{"id":25493,"date":"2010-05-29T21:21:11","date_gmt":"2010-05-30T02:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=25493"},"modified":"2010-05-30T06:12:05","modified_gmt":"2010-05-30T11:12:05","slug":"top-kill-fails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/top-kill-fails\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond ‘Top Kill’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Brown pelican standing on the fishing pier in front of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, over Tampa Bay, Saturday afternoon. Pelicans roamed the Earth for 40 million years before industrialism arrived in the 19th century. Photo by Eric Francis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I was driving toward the Gulf yesterday, I started to feel the environment: a secluded inland sea<\/strong><\/a>, a mile deep, its floor carved with canyons, with warm, powerful currents. I was wondering how many days it would take a dolphin to swim across from Florida to Mexico.<\/em><\/p>\n

The floor is open to discussion of solutions – and it always has been. I will invoke a bit of A Course in Miracles<\/em>: “Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.” I would like to hear what you think the problem is, and what you think the solution is. Or, skip the problem and go right to the solution.<\/p>\n

In my view we’re not dealing with something that has happened<\/em>, though – something is happening.<\/em> That’s different. So we would need proposed solutions to something in motion. Part of the problem we face is a public relations team at BP that still has us convinced that the company produces organic salad, and if we are not careful that ideology will succeed in blaming President Obama for BP’s negligence. They sense the convenient blame point and will exploit it to the max, if allowed.<\/p>\n

Quick survey:<\/p>\n

When you took a shower this morning, did you use traditional soap (based on a vegetable oil or a fat, such as Bronner’s) or did you use a commercial bar soap (really a detergent, based on petroleum)? These are the kinds of simple choices we certainly can be making, old fashioned.<\/p>\n

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[I am in a hotel, and a bottle of Bronner’s didn’t make it with me, so today for me it will be a bar detergent.]<\/p>\n

I would also add that we who are reading and contributing here are in the relatively unusual position of pioneering a new dimension of awareness that embraces how we actually feel in any moment (including rage and grief), what we notice in our environment, and a way to parse out the calculus that does not involve active denial. This is a delicate line to walk because among those who are willing to be witness to events of the world and to see what is happening, and then apply a level of knowledge; but like karate, theoretical knowledge is not enough.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem as it currently stands is that we are already part of the oil slick (plume) <\/em>and we were long before it existed: if you count petrol fuels burned for energy, plastics and chemicals, every one of us is involved. If you breathe inside, the air was moved by petroleum fuel. <\/p>\n

What we are seeing or being shown in the Gulf of Mexico is an accelerated version of what is already happening as a result of our near-total dependency on fossil fuels not only to get to the store, go to work or visit a relative, but for nearly every bite of food we put into our mouths. The stats on how many calories go into the Earth as tractor fuel and fertilizer versus how many come out as food are stunning. We are literally eating oil. We think that plants run on sunshine, earth and water…but really…when you see that red oil washing up in New Orleans, think: agribusiness<\/strong> (a direct product of the Great Depression’s era of farm consolidation).<\/p>\n

So part of the choice process involves shopping at Farmer’s Markets that use simpler farming methods, with fewer synthetic chemicals, and where the food is not shipped across a continent. A significant part of the longterm solution is to shift to patterns of consumerism that demand less oil. Your average supermarket broccoli took a 2,000 mile trip across the continent or up from Brazil.<\/p>\n

Here are some other sustainability solutions, as proposed in Cosmic Confidential<\/p>\n

Everything Old is New Again<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n