All Categories

Can Politics Accommodate Compassion??

9/3/2015

It’s been very interesting reading the responses to my enthusiastic Facebook post (Sept 1st) about Tom Mulcair’s recent Penticton campaign rally with local NDP candidate Richard Cannings. I found the comments thoughtful and positive for the most part.

A few people brought some discrepancies to my attention though. For one, I thought Mulcair said that he supported a $15 minimum wage. He does, but it would only apply to Federal employees and those who work trans-provincially in Federally regulated industries such as trucking, the Postal Service and banks. I was surprised that bank employees would fall in that group, but pleased that a large group of Canadians might be uplifted by a respectful income.

And, as often happens with a Facebook thread, occasional responses wandered off into discussing Mulcair’s decision to not appear at some electoral debates. I’m disappointed that he doesn’t feel a need to be visible in that way and share his thoughts on Women’s Issues for example.

Someone else suggested I read Tom Mulcair’s book if I wanted to know Mulcair’s political agenda, and I might do that, though I like to react instinctively to the living, breathing person. Another response reacted to the appalling story about the family that had been refused immigration to Canada, and the deeply disturbing picture of their son drowned on a beach.

You’re probably asking what this all has to do with Tom Mulcair’s rally in Penticton. It all ties together for me because I feel very strongly that what we’re missing in our race to replace Harper, is compassion. Compassion isn’t a word that’s often applied in political campaigns. I suspect it’s thought of as a ‘soft’ word, not a meat and potatoes word like the ‘economy’, or re-building the ‘middle-class’. Even ‘education’ has a nice solid ring to it. Or how about ‘foreign policy’? But how do we decide what we need, want for our country? We need a departure point for decisions that affect all these ‘issues.’

I feel we need compassion. I sense folks recoiling at that word. Maybe some feel angry. There’s resentment at the implication that they, or we, are not compassionate. Maybe we’re not. Recent research has discovered that compassion is more than a feeling of pity, empathy or altruism. It might be a survival emotion that helps us bond in important ways.

Here’s a quote from an article* about recent compassion research. “While cynics may dismiss compassion as touchy-feely or irrational, scientists have started to map the biological basis of compassion, suggesting its deep evolutionary purpose. This research has shown that when we feel compassion, our heart rate slows down, we secrete the ‘bonding hormone’ oxytocin, and regions of the brain linked to empathy, care-giving and feeling of pleasure, light up, which often results in our wanting to approach and care for other people.” Bonus --- compassion even helps us feel less vindictive toward others. Think about where that might lead in the policy arena!!

I’d love to see our political decisions made with compassion, made from a desire to care for others…, and I’d add to that… to care for ourselves. Why is this important? Because I’m looking for politicians who are capable of compassion. I’m looking for people who will lead from a position of compassion, rather than from the cold, dark areas of economics that put profits ahead of human well-being. I’m looking for people who will lead with their heart…, tempered by the realities of their human / earth centered intelligence. I’m looking for decision makers who recognize that we can’t burn our own, or neighbours house down, in order to keep warm.

I can’t tell you that I find compassion everywhere. But I did come away from Mulcair’s Monday evening rally with a feeling that compassion is hovering out there, not too far away.

Article: What Is Compassion? http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/compassion/definition

0 Comments

An Early Adventure in Outdoor Exploration and Journalism... on the West Coast Trail

9/1/2015

7 Comments

Hikers approach the Ordway House at Clo-oose on the Ship Wreck Trail, now known as West Coast Trail. Photo and darkroom processing by Dianne Bersea.

I’ve been riffling through boxes of photos and files. I’m talking about one of those ancient manila folder files with a tab for content descriptions. There’s a lot of strange things in there…, carbon copies (yes “carbon” copies) of old letters I sent, scraps of newspaper articles, and some of my early literary / journalism projects. Among these mysterious papers I found notes for an article about the West Coast trail. A version of this article was published as a three page spread, complete with photos, in the Victoria Colonist weekend magazine when newspapers routinely had a weekend magazine section. Entitled “Even the Rain is Beautiful at Clo-oose,” the events described and the publication of the article happened a lot of years ago, in 1969.

I’ve made some revisions for clarity, hopefully with improved grammar and the occasional aside. I’ve also been inclined to re-interpret the experience and my original journalistic analysis of it. I invite you to join me on this adventure….

**********************************************

On the long May weekend in 1969 an assorted group of like-minded folks from various Vancouver Island outdoor groups, joined together to trek a section of the Shipwreck Trail near Clo-oose. Some drove the rattle producing logging roads from the South end of the Island, and others, like myself, flew from Nanaimo to Brown’s Bay at the western end of Nitinat Lake about mid-point on the now named West Coast Trail.

In a battered Otter float plane we traversed the inland valleys of Vancouver Island on a westerly trajectory, skirting the high mountains that pierce the central island skies. At a near landscape scraping four hundred feet altitude we had good views of the landscape below. The wagon wheel-like scars where logs had been dragged into a central spar pole for transport and the large swaths of clear-cut overwhelmed me. Although I’d heard about the extensive logging in the interior of Vancouver Island I had no idea what that looked like. A rather startling sight.

Overall, the pilot considered the flight routine, despite the ‘low fuel level’ indicator light that glowed brightly throughout the flight.

We splashed down at Brown’s Bay and unloaded onto a partially submerged dock. Finally on the trail, the sight of a dug-out canoe under construction brought us all to a stop. We gathered around the work-in progress for a tutorial in traditional canoe building.

Although justifiably taciturn, the builder shared that his well-weathered Western Red Cedar log on which he worked would be a canoe for his own use and powered by an outboard motor. “Weathered cedar is less likely to crack or split while being worked.” he informed us. The last canoe took the builder only twenty-one days to complete, “but that was without people comin’ round to talk” he pointed out. Hint acknowledged though it appears none of us stepped back to let him work, and he continued to provide a running commentary on his project.

He works without a plan but shapes the canoe simply by eye. The canoe shell itself is only one and a half inches thick when finished. It is then braced with struts and painted. The preliminary shaping was done with a chain saw rather than a carefully directed fire as formerly practiced. Final shaping would be done with an adze in either situation.

As he gave use this information he kept leaping about to conform to the wishes of various enthusiastic photographers. “Little more the left please.” “Could you stand with your hand on the bow, or is that the stern?”

Pressed by one our contingent to confess to his lineage he hesitantly said, “Nitinat Indian.” Further pressed to admit that this was part of the famous Nootka tribe he said, “Well, so the history books tell us.”

