Taking Care Of Old Mom Earth

The oddest thoughts.

If I lived in suburbia and my dog ran out and pooped on my neighbor's lawn, my neighbor would be angry. My neighbor might tell me to clean it up. S/he'd be much angrier if I spilled a truck full of chemical fertilizer or garbage on the lawn, something that would be hard to clean up and looked and smelled bad.

I live in the country. I go for a walk in the fields with my dog. On my own land I come upon an enormous horse poop. Later, I see my neighbor and ask if she's been riding on my land. I shake my head, no, at her. She says she'll clean it up. I think, well, what if she had left instead a few leaking barrels of hazardous material or poison. What if she left behind baited leg traps so my dog and pets could be injured. I'd be much angrier.

If BP were pouring its oil on my roof, or in my yard, or in my street, I'd tell them to cut it out and to clean it up. I'd probably also get angry at BP. I would plot ways of having my sweet revenge on them for making a mess of my house, or land, or street. I'd think about all of the demonstrations, lawsuits, administrative actions, and so on I could instigate against them.

But BP's not pouring it directly on me, or my family, or my house, or my land. No. They're spilling it, lots and lots of it in the Gulf of Mexico. I notice that I'm less angry about this than if they were filling my basement with crude oil. I notice that nobody's really picketing BP gas stations or their corporate headquarters. I notice that people are not screaming at them to cut it out and clear it up. I notice that people are not asking that they be nationalized or seized or confiscated. I notice that their gas stations are still open for business. Same for their refineries. I notice that their bank accounts still work, their stock is still traded. I notice business as usual. I notice that I can turn away from them and do other things. Like go to work. And sleep.

Why is that? Is it because the Gulf of Mexico isn't my physical backyard? Or my fields? Or my street? Is it because it seems farther away from me? Is it because we're just beginning to see the devastation that this will bring to the Gulf Coast? Is it because we don't believe that it is destroying the Gulf and our planet? Is it because the oil isn't going directly into my basement and disrupting my life at this second and befouling my every breath and making me sick?

I like to think that we humans are stewards for mother earth. That we take care of her. It's like the old song, "The earth is my mother/I must take care of her." I like to think that we belong to the earth, that she does not belong to us. I like to think that our precious, small, blue planet will support and nurture us and give us all we need. And all she needs in exchange is that we take good care of her. But I don't think we're taking good car of her right now. I think we're destroying her. It's not just the oil in the Gulf, not by a long shot, but the oil in the Gulf is the latest, quickest, more egregious example of the failure of our husbandry.

If somebody insulted my mother, or harmed her, I would be outraged. I would protect her. I would do whatever was in my power to keep her from harm. Goodness. Some people will actually fight if somebody even says something bad about their mother. Well, this is worse than saying something bad. This is actually harming, defiling, injuring the planet and the creatures that live on it. Here we are, our mother is actually being harmed. And somehow, somehow we sit idly by.

We think about the situation. While we think, the oil is still flowing. Out of control. We hope that some new contraption will stop the leak. The last one didn't but maybe this one will. Or the well that arrives in July. We hope the damage won't be too great. We hope BP will stop the damage, the spill. We hope the government will get involved. We sit on our hands. We stare at the ceiling. We hope this isn't the beginning of our planet's death rattle.

And, of course, we make arguments about policies we will need in the future. And we talk about how it's our fault that there is a gigantic oil leak in the sea because we're addicted to oil. We blame ourselves in some regard for this rapidly expanding injury to our planet. But we still stare at the ceiling. And we hope this isn't the beginning of our planet's death rattle. And that something will save our pearly blue planet from harm.

The truth, I'm afraid, is that we're in a trance. We've been drugged by darts. We're immobilized. We sit and stare. We think. We talk. We type. But until the end we won't do anything to respond to this, to embody our fury, to protect ourselves and our planet and our oceans. We'll wait and hope that the damage stops. And we'll talk about our planet's remarkable capacity to stabilize itself and heal itself and repair itself.

I wonder. Are we trying to kill our planet? Is this a slow form of attempted planetary suicide?

Why are we letting our mother down like this? Where is our gratitude for all she does for us?

Saving Pachamama: A Beginning

Don Mariano Quispe Flores

Pachamama, mother earth, Santa Madre Tierra, the earth, the planet is obviously in trouble. This should by now be obvious.

The Q'ero of Peru, the descendants of the Incas, live in remote villages that are above 14,000 feet above sea level. They have lived in these areas for hundreds of years. They live above the tree line. They raise llamas, alpacas, vicunas, and other similar animals, and they grow big kernal maiz ("choclo") and hundreds of species of potatoes. And until recently they kept to themselves. They stayed away from the cities. And the Government. And, of course, they kept their understandings of Shamanism and energy medicine to themselves. They certainly didn't tell North Americans about it. But then, relatively recently, they noticed the oddest thing, that the glaciers surrounding them were slowly melting. Slowly becoming smaller. Slowly disappearing. And the spiritual teachers in the lineage decided that Q'ero who were healers, who were powerful Shamans, who knew that it was necessary to heal mother earth and her children, would have to go down the mountain and bring out their teachings and carry them across the world.

I spent this past weekend with Q'ero Shaman Don Mariano Quispe Flores at The Abode in New Lebanon, New York, along with some three dozen other shamans. Don Mariano is 72 years old. He does not know how to write. Or to read. He speaks only Quechua (though he does say a very few words in English and Spanish). His village in Peru is about an 8 hour bus ride and then a 4 hour walk uphill from Cuzco. This trip to the United States (he stopped in California and Washington State and Colorado before journeying to the East) was his first trip to the US, though he has been to Europe. He is a very sweet, gentle, and humble man. And a powerful, traditional healer.

