2012

Promise is a granddaughter born

with a spiky do, universe grins!

Tis the year of Transition, setting the direction for the Transformation. However as time was a system made for tracking seasons, it is a cumbersome tool for things with no moon phases or fixed points. Good labels are a matter of hindsight, but without foresight we fail to get out of ruts.

So playing with energy and intent, here is my take:

Transition is the step up and out, towards hope, towards global healing. Transformation is the next illumination.

In other words, transitions, transformations, epiphanies and evolutionary leaps are constantly popping up all over the "timeline." Each person progresses at the speed they are able. i think starts, stops and do-overs are how we learn best. It's a timeline through a kaleidoscope.

Transforming a whole wrong minded culture is big. But we must in order to thrive as individuals. This is the new paradigm of the whole.

However, we are culturally brainwashed. Some of it like, "thou shall not steal" is still relevant, but a lot of it is not so much. Much of what we are taught is stuff deemed necessary by "they that rule," so "they" can continue their good thing. This means we get a twisted version of facts to swallow. (Funny as designing for comfort practically screams of developmental stagnation which explains the rut! Our brains thrive on challenge, but we have allowed this lesser state to hunker down and settle in)

Back to time; on the way past Rome, feudalism and into the Renaissance there were tweaks. Enlightenment brought on revolutions and the new elitists joined the ranks. (Our Founding Fathers and their wealthy alliances)

The profit minded industrialists became the new players on the block. They quickly aligned with regulators and policy makers. Their "success" led the west to see the world as a vast machine. Life "the mechanism" could be controlled, organized and counted. Whereas nature was viewed as chaotic and frightening, machines helped humans feel powerful, safe and in control of their domain. These humans felt they were winning the "war against nature."

Now we understand that way of thinking is about to take down the life support systems of the planet. While corporations shuffle to own the pieces of our collective biosphere, We the People are standing up and yelling "Back Off!" (India suing Monsanto!! after Dow and Bhopal she has had enough, Occupy Wall Street going global, more)

We are not as suicidal or as brain dead as the systems we are plugged into. We are part of the blooming, messy, natural cycle. We are Nature. We are not machines we are far MORE! The obvious doesn't wear a business uniform or khakis, the obvious wears truth as best it can.

AKA, the system we (living beings) set up has declared war on itself, is this classic or what?

OK so the transition is to start on the healing. We need to wake up from the e-drugged state of
* dependent energy into an appreciative and mindful energy. We all have a lot to do. This is good, this is change.

This is something we can do for ourselves and others. Start with the professionals, read and explore your personal territory while you learn. Then when you feel secure enough in your knowing heart, peel back the covers and share. Invite others to do the same.

Our friends and loved ones know us best. We can start there to build the trust and the spaces for healing in our lives. Then get braver and speak up at every opportunity. Change waits for no one, it is the direction that counts.

The shows i am doing with the Kerf International Exhibits and fashionRIP Project's "Peoples Media Arts Uprising 2012" are experiments in all of this. I know only from where i am, and i know i must participate to nurture the more, and so it goes. So we all go.

2012, welcome. May we learn together to thrive as whole beings in a living, energy filled, dynamic Universe.

*
Dependent energy: our food system (esp refined sugars and carbs, now GMOs and pharma frankens- patents mean $, nature is "free" until Dow/Gates pull out heritage disaster food relief from the Arctic..OMG! what price are "we" willing to pay, who are "WE?") oil and petrol chemical by products (plastics in medical devices to alleviate the symptoms of diseases caused by our Wars and from the toxins in the plastic life cycle) apps on smart phones hooked to corporate vampires, too much Facebook, too little face time. Our dependencies (addictions) on created needs will never be satisfied here, even if we had an infinite planet to carry out the experiment, which we do not, so the game is over! Please everyone, help us all move on!!

Peoples Media Arts Uprising 2012

Target Love Need
Aim at Insecurities
Hide it in "fashion"

PMAU 2012 will be meeting at the Greenwood Library this Sunday the 11th at 2:00 pm. Please show up if you are even remotely interested.

FYI:"Occupy Wall Street" was coined by the man behind the magazine Adbusters.

"On July 13th, Kalle Lasn, and colleagues created a twitter tag #occupywallstreet."

They made a poster showing a ballerina on top of the bull sculpture near Wall Street.

"For some they were just words and images, For Lasn they were tools to begin remodeling the "mental environment" to create a new "meme," ( transcendent cultural message coined by Richard Dawkins)

"There's a number of ways to wage a "meme" war, Lasn said, "I believe the most powerful thing of all is aesthetics." (William Yardley, The New York Times via Seattle Times Dec 4, 2011))

Peoples Media Arts Uprising 2012 is not a war -it is a means of enlightenment. When the untrue beliefs and false premises of the old industrial, business model are exposed, they whither. They shrink in the light of today's knowledge.

However, the power of aesthetics is amazing either way. If Occupy is the battle, then PMAU (Peeps- Me And U ?) is the lamp. We want to shine light on the information that marketers avoid and governments ignore. Our health and the health of the whole is at stake and that is something too precious to leave to the memes of war.

The tools that made the problem need to be put into the hands of healers. Money is one of those tools and Occupiers are demanding a reevaluation of its use. And in asking for economic justice the whole of the system is being confronted for its unsustainable , callous and narrow viewpoint that promoted an American lifestyle of mass consumption. We have come to this and it is time to wise up the whole and heal. And so it is!

Emphasis

tree cozies in Seattle

After Monday's aha, this illustrates the "aware" dynamic of how keeping faith with the universe, or how "life calling to life' seems to respond well when given attention.

