Where There is Fear, There is Power

I could barely hear the man at the podium speaking, and the voices in the hall hushed to hear him.  We'd all been sitting there at the public comments hearing at the California Public Utilities Commission meeting for over an hour and a half, and folks were getting restless, their rancor most notably directed at the slightly plump young woman with the bell who's sad duty it was to ding you when you're one minute of airtime was up.

The man's white hair, which stood out starkly against his dark skin, fluffed out to the side, giving him a distinct likeness to Albert Einstein.

"I was a veteran of Nagasaki," he said, or at least I think that's what he said.  He spoke with the very slow, barely audible mumble of someone well over seventy, but the woman with the bell had enough sense not to try and ding him -- whether because she knew it would send the already disquieted crowd into outright chaos or simply because her mother had raised her right, I don't know.  "I've served this country for along time.  But now... (mumble, mumble)... PG&E rate increases (mumble)... I was without heat in my house for five months this winter.  I lived in a cold house for five months.  (mumble, mumble) ...do not allow PG&E to increase our rates any higher."

Watching him, I was struck by his quiet power, the clarity I felt from him in spite of my confusion over his specific words, and the sadness of this small personal truth -- that this old man, and undoubtedly countless others like him, was going without power in the dead of winter and had traveled here to the pomp auditorium at the San Francisco Civic Center from West Oakland early in the afternoon in the pouring rain to challenge the CPUC's approval of smart meters.

At first when Jason suggested that we go to the public comments hearing to talk about Diablo Canyon, I had thought that it didn't make much sense.  We've been positively obsessed with organizing around shutting down Diablo Canyon since the catastrophic events at the Fukushima Daiichi plant earlier this month.  Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant sits on not one but two active fault lines, one less than 1000 feet from the plant.  These faults are in the same system as the one that caused the quake in Japan, and overall, there has been a growing amount of seismic activity in the Pacific Rim in the last ten years.  Excitingly, DCNPP is built only to withstand a 6.7 earthquake, has relatively no preparedness plan for a seismic emergency, is under such intense scrutiny that their backup safety mechanisms were not working for over 18 months, and is located about 250 miles from my house.

But, obsessed or no, I couldn't see what our arguments against Diablo Canyon had to do with a public hearing focused on smart meters, and I didn't want to distract the CPUC to get confused with too many issues at one meeting.  But as I heard the old man speak, and the countless others who had come, I felt a surge of intense emotion and a sense of belonging -- belonging to this group of people passionate, desperately passionate in some cases, about protecting our lives against corporate interests who are willing to take risks with potentially armageddon-inducing technologies just because the risk-to-benefit analysis somehow makes sense to them on their little calculators.

Elaine spoke first, then Marg.  Jason and I had to wait a long time, and by the time it was my turn to go, I felt my whole body shaking with emotion and was sure that I was either going to be moved by spirit to say things I would never remember but other people would think were pretty good, or would collapse into a pile of tears and gibbers like a total fool.

The auditorium is not set up to benefit the nerves of public commentators.  You stand off to the side, below a stage where the commissioners sit behind a tall desk in plush cushy chairs, seemingly completely at ease while you struggle to figure out how to adjust the mic to go near your mouth.  As I got up to speak, I noticed that while most of the commissioners appeared to be rather bored and trying to appear interested, they did at least look at me.  That was a good sign.  I decide to go for it.

Well, I don't remember what I said, but other people seemed to like it.  I know that I said something about the fault lines, and how we need to immediately shut down these reactors until the seismic mapping is completed and can prove that DCNPP is safe -- which simply won't and can't happen.  Jason went next, and as I watched him, I was struck by how incredibly sexy I find it to see him in his power, speaking strongly for the things that we're fighting for -- speaking in defense of the earth.  He told the commissioners that they would be held accountable for not shutting down the reactor if and when something goes wrong there, and I could see how that unnerved them.  Which I think seems like a pretty appropriate response.  After all, it's a pretty unnerving situation.

