Healing The Gulf
This page contains occasional publications of poetry, prose, art, music and images on Healing the Gulf by myself and fellow writers, friends and selected published pieces. The immediate impetus is the tragedy unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, and how we may ally ourselves with healing. Thanks to Miriam Goldberg, gifted writer and healer, for mirroring the title "Healing the Gulf", pointing out that I and so many of us have devoted our lives to healing the "gulf"–the chasm– between humans and the earth, the animals and the spirits. These works, in a larger sense, include any devoted to that healing. --
Carolyn Brigit Flynn
What To Do During a Major
Environmental Catastrophe
Cook dinner.
Love your spouse.
Check the news. It’s bad.
Cook dinner again. Obsessively read about Top Kill,
the latest plan, mud, old tires and everything
being shoved into our earth’s belly
to stop the dark hemorrhaging.
Pray it works.
Pray.
Cook dinner again.
It’s failed.
Weep a full morning.
Love your spouse.
Stare at the sky. Stop reading the news.
Check the news: No End In Sight.
Contemplate the end of the world.
Or the end of all you’ve known.
Feel alarm settle into your bones.
It will not leave this summer.
Cook dinner again. Clean the countertops.
Scrub the kitchen floor.
Wake in the middle of the night
to write in your notebook.
Hurricanes are coming.
It’s raining in your heart.
The seas have turned black.
It is absolutely impossible to live.
Cook dinner.
Carolyn Brigit Flynn
(Broadcast on KUSP radio, "First Person Singular", June 28, 2010--Click here to listen.)
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Hands Across the Sands, June 26, 2010, 11am, all over the world
STEP 1
Go to the beach at 11 AM in your time zone for one hour, rain or shine.
STEP 2
Join hands for 15 minutes at 12:00 forming lines in the sand against oil drilling in our coastal waters.
STEP 3
Leave only your footprints.
http://www.handsacrossthesand.com <http://www.handsacrossthesand.com/>
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What Was I Thinking?
I forgot to ask
how many birds will die
when I drove around the block
when I flew across the oceans
when I cruised through the glaciers.
I forgot to ask
how many birds will die
so I can eat apricots
all year long and
have lights and sound
day and night,
so I can live in the desert
surrounded by lush gardens.
What was I thinking?
Cheryl Gettleman
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It Is Us
I'm a selfish creature, I admit it
and the tiny stretch of the Pacific coastline
where I walk every week,
is the center of my universe. But
as solipsistic and self-centered as I am,
I don't have to imagine
the possibility of these cliffs
and this bay threatened
by an oil spill to feel sickened
by the oil that actually is
poisoning a faraway ocean.
It requires no imagination,
no leap of empathy
to be horrified at black ooze
coating a pelican, creeping into a bayou,
smothering a bed of oysters. On the beach
where I play with my nieces
and walk with friends,
I will still gaze at pristine white sand,
feel its fine pure crystals
between my toes; I will not walk away
years later with tarred feet
and a bittersweet memory
of a strand where beauty once resided,
yet I feel dismay
down to the bottom of my feet
all the same.
Even as I let
the horror seep into me,
I don't want to presume
upon the experiences of the ones
living on the Gulf Coast.
But I don't think,
it could be me,
it could be the Pacific
and the Monterey Bay
and my local beach.
I think instead, it is me, it is us.
Mary Camille Thomas
(published as Letter to the Editor
Santa Cruz Sentinel, Sunday, May 27, 2010)
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A Call to Live Your Medicine Now on Behalf
of the EarthSeaMother and All Life
Gather your medicines, the EarthSeaMother says, the ones I gave you to meet whatever pain and anguish might come to you in your lives. Gather your medicines, bring out your medicine bundles and live from them, live them, now. You always wondered when the time might be that you could not deny the urgency that insists you walk your medicine ways. The time is now.
What life emerges directly out of the wisdom you gathered as you gathered your medicine bundle, your spiritual practices, your prayers?
About the suffering Gulf and the great, gushing wound of the EarthSeaMother...
When praying for healing, a miracle requires rigorous alignment with what serves all beings, making offerings to the future equal to the gravity of the situation, making amends, atoning, transforming, holding nothing back.
When hoping for healing of a critical illness, the patient, the patient's family and community and the healers make the systemic offerings that align them with Spirit on behalf of the future of the patient and the future of all beings. Everyone scrutinizes herself/himself to see how we may have contributed to the agony and changes behavior immediately. Healing, to be true healing, must be goodness for all beings.
The EarthSeaMother made the ultimate offering to nurture us no matter what. The EarthSeaMother and her offering were one. Now we have wounded her so gravely she may no longer be capable of sustaining her little ones, the ones who live their lives within her, or alongside her. She may no longer be capable of sustaining us. Can we take on this task - on her behalf - of nurturing all these beings, all beings, truly? Can we transform our lives so that this call is at the core? Can we offer this on behalf of the miracle of healing that is so desperately needed?