Eventually we tired of our crafts and lore exhibition and we pushed off toward Clo-oose. Hot sun poured down as we packed through open logged slash bleached white by coastal sun and storms, through dense brush and sheltered forest. The trail was a mish-mash of rough planks and crude rotting boardwalk, an unsteady trail that frequently caught a hiker unaware by tipping awkwardly or giving way altogether.

As we reached Clo-oose we flung down our packs and breathed deeply of the fresh sea air. Everyone paused to enjoy the beautiful view out over the last remaining buildings of Clo-oose onto the blue green breakers and foaming surf of the Pacific Ocean.

Some of us then ventured north toward Whyac to see a natural blowhole, and Indian Petroglyphs carved on the rocks. These seaside marvels provided an interesting comparative between natural and native creations. Eventually we returned to Clo-oose and headed for camp.

A couple of old houses, all that remained from an earlier and brief white settlement, provided accommodation for some of our group. The rest of us unrolled our tents and sleeping arrangements on the only reasonably stable level ground, an Indian graveyard. This seemed strange but ghosts and Indian reprisals were the least of our worries if indeed we had any at all. In fact several people remarked on the peacefulness of the setting. Rotting, bleached crosses stood above graves carefully wrapped in trailing coverlets of shiny-leafed Kinnikinnik, the so-called Indian tobacco. At one time, most graves had been protected by wooden fences, now fallen and snuggling among the creeping vegetation.

(An aside here. I’m shocked now that we would think so little of desecrating a Native / First Nation graveyard in this way. I recently heard a tribal chief talk about how they wanted to be treated, even unto not using the term First Nation, but only referring to people by their official tribal nation. Times have truly changed and I’m thankful for that.)

Arising into a morning mist and the distant booming of the swell breaking on the rocks, we soon set off for Carmanah Light, a fourteen mile (approximately 18 km) round trip. We followed the beach all the way down, not once returning to the trail.

And what a fantastic day it was!

Strange wave cut rocks loomed up like wrecked ships, castle turrets or oddly shaped faces. One rock looked so much like a wicked face in profile that it is actually known as the “Witch of Endore”. Tide pools teemed with life, nature’s aquarium. Our group contained several shore life experts who brought additional ‘colour’ to the world beneath our feet. On the rugged headlands tenacious clumps of little yellow flowers clung to the rocks, and on the steep beach cliffs yellow monkey flower and Indian paintbrush painted bright spots among the green.

To our right, the crashing Pacific surf plunged in over the rocks and curled up the beaches. On our left we had a succession of dramatic cliffs, some of which reared up one hundred and fifty feet above the beach, their dramatic history evident in the warped and broken strata exposed on their faces. To the North behind us, the white tower of Pachena’s lighthouse marked the horizon some twenty-five miles away. Overhead, magnificent silhouettes of great Bald Eagles soared across the high blue sky.

Arriving at Carmanah Point, the light-keepers, Mr. & Mrs. Pearce, welcomed us with tea and ice-cream. That’s right, ice cream, an unexpected treat! A tour of their home and the Light-Station followed with lots of interesting tales, including the news that Carmanah Light-Station is actually in the wrong location.

Originally planned for Walbran Point approximately seven miles south, coastal weather interfered. In the 1890’s, navigation methods were still quite unreliable. A crew and all their equipment landed in a fog. When the fog lifted, the error became apparent. (Hence the need for light-stations and life-saving coastal trails!)

Fortunately, as the Pearce’s assured us, the error turned out to be advantageous. Carmanah Point is a better location for the radio direction finding equipment now in use. (Carmanah Point is no longer a lighthouse in the conventional sense, a victim of the so-called ‘de-staffing’ of coastal lighthouses over recent years.)

I especially enjoyed climbing up into the lighthouse to learn how such a small bulb can cast a light miles to sea with the amazing Fresnel lens, a complex of carefully calculated glass bevels.

Mrs. Pearce would not let us leave without some souvenirs. We each received several polished stones from the local beaches, and some of us went away with the glass ball floats that had escaped from Japanese fishing nets. My glass float had been made from a wooden mold with wood grain marks in the glass, a real treasure.

To return to camp, we abandoned the beach route in favour of the ridge top trail. The tide had now turned and would make beach travel hazardous. The trail itself was not without its own hazards as the boardwalks are rotted and frequently give way. Parts of the trail traced the very edge of the cliffs and the interwoven salal growth and roots made it difficult to judge solid ground. At times the springy surface suggested we were treading on air.

Between the edge of the cliff tops and only a few feet further inland, the vegetation varied amazingly, from the ever-present salal to horsetail, lily-of-the-valley, wild pea and massive arum lily (skunk cabbage) leaves. Only a foot further inland and huge tree trunks rose to not more than ten to twenty feet, where they branched out umbrella-like, curving landward, unable to push higher against the sea wind onslaught.

After a camp dinner of macaroni and cheese, we all gathered at the Ordway home, residence of West Coaster Jim Hamilton. Dorothy (?) Ordway, Jim’s mother, Clo-oose settler and still occasional visitor, astonished us with tales of coastal life and her once-upon-a-time career as a dancer with Hollywood’s Ziegfeld Follies!

Jim also shared unusual tales of his experience in this rugged location. Can you imagine that storm winds and waves have been known to cast a telephone pole sized beach log hundreds of feet inland?

Of this I have no doubt as Jim has lived a good portion of his life near the Cheewat River just south of Clo-oose. His stories and recollections of life on the coastal edge enthralled us.

I became so mesmerized by everything I'd heard, following the trip I found myself scouring the British Columbia Provincial Archives to fill in the historical details.

Here is what I discovered. In 1912, a team of land developers began a campaign to “promote a Pleasure Resort in the Renfrew District on the West Coast of BC,” in the dense rain forest where we camped. The company produced a very attractive, though likely fanciful, brochure with attractive renderings of a three hundred bed hotel with sunken baths and sulphur pools(!), golf links and tennis courts, all to be financed by the sale of undeveloped lots.

Among other unrealistic claims, a future resident would find no mosquitoes or flies on this part of the coast! The artistic rendering of a landing dock that was to be built directly into the surf at an open ocean beach seemed equally imaginary.

Besides the intrinsic challenges of development on that rugged coast, the intervention of World War I and the failure of a proposed spur railway line from Cowichan Lake and even a road, led to the collapse of the project, not surprising overall. That did not preclude the taking up of the property offer by some individuals who brought with them player and grand pianos, a grandfather clock, a waistcoat belonging to England’s George III, and even a door from Ann Hathaway’s cottage. At one time a grand piano stood in the incongruous setting of an Indian Potlatch House.

All that remains of this community and resort are the two houses referred to above, one the Ordway home, and several settler graves.