Because Don Mariano speaks Quechua, his translator sometimes translated first into Spanish, and then someone else translated into English. This was an incredible gift: I could hear what Don Mariano was saying three times. No, I didn't understand the first statements in Quechua, but I could feel and hear his tone of voice, and then it was repeated in both Spanish and English, so the content was repeated. I'm not going to try to bring you all of Don Mariano's teachings.

Instead, I bring you this very short essay to tell you something important that you probably already know only too well, just to remind you.

Pachamama, your Mother Earth, Santa Madre Tierra is in trouble and she needs our help and our caring for her. She needs us to honor her. And protect her.

This might involve traditional practices, like making offerings ("despachos") and prayers for the healing of the earth. It also might involve ceremonies, calling in the power of the Twelve Sacred Mountains (the Apus), the six directions, prayers, and healing thoughts. These are all important. But also important, perhaps even more important is our continuing awareness of Pachamama and our actions to take care of her as she takes care of us by feeding us, by giving us water, by providing shelter.

So I have a very simple request. Please pause now, look up from your screen, go outdoors if you can, and see, if you can, the unbelievable, abundant world surrounding use, the world on which we walk. Look at Pachamama. And feel, if you can, in your heart gratitude for all Pachamama provides us. This gratitude is incredibly important. It is the beginning point to help the planet.

Ireland: The Global Vigil Fire

The End of the Fire (photo by Jón Ágúst Guðjónsson)

A three-day vigil fire by shamans from across the world was held April 24 through 26 in Dunderry Park, Co. Meath, Ireland. Additional fires in support of the vigil-- as many as 100 or more-- were held in other parts of the world. The idea was for about 40 trained shaman of many traditions to gather in Ireland and to dream the world into being, to shift the world into greater peace, abundance, and collaboration, to turn from a personal or community focus to a broader, worldwide one, to put our focus on walking in beauty and gratitude on the earth. We had done this before. We will, I hope, do it again.

When we have such a fire, I am reminded of the Hopi prophecy that when there are a million fires there will be peace on earth, and Pachamama will be healed. I think about this often.

The fire was tended in two-hour shifts. I arrived at about 2 am on Saturday morning in a light but windy rain and fog to find Lisa and Bob and a large, hot, wild fire. My shift with Sinead was to begin at 4 am. All of us stayed until after 8 am to listen to the first birds singing, to watch the sun rise (an important reason for taking the 4-6 am shift), to play, to tend the fire, to talk, to drum, to dance and sing, to offer to the fire and ourselves whiskey and incense and stories and jokes and anecdotes, to send through the fire and out across the planet our desire for peace, abundance, healing and cooperation, our prayers for Mother Earth, Santa Tierra, Pachamama.

Tending the fire might be sacred work, or it might be profane, or it might be a delightful, lovely human mixture of the two. There are no real rules. Except one. It is important to have fun while preventing the fire from being extinguished by rain and wind. The fire must be fed and nurtured. It ought not to go out.

The character of the fire changes, depending on who is tending it. I find that fires I tend are large and wild and quite hot. I like that. Others make the fire peaceful and calm and receptive. Some fires are masculine; others, feminine. Some fires listen, others speak. Some fires bring out singing, others like silence. Some fires bring introspection; others, expression. Fires have qualities reminiscent of personalities, and are both as different and the same, as members of the same species.

In the midst of our tending the fire, a sudden, strong gust of wind managed to rip a tent from the ground and throw it into the pasture. We immediately decided to retrieve it. Bob and Lisa went after it and easily ducked under the electric fence to get the tent. For reasons I do not fully comprehend-- I have an electric fence at my home and have had it for many years-- I thought that the fence must definitely be turned off. And here is the strange part: I decided to check this hypothesis. I have no idea what I may have been thinking, if anything, at the time. Accordingly, I intentionally placed my bare, wet right hand on the already very wet wire. This was not a good idea. In fact, it was a very stupid one. I was immediately treated to a gigantic shock of high amperage and low voltage. I was shocked. Literally. And figuratively. I do not accept that there was a blue spark that jumped from the wire to my hand. I do not perceive that I started to glow. I did immediately growl and roar. And curse. This, I am sure, disturbed the donkeys. I do not think it disturbed my companions, all of whom were surprised by my outburst. There is an irony, of course, that the fence was there to keep jackasses in or out of the pasture. You can draw whatever conclusion you wish from this. I was not, however, mortally wounded. I was ever so embarrassed by the large outpouring of energy I experienced. I consider myself unworthy of such electricity, of such energetic attention. I am now seriously considering becoming a Luddite. I have also reaffirmed my position that electroshock therapy is inhumane and barbaric in all cases.

At the end of the fire, on Sunday morning, we all stopped feeding it, so that it could slowly consume itself. We placed around it all of our prayer bundles, mesas, and malas in blessing, as you see in the photo. When the fire was out, I collected in a small plastic bag some of the ashes. These ashes contained ashes of other sacred fires, fires from Tibet, fires from Africa, fires from North America, fires from Australia, hundreds of fires from sacred sites across the world. I brought the ashes home. They are sitting on my altar. When we have a fire this week, I will add the ashes to my fire circle, and that will add my fire to the web of past and future vigil fires across the world, all asking for peace, abundance and the healing of Pachamama, Santa Tierra.