and the majestic lama dances of their lineage. I envisaged an illustrated article for a popular peri¬odical, like National Geographic. In order to hook Western sympathies and enlist Western support, such an article, I figured, should include the hor¬rors from which these refugees had escaped. Stories of appalling inhumanity and torture on the part of the Chinese occupation had come to me only
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peripherally, in snatches, from laypeople and other Westerners.The Rinpoches themselves were reluc¬tant to describe or discuss them.
I presented my argument to Choegyal Rin-poche, the most accessible and confiding of the
tulkus. He had been a mature thirteen-year-old
when the soldiers invaded his monastery, and he had his own memories of what they had done to
his monks and lamas. I suspected a voyeuristic ele
ment in my eagerness to hear the ghastly tales—a voyeurism bred by the yellow journalism of Sun
day supplements in my New York childhood, and by horror movies of arcane Chinese torture. Still I knew that such accounts would arrest the atten¬tion of Western readers and rally support for the Tibetan cause.
Only when I convinced Choegyal that sharing these memories with the Western public would aid the plight ofTibetan refugees did he begin to dis
close some of what he had seen and suffered at the hands of the Chinese before his flight from Tibet. The stories came in snatches of conversations, as we paused outside the new craft production cen¬ter or walked over to the monastery in its tern
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porary, rented quarters. Only then did he divulge some of what had occurred. Many of his revela
tions, the forms of intimidation, coercion, and tor¬ture employed, have become public knowledge by
now, although reports from Amnesty International
and the International Council of Jurists may not have the heart-churning immediacy of Choegy
al's words. The lesson I learned, however, and that will stay forever with me, is not about the human capacity for cruelty.
I was standing with Choegyal under a rhodo¬dendron tree, the sunlight flickering on his face
through the leaves and through blossoms the color
of his robes. He had just divulged what must have been the most painful of his memories—what the
Chinese military had done to his monks in the
great prayer hail, as his teachers hid him on the mountainside above the monastery. I gasped with
shock, and breathed hard to contain the grief and anger that arose in me. Then I was stilled by the look he turned on me, with eyes that shone with unshed tears.
"Poor Chinese' he murmured.
With a shudder of acknowledgment, I realized
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that the tears in his eyes were not for himself or for his monks or for his once great monastery of Dugu in the land of Kham in Eastern Tibet. Those tears were for the destroyers themselves.
"Poor Chinese," he said, "they make such bad karma for themselves."
I cannot emulate that reach of compassion, but I have seen it. I have recognized it. I know now that it is within our human capacity. And that changes for me the face of life.
LOVING KINDNESS MEDITATION
Loving kindness, or metta, is the first of the four "Heavenly Abodes," or brahmaviharas. The others are compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Metta is a staple of Buddhist practice the world over. The nun who founded the Young Lamas' School in Dalhousie first taught it to me. Here is a version that I have adapted for use in the West.
Close your eyes and begin to relax, exhaling to expel ten¬sion. Now center in on the normalfiow of the breath, let¬ting go of all extraneous thoughts as you passively watch the breathing-in and breathing-out.
Now call to mind someone you love very dearly. . . in your mind's eye see theface of that beloved one. . .silently speak her or his name.... Feel your love for this being, like a current of energy coming through you.... Now let yourseif experience how much you want this person to befree from fear; how intensely you desire that this person be released from greed and ill will,from confusion and sorrow and the causes of suffering.... That desire, in all its sincerity and strength, is metta, the great loving kindness....
Continuing to feel that warm energy flow coming through the heart, see in your mindc eye those with whom you share your daily life—family members, close friends and colleagues, the people you live and work with.... Let them appear now as in a circle around you. Behold them one by one, silently speaking their names. . . and direct to each in turn that same current of loving kindness.... Among these beings may be some with whom you are uncomfort¬able, in conflict or tension. With those especially, experi¬ence your desire that each befreefrom fear and hatred ,free from greed and ignorance and the causes of suffering.
Now allow to appear, in wider concentric circles, your rela¬tions, and your acquaintances.... Let the beam of loving kindness play on them as well, pausing on the faces that
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appear randomly in your mind's eye. With them, as well, experience how much you want theirfreedom from greed, fear, hatred, and confusion, how much you want all beings to be happy.