Though the project could hardly be called a success, life was seldom dull for those who made the investment and lived on that part of the coast. Known with good reason as the Graveyard of the Pacific, more than twenty ships went aground between Carmanah and Pachena Points during those years, 1904 to 1938. The settlers were often involved in rescue and salvage operations.

The last wreck near Clo-oose was right at the mouth of the cove on Mission Rocks in 1925. The Tahitian schooner Rita Papipe was ground to pieces and along with her crew and French skipper, a portion of her cargo of lumber and young trees were saved. One of these young trees, a Cryptomeria japonica, a Japanese member of the pine family was encouraged to root in the garden at Mrs. Ordway’s house.

During the early prohibition years, the 1920’s, things were very lively. A booming business was carried on with rum-runners from Neah Bay and Clallam in the United States. Things eventually became so unruly that the B.C. Police were stationed in Clo-oose.

Jim Hamilton has written vividly of the interesting social life of the community in an article for the Victoria Colonist.

“Great times were had at community dances; beer came by the barrel; fiddles and accordions were the usual accompanionment but sometimes Victrolas blared Prince’s Band, Old Suzanna and the like. At one point a soprano conducted a rectal at the Bungalow Inn to the untoward accompanionment of howling dogs which could not be flushed from beneath the building.

"The Indans meanwhile had social affairs of a contrasting kind, usually masked dances, initiatory festivals and rites de passage and, in the summertime, on the beach before their settlement and around a druidic bonfire. Curious whites would stand stealthily behind the curtains of the village store to watch the last throes of a dying culture. The faces of the Nitinahts were usually painted with stripes, often black and red ones, and a sheep or two and numerous salmon baked over adjacent fires…,

"People of that era very often had strong and colorful characters, inner-directedness rather than other directedness being esteemed by the denizens of the empire-building age.

"…Such environments develop characteristics in the personality which, in the urban environment would be stifled by the monotonous pattern of good behavior.”

Life was exciting, intimate and meaningful for people whose every day accumulated a series of struggles and innovative solutions. For those with a more sensitive nature, the constant contact with the natural world provided for a personal assessment of the individual’s role in the physical and spiritual drama of life.

Here are some additional words from Jim Hamilton.

“Hearing of our hardships and dangers, strangers were very often bewildered that we should actually have chosen to live here. But there are strong reasons….

"Often on a frosty January night when the moon was full and the sea had ebbed to its farthest point we would take a brisk walk along the beach. Few aesthetic experiences can be matched to this one.

"Getting onto the solid level sand we would walk for an hour or so by the breakers gleaming whitely in the moonlight…. The moon sped through the jagged conifers behind the beach and the sky was a deep velvety blue with a spangle of stars to westward. Across the Strait the red beacon at Tatoosh glimmered fitfully…. One became involved in a rapport with the sea, land and firmament.

"On summer evenings around a beach fire we watched the trawlers come in from the Swiftsure bank to anchor and to toss gently on the Pacific swells while they cleaned their catch or slept. Occasionally we lifted our eyes from the crackling fire and the running lights of the vessels to the amazing profusion of stars in the Milky Way.

"It made a superb arc from the pole down into the sea over the South Pacific. Contemplating the massed glimmer of stars for awhile we were re-awakened to the knowledge that our world was merely a tiny star swimming along with millions of others on the other side of that bank of twinkling multitudes.”

I too felt overwhelmed by the powerful forces everywhere evident in this rich land and seascape. From the moist heat to the booming background of breaking surf, from spangled night skies to rich intertidal pools, the trip had offered marvelous explorations, and intriguing close-ups of a rare world. An additional bonus, we were treated to the leadership and knowledge shared by trip member, Ruth Masters, a vigorous observer / defender of these natural treasures.

On my return home I immediately considered how I might find a way to return to the Ship Wreck Trail, this extraordinary world on the edge of the sea.

(And I did indeed return, once again to the Clo-oose area of the trail, and later I explored south from Bamfield to the Pachena Point Light Station where I had lived briefly as a small child.) Below, Mrs. Ordway shares her story in the original family home at Clooose, West Coast Trail. Photo taken and dark room processing by Dianne Bersea.

7 Comments

Free Store Boogie at the Cortes Island Recycling Centre

3/13/2015

7 Comments

It’s a damp, foggy January morning as I drive toward the Recycling Centre on Cortes Island. Swirls of mist dance through the treetops. Roadside vegetation drips with moisture. At the recycling centre turn off the gravel roadbed is pockmarked with puddles. The weather isn’t stopping the work on the centre’s new Free Store though, at least not today.

Howling windstorms did shut things down recently. Near hurricane force winds downed trees and power lines putting the volunteer carpentry crew out of a job. But now, the project is back on track. Before I come around the final corner, through the trees I can see new wood and the bright red metal roof.

After depositing my recycling in the appropriate receiving shed for glass, metal, plastic and paper, I decide to check on Free Store progress. I’m not the only one. Charlotte stops me with a cheerful smile to tell me how pleased she is to see the building coming along.

Charlotte has a proprietary interest. Until the old Free Store was closed due to thoughtless kids who vandalized the place, Charlotte had a firm hand and eye on store management. In her early eighties, Charlotte found new meaning in life when she became the chief volunteer at the store. Four times a week, Charlotte appeared to sort incoming drop-offs, put usable items on display, stack ‘library’ shelves, supervise volunteer helpers, and generally maintain a semblance of order. Now she’s at loose ends until the doors reopen.

Though the old free-store felt cramped, dark and… smelly under its tin-roofed extension of the recycling shed, it usually hummed with the coming and going of price-wise islanders. In fact, the temporary absence of the Free Store has left a gaping hole in the social and economic fabric of the island. And not just for Charlotte. Many of us have been suffering Free Store withdrawal. For one thing, what to do with all those shirts and dishes and chairs and books and computer keyboards that don’t meet current needs? Even more importantly, where does one find a free shirt, skirt, sweater, blouse, smock, clock, pot, pan, skeins of wool, embroidery thread, plastic duck, lucky puck or set of Funk and Wagnall encyclopedias when you need them?? And where else can a person spend half an hour among friends and neighbours, engage in community gossip, try on clothes, compare notes about Free Store ‘finds’, and tap dance on a rainy day?

Tap dance? Why, of course! On occasion, twenty people have been known to crowd into the Free Store on a stormy day. On one such moisture-laden morning, a pair of red tap shoes caught someone’s eye. Before long a tap routine was rocking the place. If my memory serves me right, several of us embraced our tap fantasies while hail drummed accompaniment on the roof.

