Straining the Limits of The Powers That Be...

Negotiating the twenty-first century and beyond requires a wrenching correction. Putting more and more capital, wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands has not worked and will continue to fail at evermore alarming rates as long as we resist change. Fundamental change, as Thomas Jefferson made clear, needs to occur, even in the best of times, every generation or two. In our case, meaning Western "civilization" generally "we" have been trying the same thing for over five centuries. Curiously, our leaders have been using this method of shape shifting and making up lies about "free markets", a rising tide lifting all boats and the most vile of all, the rags to riches story to inculcate values based on their enrichment at our expense. The lies of the last half dozen or so centuries require us to turn both a blind eye to the truth behind how poverty has been manufactured as well as our backs against the cold insidious pickpocketing that steals, wraith-like fingers, our blood, sweat and tears. This is the modus operandi of the wealthy who pickpocket us with deft and unscrupulous guile, derision and impertinence. Wiser men than I have noticed the self chastisement that our poor feel today, as if we caused our own poverty. The time has come to recognize that we are at the mercy of a much more powerful flow of capital and that our needs do not figure in to the story that the world's rich tell themselves about us.

Many anthropologists have come to understand what is called the myth of increased leisure. Through all of the years, we find that there has been an undercurrent or shadow economy that, though it may not seek to thwart or cripple the dominant one, is a reaction to it. Barter, the thriving co-op movement, buying clubs and cash only economies are just the tip of a massive iceberg. Churches of nearly every size and description functionally launder vast sums of money, making them invisible or at least untouchable by the government. We work harder, the people at the top benefit. The majority lives in service to the capricious whims of our keepers and the constant beating of the drum keeping us in lockstep is the theory that it is well and good for the "job creators" (supposedly the wealthy elites) to decide what is best. Currently there is a very vocal minority of well-funded politicians that advocate turning educational goals, and the making of them over to the business community, assuring that only technical and job-training classes would be required for moving through the system. They sell this idea as a way to assure that graduates would be "job-ready". Explicitly providing the types of skills and knowledge that the future economy needs. Where then will they learn to educate themselves or even ask the right questions? The very nature of the process involves subsidizing the corporate world through the use of publicly funded educational institutions. Perhaps, our technical schools are a good idea, but tailoring University curriculum to feed workers into a human resource chasm, unsupported by real life experience and know-how seems futile to anyone who has seen the writing on the wall.

Convincing anyone, in this day and age, that we can expect more of the same over the next twenty years is only possible if we have been deluded ourselves. It is laughable to think that people all around the globe are unaware that there has been more change, just in the past twenty years, than we have experienced in the hundred years before that. In the next ten years, we will need to witness more change that has taken place in the last twenty years if we are to merely survive as a species. The rates of destruction, of forests, water, air quality and soil cannot continue to exponentially increase, it is just not mathematically possible. The changes that are coming must be qualitative and thus will be unmeasurable by current metrics. The last several years I have noticed growing numbers of gardens in the neighborhood. I have seen larger and larger numbers of people removing salvageable things from the waste stream. I have spoken with more and more people disillusioned with old ideas of capital, fewer and fewer with dollars to carry around, but with things that are far more rewarding, and oftentimes more valuable than cash in their pockets.

The powers that be are enriched by our borrowing, because of the time value of money. They dupe us regularly to get into "the markets" and fleece us when it hits the fan. Their pockets are so well lined that we often pay for the privilege of letting them control the nature of and rhetoric used in debate about policy. Divestment, simply not buying in to their paradigm is the only way to put them permanently out of business. Spend less, make more. Crafting a new society will take billions of discreet decisions about who we are and how we want to live. The old system has not done well in providing for the vast majority. It is high time that we begin investing in one another, our land and the families and friends that make up our neighborhoods. Not giving our hard-earned money away to those who would poison us for a profit is a great place to start. For an individualized consultation about your own carbon footprint, let us design a personalized ECO-Tour for you.

Continuing to plant trees...