Now, a couple hours later in a cafe, I'm no longer thinking much about the commissioners, even though I do have a fantasy where they announce tomorrow that they've seen how dire the situation is and will immediately shut it down.  What is striking me is how beautiful the hills are around Diablo Canyon, green and covered in trees, like a small peace of heaven.  We've been given the keys to eden, and the sacred covenant of caring for one another: humans young and old, non-humans of infinite and majestic variety, the land herself which rolls like waves along the coastline where we've built this thing of terrible, awesome power.  Most of all, I'm remembering the thing that Starhawk says that I've heard so many times that it's almost cliche: where there is fear, there is power.

Immense power.  Sometimes, overwhelming fear.  Sometimes, immense power that helps us overcome our overwhelming fear, even in places as unlikely as bureaucratic meetings and from people as unlikely as you, or me, or an old man who's voice can barely reach above a murmur.

Which makes me think of something else that I know about power -- that it's in each of us, and that it grows when we're together.  I can feel that I'm at the beginning of another journey with this Diablo Canyon thing... I hope that you'll come with me.

A Day of Ritual, A Day of Action: TOTB Day 4

As the sun begins to rise, we gather by the ritual fire.  Mateo and his wife, Michelle, who are not originally from this land but were adopted by the native people here and now call it home, have invited us here to this sacred ceremony.  Michelle holds an infant in her arms as Mateo steps around to each of us and smudges us with sage.  In the custom of their teacher, who has passed away, they open the circle with a traditional song and then ask us to bring in spirit in whatever way feels right to us, to pray to whatever gods we pray to, because we are all here doing the work together and we are all in service to the land.  Slowly at first, then with more confidence, we take turns stepping into the center of the circle, drop tobacco that’s dried but still green into the flames, and say a prayer --- although for some of us that’s spoken words, and others its song, and still others its silent.  Lisa offers “Let the Beauty We Love Be What We Do,” which reminds me of my dear friend Jeff Mooney and brings a little pang to my heart, wishing he was here in his body rather than only with his song.  Some people step forward and speak in Spanish, others in native tongues that belong to nations that I don’t know the names of.

The morning was filled with last minute preparations and too soon it we were loading into cars and the bus and driving down to Las Alamos.  On the way we passed Black Mesa, which is a place that I’ve heard much of but never see before.  It’s a sight to behold: layers of orange and red rock rising straight out of the earth, looking for all the world like the hand of some titanness has placed it there.  All around the mesa are plateaus of similarly straight, sunset-colored rocks surrounded by scrubby brush and the occasional wild sunflower.  It’s a place of incredible beauty, and it’s hard to imagine how anyone could decide to build a nuclear lab here because “nothing’s here, anyway.”  Above us, the sky is pure sapphire blue.

We pull up to Ashley Pond, a park that I’ve heard was made by the indentation of a nuclear bomb, although that seems to be at best an unconfirmed rumor.  Again Seeds of Peace arrives with a basket full of food to feed the whole group, and while the puppeteers get their props together the rest of us circle up beneath a huge tree and begin the ceremony.  Juniper grounds us and then an indigenous elder honors the spirits of the land and calls for their blessing upon us, honoring the ancestors of all of our bloodlines at the same time.  Then another elder steps forward and prays for us, followed by a young organizer who calls for us to put our blessings and intentions into the waters that we will bring with us down to the lab and, hopefully, to the CMR building which is an object of quite a bit of tension and dispute. 

CMR stands for Chemical Metalurgy Research, which is the place where they build the plutonium pits that ignite the rest of the bomb (it’s a pit like a peach pit, not a pit like a hole in the ground).  Building plutonium pits goes against the Nuclear Proliferation Act, which the US apparently has signed but not ratified, meaning, it’s a treaty in name only – something that’s pretty obvious considering how much we ignore it.  LANL is currently in the process of expanding the CMR to become the CMRR, which would be the brand new CMR, expanded and pretty and filled with new equipment.  This is all fairly ironic, given Obama’s expressed desire to be on the road to becoming a nuclear-weapon free country, and also given that there’s a lot of money dedicated to this new facility and very little dedication to the dismantlement of our older nuclear weapons which at the very least could be retrofitted into new weapons or, even better, turned into something that will never create another mushroom cloud on this planet.