The EarthSeaMother, calls out to us for such offerings. What is in your medicine bundle? What are your healing and spiritual practices? What daily, moment by moment life is implied by these healing prayer medicines? Will you offer and live your medicine now, ceaselessly? When you gather with others, will you see what medicines you carry together and offer them fully?
Healing activity of the magnitude required - equal to the magnitude of the tragedy - needs to be systemic, ongoing and constant, as is the suffering and wound of the EarthSeaMother and all the creatures. Can you align each moment of your life to the medicine life? Prayer extends from the exact and rigorous practice of such offerings,. If we can heal life - that is heal the EarthSeaMother - then Life may heal us.
Deena Metzger
http://www.deenametzger.com <http://www.deenametzger.com/>
Published on Facebook
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Sing the Water To Itself
A few days ago I was gifted with a dream. Like most of you, I have been wanting to do something about the oil volcano in the Gulf. The situation lay heavy on me as I went to sleep. In the early hours I received the following message from the Teachers.
I dream that I am wanting to go to the Gulf and sing the waters. I see myself singing and through the song the oil is contained. My mind cannot grasp how this can happen, but my heart sees it so. Although I don't see how I can manifest a trip financially and I cannot see where or how I am to sing, I commit to it.
The Teachers come to me and explain that I do not have to go anywhere. The water on this planet is continuous. No matter where I stand I am on the "shore". Water is within and around me at all times. Each drop of our Mother Earth's blood connects with every other drop. She has blood poisoning. A wound from within that threatens life. Sing. Drum. Pray. Ask everyone to do so and to do it often.
Sing the water to itself. Drum it into wholeness. Pray in whatever way is right and appropriate for the oil to be stopped and cleaned up. And even then, sing, drum and pray for the health of the plants and animals; for sustaining ecosystems. The effects of this poisoning are far reaching.
Do not fear that you are powerless. Take action and take it now. Sing. Drum. Pray.
I see myself singing the waters - RiverSong - as I was taught several years ago by the shores of the Maumee. But other's do not know RiverSong. How can I teach them all, I ask?
Each person can sing, drum and pray as they are able. Allow the intention of healing and wholeness to flow through. Sing the ancients' songs if you know them. Open to the pain and sing it to wholeness, once again. It is time for you each to awaken to your innate abilities to heal through love and compassion. Sing. Drum. Pray.
I share this with you. I call you each to action. Sing alone. Drum together. Pray as you drive. Whatever you can do as often as you can do it. As you pass a stream, lake or river - sing, I love you. Thank the waters.
Send this call out to everyone you know. Sing in joy, drum in love, pray with deep gratitude.
Coleen Renee
SongHealer http://www.coleenrenee.com <http://www.coleenrenee.com/>
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You Are Desperately Needed
"We ask you to cast, anchor, and hold the Net of Light steady for the Gulf of Mexico," the Grandmothers said. "This crisis is affecting the entire world, and humanity is asleep. Wake up!" they cried. "Animals are dying, plants are dying, and your Mother is writhing in agony. If you hold the Net of Light steady at this time you will help stave off further catastrophe.
"You have been lulled into a false sleep," they said, "told that others will take care of this problem. This is not so," they said. "And this is not the time for you to fall into oblivion. Determine now to stay awake, and once you have made that commitment, think of, cast, and hold the Net of Light. Hold it deep and hold it wide. Amplify its reach to penetrate the waters of the Gulf and dive deep beneath the crust of Mother Earth. Anchor it at the earth's core and as you hold it there, ask it to unify with the mineral kingdom of this planet. It will do this and will harmonize with all the solid and liquid mineral states on earth-including oil and gas. The Net of Light will call these minerals back into harmony.
"First move into your heart and call on us. We will meet you there. The Net of Light is lit by the jewel of your heart," they said, "so move into this lighted place within you and open to the Net of which you are a part. Bask in its calming presence. It holds you at the same time that you hold it.
"Think of, cast and magnify the presence of the Net of Light in the Gulf of Mexico. See, imagine or think of it holding the waters, holding the land, the plants, the sea life, and the people. Holding them all!" they said. "The Net of Light is holding them steady; it is returning them to balance. Let the love within your lighted heart keep pouring into the Net of Light and hold, hold, hold. Calmly and reverently watch as the light from your heart flows along the strands of the Net. It will follow your command and continuously move forth. As soon as you think of it, it will happen. We ask you to practice this for only a few minutes at a time, but to repeat it throughout the day and night.
"We promise that this work with the Net of Light will do untold good," the Grandmothers said. "We are calling you to service now. You are needed. Do not miss this opportunity. We thank you and bless you."
Sharon McFarlane, Grandmothersspeak.com http://grandmothersspeak.com/messages/20100527.php
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Requiem for the Gulf
A beautiful, heart-breaking slide show — Posted by planetjose on youtube, May 20, 201
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOkPGnaXsg8