Strangechord

I feel strange that I haven’t written here about the Leadership for Sustainability class I’m taking. In addition to copious amounts of out-of-class reading, every week we gather to brainstorm and discuss all sorts of options, wild imaginings, technologies, and incentives for building a sustainable world (with emphasis on local communities and economies). For certain I have learned more this term about the workings and features of our Pacific Northwest ecology and economy than ever before.

Most importantly, this class is teaching us all to think sustainably, or, in such a way that we give back to the earth as much as we take. I’m at the point now where most of the current dominant paradigms of the way things are done appear grossly outdated, foolish, and dangerous to me - suicidal, really. The connection between our species and the earth has been so dishonored… the fact that we’re really none the happier for it makes envisioning how things can be done sustainably (i.e. reconnected) really just a no-brainer to me now.

As David Orr stated in his talk I attended a few weeks ago, the obstacle to moving towards sustainable living is no longer a lack of know-how, but a lack of leadership. We know how to build extremely efficient vehicles, we know the value of community and intergenerational education, we know how to farm organically, we know how to harness renewable energy, we know how to forest and fish sustainably, etc… It’s more a need for leaders to emerge at all levels to enroll business, government, and the rest of the population into willingly shifting their ways, altering their lifestyles and lowering their levels of consumption.

A few stream of consciousness notes I’ve jotted in classes to give you an idea of what we’re chewing on:

• What type of mentality does this region have? As different from other regions?
  
• Johannesburg Memo themes (yup, had to read it): livelihood rights; fair wealth; environmental conservation; appropriate technology that employs people, not just machines; nurturing biodiversity; sustainable development; democratic globalization, not corporate globalization; reducing consumption in the North (First World)…
  
• There is the individual, but it is in the context of community that the individual flourishes.
  
• Nature as community, not commodity. From rational to relational.
  
• Where to start to work for sustainability? e.g. at home, working together, playing together, cooking together, local food, creative outlets, ritual time rather than clock time, neighborhood association, etc.
  
• What causes paradigm shift? e.g. education in childhood (ecological class projects for instance), revealing the true costs vs. the subsidized costs, looking back through history, the context in which the shift is presented, find what in your region could sustain you, think long-term before acting, etc.
  
• The culture sees the earth as something to be used - dualistic, individualistic, mechanistic
  
• Ecopsychology: trust, security and respect between humans and nature
  
• Forgotten we’re animals in a single living system; need to rethink our position to see our embededness. Human beings not “at the top”, but “part of the web”.
  
• “The universe is not a collection of objects but a community of subjects.” - Thomas Berry
  
• Everyone is indigenous: getting in touch with how we can “become native” to the place in which we live

I ache for my vision. Know what I mean? The vision of a sustainable, peaceful, dynamically creative planet of community places. I can see it and even taste it; it’s so close to my heart, yet feels so far away. Without a doubt, working toward the vision is my life’s work.