It may have been that very day I found a fabulous, almost new fleece jacket and a box of picture frames. It could also have been the day that I dropped off an overstuffed wingback chair and a designer jacket from my business-woman-in-the-city days. It might even have been the day I returned several skirts I’d taken the week before, which, after a good wash, a shake and a try-on, didn’t say ‘fashionista’ as I had hoped.

Fortunately, the Free Store has an excellent return policy. If a selection doesn’t fit, blend with the household colour scheme, doesn’t stand, tilt, bend or spindle the way you had in mind, it’s returnable, no questions asked. The Free Store is also renowned for their “Shop-Lifting” policy, with a sign to make sure you appreciate the opportunity, “Shop Lifting Encouraged”.

Charlotte and I reminisce for a few more minutes before I make my way through the rutted mud to the new Free Store. Today there’s a crew of six on the job, tacking tarpaper over the plywood sheathing and securing the last few pieces of metal roof cladding. Ken and Derek are up on ladders with tarpaper draped over their heads. I call out but it’s obvious no one needs a distraction. I take particular note of how things are shaping up. I have a proprietary interest too. I sketched an artist’s concept of the store from the architect’s plans. My drawing is being used on posters and progress reports.

We’re all volunteers including the architect. Crew bosses and their crews of foundation formers, wall framers, tarpaper tackers, roofers, painters and artistic decorators -- volunteers every one. From the ground up this is a community endeavor. Where possible even the materials have been acquired locally. Local sawyers milled trees from the site and a big flatbed truck wheeled in one day laden with hefty fir beams and posts.

The new store will be larger and brighter. A number of skylights and small windows provide a shower of light. On this day the openings are framed in, some windows and all of the doors have been installed. It’s interesting to see my sketch becoming a three-dimensional object. But there’s still work to be done and probably a month before its ‘business as usual’ in Charlotte’s department.

I’m looking forward to it. For one thing I need some new serving plates, and I need a couple of simple, loose dresses for summer. And there’s that bag of clothes and household odds and ends I’ve been putting aside to drop-off. I’ve been missing the islander folk and gossip too.

Sometimes I feel that everyone visits the Free Store. Well, that’s not exactly true. I’ve seen people recoil at the very thought. My mother’s not too keen. “Some of those clothes are unwashed,” she says in an appalled whisper. But on the whole, it’s a broad cross-section of the island population who embrace the something-for-nothing concept, from the wealthy to the truly needy. Returning summer visitors often hoard items over the winter, just so they can make a Free Store trip when they’re back on the island. It’s one of the island’s tourist attractions!

There’s the serendipity of it too. A city retail shop often has only one kind of item in an array of sizes and colours. At the Free Store, the stock is singular and unique. The daily turnover is such that the store never has the same selection from minute to minute. Habitués know that Free Store success is a matter of simply being in the right place at the right time. The difference between “Guess what I found,” and, “You should have seen the ceramic bowl, Dire Straits LP, little black dress.... I was this close to picking up!”

Some folks wait like vultures as new treasures come through the door. The occasional free-for-all has resulted, though a general policy of ‘first sighted and landed’ determines ownership.

For newcomers, the concept that everything in the Free Store is free is hard to grasp. Me, I took to the idea like a clotheshorse to a clothes rack. Why not exchange things I no longer need for things I do need? Why not take all my older books for someone else to read? Why not dispense with a closet full of clothes that no longer fit?

The Free Store reduces the clutter in my life. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by ‘stuff’, I can do a quick sort and send the least used, the tired, the in-the-way, the too small, the too big, the too bright, the just too-too... to the Free Store. While I’m there I can look for a spindle, a trindle, a tisket, a tasket, and, maybe a basket too.

7 Comments

Drawing... A Meditative Practice

3/1/2015

8 Comments

Suddenly, I caught a swirl of movement. I swear I saw the trees gather up their skirts… In the deep green behind me, the trees have been dancing. With an abashed giggle, they straighten up again.

***************************
My breathing deepens. I am quieted. I sink into the setting. All sounds become both clearer and part of a larger sound-scape that includes my breathing, my heartbeat, the soft ssshh of my hand moving on textured paper, the swish of a brush in water and the warm click of pencils as I rustle in my art box. I become conscious of a hum that slowly differentiates into bird calls, a distant dog bark, a whir of insect wings. As I continue to sit, even the heat, or cool moistness, seems to have a physical weight that snuggles me.

I am drawing.

This is a summer morning of watercolour sketching & drawing. My meditation begins as I gather my sketching tools, and continues as my focus becomes fully attuned to the process.

From my Cortes Island studio, I have walked through the damp coolness of an alder, hemlock, cedar and fir forest into the bright openness of a clear-cut that slopes south and east. Logged only a few years ago, I still remember the lofty trees and sheltered trails. Orange peel fungus provided bright and unexpected ground colour. How different the clear-cut with bent, misshapen and broken forest remnants poking up. I embrace these survivors of the logger’s ruthless choice. I appreciate drawing them.

At the same time, I welcome the open landscape that is now beginning to fill in with new growth. Salal, Oregon grape, trailing blackberry, huckleberry, bracken fern and fireweed are energetically making their presence known with fresh leaves and flowers. Small hemlocks push up, offering their droopy dew laden topknots to the morning sun.

I usually stop for a few moments and take in the full expanse of the clear cut…looking down to the small stones and humus rich earth at my feet, along the small trail that winds away through the vegetation, slowly taking in the multiple layers of landscape and distance all the way to the misty blue of the mainland mountains, filling my eyes and heart with light and colour.

One of the most powerful results of a regular drawing practice is a vividly enhanced visual awareness. I see so much more, reveling in the shapes, forms and colours, all so varied and dazzling. Enhanced awareness firmly translates to ‘being’ in the landscape. Being leads to being ‘seen’. Quiet contemplation, focused by my drawing practice, plants me in the landscape. I begin to feel a deep intimacy, kinship and sensitive awareness. In my stillness, the land and its inhabitants accept me. Small animals almost run over my toes and insects investigate the colours on my palette. Birds alight nearby.

I recall how sinuous little reddish mink have danced along beach logs, unaware of my presence, only to react with a start when only a few feet away. I’ve enjoyed their lengthy scrutiny from their round dark eyes… until, with a leap they pivot off in the opposite direction.

I have often felt carefully observed. Of course deer and other animals observe me, but I have also felt a mutual awareness even from the trees. I believe they sense my observation and appreciate the attention. There is a mutual vibration of simple acknowledgement. “We are here and so are you.”

