Sleeping Bear

picture of a black sleeping bearFriends from England were visiting us here on Vancouver Island. On a beautiful crisp, clear Autumn day we took them for a hike on the Holt Creek Trail by the Cowichan River; a great place to enjoy the Fall colours. It was very beautiful but it didn’t smell too great because of the rotting salmon carcasses along the river bank. We encountered one dead salmon on the trail some distance from the river. This was a bit of a mystery. The salmon was too big to have been carried by a bird and it had been bitten but not eaten. The mystery was probably solved a few minutes later when we came upon a very large bear sleeping on a log. He/she was apparently too full to finish the last fish and took a nap while digesting. We did not wake the bear, but photographed it through a zoom lens and then quietly continued along the trail, feeling very fortunate.

John Scull

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John is a volunteer environmental educator and community conservation activist living on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. He is a founding member of ICE. Visit www.naturecowichan.net to see what he does or Click Here for links to some of his articles about ecology and ecopsychology.

Photography Shortlink

Ecopsychology Journal

If you don’t yet know about the peer-reviewed quarterly journal, Ecopsychology, you’ll want to! Volume Two, Issue 4 contains a review written by our own John Scull of ICE: Review of Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy by Peter G. Brown and Geoffrey Garver, with Keith Helmuth, Robert Howell, and Steve Szeghi.

Links, Reviews Shortlink

Ecopsychology and the Generative Approach

from Daniel Schwab, a video relating the correspondences between ecopsychology and Christopher Alexander’s generative approach to architecture, in several parts:

Schwab argues that the ecopsychology platform is shared to a high degree by architect Christopher Alexander (author of A Pattern Language and The Nature of Order) and that an ecopsychological understanding could enrich a nature-like approach to architecture.

The video was created for the 2011 Portland Urban Architecture Laboratory 2011 International Conference on “Generative Process, Patterns and the Urban Challenge.”

Books, Commentary, Media Shortlink

The EarthLab Carbon Calculator

Nick Uren from the EarthLab Foundation sent us this tool to help us each make a personal difference in the fight against climate change.

EarthLab Carbon Calculator

Tools Shortlink

“They Know Not What They Do”

What the Oil Spill Reveals About Our Ethical “Gulf”
by Catriona MacGregor

The recent oil spill in the Gulf is one of our worst environmental disasters with thousands of gallons of oil pouring into the ocean every day harming thousands of living things from Sea Turtles to Dolphins.  This occurrence reflects our society’s disconnection from Natural Laws and lack of regard for life.  Since all life is sacred and connected, we not only harm other species, we harm ourselves.

The oil spill and other man made damage to other life – affects us at a deep level.  More and more people are experiencing a profound sadness and sense of loss when our actions harm other species.  Since we are connected to other life forms at not just physical level, but also at an energetic and spiritual level, it is no wonder that we experience emotional and psychic pain when we destroy life.  In “Partnering with Nature: The Wild Path to Reconnecting with the Earth” I refer to this rising syndrome as “eco-anxiety”.
Continue Reading →

Articles Shortlink

From John Seed: October 2011

News
John Seed  has just received word that The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s “Australia-India Council” has agreed to fund his expenses for 6-weeks of Climate Change, Despair and Empowerment workshops around India from Feb 2012.

Reports
The International Day of Action for the Amazon on August 22, 2011, was great! Photos (downloaded as a pdf) and TV News Clip:

Upcoming Programs
November 4-7
Nourishing Ecological Identity – A Wild Journey in the Tarkine with John Seed
Nov 25 – Dec 2
Buddha by the Beach (download pdf), Dharma Gathering, Mid-north Coast NSW, Australia

Links
The Rainforest Information Center

 

Events, Media Shortlink

Body of God

“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature… God is the great mysterious motivator of what we call nature, and it has often been said by philosophers that nature is the will of God. I prefer to say that nature is the only body of God that we shall ever see.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright

Quotes Shortlink

Eco Friendly Church

The Sacred Garden Love and Light Church in Lake Worth, Florida holds an eco friendly church service that meets outdoors only.