After our intentions of healing, rejuvenation, and transformation are put into the water, we call in the ancestors – first those that have died of radiation poisoning and nuclear exposure on this continent (like my own father, grandmother, and grandfather), then the veterans of wars who have given their lives either in service or from the effects of depleted uranium weapons, and finally, a woman from Japan steps forward and honors the deaths of those killed 65 years ago today in Hiroshima and all of those who died afterwards from the lingering effects of the bombs (both Hiroshima and Nagasaki).  Juniper tells me that with all of these powerful ancestors with us, we cannot be stopped.  I hope that she’s right.

The puppeteers and dancers come forward to perform for us.  They are quite a colorful array.  Obama is there, twenty-feet tall and four-armed, using his many hands to cover his eyes so he can’t see the bomb-makers, who are poisoning the elements and the land.  A bevy of pregnant mothers – of all genders – give birth to radioactive babies, and fall upon the ground.  Then the elementals return, dancing and singing, and the bomb shifts to become a beautiful healed earth. 

We’re ready to go.  We step off into the street and start our two-mile procession down to the lab, chanting and singing and drumming and dancing.  Juniper, Jim and I drum alongside a young dreddy fellow going absolutely mad on a teeny metal doumbek.  The police quickly arrive, but we have a permit and so there’s really nothing for them to do other than trail alongside us as our escort, which is kinda nice because alone we are only blocking one lane of traffic but with them there we’ve effectively shut down all of the lanes headed towards the lab.  It’s a long walk, and of course about halfway through I realize that I really need to use the loo.  I briefly entertain the notion of stepping behind a barricade to go, but then push it aside and hope that the thing will happen that does happen sometimes where you have to go for so long that your body just gives up on it. 

During our strategy meetings, we weren’t sure if we were going to end up doing the rest of our action in the street in front of the lab or in the parking lot (where we’re allowed to be), as there were many people worried about risking arrest by being in the street.  Once we got there, however, it was obvious that the street was our place to be.  The cops rerouted the honking cars while we did the puppet show in the middle of the intersection and then circled up and began the spiral dance, singing: 

We are sweet water and we are the seed

We are the storm winds that blow away greed

We are the new world we bring to birth

A river rising to reclaim the earth.

Then the living river surged forward – a long cloth dyed blue with woad that has been in Quebec, Miami, and may other Pagan Cluster actions, held up by activists who were willing to risk arrest in order to continue the ceremony directly in front of the CMR.  During our planning, we weren’t sure if it would only be a handful of us -- and yet with the drums and the singing and the puppets swirling forward with us, soon nearly everyone was crossing the line onto the lab property and marching down the road.  The police watched, apprehensive, but doing nothing to stop us.   We continued singing, first the pagan standbys “The River is Flowing” and “Born of Water,” and then moving to “When we go down to the river to pray,” which stayed powerful for quite some time. 

As we walked, it began to rain.  At first it drizzled, but then the clouds opened up and the water began blessing us for real.  Lightning crackled across the sky and thunder boomed, and still our voices and our drums stayed strong.  Before long, we were there – all the way there, at the CMR, and Jason was spreading the holy water in the four directions while we toned.  “We pray for the people who once called this land sacred land, and still do.  We pray for the people who live in this place and drink the waters; we pray for the people who work here.  We pray for all people that there may be peace across all the lands and these weapons will be dismantled, because we don’t need them anymore.”

Lisa, Jason, and others quietly and with dignity sat down in front of the doors to the CMR to pray, and finally – but reluctantly – the police moved into action.  The commander first addressed the crowd, promising to be peaceful and not to harm anyone so that we “might achieve our objectives” as long as we did the same.  It wasn’t a hard promise to make, being the dedicated  nonviolent peace activists that we are.  They filed into a line between us and those who were being arrested, and soon a line of activists was standing in front of them holding the living river banner waving in the rain, surrounded by still more of us singing.  I felt really in my power now, drumming and holding space for this magical work, and my voice was loud and clear in spite of how tired and utterly drenched that I was.  It was time for something different for this work – for something a bit more fierce. 

We are the rising of the moon, we are the shifting of the ground

We are the seed that takes root when we bring the fortress down.

We are the tongue that speaks the truth, we are the dragon on the wind

We are the courage to step forth – we are the change that now begins.

I looked across the line of police and activists as I drummed and saw Lisa crying as we sang to them, being arrested.  I’ve never seen her cry before, and I’m not even sure what had brought tears to her eyes, but there they were.  It was so touching to me, that moment of connection.  Part of me wished that I was on the other side of the police line with her, but there are commitments that require me to be sure that I get on my plane tomorrow afternoon.