Beyond them, in concentric circles that are wider yet, appear now all beings with whom you share this planet-time. Though you have not met, your lives are inter-connected in ways beyond knowing. To these beings as well, direct the same powerful current of loving kindness. Experience your desire and your intention that all beings awakenfrom fear and hatred,from greed and confusion... that all beings be released from suffering....
As in the ancient Buddhist meditation, we direct the lov¬ing kindness now to all the "hungry ghosts," the restless spirits that roam in suffering, still prey tofrar and con-fusion. May they find rest.. .may they rest in the great loving kindness and in the deep peace it brings.
By the power of our imagination let us move out now beyond our planet, out into the universe, into other solar systems, other galaxies. The current of loving kindness is not affected by physical distances, and we direct it now, as if aiming a beam of light, to all centers of conscious l!fe. . . . And to all sentient beings everywhere we direct our heartfelt wish that they, too, be free offear and greed, of hatred and confusion and the causes of suffering.... May all beings be happy.
Now, as iffrom out there in the interstellar distances, we turn and behold our own planet, our home.... We see it suspended there in the blackness of space, a blue and white jewel planet turning in the light of its sun.... Slowly we approach it, drawing nearer, nearer, returning to this part of it, this region, this place.... And as you approach this place, let yourse!f see the being you know best of all.. .the person it has been given you to be in this lifetime. . . . You know this person better than anyone else does, know its pain and its hopes, know its need for love, know how hard it tries.... Let the face of this being, your own face, appear before you. . .speak the name you are called in love.... And experience, with that same strong energy current of loving kindness, how deeply you desire that this being be free from fear, released from greed and hatred, liberated from ignorance and confusion and the causes of suffering.... The great loving kindness linking you to all beings is now directed to your own self. ..know now the fullness of it.
4] AUSTRALIA: The Rainforest Recognizes Itself
THE NORWEGIAN philosopher and mountain climber Arne Naess coined the term "deep ecology" in the early 1970s to denote the radical interrelatedness of all life forms and to summon the environmental movement beyond human-centered goals. Deep ecology broadens one's sense of identity and responsibility, freeing us to experi¬ence what Naess calls the "ecological self." I Was already familiar with these notions when I went to Australia in 1985, but only there did I feel their full impact.
I was offering workshops to Australian activ¬ists who were resisting nuclear testing, uranium mining, and the logging of their last old-growth forests. The group work I offered was known as despair-and-empowerment; it helped free them
from burnout and kindled their courage and soli¬darity What I was offering seemed the best I could do, until I met forest activist John Seed.
He was born Janos Kaempfner in Budapest at the end of the Second World War and had grown up in Australia, trying out a variety of occupations before he cofounded a Buddhist-based commu-nity—Bodhi Farm. Three years before we met, his life was seized by a larger purpose when he found himself defending the Nightcap Range, a vestige of the great primordial rainforests of Gondwanaland, Australia's mother continent.
"I'll show it to you," he said at the end of my weekend workshop in northeastern New South Wales.We spent the next day together.Walking into the green-lit stillness of that rainforest, with only birdcalls and water splashes breaking the silence, I tried to picture the life-altering confrontation that had taken place there—the screaming chainsaws, the crashing of the trees as they fell, the police megaphones, the songs and shouts of the protesters. The activists had been fighting for time—and they halted the logging long enough for their demand for an environmental impact statement to wend its way through the courts and government offices down in Sydney.That's when John discovered what he was.
Standing there facing the bulldozers, what he sensed above all was the forest rising behind him. As he described it to me, he felt himself rooted in the immensely larger being that had brought him forth. That primordial cradle of life now claimed him. All the roles he had played until then—IBM systems analyst, sculptor, hippie farmer—were sub¬sumed in a vaster and truer identity. "I was no lon¬ger John Seed protecting the rainforest. I was the rainforest protecting herself through this little piece of the humanity I cradled into existence."
"That's the ecological self talking," I marveled as we followed the winding, spongy path back out to the road.
