TRANSITION CULTURE, Charlotte Du Cann
“What is your position as the ship goes down?” roared James Hillman to a conference of post-graduates in Santa Barbara at the turn of the millennium. The eminent psychologist was in an apocalyptic mood. He was berating his profession for being self-obsessed and neglecting its responsibilities towards life, which included communication with the dead, ecological awareness and social justice. He might as well have been talking to the whole of Western civilisation, as it heads, like the Titanic, full steam towards collision. On the ship the band plays on, but some of us down below are dreaming uneasily of icebergs.
What is our position as the storm builds outside, as the planet’s eco-systems collapse, as the economy dives and everyone battles for resources throughout the world? How do we face the future with integrity, while most of our fellow-passengers are sleeping and the governments insist it’s business as usual and technology will save the day? Those dreaming of icebergs have started to question our course and are gathering in climate camps and community halls across the land. We are trying to find new ways of proceeding, of communicating, of living together again. In America this movement is known as the Great Turning, a term coined by the deep ecologist, Joanna Macy. David Korten in his book of the same name, describes it as walking away from a 5000 year-old elitist Empire and creating Earth Community. In a seminal book about peak oil, Powerdown, Richard Heinberg calls it building community lifeboats.
In Britain this response to peak oil and climate change is known as Transition Initiatives, pioneered by a teacher of permaculture and natural building, Rob Hopkins, in Kinsale in Ireland and Totnes. Transition is about reweaving the web of life within communities that have become dependent on corporations for their food, energy, transport and information. It concentrates on revitalising local economy and food production, so that we can become more self-sustaining and resilient in times of radical change. This positive grassroots movement has fired the imagination of the world, and communities from the Sunshine Coast to the Forest of Dean are now inventing creative ways in which to undergo the shift. In East Anglia, Transition Norwich holds its Great Unleashing on October 1, and Sustainable Bungay, a Growing Food Conference and Seedy Saturday on November 8, with other towns, such as Diss and Beccles, already forming steering groups.
What does it mean to powerdown? As the seas rise, it is clear, our lifestyle has to go. Oil has made junkies of us all, overstimulating our superficial minds and our desires for pleasure and control. Replacing oil with renewable energies will not allow us to hold on to our unsustainable habits. Going cold turkey means letting go of attachments to possessions and illusions, travel, shopping, luxury goods, entertainments and escapes of all kinds. To find the lifeboat, you need to look at reality and to hold to what is dear. Hopkin’s initiative is upbeat and concentrates on visioning and practical working together on common projects: sharing skills, growing organic vegetables, organising open-forum discussions, talks and awareness-raising documentaries. It emphasises inclusion and unleashing the potential in people. The Great Turning is more sober and more spiritual: our challenge is to no longer host a consciousness that fosters competition, greed, hierarchy and hostility, and instead take responsibility for life and co-operate with one another and the natural systems of the planet. However we come back down to earth, the first step lies in breaking our silence, breaking out of our inner worlds and communicating as if our lives really mattered. Or we might find ourselves in some very chilly water.
The Transition Handbook – from Oil Dependency to Local Resilience is published by Green Books. For further information see www.transitiontowns.org; for Sustainable Bungay’s Growing Local conference, contact sustainablebungay@gmail.net. Those interested in creating Transition Coast Suffolk, please ring Charlotte Du Cann on 01502 722419.
AQUAMARINE, Cosmo Verner
As the planetary energies are ever increasing in speed and velocity, we are being guided to release that which does not serve our return to Light. On a global scale the relentless extraction of oil, climate change, challenging weather and the current difficulties in the financial markets are a good indicator that on a Higher level the Universe is orchestrating a release from this kind of old Piscean energy. As the banking institutions are beginning to understand that their level of exposure is compromised by the complexity of their derivative trades, we, as humans, can begin to understand how by releasing our own complexities, we can realign with a Higher energy. One of the most useful frequencies received and transmitted is the positive radio activity of the mineral Aquamarine which belongs to the beryl group. Its crystal system is hexagonal and traces of iron give it a blue/green look hence the name. Other beryls include emerald, morganite and heliodor (yellow/green) and are found all over the world including America, Brazil, Australia, Africa, India, Ireland, Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia. Perhaps when contemplating some of the challenges faced by these countries, tuning into aquamarine and sending loving energies, magnified by these stones would benefit communities in these regions.