It turns out not to really matter, because our friends who were arrested – 8 of them in total – are already being released on their own recognizance.  And although I’m tempted to have some regret about my choice, I feel proud of the work we’ve done today.  We all do.  The whole day was one of magic and power, a manifestation of our passion for peace and healing through ceremony, art, and action. We’re still waiting for a couple of folks to be released, but they’re on their way – and while waiting, we hear that another 30 folks have been arrested at Livermore Labs, and probably still others across the US.  It feels good, it feels totally right, to be part of a movement of people that honors today like this.  I feel proud of all of us.  And I’m betting that if I’m not here in New Mexico this time next year, I’ll be somewhere else, honoring and remembering the beloved dead with my heart, soul, and my feet – in the streets!

The Ancestors Walk With Us (Think Outside the Bomb Day 3)

Hello my dear ones,

Here's yesterday's report from New Mexico.  We had a huge storm last night, knocking out our internet and much of our phone service, so I wasn't able to post.  Right now, I'm sitting in a cafe next to Ashley Pond, where our big march to the Las Alamos Nuclear Lab will start.  We'll have a ceremony at the beginning of the event and invoke the ancestors from here and Hiroshima and all over the world who have been affected by the nuclear-industrial complex, and later will continue the ceremony in an act of civil disobedience as we cross the line onto LANL to spread the waters of the world and pray for healing and rejuvenation.  I hope that you will hold us in your hearts and prayers for the next couple of hours.

Much love,

Riyana

*****

I don’t like marching on sidewalks.

 

About sixty of us headed down the road, on the sidewalk, banners waving and drums drumming.  In spite of my itch to not be on the sidewalk (“Off the sidewalk, into the streets!), my heart felt very glad to have made in there in time – my affinity group had been off doing a delegation at the New Mexico Environmental Protection Agency, which we left somewhat frantically to meet up with the rest of our cohort at Cathedral Park in downtown Santa Fe.  As important as meeting with decision makers is in activism, I knew that my place was here – well, maybe not right there on the sidewalk, but here at this march of young people and elders of various communities, percussionists with all manner of noise-makers and artists carrying graffitied signs on cardboard, budding photographers and indymedia writers from around the country. 

 

We marched straight into the offices of Locheed-Martin and then to the offices of the lawyers that represent the uranium mining industry, filling their tiny waiting rooms with chants and music and calls for justice.  Somewhat feebly, a blonde woman in a pink button-up shirt replied and black slacks tried to remind us that we were on private property and this was a business day for them, talking as if she were speaking to a naughty child.

 

“We are here on business,” a young latino activist flatly retorted.

 

“Well, if you’re here on business, the appropriate way to do so is to email us to make an appointment and we’ll schedule a meeting…”

 

“I think what we’re doing is getting a, how do you say it, a walk-in appointment,” he answered, jovially ignoring her tone.  The woman didn’t reply, rolling her eyes at the man dressed nearly exactly the same beside her (but in blue instead of pink – it was almost like a cartoon), and turned and walked away to go call the police. 

 

There wasn’t too much more to be said after that, and with more chanting we snaked our mass of color and sound down the staircase.  “Protect our waters, heal our lands – uranium mining is a sham!”

 

Outside, we passed an open-air tour bus of folks who all eagerly snapped our pictures, and many pedestrian folks, some of who peered at his quizzically while others smiled and waved and put their thumbs up in response.  The drivers, as usual, expressed more displeasure at our presence there than the pedestrians; glaring and cursing, some of them tried to slip past our mass as we crossed the street and cursed at us when they weren’t able to.  Sam, who I recognized from a wonderful dancing-in-the-streets moment in St. Paul two years ago, took on handling traffic control while the rest of us made our way out of downtown and (finally) into the streets that led up to the capitol building.   Other drivers, however, honked and waved cheerily – after all, this is their town, and it is their drinking water affected by radiation pollution.  There’s a lot at stake here for the people of this city.