(Cage the Elephant -Shake Me Down playing in the background - ok as my Senior Synthesis oral presentation starts with the image of Banksy's Elephant, this just got better! )

Tuesday morning on the bus to Tacoma, I opened the book, "Women Pioneers for the Environment" by Mary Joy Breton (1998) and started reading from that chance page.

The book is one of the texts for my class "the Power of One" taught by Dr D. Anderson (Psychology) and Dr F. Soloman (Environmental Biology) at The Evergreen State College (Tacoma branch) -Like!

So I found myself reading about Mary Sinclair, a scientist who took on Dow Chemical and the Nuclear Industry.

"In 1967, ..Sinclare's interest in nuclear power became more than scientific. She learned that the local public utility company planned to construct a nuclear power plant two miles from her home in an area of 100,000 people. Dow Chemical, the city's primary employer (ouch) had contracted to purchase nuclear power from the utility. Sinclair knew that there were still serious problems with the technology. She recalls, "This is when my concerns for the fate of the earth in a nuclear age really brgan to take ahold of me. " (p 88) She decided to take her concerns to the community.

"The combined level of power and money represented by Dow and the local electric company intimidated the people of Midlands. (Michigan) One in six residents worked for Dow. Sinclair herself had been a research librarian for the compnay and she also did freelance technical writing for it. The utility and the chemical maker launched an intensive campaign in the community to promote the plant. Sinclair could not believe the picture they presented:

"What enraged me the most...was the fact that so many lies were being told to the public about such grave matters....I was enraged that without resolving these grave issues, huge financial commitments were being made to promote and spread this technology without full disclosure to the public of the impacts to them..and future generations"

To stimulate discussions of her concerns in the community she wrote what she believed to be mild -sounding letters to the Midlands Daily news. Hostility exploded on all sides. friends stopped talking to her and avoided her in shops and on the street....After her first letter to the newspaper, Sinclair could not get a job in Midland.

Facing ridicule and social ostracism in Midlands, Sinclair began an intense study of the nuclear safety issue. Staying on top of a highly technical subject required an enormous effort. She worried she might be wrong. If so , she would willingly admit it." (p 89)

"She attended a seminar in NYC on nuclear energy where she heard objective, unfiltered information." She also discovered other citizens groups throughout the country. Sinclair photocopied the best papers from the seminar and mailed them to 20 scientists she knew at Dow. "One or 2 scientists at Dow called her, admitting they agreed, but said they could n0t speak out because it would jeopardize their jobs." (p 90)

The local newspaper refused to print any more of her letters, telling her she would have to buy advertising space to air her views.

The licensing hearings for the construction permit took two years. "In the main, the delay arose because serious problems kept surfacing throughout the nuclear industry." (emergency cooling tests failed, more serious effects at allowable levels of radiation than had been thought, more) In spite of all this the AEC granted the building permit. (1972)

Sinclair continued, getting her Masters in environmental communications from the University of Michigan and later a doctorate from the university's School of Natural Resources.

"Sinclair believes that because women are the bearers of life they think more deeply than men about children's health." (p 92) Men were motivated by the idea that they wouldn't be able to insure their homes against a nuclear accident. Eventually she got a few other people involved in the work.

Technology and construction delays began to erode Dow's enthusiasm. However under threat of suit by the electric company Dow just renegotiated the contract instead of backing out. Sinclair and her citizens group acting as intervenes, had accumulated and documented 18 reasons the operating permit should be denied.

In a 1983 public meeting, Mary Sinclair finally heard cheers not jeers and
as of 1996, Mary Sinclair was still actively involved with nuclear issues.

"We have a safer world because of her and others like her." (p 94)

Thank you, Mary and thank you universe.

This is why the Peoples Media Arts Uprising 2012 is important. We need to share our knowledge, our stories and connect. What happened in Midlands is a micro of a macro drama that is taking place around the world. Looking to profit at the expense of health and well being is a cancer that must be stopped before life's ability to renew is totally fouled.

Today

twice is nice.
Real signs near Elephant Car Wash, Antioch in Seattle.

Peoples Media Arts Uprising 2012

fog lifting

I have spent a little time at Occupy Seattle though my protest days are over. I agree that large gatherings get attention and help people unite for a cause, feel empowered, hopefully heard and even more hopefully, will result in some real changes.

However, so far, it seems the changes made in social policy have not actually changed the economic construct (class system, exploitative inequity that protects the wealth of the few- see Howard Zinn). In fact keeping people believing in the American Dream has been necessary in order to keep business as usual.

The illusion of meritocratic and just access to the Dream is a myth perpetuated by just enough examples to keep the tease. Now i think the very idea of amassing wealth needs to be opened up for discussion. Wealth pulled from resources leaves a gap and now that gap is showing up in the declining health of many people, the environment and most other systems nature provides to enable life, all life. What are we doing?

So, I am playing with the idea that protest and reactionary means, even when not in a direct confrontational scene are aspects of the male archetype. That archetype has been ruling "civilization" for a long time and is in terrible need of balance.

"Peoples Media Arts Uprising 2012" is bringing in the feminine archetype. By putting energy towards a solutions model, we are building a new nest. Instead of aiding and abetting the rut, putting energy into turf wars and bellowing, we are preparing "home." Creating the safe space for the tired, the wounded and those in need of solace. Creating the haven that even the most victorious warriors eventually crave.

However this is beyond the tussle. We are creating space for the heart, mind, spirit, the whole body, whole systems "next reality," that trusts potentials and possibilities. This will enable relationships to move us towards the new street up economy.

Can you dig it?

PS Archetype - not gender specific, just classic models dumped on our culture.