Until I met John Seed, deep ecology had been a useful concept. Now it assumed a different reality. John, I was soon to realize, took the human-centeredness, or anthropocentrism, of our culture more seriously than 'I had; and he let me see the clarity and vitality that arise when we consciously shake loose from it.
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Now John was taking me on to the land of Bodhi Farm. He wanted to show me the Rainforest Infor¬mation Centre that he had launched after his expe¬rience in the Nightcap Range. An old, vine-draped double-decker bus—it was almost invisible among the trees—but there he kept his finger on the pulse of efforts to defend forests around the Pacific Rim. He described new forms of nonviolent resistance and new economic alternatives. Small, sustainable logging ventures, like the "walkabout sawmill," gave people an alternative to selling off their ancestral lands to multinational corporations.
But there was no way, John said, that these efforts, even if they were multiplied tenfold, one hundredfold, could save Earth's forests. Look at the world demand for lumberand the collusion of local poli¬ticians with foreign industries. Look at the accel¬erating pace of deforestation. Even if activists won every battle they waged, it would hardly make a dent. John saw this with total realism, yet kept on giving his life to this work. "I do it," he said, "to help catalyze a shift in consciousness; that's all that can save us."
I looked at him wonderingly. "What do you do with the despair?" I asked him.
"When I feel despair:" he said, "I try to remem¬ber that it's not me,John Seed, who's protecting the rainforest.The ràinforest is protecting itself, through me and my mates, through this small part of it that's recently emerged into human thinking."
Ah, of course, that changes everything.You would know you were supported by a power greater than your own, you'd feel graced.
"How can we adapt despair-and-empowerment work to free us from the notion that we humans are the crown of creation, that we have claims on the rest of life?" John challenged me. We were squat¬ting on the bank of a forest pond a short distance from the bus, absently watching the waterbugs and considering a swim.
"The work we did on the weekend was power¬ful," he told me. "It blasted away our numbness, uncovered our passion for life. But it's missing a piece.We're still prey to the anthropocentrism that's destroying our world."
So what would it take, we wondered, as we stripped and dove into the pond. What kind of
group work could move us beyond our shrunken human self-interest? The question turned in my mind as I swam down into the brown water.
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The answer that emerged was the Council of All Beings. By the time we dried off and dressed, it was taking shape in our minds: a simply structured ritual, where people step aside from their human identities and speak on behalf of other life forms. We planned it with growing enthusiasm but had
little idea of what it would become in reality; in interaction with others.
"I'll do it during the week-long near Sydney," I said, referring to the final training workshop sched
uled for the eve of my departure to the States, "bt you've got to promise to be there."
It was easier than I expected. On a midweek after¬noon, I simply invited the forty trainees- to let themselves be chosen by another life form. From cardboard and paints, mud and leaves, we niade masks. To the beat of a drum, we moved in proces¬sion to a wide gorge and gathered in a circle on flat
boulders downstream from a waterfall We identi¬fied ourselves, one by one.
"I am Wild Goose," I said. "I speak for migratory birds."
"I am Wheat, and I speak for all cultivated grains;" said the next.
"I am Red Kangaroo, I speak for the large mar¬supials."
"I am Mycorrhizae, the fungal network inter¬connecting the roots of trees in the forest." That was John.
As the life forms, we spoke of what we saw hap¬pening to our world, our lives. Laughter bubbled up at the implausibility of what we were attempting, and tears came, too, for the losses we were allow¬ing ourselves to feel. The depth of feeling and the playfulness mixed well, as they do with children.
"I speak for Weeds—weeds, a name humans give to plants they do not use. I am vigorous and strong. I love to thrust and seed—even through concrete. Pushing through paving, I bring moisture and life. I heal the burned and wounded Earth. Yet I am doused with poison now, as are the creatures living in me, through me."
"I amWoompoo Pigeon. I live in the last pockets of rainforest. I call my song through the giant trees and the cool green light. But I no longer get a reply. Where are my kind? Where have they gone? I hear only the echo of my own call."