Links, Spirituality Shortlink

New Television Series

Tony Wright just launched a new television series in the UK that “pulls it all back to our symbiotic origins (with plants)”. Here’s a sneak peek:

Media, Television Shortlink

An Engineer’s Guide

image of nature from Michael Cohen's website

Clark Mumaw’s paper, An Engineer’s Guide to Better Health and Applied Ecopsychology, describes his studies with Dr Michael Cohen and his Institute of Global Education and shows how he has applied these studies in his own life. Download the pdf here.

Clark grew up in rural farmland in northern Indiana near the conservative Amish settlements. As a young man, his life was interrupted by a stroke, and on dismissal from the hospital Clark needed a wheelchair, due to almost complete paralysis in his left arm and left leg. Clark now finds himself working towards a PhD in eco-psychology, which he plans to use as a new career path teaching others how to benefit from nature like he has. His recovery is progressing well enough to hope for a full recovery. Clark lives in Oxford, OH and may be reached at crumaw@yahoo.com.

Articles Shortlink

Finding Galleon’s Lap

by John Wickham

As a child I was perplexed why mountain climbers would return empty-handed.  They always ascended as if hunting for something lost or left behind.  Then venturing up with my parents to Camels Hump in Vermont, I too looked around.  But the journey down lasted 30 years until I climbed back for  the meaning of the summit.

Still a youth, my descent from the mountain began with a emotional detour.  I weathered internal, opposing forces.  While discovering the passion of the guitar and composing, I was playing war with friends as soldier-boys.  As a young adult I pursued both vocations, music and the Army.  But lurking in the underworld were the disharmony and battles for my soul.  Psychic-combat left no victors, only a downward trail into fog and darkness.

My last Army duty was at Fort Carson, Colorado.  The Post sits like an armpit wedged between the Great Plains and the jutting Rocky Mountains.  Fierce lightning storms would often park there in the Summer.  It was then I felt a magnetic tug upwards to misty peaks that seemed to pierce through into sunlight.

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Poetry and Prose Shortlink

Partnering with Nature

by Catriona MacGregor
partnering with nature“Partnering With Nature”
Receives 2010
Best “Social Change Book” Award

A simple book with a powerful message that illuminates the fact that our connection to nature, animals, and the earth is a vital part of our existence.

Books Shortlink

Dragging the Demons with us into a Sustainable Future

Photo by Amy Lenzo

by Ben de Vries
As we take control of the course of our lives and communities to create new more viable futures for ourselves, problems emerging from the existing system(s) may follow us if we let them. Our current capitalist, militarist, imperialist system is based upon a hierarchy of those with capital and power exploiting those who don’t. This hierarchy pervades every aspect of our existence so long as we are living by it, and the problem I wish to address in this article is features of this system that might be carried into future systems, and the difficulties interfacing any new system into the existing one.

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Articles Shortlink

Humanity’s Inherent Earth-First Value Preference

Photo by Amy Lenzo

by Leon Miller
It is possible to have a more advantageous view of nature by maintaining a perceptual focus on what enhances the human experience while avoiding that which diminishes human well-being.

Introduction
Humanity’s understanding of the nature of existence is primarily based on perception.  Humanity has long held a perspective on existence where nature and human culture exist in dichotomy.  But this perspective of nature has not always been the view through which humanity perceived and experienced the environment and is not the only view through which the nature-human relationship is based.  It is clearly possible and preferable to have a perspective that allows taking advantage of nature’s signaled opportunities for flourishing while avoiding what would diminish human well-being.  Being able to take advantage of this improved nature-human relationship is a matter of perception.

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Articles Shortlink

Simplicity

by David Sparenberg

Photo by Amy Lenzo

Since Bach first made a fugue
the simplest melody of a flute
on a hill
has been looked on as poverty.
But a hill is not poverty.
Day, daylight, the sun, seasons
air
breathed through the flute player, sent
dancing through the wooden throat
of a finger-holed flute—
this is not poverty.  Go aside
‘til you find the paradise of simplicity.
Ask yourselves there in that
kingdom of God:
What is the worth of philosophy?
What is the truth of ecosophy? Continue Reading →

Poetry and Prose Shortlink