(Written in August 2009)<\/p>\n
I talked to Elizabeth who was bummed out because of developers desecrating a place she and others think is special.\u00a0 She was needing to be more active, but too tired and overwhelmed to do anything big.\u00a0 I reminded her of Paul Hawken\u2019s book, and the number of small groups who are working for ecological sanity \u201cunder the radar.\u201d (The book is called \u201cBlessed Unrest\u201d, and on Youtube is Paul Hawken\u2019s address to the bioneers<\/a> in 2007.\u00a0 Worth seeing.)<\/p>\n I also reminded Elizabeth of the story at the end of Circle of Hope \u2014 about the living machine that rebalanced itself, and how all we have to do is keep doing what we do.\u00a0 These reminders helped lift my spirits.<\/p>\n Circle of Hope was created in February 2004 when I sent a discouraged email to the Circle Dance elist. I was reminded yesterday of something that gave me great hope at the time, but there was a further lesson to be drawn from it:\u00a0 there’s a business called Ocean Arks<\/a>, that designs systems to deal with various kinds of water waste — like the Living Machines in Burlington and at Findhorn that deal with sewage.\u00a0 John Todd designed a system for a candy company, to handle 10% of their waste… “One Friday a computer malfunctioned and sent 100 percent of the waste in to the eco-machine, overloading the system.\u00a0 \u201cA godawful mess \u2014 foam, fats, oil, dead fish \u2014 everywhere,\u201d says Todd.\u00a0 Disgusted employees turned off the pumps and went home for the weekend.\u00a0 But when they returned on Monday, the eco-machine had rebalanced itself.\u00a0 \u201cThey were so startled by this self-healing; that\u00eds what turned the tide and allowed us to continue with other projects,\u201d says Todd, who confesses surprise himself.”\u00a0 (from story in Hope Magazine, Jan\/Feb 2004, written by Sarah Tuff)<\/p>\n This is Gaia, in small, an eco-system that’s capable of handling an overload of toxic stuff.\u00a0 Humans created the mess, but humans also designed the solution and when they did something magical happened: nature joined the fight. One-celled creatures and plants and fish somehow cooperated to deal with the mess. Guess what, everybody – WE ARE NOT ALONE.\u00a0 Even the algae are fighting to save planet earth. Nature is on our side and ready to help the moment we open the door — remember the 40 pound cabbages at Findhorn, and the rainforest that’s regenerating under the pines of Gaviotas.\u00a0 There’s this huge process working toward health, awareness, consciousness, compassion – and it’s bigger than we are, big as the planet, maybe even big as the universe (Today I believe for sure as big as the universe) and our circle dancing community is part of it.\u00a0 We are part of how the human community re-balances itself — we don’t have to know how, all we have to do is keep on doing what we do.<\/p>\n So Keep dancing everybody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Written in August 2009) I talked to Elizabeth who was bummed out because of developers desecrating a place she and others think is special.\u00a0 She was needing to be more active, but too tired and overwhelmed to do anything big.\u00a0 … Continue reading
\nThis is the last entry:
\nI have just had the lovely experience of writing 27 email replies to dear friends, old friends, absent friends and people I haven’t even met yet who are now part of my electronic dancing circle.\u00a0 My friends, we span the globe: I heard from Bali, France, and Argentina, not to mention Mexico and California.\u00a0 I’ve copied all your replies into one document so I can read it again when I feel discouraged.\u00a0 But I have to say that all together we are doing something more than just lighting individual candles in the darkness.<\/p>\n