One spring, drawing kit in hand, I sat myself among the moist mosses and decomposing wood fibers of a rain forest hideaway. Nestled in my ‘studio’, I began drawing the dripping scene; all tree trunks and rain-wet growth against a mossy granite bluff. Quiet, so quiet. Slowly I became conscious of a disturbance in my ‘morphic field’. I began to glance around. Nothing appeared to be moving but the odd feeling continued. I began to turn around quickly to surprise my observer. Suddenly, I caught a swirl of movement. I swear I saw the trees gather up their skirts… In the deep green behind me, the trees have been dancing. With an abashed giggle, they straighten up again.

To me, it seems an obvious corollary -- close observation encourages a deep appreciation. Individual rocks, trees and wild violets, become so intimately observed that I am moved by their subtle changes. I’m thrilled when these tiny ground hovering violets flower, and enjoy their delicately ribbed heart-shaped leaves. And I empathize when caterpillars devour the fresh alder leaves. If a tree I’ve drawn loses a limb or is toppled by the wind I feel a surprising sense of loss.

In this world I am also enveloped in a rainbow of colour. This morning the colours initially seem subtle and undifferentiated, but within moments, the scene drapes itself in colour.

Even in the winter, or any time of year, the range and strength of colour fills my soul. Today the colours run from pale mauve to rich Indian reds, cool green-blues to soft yellows. Whether I am focused on a small object or allowing my vision to gather the widest expanse, the range of colour is always extraordinary.

I realize I used the word ‘extra-ordinary’ when what I’m describing is ‘ordinary’ - in every sense. What is extra-ordinary is that we rarely see what is ordinary and visible. What is even more extra-ordinary is ‘seeing’ beyond the visible and being fully present to all our senses. What a joy to allow myself the time to simply sit in contemplation of all these marvels – to scratch away with brush or pen, to smell the spring morning filled with propolis from the budding maples, hear the catch of wind in grass, a rattle so different from the sigh of wind in fir tops..., recognizing the cacophony of spring compared to the silent heat of August.

Drawing is a mindfulness meditation, a full engagement with the present moment. It has nothing to do with how well you or I draw. It is the practice of “bringing our attention to”, allowing all other concerns, thoughts, feelings to fall away, to focus fully, joyfully on the process of observing, feeling, being. This is my practice.

And sometimes the trees will dance.

8 Comments

Gumboot Technology & the New Alchemy

2/15/2015

4 Comments

This article was originally published in the Watershed Sentinel, Environmental News from BC and the World, in 2006. I have edited it slightly and given my gumboot technologist friend a measure of privacy by calling him, Rick. As follows:

Walking with my friend Rick on his island property is an education. On a granite bluff overlooking the north end of Georgia Strait, a major water and wind channel on British Columbia’s inner coast, we are examining Rick’s inventive use of the recycled and reapplied detritus of our material culture. When we crest a small rise, Rick gestures overhead. Thirty feet above us, the yellow-tipped propeller blades of a Canadian Forces Argo radar plane are turning slowly in a light air.

“This is my wind generator. I’m still adjusting the pitch of the blades and I need to tinker with the alternator to have it accept the irregular wind speeds. But when the tinkering is done, the generator will supply up to 30% of our household power and charge batteries… Eventually even charging an electric vehicle I call my ‘wind powered truck’.”

Environmental consultant, architect, author and ‘gumboot technologist’, “from away back”, Rick is an accomplished friend of the earth. With soul restoring creativity, he is also turning his ideas and concerns to practical purpose, in his own backyard.

In fact, our local recycling centre was the scene for my first conversation with Rick about these important matters. I’d found two old doors that I saw as a potential worktable and a door for my studio. Rick offered to transport my ‘treasures’. “If I can help put these doors back to work, I’m all for it,” he said.

As we loaded the doors into his pick-up, I noticed at least a dozen buckets filled with something that looked like used motor oil. “What on earth are you doing with those?” The unabashed answer, “I’m converting used oil to diesel for my tractor.” This sounds interesting.

I tell Rick that sounds like gumboot technology at work! I’m a fan of what I’ve begun to call gumboot technology, a term to which I’d been introduced by another islander.

Rick is a bit hesitant though about applying the term gumboot technology to his own endeavors. ‘Appropriate technology’, ‘sustainable’, ‘medium’ or ‘low technology’, those are terms with which Rick is more familiar, and prefers. But I like ‘gumboot’.

Its simplicity first caught my ear when I heard that term used at a casual social evening of island ‘in comers’ and ‘old timers’. ‘Old timers’ being folks of the 70’s back-to-the-land influx. ‘In-comers’ are folks who have made the leap to ‘island life’ in more recent history, and just learning old-timer wisdom.

In a cozy room we in-comers were hunkered down on the floor helping the kids make paper airplanes and snow flakes. Dull scissors were frustrating our efforts.

Henry, old-timer, checked our progress. “What you need is some gumboot technology.” He wandered off and returned with a canning jar. He placed the pair of scissors over the rim, a blade on either side, and dragged the blades out against the glass edge a couple of times.

“There you go, gumboot technology in action,” Henry said handing me a sharper instrument.

Gumboot technology? Why not? I’ve been lost in all the ways that writers, thinkers and doers have tried to describe that which runs counter to the latest, and said-to-be greatest, modern technology. Gumboot technology? Sustainable? Earth friendly? Simple? Appropriate? Minimal? Yes, absolutely.

It’s the image of a gumboot that really catches my eye and ear. The gumboot (wellington, welligog, beach boot) is a simple, common utilitarian item of coastal footwear with a minimum of moving parts, generally worn by those with more interest in function than fashion.

I agree that Rick’s enterprises are decidedly more complex, and rely on more elaborate technologies. Still, for Rick it is function over fashion. It’s about arranging for the needs of daily living with sheer grit, ingenuity, creativity and minimal reliance on systems that may endanger the planet.

Up on the windy bluff Rick describes the various components that make up his ‘wind machine’. “You’ll notice that I’ve used a Ford pick-up axle for the propeller shaft. The brake drum is still on.” I’m offered a demonstration of the braking still available to slow the propeller blade, if needed.

Rick continues. “The tower, that was a lucky find. I happened to pass a crew dismantling an electrical tower that had to come down. It didn’t take much, a couple hundred bucks to get a ton of galvanized framework into my truck, enough to build two towers. Now take a look at that alternator. It’s out of an old light plant, but I’m thinking of using a large truck alternator instead. In this project,” Rick reveals, “the only new part is the gear box.”

What of the propeller? How did a radar plane propeller find its way from the far north to a wind generator on a west coast bluff?

Rick grins. “Finding the stuff is half the fun. I picked that up from my favourite military surplus. It was a spare part in the original propeller kit for the Argo. It even came with x-rays of the blades and a balancing report. The blades weigh within a few grains of each other.” What Rick is telling me is that he has some very finely balanced generator blades, with credentials, and they came via military surplus. Turning the tools of war to a peaceful cause gives Rick special satisfaction.

