Earth & Us:
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Dear friend,

This is the first issue of my free newsletter. Your feedback is most welcome!

The intention of this newsletter is to bring out my highest and clearest thinking of this moment, and to establish connection with many minds. If you wish to receive this newsletter via email in the future, please send me an email with "subscribe newsletter" in the subject.

I began writing this on a half-empty airplane traveling from San Francisco to Missouri, hoping to take a flight out of denial. Denial of the shift that has taken place, denial that life is no longer the same. My destination: the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. Up above the clouds in the serene sunlight, one could imagine that nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. Symbols, with their attendant realities, have toppled. The World Trade Center towers of New York City: what more fitting symbol for the global economic power and wealth that are the basis of the American empire? The Pentagon, nerve center of the military might that guarantees this superpower's domination of the world. Together, they are the military-industrial complex, symbolically destroyed. Meanwhile, "Apocalypse Now" plays in the movie theaters as the American military drops bombs on Afghanistan's scarred cities. The grief over the loss of so many lives has been manipulated into fuel for vengeance.

The birds, always my guides, reminded me recently that we face not one crisis, but many linked crises. They are telling me: No more business as usual!

The mighty engines of commerce have taken a hit. These are not days for carefree spending, running up the credit card, shopping for entertainment, taking fancy vacations. The abrupt drop in jet travel is a powerful indicator of the change that is upon us. The richest people in the world are pausing from consuming the most lavish banquet in all history. It's been a feast in reckless disregard for the well-being of even our own children and grandchildren, certainly in direct violation of the health and safety of countless non-Americans. Consider the Nigerian people, unable to drink or fish from their once beautiful, clear rivers because of the toxic oil pollution there-- thanks to Shell Oil. They are kept awake at night and choked by the smoke of the constantly burning flares of natural gas-- a byproduct of the oil production, which is cheaper to burn than to distribute. Their protests are met with armed force, from a government desperately trying to pay off the foreign debt by exploiting the oil resources. Or consider the U'wa people of Colombia, South America, who are threatening mass suicide if oil is drilled for on their land, knowing it would destroy the rainforest and their entire way of life. Many of the world's remaining indigenous peoples are in lands threatened by oil development.

Did you know that simply raising the mileage requirement on SUVs would eliminate the need for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? And, according to Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, if every household in the U.S. switched to compact fluorescent bulbs, we could shut down 100 large power plants.

Look at the historic record. How many wars have been fought in the Persian Gulf in order to ensure U.S. access to oil there? And how many more wars will we fight until there is no more oil? To gain access to the oil in the Caspian Sea, control of Afghanistan is necessary. An article in the San Francisco Chronicle recently mentioned that the U.S. paid the salaries of the top Taliban officials until 1999, because they were going to guarantee access to that oil. When they withdrew that guarantee, everything changed. The U.S. Office of Technology Assessment has estimated that all known oil reserves will be dry by 2037. According to Stormy Weather by Dauncey and Mazza, after 2004, global demand will outstrip production of oil, causing prices to skyrocket as everyone competes for what's left. What if (due to war or economic instability) our country no longer had full access to that oil?

How much time, and fossil fuel, would it take to gear our economy to run on a different fuel source? Photovoltaic electricity is viable now, and like its other silicon chip cousin the computer, its cost is expected to drop when it goes into mass production. But it does require time and energy to make those panels. Fuel cells and hydrogen technologies can help, certainly. A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen with oxygen to produce electricity and water--no byproducts! It is a truly clean fuel. A hydrogen-powered car is being developed; replacing the current cars in America with these would eventually save all the oil OPEC now sells, while reducing this country's CO2 emissions by around two-thirds, according to Fritjof Capra.

In truth, however, I believe we are being called to live differently. In this global family, one child has feasted while others starve. With 5% of the world's population, we use 40% of its resources. While we fret about an hour or two without electricity, and call it an energy crisis, many people in Africa, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Haiti, Nepal, and Pakistan must walk for miles to find wood to cook a daily meal. 450 million people have water shortages, with 50,000 a day dying of water-borne disease. Global warming, caused by the fossil fuel consumption of the affluent nations, will impact most harshly those people who are just one drought or one flood away from starvation and destitution.

Oil addiction is threatening our entire planet. A heroin or cocaine addict will perform acts of violence to keep the drug supply coming, and it's no different with oil addiction. As I contemplate the damage done to the Earth by our oil addiction, I hear a bird grieving. Like any addiction, it has corrupted all our relationships. Look at our families-- dominated by the electronic babysitters of TV and video games. Parents are away long hours, driving their separate cars up to 3 or 4 hours a day, to earn the money to give their children meals laced with pesticide (another petrochemical product), clothes made of synthetic fabrics (petrochemicals) toys of brightly colored plastic (petrochemicals again), and to pay taxes to build more roads, subsidize oil and gas, and pump up a military to allow the aggressive seizure of oil ("protecting our economy and national security," as it's called). Then, more travel (using fossil fuel) is needed in order to go to a place for vacation or sanity, or healing, which is NOT ruined by cars, roads, billboards, shopping malls, factories, air-water-noise pollution, or the violence of the alienated and dispossessed...and these places are becoming rarer. We numb ourselves when we hear of the devastation to wildlife caused by oil drilling, oil spills, highways, telling ourselves that these are "necessary evils." What's wrong with this picture?