When your history has been planting thousands of seeds each year, hundreds of seedlings, or dozens of larger ones, is what you have been doing for years, the act of digging in a seedling or planting an acorn seem like an everyday activity. Spreading genetic information across a landscape integrates one to nature in ways that the general public has a hard time understanding.  This is what ECO-Tours are all about. We skew perception, often in drastic ways, simply by a sharing our perspective. Try this one on for size.

I come from an area encompassed by several major ecological niches. We have cave and escarpment, cliffs and fissured limestone bedrock, stretching from North to South for over 100 miles to our East, further east, small lakes, rolling hills and river systems, dune communities and Lake Michigan. Within a fun bike ride, we also have cliffs, inland lakes, rolling hills and one of the hardest working rivers in the world. We have microclimates based on remarkably deep peat bogs, thick rich soils, nearly pure sand, hard packed clay and soils so thin that in tens of thousands of years, the bedrock will still be visible. The land I call home is all of this and more. A short day's bicycle ride from here I can see all of these things and more and witness ecotones that have the power to transform each of these basic areas into life giving habitat.  I am truly a bioregionalist, claiming the entire Great Lakes Region as my home. Although I do not get to the far flung parts of this ecological jewel, I have been around all five Great Lakes and know them with an intimacy that few can fathom.

I know in my bones the difficulty created when someone with specific, truncated interests dissects the land for administrative purposes. Defining an edge that cuts through my region and calling one side of the line Illinois or Ohio may have been expedient for them, but it wreaks havoc on the local populations, especially those of us who realize that we, and the land are one. With regard to the tree planting that we do, we make little distinction between public or private land. We want to plant site appropriate trees wherever they will be allowed to grow unmolested by humans. We have chosen to plant native trees and occasionally some from regions lying to our south. In an effort to broaden the appropriateness fo the trees we plant, we strive for communities of trees. A favorite quote from Watership Down is the old rabbit proverb, "One cloud is lonely". It is the same with trees. Like humans, without relationship or contact with other trees in the landscape, most trees do not do well.

When confronting a planting site, we look carefully at slope characteristics, soils, availability of water, shade, and limitations that may be caused by wind or sun. Whether there is abundance of water or lack of water, or the filtered sun of a forest floor or the relentless open space at the knoll of a denuded hillside, there are trees that we can select that have a better chance of survival and those that have no chance at all. Unlike a landscape architect who might allow the property owner to tell them what to plant, we listen to the earth itself. Finding the right tree for the site first and then planting.

We will travel as far as we need to to find the right spot to plant. Once we get the right tree to the right spot, we take the time to care for the tree or seedling, saying a prayer of sorts over the roots, laying them into the dirt in such a way that tries to make them happy. Happy roots lead to happy trees I always say. When we water them in and provide them with protection from hungry deer and critters, we are often rewarded with nearly instant transformation. Bird life has frequently perched upon our newly planted trees within minutes, watching our progress across the landscape.

Within hours, we can often transform an area from barren and relatively flat, to a three dimensional  space that provides another layer of habitat within which life begins to thrive. Even an overgrown field might only support life for a few inches or feet below ground up to about two feet above the surface. In areas like this we can instantly create islands that are twice as high as the surrounding habitat, welcoming new layers of life that would never have landed there before. Even the shade below our trees offers more hospitable digs for creatures who make their living immersed in nature. A favorite activity of mine is to go back to areas planted with seedlings after a few years and sampling the shade that allows one to lay flat and enjoy the shade on an otherwise open area that would be intolerably hot if not for the tree, casting shade whether I am there to enjoy it or not. I have been engaged in this activity many times and had local wildlife arrive on scene to sit in that same spot, look at me like an oddity and move along in search of another place to rest in shade on a hot and sunny afternoon.

within years and decades, who knows the depth and breadth of transformation that these trees will create? This is of no concern to me, but I do know that my efforts will not be for nothing. Those who busted the sod of the high prairies or grubbed out the stumps of countless acres could not have understood the long term impacts of their activities. My own work planting trees is helping current generations of folks, wildlife, water quality and providing flood control in the most effective way possible. I do not focus on the future, but the now. It feels good to plant a tree and if I die tonight, there will be more of these sentinels, willing to give of themselves for others. That will be the greatest testament to my passing this way that I can imagine.

