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Look at the condition
of this beautiful bird above my message; it’s anguish
so clear, just look and feel it. Yes it is a spiritual, divine
living creatures but it will end its life being weighed down
by black crude oil, and soon it will drown, not simply because
of the oil spill, but underneath it, because of my reliance,
lack of appreciation and often overuse of our precious resources.
I must wake up to the impact that my consumptive way of life
has on this precious planet. This photo touches such deep sadness
that I am still weeping and I am begging forgiveness from this
pelican, and every pelican, from every fish, fowl, plant, fisherman,
farmer, kid who used to play on that beach and all the others
affected by this disaster. I am asking forgiveness for my lack
of stewardship of our amazing earthly home and my apathy to
think I could wait for someone else to do it.
God
I feel tormented by this feeling which wells up in me - the
pain of all these creatures. I turn my own anguish to compassion
through love and through determination to be part of the solution.
How can I change to give more than I take, to appreciate and
protect what is precious? I pray. For 2 months now I have
had in my daily prayers the well being of our planet, the
harmony and cooperation between humans and all the rest of
living beings and the ecosystem that keeps us alive, and the
solution for the rapid clean up of this tragedy. And I feel
I must do more.
On the one hand we can sit and watch ‘planet
earth’ or go the movie OCEAN and thrill to the natural
beauty and rave about the exquisite nature or the filming
of our natural home, and then in the next moment we are planting
lawns, watering the sidewalk half the time and spilling this
precious life giving substance - WATER - down the drain. We
rail at the oil spill, the culpability of British Petroleum,
and yet we won’t turn off the sprinklers earlier, plant
drought resistant plants and ground cover, and we still leave
lights on, drive to the store a 5 minute walk away and avoid
carpools cause they aren’t so convenient.
I know it is challenging to consume less, to
give more attention to the real true meaning of life rather
than getting caught needing a bigger this or more of that
– it is so easy to justify our excesses….most
everyone does it and we feel the safety in numbers.
My father used to tell me, when, as a 18 year
old, I would rail on about the inequality between people or
the need for more conscious use of our resources, that, it
would only be from a HUGE CRISIS that people would be willing
to change our habits of comfort, style, power and control.
How much bigger a crisis do we need than this? Where is the
solution to this oil spill? With all our genius we cannot
be responsible for the messes we make. The whole thing brings
me to my knees.
If, as a society, we do not respond with a
personal reduction of dependency of oil based resources then
the next crisis will overshadow any challenge we have faced
so far. And what is so weird is that at some level we all
know it – we are being like ostriches. If we don’t
change now, all of our individual lives will be really threatened
(not just in the 5 states around the Gulf) and we will soon
have to stop everything and deal. At that point of graver,
closer-to-home crisis, we will all be trying to bargain with
Life saying, “ just give us chance to do it right, please
don’t take my way of life or livelihood, the safety
and health of my family, or have my loved ones suffer. Show
me what to do, I’ll do it…anything….just
give us another chance” . We won’t be worried
about how many bedrooms we have yet to remodel, or the next
bigger RV or weekend toy, or the fancy car we just bought
on credit, or any little manipulation of people, places or
things; we will be reduced to basic understanding that material
stuff isn’t it and not worth sacrificing our entire
humanity for. Hard as it is to face that we must change our
way of life, if we want the children of today and their children’s
children to inherit a world we would recognize and love, then
we must make different choices based on different priorities.
If we don’t do it ourselves, and soon, it will be done
for us.
THINK ABOUT IT……what
will it take for us to wake up and do our best to avert the
crisis we are hurtling towards. In 5 - 10 years and the dye
is cast, will the children of the world ask “wow, how
did you do it?” or will they ask “how could you
have let this happen?” For me, oddly enough it is this
picture of this bird, its wings in the angel position, dripping
with futility and despair. Through this I must see my faith
and conviction. And I do.
There is an answer: it lies
in common sense to be conservative in our use of resources
and proper disposal of waste, common decency to guide us to
a new world order based on harmony, mutual respect and support,
equality and a way of living in partnership with Life, each
other and the planet itself, Mother Earth, and a common focus
to become willing to be the change we want to experience and
leave for future generations. This can reverse the course
we are now on.
There is an answer, it lies in our hearts
– to find how to be more loving to ourselves, to each
other, our earthly home and all its inhabitants. Truly, love
is the answer, harmony is the path, cooperation is the practice.
If we put our hand on our heart now, in this feeling and awareness
of the danger we see everywhere and if we ask our own inner
wisdom, what would love do know, what is the heart’s
direction to us, we will each hear our own answers and they
will be uplifting, inspiring, practical. If we first seek
the wisdom of Life, then if we share our answers and seek
to live by those answers and support each other (with no shame
and blame for the past), then we have a good chance. In this
way we make ourselves available to life - to be the place
It expresses more in order, abundantly and harmony.
The answer is up to me…it is up
to us.
What do our hearts tell us now???
If you want to send me your answers, I will
put them on our new website created intuitively, which sits
and waits for information. Send your inspiration, your ideas,
your commitments, your questions to me at info@spiritandpartners.
It will take coming together of people in community, supporting
each other to stand in peace, love and dedication to be the
change the world needs now.
www.spiritandpartners.org
With deep compassion and even deeper hope and
faith is what is possible –
I am
Barbara Leger
And you might visit NRDC site at http://www.nrdc.org/thisgreenlife/
and find great simple steps to take to be part of the solution
– I just joined with a small donation-
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