 

The security guards at the capitol didn’t quite know what to make of us, as it is a public building and we have every right to go into it.  They settled on disallowing our signs and flags and banners but allowing our persons inside, where we took a reprieve from the hot sun outside.  I quickly threw on an aura of invisibility as I passed the guard with my drum, knowing that not only did I feel uncomfortable leaving it there on the sidewalk, but that it might be pretty fun to have it inside.  It worked: the guard either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

 

Once inside, some people went off to look at the art exhibit in the center of the building while others refilled their water bottles and used the loo.  Lisa and I met up in the large, round entryway, conferred quickly, and moments later the gorgeous open hall was filled with four stories of voice and drum and snaps and hums.  A fellow with rainbow socks up to his knees, long blonde hair, and an electric green bandana started swirling around the polished marble floor, as graceful as any ballerina.  Then more dancers filed into the center of the hall, taking the space.  Soon everyone was dancing, singing, swirling, and drumming while the security guards looked on with anxious frowns.

 

Eventually we swirled outside, circled up, and sang again.  “We are the rising of the moon, we are the shifting of the ground; We are the seeds that take root when we bring the fortress down.”  Then, miraculously, there were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from Seeds of Peace, and we clamored back into the bus, which wheezed its way out of Santa Fe and back to the encampment.

 

Just as we turned the corner back to the land, the thunderstorms rolled in.  I was exhausted from having spent hours marching during the hottest part of the day, but the clouds opening up to release their nourishing waters and the plants and earth opening up to receive that life-giving love was too much for me.  I tossed my drum and pack into my little tent just as the rain began to pour down, went down to the river, and sang and danced to the rain.  I felt so alive, just as the earth must feel in this dry place, and the plants, and the animals that live here, to be a part of this moment – the moment of renewal in a dry, dry land.  I was soaked, but I didn’t care.  My voice felt strong and powerful, my soul felt rejuvenated. 

 

This is good work we are doing here.

 

The beautiful, life-giving rains unfortunately also caused a bit of havoc for our encampment, tearing down the large tent that we do our trainings and meetings in, the registration tent, and scattering papers and other debris everywhere.  The next couple of hours after the rains were spent cleaning up and building back up, while others continued working on puppets and costumes for tomorrow’s action and still others worked out the ifs and hows of doing civil disobedience at the lab tomorrow.  Now it’s late at night, and although I know I should be going to bed, I’m feeling too awake for my little tent to seem at all appealing.

 

Some folks have written to me, asking me to speak more about why I’m here.  It’s a good question, one that I don’t have a clear easy answer for.  Certainly part of it is that one of my dearest mentors, Joanna Macy, has always spoken so eloquently and urgently about the need for us to take on the role of “nuclear guardianship,” protecting the generations of beings that will come for thousands of years after us from the consequences of our actions should we continue to mine and process uranium and plutonium as we are currently doing (and of course, goddess-forbid, should we actually use the bombs we create).  

 

Another part of it is much more personal, though.  When I was young, my father got mysteriously sick with a very rare disease that attacked his blood and bones from within.  It was a progressive disease that began as one thing, turned into something else, and eventually became leukemia, which killed him.  He was diagnosed and told that he had ten years to live when I was six; he died when I was sixteen and he was forty-six.

 

My father was the world to me, and his death still remains with me to this day.  I’ve given up “getting over” it, and have come to accept and hold tenderly that part of me that still mourns his death. 

 

It was a couple of years after my father’s death that a family relative alerted us to a class-action lawsuit that folks who had grown up outside of the Hanford Nuclear Lab were putting together.  The suit argued that the high rate of mysterious cancers and other diseases in that population had been caused by the lab cooling off the nuclear reactors by running waters from the Yakama river over them and then routing those contaminated waters back into the river, which local people then used for drinking and watering their vegetable gardens.  Hanford also is the lab where the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki was created.

 

It was also only twenty or thirty miles from where my father grew up.  His father also died of leukemia at a young age.

 

I’m holding not only the memory of my father and grandfather here, but of course the millions affected by that bomb.  I hold also the generations that I will never know, but who will grow up here outside of Los Alamos and Hanford and Chernobyl and will be effected by radiation poisoning and genetic mutation.