I am only limited by the money I have to spend on trees, the numbers of seeds that I am able to pick up and the helpful hands that share this experience with me. If you can afford a donation, please send it. If you have time to help, please let us know and we will plan a specific ECO-Tour for you. If you want to plant a few seeds yourself, please share this site with someone you care about and let them know of our efforts. Remember that when Pandora opened her famous box, in spite of the terrible things it contained, the last thing that was buried deep inside was hope.

Kewaunee Nuclear Electric Generating Facility Decomissioning

Dominion Energy, http://www.epa.gov/enforcement/air/cases/dominionenergy.html the current owner of the facility has said that they just cannot find a buyer for the nuke "plant". Although many long-term questions cannot be answered, the latest news is that the facility is being taken offline because it is too expensive to operate and the costs exceed the value of electricity that it can produce. They claim that if they had been able to purchase the other two reactors at Point Beach (just a few miles away) that they would have been able to keep both facilities open because of "scale" issues. Now, with Kewaunee not producing power, only about 10-15% of Wisconsin's energy is being produced by nuclear. Still, in spite of this "shut down", there are several facilities that will cost billions to "clean up" and/or threaten future generations with hazardous waste that will be a problem for many centuries. As more and more decisions about nuclear energy are made for economic reasons, health and safety are often the first considerations to go by the wayside.

The high-level nuclear waste at Kewaunee will continue to be held in the reactor core for at least seven years. The entire facility will eventually be left to the local folks to deal with. Dominion has said that the entire facility would be dismantled in about sixty years, but when a corporation has a track record of only doing the right thing when forced, it leads to serious questions that have remained skillfully unanswered. As part of the agreements that led to the building of this facility in the first place, the land on which the reactor sits is still owned by the local township. The land itself is not owned by Dominion. It was agreed that because of the high risk associated with the production of nuclear power, the owners would pay all of the property taxes for the entire township. If you hate paying property taxes, move here they said, the energy they were wanting to produce was supposed to be "too cheap to meter", so sharing the wealth with locals seemed like a good idea. Even so, as one drives through the area, they are struck with the lack of infrastructure, development and homes nearby.

As part of the compensation to local government, the federal government required the original owners of the facility to also pay for a fire department and out of the "goodness" of their heart, the nuke "plant" operators paid for everyone in Two Creeks Township to receive free cable television and a few premium channels. A friend, who has suffered through brain cancer, grew up just down the road from the facility yet still thinks it is a good neighbor. Numbers of employees, the vast majority who live many miles from the facility, range from less than 650 up to 900. Virtually all of these positions will be done for good within the coming month. What has been said about these job losses is that a few people will be given an option to move to one of Dominion's East Coast facilities, but that within a month or two, just a small percentage of them would stay on to babysit the waste and provide security.

The wealth and riches that were supposed to flow from the facility are going away and the waste will remain virtually forever. On the day that Kewaunee was taken off-line, I saw the entire reactor core containment building shrouded in a permanent cloud. This massive release of steam lasted for many hours. The press releases from Dominion said that a "puff" of smoke would be seen around noon and not to worry, that it was a "normal" part of the decommissioning. Like virtually everything we are told about nuclear energy, it is frequently too little too late or just enough to assuage fears and stop people from asking crucial questions about what is really going on behind the security emplacements at the perimeter.

Mayday!

Mayday blessings to all! This is the time when we overtly weave together our combined threads (our hopes, dreams and lives) to create whole cloth. All of us together represent a fabric of associations, each made stronger by the many threads that we know as work, family, community, avocation, parish, etc. This is festival time, celebration of balance and union between the sexes. Our Spring Rite is our emulation of what is going on in the world around us. The pollinators are busy, the rabbits are breeding, all life is joining the chorus and swell of exponentially greater acceleration of life itself. By weaving our dreams into one cohesive fabric, aligned and in synch with others, tying together a diverse set of knowledge, skills and attitudes,  we magnify our effectiveness in creation of ways of life that really matter.