This is a lifestyle which leads to cancer and heart disease, and it is based on addiction. We as a nation are addicted to consuming, whether it's buying more stuff than we need, drinking, over-eating, or drugging ourselves with everything from prescription pain pills or antidepressants to cocaine. It does not lead to happiness or well-being. We are disconnected from our bodies, from the Earth and its cycles, from other people. Ecopsychologists point out that this disconnection causes mental illness and soul sickness. The more we are disconnected, the more out of balance we are, living from our heads, not our hearts. This causes war.

We have just seen that our society and our economy are more fragile than they look. Like an 80-story steel building, they can collapse in a few moments. Might the American empire, like all others before it, be on the verge of collapse? Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael, is an astute commentator on the problems to the natural world caused by modern culture. At a recent book signing, I asked him about the loss of 200 species a day, and he replied, "You could remove 200 bricks a day from the foundation of a huge, tall building for quite awhile. But when the collapse comes, it won't be gradual."

War horribly threatens the fragile health of our increasingly frail Mother Earth. Besides species loss, we have vast pollution of air and water, loss of topsoil, deforestation. Look at the devastating pollution that was caused by the "limited" Gulf War. It is not only the dreadful loss of human life and the dire human suffering caused by war. Surely, avenging ourselves against a handful of terrorists cannot be worth that. There must be a better way.

Violence comes from fear; the powerless feel anger. Our false sense of security, of invulnerability, based upon never having experienced an attack on our own soil, has been shattered forever. The government puts on a show of force, even while knowing that no amount of weaponry and Star Wars technology, no amount of bombs dropped on Afghanistan can protect our citizens from yet more suicide planes slamming into buildings, or from chemical and biological warfare. Clearly, more violent acts from our side will lead only to more escalation, more lives lost on both sides, LESS security. As Fritjof Capra stated, "In our globally interconnected world, the concept of 'national security' is outdated; there can only be global security. A global economic system based on inequity, over-consumption, waste, and exploitation is inherently violent and insecure."

So, what is the alternative? We're NOT helpless! Here are some ideas

1) Do what you love and give what you have, in service to peace! If you are a singer, organize group sing-along for peace in busy public places. An artist? Make creative expressions of your desire for peace. An artist friend of mine made a white cardboard dove to attach to her car antenna, with a tiny American flag. Others have created "human billboards," holding up their signs as they stood in a vigil for peace. I am making my book, The Circle of Healing, available as a contribution to peace: write a $15 (or more) check to your favorite peace organization and send it to me, along with the address of the organization, and I'll send you a copy of my book.

2) Practice deep listening; engage your co-workers, family members, neighbors in friendly dialogue about the current situation. Listening with empathy can help defuse the strong emotions that lead to aggression, including the deplorable racist attacks we are seeing against people who simply look like Bin Laden.

3) The image of the United States as a ruthless and greedy nation willing to kill in order to maintain its power and economic hegemony gives rise to the hatred that fosters terrorism. Let's call upon our government to perform unexpected acts of generosity to the starving, brutally downtrodden people of Afghanistan and other countries who have suffered due to U.S. foreign policy. It is not their fault that the Taliban is in power.

4) Let's embark on a 12-step program to heal from our oil addiction and our addiction to consumerism. Have we "hit bottom" yet? I suspect I have, and perhaps a few others have as well. Like any addiction, it's due to our disconnection from Spirit (and from each other and nature). Drawing from the AA tradition, we must admit we're out of control, we're slaves to a substance which is harmful to ourselves and others; ask for help from Spirit; take a fearless moral inventory; make amends for the wrongs we have done under the influence of our addiction; support others in getting free of their addiction as well.

5) Let's learn sustainable living skills. To live more lightly upon the earth and break out of our dependency on fossil fuel, we need to discover (or re-discover) other ways to get the energy we need for transportation, heating, lighting, cooking, and other needs. We need agriculture, dwellings, and goods which do not rely on petrochemicals. Visionaries who are willing to take a risk can show us how to begin building the new society even as the old one resists change.

Hence, my visit to the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, where ten intrepid pioneers, with help from interns and visitors, are building comfortable homes from straw bales, using photovoltaic panels and wind power for their very modest electricity needs, growing most of their food (organically of course), cooking it on highly efficient "rocket stoves" using scrap wood from a nearby furniture company, and sharing two vehicles which run on their home-made biodiesel (from recycled vegetable oil).

In my next newsletter, I'll report on my visit to Dancing Rabbit!

Meanwhile, let's pray for peace and understanding.

Cathy Holt

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