We continue to watch the blades turn lazily. I know this end of the island well and it’s not always so calm. Winter storms can build up winds of 50 - 70 kilometers, occasionally rising into the 80’s or even more. Rick can count on over 100 days a year of winds exceeding 20km, sufficient to generate 2 to 4 kilowatts of power. In Rick’s insulated, energy-efficient and conservation-minded home that can almost supply all his electrical needs.

Moving away from the bluff, we follow the flow of energy downhill to the house. Here, individual components that direct and manage the electrical flow are also recycled.

The inverter, salvaged from an administrative office ‘downsizing’, is a computer at heart. Rick has modified the inverter, actually reprogrammed it, to shunt electricity into his household grid, according to which source of power is presently available. If there is a brisk wind and the battery array is topped up, the inverter switches the household to that source. If the batteries are low, the inverter will switch to the commercial electrical grid.

The materials and skills needed to assemble the electrical components and get them working together is quite ‘high-tech’ in my book.   What is gumboot about it is the creativity and ingenuity of producing a personal solution beyond off-the-shelf components and reliance on the larger, industrialized and bureaucracy-ridden system.

Rick is vehement on this point.   “There is so much out there that can be used, ...the sheer volume of waste, the sheer volume of good discarded materials that we throw away.” This appalls him. He shakes his head. It feels good, to practice on his own terms, on his own farmstead, the healthful and earth friendly concepts he’s been extolling for two decades. “I call it my therapy.”

‘Therapy’ is, after all, an antidote to the mental and physical pollution of living in a world where we can rarely meet our own practical needs, where we believe we can afford to waste.

There’s more “therapy” inside the house. In a corner of the main floor, I discover a new, yes new washing machine! My surprise is short lived. This new machine operates on about 60% less water than a conventional agitator model. Nearby, and somewhat hidden by a rack of drying clothes, a large dark masonry structure of about six feet (2 meters) high by 3 feet (1 meter) wide. This behemoth is the wood furnace. In keeping with Rick’s approach, it’s constructed of firebrick and, wait for it, discarded kiln shelving.

Kiln shelving? “From a toilet factory kiln,” Rick enlightens me. “A very large kiln with large high tempered shelves. Very convenient for my wood furnace”.

As I move closer I note that the furnace still radiates a modicum of heat eight hours after the morning fire has gone out. Wood heat can consume a lot of forest, but Rick’s two story R2000 home uses about four cords a year. In a home designed to retain and circulate heat efficiently, the furnace does quadruple duty. In addition to direct heat, clothes can be dryed, as noted, there’s always plenty of domestic hot water including hot water for in-floor radiant heating and, “provides a great oven for baking!”

Rick opens a second metal door above the stove box, and puts a hand forward. “It’s still warm from this morning’s fire,” he gestures for me to test the oven. I put my hand out and it’s enveloped in gentle heat. Images of buttery baking powder biscuits and roasted potatoes make my mouth water.

“And in here,” Rick points to the interior of the lower fire box, “I have two old metal radiators.” Two discarded cast iron radiators of the classic molded style are affixed along each side of the box, and tipped slightly forward to form an open ended inverted ‘V’ over the fire.

“As the water in the radiators is heated it moves to these exchangers.” Rick points to two polished steel cylinders mounted on top of the furnace. “The water is actually so hot coming out of the fire that I have to step it down a degree or two before it goes into the floor pipes.” The spacecraft-like heat exchangers are recycled from a computer cooling system, “when computers were large and hot affairs”.

Beneath our feet, I am taken by what I mistake for a tile floor. “No, it’s coloured concrete,” Rick says, “in which I’ve embedded coils of plastic tubing for in-floor heating.” This in-floor system has high heat retention too, holding heat for as long as 20 hours in winter. I can imagine the comfort of warm floors and the convenience of coming home to a house that is still warm after hours away.

In this house there is no end to adventurous concepts. A work in progress, I find new experiments at every turn. A roof top solar collector, synthesized from recycled pulp mill steel pipe, percolates unattended; cycling additional heated water into the house.

On an earthier level, Rick is exploring the use of composting toilets and natural waste water systems. In this case, Rick bought basic manufactured composting toilets, and made his own adjustments to improve efficiency. The toilets have been up and functioning well for four years. “I actually had some dialogue with the manufacturer who was initially interested in my improvements, but I guess I went too far. I’m on my own again.”

The two household toilets are built on outside walls and empty into a peat filled bin accessible from outdoors. About every six weeks, the bin is dumped into a dedicated compost pile. Internal temperatures in the pile can reach a bacteria-frying 145 degrees centigrade, producing garden humus in twelve months.

Within the farms two acres of alder bottom and built-up raised beds there are vegetables, flowers, and a recently planted and fenced orchard, “down about where those deer are roaming,” Rick points out. All to be irrigated with household wastewater.

Household wastewater or ‘gray water’ is kitchen and laundry water, the “rice and noodles”, as Rick calls it. “The waste water system will eventually provide for most of our ornamental and tree fruit gardening needs. But I’m still working on that one,” Rick admits. A recent addition, a rock walled rainwater cistern, collects surface run-off for food crops.

Rick has had some frustrations and the occasional ‘failed’ experiment. One such endeavor -- how to restore household ‘gray’ water to usable purity for irrigation -- has not succeeded. A glass walled enclosure of plants and bubbling tanks isn’t working to its full potential... Rick is disappointed but not deterred.

For me, that’s gumboot technology… a willingness to experiment, appropriate cast-offs, re-design, and try and try again. Gumboot technologists are the new alchemists… challenged by mysteries -- intrigued by quirks and inspired by ‘good finds’. Gumboot technologists solve mysteries, integrate systems, turn tools to other tasks, reduce waste, and create comfort and health in their lives with their own hands and hearts. “It’s my therapy,” Rick says. It’s a therapy that has immediate, practical applications and outcomes for Rick, for his family, for me and… for the whole planet.

4 Comments

Life Drawing

2/2/2015

0 Comments

In the focused hot-house of a life drawing class, I learned that all drawing is life drawing, a sensitive and aware examination, a silent meditation on light falling, forms responding, spaces colliding, weight impressing, colors flowing… whether human form, or leaf, or bird or tree. All drawing is life drawing…all drawing is a meditation on the novelty of physical form and it’s subtle reveal of what lies beneath.

People often visualize life drawing as it’s seen portrayed in classical paintings…a carefully contrived tableau, the artist fully clothed, a nude model clutching a drape revealing less than more, while the artist’s retinue of friends, family, servants and pets look on.