One of my dreams is to teach using the Montessori method. I have a relationship with Maria Montessori. I have read precious little about what others think about her, but I have read her words. I did much the same reading the Bible. My thoughtful great grandfather handed down a red-letter edition. I would read the lines attributed to Christ and perhaps a few stanzas before of after for context. What I learned from getting to know him that way, enlightened me about the supreme resonance and realization that he and I are both children of Goddess, as well as God.

I could never understand the people who read the whole Bible and didn't realize that virtually nothing of the man, Jesus, is represented by any of the various flavors of X-tianity. Alas, there is plenty of distracting discussion about wee differences between many beliefs, not just in X-tian circles but among Mormons, Jews, Muslims, and others. My contention is that we all know the score, I expect we have all been paying attention, but I forget that most people have not spent thirty plus years actively educating themselves about the Great Lakes Region, fossil fuel use, nuclear issues, toxic chemical exposure, riparian ecosystems, forestry, herbal and allopathic medicine and natural history. Perhaps none of these could be completely understood , but the underlying truths in all of them point to the same question. Will we rip and tear our way through the entire planet or not. Will we choose to reclaim the planet or wreak havoc upon it. The current power structure dictates to us that breathing polluted air, as long as someone else is making a profit by it, is our obligation to economic interests. I do not accept that premise.

The tools that Maria Montessori expounded upon are available to all, if one stays true to her methods. One could contend that Jesus of Nazareth, as he was called in this, most recent version of the story was a representation of the best that resides within all of us. Few would disagree that being more "Christlike" would be good for everyone. So too Maria's ideas need to thrive and be replicated amongst the crew of Starship Earth. We are learning organisms and we know no other way. Enigmatically, we run rackets on ourselves routinely justifying mal-adaptive behaviors, neuroses and phobias, spinning our wheels mentally and emotionally, sometimes for our entire lives.Sharing the living traditions of breaking bread with loved friends, being able to reflect agape love for them, as well as ourselves, this is the ultimate ECO-Tour. Transformation of how we see ourselves fitting in to a larger whole is essential if we are to be the change we wish to see in the world. Find a Maypole near you and dance that baby like there is no tomorrow!

Earthday Blessings

A hearty thank-you to all of our readers, donors, ecotourists, guests and friends! Without the thousands of volunteer hours, the helping hands and the donations that we have received, none of the valuable work that has been done would or could have been done. This Earthday marks the twenty-ninth year since I began to pursue the idea of planting trees as a way of life. Throughout childhood, adults had modeled certain behaviors that set the stage for me to become a worker bee, part of a larger community and selfless givers of time and talent, but they could not know what their efforts would lead to when combined with my own unique passions and dreams.

ECO-Tours has allowed me to formalize my tree planting and share it with hundreds of other participants, develop methods and techniques that have exponentially increased the effectiveness of our planting efforts and created oases in places where there had been no relief or protection from harsh wind, blowing snow and unrelenting summer sun. Some of the first places we planted now have trees that dwarf the homes near where they were planted. It is always surprising to visit areas that we have planted and see the remarkable change that has occurred there. Far too often I hear stories of people who say that their favorite stream as a child has become a muddy ditch, harboring alternately foetid muck and blowing over its banks when Spring floods or a heavy summer rain shower pass by.

Turning the tables on ecological insensitivity and destruction requires tenacity, commitment and an understanding that above each and every one of our homes, offices, schools and shopping centers lies the headwaters of local streams. The "flashiness" of local streams that result from creating more and more impermeable surface is at the heart of ecological imbalance. Water, more than any other factor, needs to be considered when we seek to heal the planet. The more accepting and understanding of water we become, the better able to manage it we will become. Like a dam-builder seeing water as potential energy, or the flood victim seeing it as a scourge, we often have little choice about how we relate to water once we have accepted a certain relationship with it.

The blessing we are all given is to be able to make up our own minds about the world around us. Endless hours of blather are put out into the very public, political discussion of issues.  Much of what passes as "news" is designed to confuse issues, prop up straw dogs or lead us down a primrose lined path to our own destruction. Understanding that there is a problem is the first step toward recovery.

