Gulf Update #2

Gulf Update #2

I've now been in New Orleans for nearly a week, and it feels much longer. Since getting here, I have been spending my time orienting myself to all the various groups, individuals and organizations taking action around the catastrophe unfolding here. The group of people I originally came down to work with turns out to be a very questionable communist organization. However, the meetings this group has been hosting has attracted a broad spectrum of individuals and organizations that are committed to being the change in this battle. We are in the process of forming the People's Unified Command to confront the lies of BP, the government and other culpable organizations. P.U.C. will also work to come up with community-based responses to the human and environmental health hazards that are a result of the Deep Horizon spill.

My personal energies have been focused around developing a holistic ecological engineering plan to combat the toxic contamination from this spill and re-establish the vital marshes, barrier islands and coastal dunes of the Gulf Coast. I've also been lucky enough to be put in contact with the Dr. Sircus of the Barefoot Doctors who is going to help design an emergency detox routine for residents of the gulf. Detoxing the people down here is essential as there is no attempt by either BP or the government to protect the health of the people exposed to the toxic soup of crude and Corexit. This soup has chemicals in it that are known and suspected carcinogens and potentially endocrine disruptors. What this means is that the full health effects of this disaster may not be know for decades, or even generations.

We've been finding out a lot about what BP isn't telling us and what BP and various governmental agencies are lying about. Primary among them are the health risks associated with exposure to both the crude and the dispersants (Corexit). Shockingly, or not, BP is refusing to provide respirators to the clean-up workers. Its also been reported that if workers show up with their own respirators, they will be fired. In terms of the health of the general public, there has been no attempt to educate people about the health risks they are being exposed to. Many toxicologist P.U.C. has talked with have said that at the very least, pregnant women and children should be evacuated from Venice, Grand Isle and other communities close to ground zero. In Florida and Alabama, health officials have decided to leave the beaches open despite the immediate health risks associated with contact with the crude and dispersants. Indeed, in Florida, they have just recently posted health warnings about the crude, but do not mention the fact that even if you can't see the oil, it is still in the water.

Public Health Notice from Fort Pickens National Park



Disturbingly, the little warning that is out there, seems to be completely ignored by the public.






I'm not sure how easy it is to see in these pictures, but all the beaches were contaminated with tar bars and the water has both a visible sheen and a brown murky color as a result of the spill. Even more frightening is the reports of deteriorating air-quality. Louisiana has never had good air quality, which means residents of this area already have chronic exposure issues. Added on to it the massive amounts of benzine, touline and other chemicals from the crude and the dispersants the air down here is turning into a toxic soup. The efforts of the Unified Command are actually making the situation worse, as the burning and flaring they are doing are volitizing the chemicals and putting them into the air. There are also reports coming in that BP is spraying Corexit (aka poison) directly onto the land and into the air here. Its reported that they do this at night, in vehicles with their lights off. The prevailing theory is that they are doing this to disperse the crude at night, to further hide the depths of their sins. Ask a conspiracy theorist and they'll tell you they're spraying the chemicals to keep the populace sedated. Either reason seems plausible to me.

My personal mission in all this is two-fold: find a way to provide some healing for the people most greatly affected by this disaster and help develop an ecological action plan to deal with the long term consequences of this nightmare. I'm also greatly concerned by the looming threat of the coming hurricanes. Meteorologists have already been saying that this season reminds them of 2005- the year Katrina, Rita and Wilma hit. Even if the storm season is only as bad as 2008- the year Gustav hit- the communities of south Louisiana will be inundated with toxic water. And once the hurricanes hit, what will the response be? Will it be as shameful as the response to Katrina?

etherealsplendor: Gulf Update #1

etherealsplendor: Gulf Update #1

Gulf Update #1

Hello friends, family, and other well-wishers:

<">As you may or may not know, I have recently started a journey across the Gulf Coast to assess the situation and see for myself what is and isn't: In general, people here are angry, confused and afraid. They are afraid for their beloved Gulf and angry at the military industrial corporate complex that has pushed us to this genocide of our brothers and sisters of the nations of plants, animals, and humans who now face extinction due to this event. And people are confused- confused about how this could be allowed to happen and confused by how they can help. There's a general feeling around here that not enough was done to prevent this, and since then, not enough is being done to stop it or mitigate it.

I envision an ecological response to this that utilizes the coastal ecotype's power to create land and remediate water. It is true that the roots of this catastrophe runs deep into all segments of our society, so do the way to positively affect the situation in the gulf.

You can help gather donations for the gulf. People down here need gift cards for pet food, wal-mart, food and respirators. We need to start massing supplies for the wetland/coastal restorations that will need to be done.