I’ve described an actual painting, but my experience is of less ‘decorous’ settings. I’m more familiar with an art school or contemporary studio which, in my era, the 60’s and 70’s and later in the 80’s, provided a much more democratic arrangement…with models and students, of both genders, all ages and sizes, lounging, sprawling, climbing, sleeping, reading, chatting, smoking and even nursing their babies.

For a sheltered teenager my first encounter with this experience was eye-popping!

Among the models were pregnant models, older women, younger men…models with extreme postures, excess weight, or very thin. Models with potbellies and hairy legs. Models with muscular tummies and delicate ankles. Models with great abs and tight buns, male and female.

Models, often artists themselves, enjoyed employment that required no equipment beyond a robe and a willingness to stand, sit, lean, and lay down in a myriad of positions while wearing little or nothing.

As students we discussed and rated them based on degree of flexibility, ability to hold a pose, ability to re-enter a pose following a break…their ability to sink into a stance, weight, arm and leg positions exactly as the pose began. They were rated on ability to hold an extreme pose as if running, falling, dancing, boxing…on ability to move through a sequence of related poses in short bursts, ideal for gesture sketches.

We loved models with unusual body shapes whose imperfections offered insight and artistic challenges.

At first the casual nudity was unnerving. When my first model dropped her robe I glanced around restlessly, uncertain where to look. A straight-laced family with little connection to the arts didn’t prepare me for a nude woman, or…lord help us…a man, a man standing within a few feet with nothing to hide any part of his anatomy. I’m actually embarrassed to admit that, at age fifteen, I sharpened several pencils to the nub before I could go back to my easel and draw.

At the easel, all inhibitions fell away. Life drawing revealed life, male and female, tight muscled, flabby breasted, large bellied, tall, slim, grizzled, bearded, crippled, supple, comfortable, awkward, confident, older, younger, pale, ruddy, light and dark.

This intense introduction to the human form started at a night school class at the then Vancouver School of Art in the city’s downtown core. Attending art classes required a bus from my home in south central Vancouver, down Victoria Drive into the under belly of the city along Hasting street to Victory Park. The art school hid just beyond the upper slope of the park, a long block from the bus stop.

In early evening I was often the only person on the street. At other times shadowy figures would loom from the darkness and mumble something about “looking for a girl”, or “needing a drink, my friend”. It all seemed very grim, streetlights casting only a pale glow…until I entered the art school, light full and dazzling, with movement, color, busy hallways, paint splattered floors, large panels of splotches and stripes and dots. Noise, confusion…life.

In this environment I found my home. My whole self welcomed the first command…that we ‘see’! See the muscle under the skin, the bone under the muscle, the bone where it erupts from joints and backs and hips, bruising the skin with sharp shadows.

In a flurry of flying pencils and charcoal, I pressed into the paper, feeling the textured surfaced capture the carbon, leaving bold smears that echoed human form, sometimes with a single line, sometimes with hatching and smudging too.

I learned to “see”.

I learned to “see” weight press down through the spine, through hips, falling in a scientifically predictable arc through knees, shins, ankles and feet, compressing arches and splayed out through toes.

I learned to “see” flesh moving, contracting, flexing, expanding, rigid.

I learned to “see” repose…relaxed, untested, unstressed limbs draped over the arm of chairs, flesh falling away from bone.

I leaned to “see” light, light that reacts to skin in unexpected greens, yellows, mauves, blues and even rich full reds. I learned to see “turning colors,” that amazing phenomena of a third color where light and shadow meet, where chin resolves into the neck, where arm joins shoulder, where bridge of the nose slips away toward cheek, where cheek turns under the jaw.

I learned to “see” the miracle of reflected light, the light and color cast onto an arm, a breast…mauve or sky blue from a window, passing through a turning color of green, into the warm pinks, yellows and gold of indoor light.

I learned to ‘see” that flesh and bone surfaces can turn in more than one direction at the same time, and I carefully studied and drew real bones to follow plane changes.

I learned to “see” foreshortening, that strange quality of an object, a thirty-two inch leg for instance, to appear only twelve inches long when viewed from an oblique angle. That perspective therefore, applies to bodies as much as to buildings.

I learned to “see” that light and shadow define form, that lines exist where sharp light and shadow meet, that line is an arbitrary convention to define shape. I learned to “see” contours, the line that doesn’t exist but which defines the outside extent of the form, from top of the head down around the ear, following the neck to the shoulder, down the arm, over the rise of the hip, zipping gracefully along the thigh, around the knee, down the calf, scooting by the ankle, nipping at the toes, then up the other side again to the head.

I learned to “see” negative and positive space, those magic voids and not voids that define visual relationships, that define flesh against background, that define what is and what is not, what is hip and what is chair.

I learned to “see” the spaces between crossed ankles, the space ‘between’ created by an arm bent at the elbow, hand on hip, the void created by a body in space, the space that is not the body…to see the space that the body occupies, or an arm, or a foot.

I learned to “see” what was there, rather than what I imagined or believed to be there…that an eye is not two half circles enclosing a large round object but a complex of folds and ripples, of concave and convex forms, of indentation and protuberances, of soft surfaces and reflective ones…that no two eyes are alike even on the same face.

I learned that all drawing is life drawing, a sensitive and aware examination, a silent meditation on light falling, forms responding, spaces colliding, weight impressing, colors flowing… whether human form, or leaf, or bird or tree. All drawing is life drawing…all drawing is a meditation on the novelty of physical form and it’s subtle reveal of what lies beneath.

0 Comments

Here we go......

1/23/2015

9 Comments

Thanks for joining me. I've been expanding, commenting, offering suggestions, asking questions on posts all over Facebook. Time to jump in with my own thoughts, notes and excursions in whatever form they may take.

I'm going to start by posting an unpublished article I wrote about eight years ago. It was inspired by a photograph a friend showed me of glamorous diners on an Atlantic Crossing, on one of those magnificent older style passenger ships, a ship that predates the current 'cruise' industry. As a member of an International Gourmet Club, Bett's 'cruise' offered a culinary journey with the famous French chef Paul Bocuse, cooking classes and exotic dinners of many courses. Oddly enough, it was simply the presence of one particular person in the photograph that inspired this literary observation..., a Mrs. Cargill. Please read on:

Mrs. Cargill

I have a confession to make. I have a Cargill connection. It’s a bit tenuous, but still, the connection is closer than I suspected. And it’s put a face on that corporate giant called Cargill, that pervasive transport and ‘agricultural’ monolith which has swept across our Canadian and world landscape changing what and how we eat.