At ECO-Tours, we often speak about the fact that history has gotten things wrong. The tail wagging the dog is the unrelenting series of names and dates of Kings and Queens, battles and wars. This is like saying that saltwater, made with a swimming pool and a single grain of salt is salt. The vast human experience that is our history is more about individual experience in the face of their time. The millions killed as "casualties" in war all had people who cared about them. Children, mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, wives and lovers whose lives, though usually undocumented, bore very real consequences of this battle or that. Who the generals were is of little consequence, nor is the date of the carnage. Similarly, thinking of Earthday as a day in isolation, or set-aside for the healing of the world around us is like taking a general or battle out of context. We are blessed by an unbroken chain of significant events that has led us to where we are and if we want to change our direction it will require planting a lot more trees, walking more than we drive, sharing what we have with one another and aknowledging that cleaning up litter once a year will not stem the flow of toxic compounds that are daily injected into our atmosphere and watersheds across the planet.

We are all blessed with heart, enough to feel the anguish of the planet if we allow ourselves to. We are all blessed with awareness and a mind to interpret what we see, hear or feel. We are all blessed with a body which we can utilize to create change in the world around us. We are all blessed with the opportunity to make very real differences in the lives of others. How we go about making our way in the world is a far more important part of history than might ever be acknowledged, but should that mean that we do not try, or stop living according to principles of honor and respect for the planet? ECO-Tours has always stood for everyone's right to clean air, clean water and healthy soil. We have always known that these things lead to healthy bodies, healthy relationships and a deep sense of inner peace. May you find the time to experience the bliss of knowing that you are part of a solution!

Naniboujou

Naniboujou, the spirit who lives in relation to the forest, the sky, glade, glen and vast prairie, the realm of all of our animal brothers and sisters. I have read that Cree and Anishinabe storytellers regaled their audiences with Why Deer Fly a Flag as They Run, How Woodpecker Got Splotched Red, Why Beaver's Tail is flat, as well as, Why Geese Fly in "V"s and this trickster figures into all of them. Although, he is a sometimes vengeful and capricious trickster, he is bearer of great many gifts for humans, even though it can frequently be by mistake or accident. He taught humans about medicine and agriculture, but frequently through hard won lessons. To think of him as benevolent, is dangerous folly however, honoring and respecting his many disguises is essential.

This fellow is first of four brothers. Chipiapoos, lost to the Great Water, considered to be lord of the dead and forever returning to the depths of Lake Michigan. Wabasbo and Chakekenapok, whose very birth seems to have killed his mother. Naniboujou eventually takes revenge for his mothers death out upon his youngest brother, ripping him asunder, leaving behind flint for humans and his entrails are forever among us as vines.

There can be nothing wasted or overlooked within the watershed of the Great Lakes. Among freshwater systems, the Great Lakes are unique in that most of the water that comes into them is from rain or snow, not tributaries. Except for oceans, most lakes have large drainage basins and relatively small surface area. The Great Lakes are approximately 25% of the total drainage basin that feeds them. In other words, if you sprinkled a single gallon (3.78 liters) of water evenly across the watershed, one quart (.95 liters) would go directly into one of the five Great Lakes.

Just as Naniboujou has had to have relations with Father Sky, Grandmother Moon, the sacred waters and Mother Earth, so too must we. The trickster is as alive today as he has ever been and lives within and among us. Honoring and respecting the presence of this great teacher and healer can be the beginning of an old myth that can serve us well today. Keeping alive the memory of the great circle of life is our responsibility. Our stories will reveal eternal truths but only if we continue to utter them.