Aquamarine can be used as a reminder that by clearing out all our physical baggage stuffed in our attics, garages, cellars and homes, we create clear channels of light within our silicon crystals (quartz) that are our homes. We can then release physical, emotional and mental baggage as well, that so often serve to keep us stuck with old memories generated by our attachment to the past. Aquamarine is one of the foremost stones of communication, and its energy is often used to interact with the frequency being transmitted from the throat and heart centres for both self awareness and communication with the Divine Feminine. It can also be used to harmonise the pituitary gland (third eye) with the thyroid (throat) balancing the hormones. Used with Larimar from the Dominican Republic it can facilitate connection with the ancient knowledge, represented by dolphins ability to communicate through holographic thought forms, piggy backing onto sound waves, and then radio waves which is exactly how modern technology transmits television and radio. By transmitting holographic thought forms through visualisations, we can perhaps understand how these transmissions create the reality we then experience.
In the 14th century aquamarine was placed in a mortar and crushed into a very fine powder which was then used as an effective treatment of injuries to the eyeball. An elixir of aquamarine was also said to cure hiccups! Crystal elixirs are still recommended today and can be easily created by dropping tumble stones into bottles of mineral water.
So, if you want to clear out the mind, clear out the attic, clean the house, and release anything you don’t need. Take all the books to the library and if you want to read them again you know where they are!
Cosmo Verner practices Crystal Energy Therapy and runs the Crystal Merchant in Bury St Edmunds. He also runs a guided meditation and visualisation group.
HOW SHALL WE LIVE?, David Cadman
The first part of my article addressed the matter of “simplicity”. This concluding part touches upon “sustainability” and “the holy life”
The matter of simplicity lies at the heart of Quaker testimony. And recently, and using words with a strong Buddhist undertone, it has been suggested that:
Simplicity also involves peace and sustainability. A simple life takes us away from the greed that is the root of war.
Like everyone else, Quakers have been giving thought to the matter of sustainability and, in this, have taken a rather interesting and perhaps unusual approach – suggesting that the solution to problems such as climate change and resource depletion will not only be found in technological innovation but in the leading of “a holy life”.
Suggesting that the Quaker testimony on these matters “should spring from a place of love rather than fear”, it is proposed that the best word or phrase to describe sustainability is in the area of overlap of:
…care, respect, love, symbiosis, honouring, valuing, hospitality, stewardship, nurture, humility, adaptation and accommodation, peaceable living, interconnectedness, awe, wonder, relationship, harmony, consecration, [and, rather wonderfully] sacramental or holy living.
In our time, to use the word “holy” is either an act of bravery or foolishness, for there will be many that will say that such a word is “out of time”. But the word is timeless and in many ways also ordinary, a part of our common remembrance; for, as William Blake put it “…everything that lives is Holy”. If, then, it is true that the solution to sustainability and climate change lies in the holy life, what would such a life be like?
Fortunately, there is much to guide us in the teachings of the wise men and women of all times and all traditions – especially the mystics and sages. The holy life, we are told, springs from Divine Love and is found in peacefulness, discipline and generosity. These three qualities are seen to be in contrast to hatred, disorder and greed. They are qualities that arise from a concern for others in contrast to an obsession with one’s self. They are, therefore, uncommon in a Western (and, perhaps, increasingly an Eastern) world that is shaped by consumerism and the reification of the individual; a world that, despite all the evidence that shows the vital interconnectedness of our lives, has lost its sense of community.
And where should we start? That, too, is easy, since all the great spiritual traditions make it clear that outward peace and well-being cannot be achieved without inner peace and well-being. We start with ourselves.
So for those of us that may sometimes feel that the small things that we do to simplify our lives and reduce our carbon footprint – improving the insulation of our houses, buying our electricity on a green tariff, recycling, travelling less, buying local food and catching the rain from our gutters in a water butt – is as nothing compared with the number of coal-fired power stations being built in China or another ludicrous hotel complex in Dubai, remember that this is where we have start. Perhaps we will also be able to influence things more widely but only if we start here, with ourselves and with that which is close at hand. For without this, it is all words and opinions and how can we expect others to change their lives unless we are prepared change our own?
David Cadman is a sustainability strategist and a writer. He lives in Aldeburgh.