permaculture

[Tommy Tolson <healinghawk@earthlink.net>]

Katey wrote:
> Tommy, I agree with your assessment of the future - it will get pretty 
> ugly.  And we each have the choice to approach that reality in our own 
> way.  I think it is partly due to being a cancer survivor, but also 
> being a permaculturist, that i have changed my outlook of the times to 
> come.  Laughter is glorious.  It doesn't mean i don't understand or am 
> not actively participating in solution-oriented endeavors.  But i just 
> plain don't have the time anymore to waste in negativity.  It does not 
> assist in changing the status quo and prevents me from being the best 
> warrior i can be for Gaia.
>
> Losing 20 species a week is far more depressing to me than the loss of a 
>   small portion of a single species.  Yes, even if i am one of them.
>
>   
Indeed, negativity is an energy sink.  I think of it like a car's 
electrical system.  I need negativity to ground me, but it's positivity 
that gets things done.  To work, the circle must meet at both ends.  In 
order to heal, we have to know the truth about what happened to us but 
we don't need to wallow about in it and sling it all over anyone who 
gets close enough.  The last thing I want to do is render people 
inoperative by doing the "Basically, we're fucked" thing to them.  I 
want to say the ecological truth but I want action to result rather than 
depressed lethargy. 
My ex-wife survived breast cancer and felt totally resistant to adapting 
to a rigorous ecological assessment of the near term.  She preferred 
being one of the statistics to getting clear about what her kids from a 
previous marriage to a very rich man faced.  I never learned to honor 
that choice she made, because I was into preparing for a life in 
planetary resource depletion.  So we divorced.  We're friends, I still 
love her, but I can't live with her nor she with me.  It's one of the 
sadnesses of my life. 
When I consider what I owe my Sacred Family, the land and its creatures 
(including humans), I can't figure how to let go and let it not matter 
that she, and those of the same mindset, will be lost, perhaps even 
needlessly.   It's the sort of thing Joanna Macy talks about in 
/Returning to Life/.  How do we know the truth and continue acting from 
the power of love for all living things?  She and John Seed do their 
Council of All Beings.  The Cuyamunge Institute does their Masked Trance 
Dance.  Several Native tribes do the Ghost Dance.  How do we grieve 
efficiently enough to pretty much stay in the saddle?
Warriors.  Yes.  We choose our battles with care. 
It's a hard thing to accept that nature is not partial to humans.  We 
may be (or may not be) the only species that is conscious of nature, but 
that's us, not nature.  Anthropomorphism is the logical error that says 
nature loves humans more than any other species.  When pond scum is more 
ecologically useful than most humans today, one really has to wonder.
Thanks for your response.

Tommy Tolson
Austin, TX