This photo above shows people in the water in Pensacola in oil and dispersant contaminated water. The Florida health department has decided that corporate interests out weigh human health concerns.

a posting from the land of light and magic

as my unemployment drags on, i realize how much i'm trapped between the life i'm living, the life i want to live and reality. the former two may have little, if anything to do with the latter.

but what is reality. i mean, the world is what and how i experience it, so how to do i divide what is really real and what i perceive to be real? the people that have always made the biggest difference in this world lived in a reality that was somewhat removed from the reality of other people....they saw and perceived things that others didn't; but most importantly, helped to bring those things to the light of others....

realizing that, i know that i have to keep going down the path i am on, as scary and unreasonable it may seem (even; maybe especially even; to myself)....sometimes i do wonder what the crap i'm trying to do, trying to prove; and sometimes i don't have an answer for myself, but when i do; its something about living a life without fear, without boundaries; joyfully embracing the desperate times we are in and the responsibilities that hands to each and every one of us.

i joyfully refuse to give into negative prophecies of our future, i joyfully refuse to give into the fear the government tries to install in each of us. i joyfully refuse to not believe in magic and love.

i joyfully refuse to believe that peace is not possible.

i try, each day, to joyfully live life and not beat myself up, and not get stuck in the negativity and self doubt.


these times are ripe with the promise of change. it is up to each of us to be that change we wish to see.


so everyday, i need to ask myself, what is the change i want to see, and how can i be it? and move slowly, closer to that change.


peace be with you.

day thirty something ish of funemployment....

i learned something fabulous the other day; which is that i am not unemployed, i'm funemployed!!

woot! such a fantastic concept and term i'm going to use right into the ground most likely...

in the spirit of sharing and caring, i thought i'd share visually some of the things that have been filling my time....


first off is my continuing new art project. i haven't figured out how to get access to some of my earlier works as they are trapped on my phone, but let me tell you a story of how this all began....


it was back in the troubled month of april, when things looked gloomy...the weather still sucked, i was still pretty heart broken, and my job situation was very obviously on the rocks...

my friend chewy and i were spending a lazy sunday biking around, when inspiration hit me and i pulled out a section of canvass i had laying around. we quickly decorated it with a crazy urban scene (chewy's doing) and a horse and forest (my doing) and snuck it into the bar across the street and hung it up.....then proceeded to ask people what it meant.

it was so fun that for the next week we decided to make dummies and sneak them in! it was great! i made a neat little man and chewy made this very load woman. it was a whole process, of sneaking them in, setting them up, then slowly moving them closer to the bar area (the place we were doing it at has this large out door patio....)

at one point in the night the two dummies were sitting at a table together and this girl lit chewy's dummies cig and gave mine a drink!!! chewy eventually got his up to the bar (where the bar tender proceeded to talk to it and give it a drink) and i got mine up to the dance floor!!

the next week we took some blow up balloon animals from the dollar tree and turned them into crazy creations.....this time however, we got caught and were instructed to not do it any more!! BOO.

anyway, i moved out of the place i was living in that was right there, so poop on them any way....

since then, we've been wanting to bring it back, but haven't found a new place to do it, but in the mean time, i've been killing time working on my new dummie...and a couple masks and a little horse (portland sidewalks have these horse hitching rings left over from the frontier days and its big here to attach a model horse to them, so i thought i'd one up everyone and make my own horse!!)

anyway- here's a photo of my newest dummie. her name is barbra and she dates billy grippo who is the east sides biggest producer in the real estate game. as you can see, she likes to stay up to date on the news...

her and billy haven't seen each other in a while, but they're planning a big reunion soon. i'll let you know how that goes!

next, is a project that i haven't been working on quite as long, but has taken up a lot of my time. as you may or may not know, there is an awesome organization in portland called city repair. basically, it is a group of activists reclaiming public space and bringing communties together and helping to foster a ecological future for us all. well...in theory. don't get me wrong, the organization has done a lot of really amazing work, (including getting the portland city council to pass a regulation that allows neighborhoods to paint their intersections) but i feel like a lot of the drive has kinda left the movement...i personally think a lot of it has to do with the fact that one of the major instigators of the whole thing, mark lakman, is getting really burnt out and overwhelmed and frankly, there's not anyone else in the organization that is willing to put so much into it....

ANYWAY...way back in the day mark was this big shot architect and was working on a project in downtown pdx and was sitting in a meeting where they were discussing this toxic leak on one of the projects they were working on and they were all congratulating themselves for bribing the inspectors (i have delusions of erin brockvich here...digging up all that dirt and publicizing it.....one thing at a time though....) and he couldn't take it any more, and quit and went traveling....

well...he ended up with a mayan tribe down in central/south america and had some really amazing experiences, including being told about all these city repair site around portland before they happened...he was very overwhelmed and didn't understand how he could make it happen and they told him to just be himself....

one other really powerfull experience he had was one night sitting around in a circle this young man next to him started to do this elaborate dance (while sitting) with this butterfly....and eventually had the butterfly jump to mark's finger (he really tells this story better then me...)...

later, back in the states, while trying to figure out how to make all these sites happen, and well, change the world, mark came back to that butterfly and its traditional correlation to change and decided what needed to be done is to make a mobile tea house that has huge butterfly wings....