"I am Mountain, I am ancient, strong, and solid, built to endure. But now I am being dynamited
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and mined, my forest skin is ripped off me, my top¬soil washed away, my streams and rivers choked." One upstart species was at the root of all this trouble—its representatives had better come and hear this council. So we took turns, a few at a time, putting down our masks and moving to the center of the circle, as humans. There we sat facing out¬ward, forced to listen only. No chance to divert ourselves with explanations or excuses or analyses
of economic necessities.
When I sat for a spell in the center, a human in the presence of other life forms, I felt stripped. I wanted to protest. "I'm different from the loggers and the miners, the multinational CEOs and the consumers they fatten on,"j wanted to say. "I am a sensitive, caring human; I meditate and lead work
shops and recycle."
But because I wasn't permitted to speak and defend myself, the words I would have filled the air with began to evaporate in my mind. I saw them for what they were—essentially irrelevant. The deep ecology that had so lured me with its affirmation of my interconnectedness with other species now forced me to acknowledge my embeddedness in my own. If I was linked to the wild goose and the
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mycorrhizae, I was far more linked to the invest¬ment speculators and compulsive shoppers. Shared accountability sank in.
But by the very plans I had devised with John, I wasn't allowed to stay sitting there as a human, marooned in human culpability. As the others had, I moved back from the center to the periphery, to see and speak from that wider context. From here we could see more clearly the isolation in which the humans imagine themselves to exist, and the fear that seizes them—a fear that generates greed and panic. For our own survival we—as their brother-sister species—must help them. "As Weeds I offer you humans some tenacity. However hard the ground, we don't give up! We know how to keep at it, resting when needed, keeping on, until suddenly—crack!-we're in the sunlight again. That is what we give you—Our persistence."
"I offer you peace and stability," said Mountain. "Come to me at my time to rest, to dream.WithOut dreams you lose vision and hope. Come, too, for my solid strength?'
Each being spoke, often more than once, and what a harvest it was! Much of the gladness in the giving came from the fact that the powers we
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named were already within us, and we were bring
ing them to consciousness Could we even speak them, were that not so?
INVOCATION by John Seed
We ask for the presence of the spirit of Gala
and pray that the breath of life continues to caress this planet home.
May we grow into true understanding_ a deep understanding that inspires us to Protect the tree on which we bloom, and the water; soil, and atmosphere without which we have no existence
May we turn inward and stumble upon our true roots in the intertwining biology of this exquisite planet. May nourishment and power Pulse through these roots, and fierce determina¬tion to continue the billion-year dance.
May love well up and burst forth from our hearts.
May there be a new dispensation of pure and powerful consciousness and the charter to witness and facilitate the healing of the tattered biosphere.
We ask for the presence of the spirit of Gaia to be with us here. To reveal to us all that we need to see, for our own highest good and for the highest good of all.
We call upon the spirit of evolution, the miraculous force that inspires rocks and dust to weave themselves into biology. You have stood by us for millions and billions of years—do not forsake us now. Empower us and awaken in us pure and dazzling creativityYou that can turn scales into feathers, seawater to blood, caterpillars to butterflies—metamorphose our species, awaken in us the powers that we need to survive the present crisis and evolve into more eons of our solar journey.
Awaken in us a sense of who we truly are: tiny ephemeral blossoms on the Tree of Life. Make the purpose and destiny of that tree our own purpose and destiny.
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Fill each of us with love for our true Self, which includes all of the creatures and plants and landscapes of the world. Fill us with a powerful urge for the well-being and continual unfolding of this Self.
May we speak in all human councils on behalf of the animals and plants and landscapes of the Earth.
May we shine with a pure inner passion that will spread rapidly through these leaden times.
May we all awaken to our true and only nature—none other than the nature of Gala, this living planet Earth.
We call upon the power that sustains the planets in their orbits, that wheels our Milky Way in its 200-million-year spiral, to imbue our personali¬ties and our relationships with harmony, endur¬ance, and joy. Fill us with a sense of immense time so that our brief, flickering lives may truly reflect the work of vast ages past and also the
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millions of years of evolution whose potential lies in our trembling hands.
• stars, lend us your burning passion.
• silence, give weight to our voice. We ask for the presence of the spirit of Gaia.
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