Lets step back a few years..., twenty years ago to be exact. At that time I was working as a publishing consultant and food stylist on a cookbook project, a collection of recipes and reminiscences from a famous Canadian prairie restaurant. This restaurant inhabited several locations over the years, beginning with a few tables in the authors home on the edge of the Porcupine Hills. When it came time for the food photo shoot, this rustic, screen doored, two story, wild rose surrounded, weather beaten home-place overlooking a aspen filled coolee, could not be reproduced in the cold confines of a big city photo studio.

So it came to pass that for an intense week in a hot July the production crew and a team of cooks laboured in Bett’s southern Alberta home. All in all we created some remarkably evocative food photos with a plethora of farm raised corn, zucchini, potatoes, squash, poultry and a side of beef. With the addition of a wagon wheel table, an old side board, wire egg baskets, collectible plates and serving trays, checkered table clothes, canning jars from the cold room and a cheese wheel secured from a neighbouring cheese factory, the setting burned a hole in nostalgia. Barn-board walls and a window view of dry grass and southern Alberta sky provided additional ambiance for a cornucopia of mouth watering ranch food. And yes, we ate it all.

Late each day, when the hot house atmosphere of location shooting was complete and all was quiet in the house, Bett and I would spend the evening chatting and looking at her photo albums. A devotee of all things food related, Bett’s albums were filled with pictures of food and the people who enjoy it. Lively scenes spilled from overflowing albums. Weddings, birthdays, holiday celebrations and community events filled each photo, happy people chowing down on Bett’s legendary menu. Local folks from town, area ranchers, friends, celebrities from near and far including as I was often reminded, John Wayne and Bing Crosby.

Several albums documented Bett’s annual trip with an international gourmet club, each photo accompanied by a commentary on the who’s who of the culinary world, with chefs and dinner guests seated before plates of sumptuous food served in extraordinary settings, here castles in Spain, there sun burnt palazzo’s in Italy.

Pointing at a photo, Bett might say, “Here’s Prince Vladimir of _________ with Paul Bocuse at Paul’s restaurant in Paris. And this is Lord and Lady _________. They were so funny! Oh, and here’s Mrs. Cargill at a dinner party on the SS France”.

Mrs. Cargill? Of the Alberta Cargills? “Yes, Mrs. Cargill, you know, the grain people”.

I leaned closer to peer at this startling image. What I knew of Cargill, “the grain people”, was of an monstrous corporation devouring small town Alberta. The Cargill centralization of grain collection and distribution, and the large Cargill granaries, three and four times the size of garden variety grain elevators, were reducing once viable towns and farms to dust.

I looked down at the 4 x 6 inch photo, a patch of bright colours against the album page. I wanted to know what people look like who are building an agricultural and marketing monopoly and in the process altering our food and our relationship with its production? Pretty much like you and me. Here I saw a prim, well dressed, gray haired woman who looked a lot like my mother, if my mother were to be found dining with European royalty on a luxury liner in the mid-Atlantic.

Fascination bound me to the page. I asked Bett to point out Mrs. Cargill in a series of opulent ship board dining photos. Despite the wealth and array of exotic food, Mrs. Cargill continued to look very much like you or me. And why not. She was someone’s mother and grandmother, a wife. Still and all, it was difficult to reconcile this proper older woman with the wreckage of lives and rail lines that I knew to be occurring.

Only a few weeks prior to finding myself perusing photo albums in an Alberta farmhouse, I had visited an artist friend in north central Saskatchewan. Magda had hopes of creating an ‘artist’s colony’ in the remnants of a small town decimated as its elevator and spur line met the Cargill juggernaut. Magda bought a church for $200, and another friend picked up the community hall, complete with sprung floor, for a song.

Despite the depopulation, my visit to Magda’s coincided with a community reunion and by the afternoon of the second day, the nearby playing field was filled people and long tables sagging with potato salads, meat loaves, buns and biscuits and breads, juices and jams and jellies, hot dogs and cold cuts. Over 300 people had come home on a summer afternoon to eat and talk and play ball. Just plain folks sitting around on lawn chairs telling tales and remembering. I noticed eyes drifting now and then to the elevator and the line of trees where the tracks had run.

When I stopped in at Magda’s four years ago, the elevator and railway tracks had disappeared completely. Magda had the town to herself and it’s been so since the last of the hold out old-timers passed on. Magda struggles to make ends meet with a couple dozen sheep, a small wheat field swamped by nearby agribusiness over spray, and a museum of how it used to be.

It is easy to feel nostalgic for the demise of a small town in the vast Canadian prairies, for a way of life that kept people in touch with the land. But there are even larger issues at stake here, issues that are large and frightening because Cargill and like-minded corporate interests are reaching far beyond a monopoly in transportation. In the late 90’s I came across a news release published in the “Ram’s Horn. It was and is, a clarion call for our attention to eroding food safety and control. This corporate press released trumpeted the intent of Cargill and Monsanto for form a worldwide joint venture first to create..., “a system that links biotechnology research and development from seeds through processing to the customer..., with plans to explore future opportunities to expand the partnership into agriculture and food.”

As we know, these pronouncements have largely come to pass. More centralization of transport, terminator seeds, cattle cloning and genetic engineering..., a process that violates species and organism boundaries.

I was initially taken in by the propaganda of genetic engineering; that genetic engineering is merely a step beyond natural selection, a tweak here and a tweak there, and voila! a marvelous pest free, self fertilizing, sunshine producing agricultural marvel. I considered the media reports that extolled GE and its offer of abundant and overflowing crops for the starving masses. But, when I learned how genetic engineering introduces genetic material into a cell that would not normally accept such an addition I was shocked. It is done with great violence.

My mind flashes back to Bett’s photo album and pictures of her gourmet dinner companions. I see Mrs. Cargill lifting a fork to her mouth, glancing unemotionally at the camera. Granted, this Mrs. Cargill may have had little to do with the decisions being made to dramatically and violently manipulate our food. Somehow I envision the people behind such threatening science, such mono-focused, bottom-line oriented thinking as dark-suited power brokers with leering grins. What intrigued me then and intrigues me now is a frightening suspicion that the Cargill’s are real people, who travel and eat, just like you and me.

Copyright Dianne Bersea

9 Comments

Forward>>

Can Politics Accommodate Compassion??

﻿﻿An Early Adventure in Outdoor Exploration and Journalism... on the West Coast Trail﻿﻿

Free Store Boogie at the Cortes Island Recycling Centre

Drawing... A Meditative Practice

Gumboot Technology & the New Alchemy

Life Drawing

Here we go......

Author

Archives

Categories

An Early Adventure in Outdoor Exploration and Journalism... on the West Coast Trail