Innovative Fiction

I have explored the idea of cognitive dissonance, the ability of humans to hold two diametrically opposed views simultaneously. I have written about the concept of epistemic closure, the truncating of our imaginations that leads to inability to integrate new data because of our preconceived ideas. The tours we take readers and guests on often point out the need for new folk tales and fresh creation myths, that create a new landscape in our world view.  I have even written at length about the various ego defense mechanisms that jump to defend our sensitive and naive nature, every bit as impenetrable as an armadillo or turtles carapace. Many of the tours that we provide here at ECO-Tours of Wisconsin are on the level of imagination. Frequently, these writings stray into very real territory, for us, that may remain unexplored by many. Frequently, the spiritual realm is the domain of our explorations. As we reach more and more ecotourists through the internet, it is perhaps reasonable to explore areas that lie off most maps, as long as it helps us to inform ourselves about where we are and how our interactions with the physical realm affect the planet. Innovative fiction can help us inform better choices by lessening our investment into tired old lies, foisted upon us by the ruling class.

Who we are certainly leads to what we can achieve and the limitations on our thought, whether imposed by external forces or our own ideation. What we need to do, it seems to many, is to resurrect our own imagination. The ice in the arctic began to break up several weeks ago, a full month earlier than ever before. Record amounts of freshwater drained into the ocean off the surface of Greenland this year. Nearly every parameter we look at closely has been perturbed in ways that break records, defy conventional understanding and set us on a new course of perception. Even in our political and spiritual underpinnings, we have become shaken by the range and scope that is taking place. The way we conceive ourselves and our environment spills over into social policy, educational institutions, even our interpersonal relations.

Today, we can investigate the discreet ecological quality of intestinal flora, there are "boutique" methods of using phages, developed to specifically correct unique colonizations by unwelcome intestinal bacteria. About half of my readership lives in places where these methods are illegal under FDA (Food and Drug Administration) regulations. That is not to say they are not effective, just unavailable. Understanding of ecology is both global and local. It seems that most of what we are seeing reported in all areas of our lives are so incomprehensible, that if one had written it as a novel or screenplay just a few years ago, no publisher would have printed and even Hollywood would have rejected it because it would have been seen as too unbelievable.

We, here at ECO-Tours actively encourage all of our readers and guests to use your imagination to vision quest into realms that can grapple with the impending change that confronts humanity. Re-prioritize your life in ways that circumvent what we know to be the destructive tendencies that abound in technology, medicine, agriculture, energy, transportation, politics and the educational institutions that are charged with passing on the collective knowledge of our culture. Allowing the exploitative and destructive actions to cease and encouraging the growth, nourishment and facility for creation that is our birthright. We are stardust, we are one. It is high time to start acting like it. Tell the stories of your life that reveal the power of love over fear, perhaps that way we can heal the sick, house the poor and eliminate the need for poisons and prisons. The Earth and her creatures are infinitely resilient but cannot be expected to come back from exponentially changing conditions. I could draw you a map of how to find peace, but it will only depict how I get there. It is for each of us to resolve how we will help to re-create Eden. Perhaps if my terminology strikes you as naive, think of it as becoming responsible crew upon Starship Earth.

How each of us responds to and reflects the "spirits" that are recognized as Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit is unique. It cannot be mediated and there is no "proper way" to do it. To step away from the abyss that raping Mother Earth has represented, we need to learn not only how to heal ourselves, but how to inflict the least damage in our passing. Instead of the tried and true ideal of "Leave no trace" ethics, we need to understand that there is the possibility of enriching and enlivening the planet with our lifestyles. We have the power to rewrite the myths of our time, encourage others to see things from new perspectives and to respond to what the Supersuckers refer to as awesomeology, the giving of more than anyone could have possibly bargained for at a lower cost than they ever could have imagined. Cultivate peace, sew the seeds of compassion and spew forth love, as aggressively as some choose to spew hate. It is the only thing that has the power to change the world for the better. I believe it was FDR who said,

“The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.”

This wonderful message, penned on the back of a foundry worker's jacket describes well the urge to "clean up" our conceptualize the world around us. When impurities float to the top, we need to skim them off to reveal the glistening white hot metal that will be used to forge a new civilization.

"WHAT WE ARE PULLING OFF IS SLAG, IMPURITIES IN THE METAL. SAND AND INVESTMENT THAT HAS TURNED TO GLASS AND FLOATED TO THE TOP. IT IS THE DREGS OF HELL. IT IS THE SIN OF OUR FOREFATHERS...