{there's kinda more to the story, but that's for another day}

anyway- that was the birth of the t-horse that for several years was a fixture in portland parks throughout the summer. overtime, energy died and it kinda fell off the radar, but we're bringing it back!!!

{and i have delusions of making it a cross-country mobile tea house....but that's for another day...}

so....with out further ado:

The T-Horse



that's all for now. i wish you all much peace and love.

synchronisity

I've been hearing concerns that all my posts are, well, a tad depressing. and that's the wrong image to give out about my life here in Portland. sure. at 2am when i can't fall asleep and my life doesn't seem to amount to much, dark thoughts tend to swirl in my head and writing has always been a sort of therapy for me; so i do what i know how to do to deal with the negative thoughts. get them out my head and into the world.....maybe some one out there can see them and know they're not alone; or something.

in reality; most days i feel so good its somewhat alarming; having spent most of my life feeling blah.

i'm realizing that its a process you have to go through to allow yourself to be happy and feel secure in your decisions.

today was one of those days where things were beautiful and i began to see my life fitting together and making sense....


it started with an interview at a physiologist's office who is looking for an office/project manager for his growing ecophysicology firm....

it went pretty well, BUT he did say he has a lot of applicants....eh. whatev. its something i could do and be good at, but nothing that really excites me....

after that i stopped by radio shack and had a really de-humanizing experience...all i wanted was some freakin batteries for my new (used) camera...and the guy ended up trying to sell me a freakin charger and three times as many batteries as i need....and a credit card, and a job!!! DAMN! anyway- i left there with no batteries and a memory of why i hate radio shack and a vow to never enter that damn store again....as for a job there??? please! me? a sales lady? someone who hates consumption? HA.


THEN i had a coffee meeting/get together with a landscape architect i met recently. {story of meeting- i ever so briefly tried my hand at renewable energy sales- sucked! not only was it a sales position, but it was door to door to boot! ANYWAY. one of the supervisors there is this really awesome lady that does a lot of social justice work and the other weekend she was having a party; and i overheard a lady say she's a larcher, so i butted in and said i have bla.....} the meeting was pretty fun; she kinda got into the profession the same way i did- round about from art- and is actually practicing and licensed and all that good stuff; so we talked shop a little bit- me about some of the projects i'm involved in (depave.org and city riparian) and she talked about some of her experiences working in high end residential....any way, it was decided that we should approach a building owner that approached depave about removing some asphalt and seeing if we can finagle some compensation for some design services!! WOOT!

as i was leaving that meeting, i ran into Albert who is paying me to do some research/writing on population growth and Amy Pearl who is the exec. dir of this social entrepreneurship organization {who i've know for a spell through trying to get things accomplished for gms...} they were having a small get together, talking about the upcoming social change (or something) forum they're planning at my new favorite coffee shop; urban grind. i'm pretty excited about it and am willing to throw some energy into it; especially some community mapping stuff....


now i'm home; and wanting to nap before my T-Horse meeting, but feeling wired- but in that bad way....wired and fried.


oh...at one point i did make it to fred meyers to get both film and batteries.....but DAMN! B&W film is freakin expensive!!


so there you have it- an up beat post from Rose City.

another sleepless night...

Once again finding myself unable to find sleep.

it is because i sleep too late into the day? or is it because of too much stimulation too late in the day?

my life seems loose and anchorless, drifting out on a sea of peaceful calming waves...

somewhere, i know, there's a point and purpose to all this, but for now i'm trying my best to find my puzzle pieces and where they fit into the larger picture...


somehow i know i have them all, they're all there, but something vital is missing, some impedious that will make them all make sense. i know that my pieces alone aren't going to bring that picture together, and i'm meeting those that have other pieces....

maybe i'm too impatient and have to remember that rome wasn't built in a day, and its one foot in front of the other till you realize you've walked a mile and that mile turns into another and another....


but why, sometimes do i feel so out of whack? like i've have no idea how to interact with people? why do i sometimes feel my presence so strongly changes the dynamics of a situation; why do i feel like there's something i should be doing that i'm not....some way i should be acting that i'm not...


maybe i'm trying to cram too much into too small of a space....



i don't have to be everything to everyone.


i just have to be me to myself.


whatever the crap that means.