 

Tomorrow, we’ll go right up to the beast itself and stare it directly in the face; we’ll also see the people that work at the lab as people, and hold them with compassion.  Amidst all of my excitement that’s keeping me up so late right now, I’m also feeling a bit of nervousness.  But when I close my eyes, I feel a presence behind me.  I feel them in the rain that falls down, and hear them as whispers behind the voices that speak at the spokescouncil and that sing in the streets.  They are with us, here – all of them.

 

 

 

TOTB Day Two: Banner Drops and Promises of the Land

I was pretty convinced that I’d missed by chance to do the banner drop by oversleeping my alarm, because I felt too good and the inside of my tent seemed too sunny for 5:30 in the morning.  Luckily, however, when I prodded my starving phone into service, it revealed to me with its last moments of juice that it was 6:20 – late, yes, but not so late that I’d missed my chance completely.  I quickly threw on my sneakers and tore out of the tent, catching up with Lisa and a couple of activists from Boise who were loading themselves into a decrepit but supposedly trustworthy Volvo.  A man with silver hair thrust a bundle of painted sheets, newspaper, duck-tape and rope into my arms, and then we were off.

Our first stop was an overpass on the highway that leads to Los Alamos, an essential target to hit up before the morning commute began.  As we drove down the road, Lisa pointed out various other spots that we might consider for future banner drops and other art actions, which was inspiring but hard for me to focus on, because the only thing that was getting through my foggy brain was threads of excitement about what we were about to do.  Liz, navigating from the passenger seat, had a map with the various sites our scouts had decided were the most important --  she was clearly as excited as the part of me that was awake was feeling, and kept saying cute things like, “Here we go!”  I wanted to be similarly cute and overtly enthusiastic, but had to content myself with quiet, mostly monosyllabic responses.

When we came to our first target spot, Lisa pulled out onto the shoulder and Liz and Derek charged up the side of the embankment to the bridge, leaving Eric and I with the banner down below.  I wasn’t actually been sure that I wanted to do this particular banner drop, because it involved going up a steep embankment covered with brush and rocks and other trippy things, and sometimes I’m not the swiftest or most agile activist in the bunch.  But then there I was, feeling quite happy I’d opted for the close-toed sneakers rather than my usual chacos and not nearly as clumsy or slow as I’d feared, running up the embankement after them carrying the banner.  We unfurled it as trucks and commuters hurled by and then dropped it down, its newspaper and duct tape weights holding it down to drape legibly off of the side of the bridge.   We used tape to secure the rope and make it harder to cut (it’s not a question of if they’ll cut it down, simply when) and, whooping and shouting, careened back down the embankment and to where Lisa was waiting with the ca.  As we drove back to camp (after hitting up a second target, which was a bridge with a suicide fence on it – ooh la la) we spotted a banner that had been hung by a different team, and that felt almost as wonderful as seeing our own whipping in the cool morning breeze.  It was nice to imagine these banners up all over Santa Fe and Los Alamos, brought by little packs of excited young activists crammed clown-like into their getaway cars.

After lunch there was a skill-share about one of my current passions – herbs and herbal medicine.  Originally a local midwife was supposed to come by and do a training with us about the plants of this area, but she wasn’t able to make it, and so instead the 8 or 9 of us that were interested simply gathered in the main tent and took turns sharing what we know about the gifts of the plants.  As is often the case in groups, together, it turned out that we actually knew quite a bit.   This was immediately followed by a street medic training in the same vein, and then it was time for affinity groups to meet.

I felt unsure about my affinity group when I first met them, mostly because our “affinity” seemed to be based only upon the fact that we were folks without an affinity group already, and being used to running with the Pagan Cluster for most of my activist career, I was worried that it would feel disconnected and disparate to work with a group of relative strangers.  I also worried that my “woo-woo” would be off-putting to activist who might not be used to or even want to have a spiritual focus to their work, while at the same time feeling committed to contributing quite a bit of woo-woo in the form of prayer and ritual at this gathering. 

And yet, as these things do often go, the people in my group quickly proved to be exactly the right people for me right now: Emily, who shares the same name as my beloved cat and has the same dark hair; Elias and Elizabeth, both young and quiet and eager to sink their teeth into the work; Seth, whose spare words carry weight when he chooses to offer them; and Jason (not to be confused with my dear one), who feels a strong affinity for water and has a deep desire to work with it energetically in this action.  As the group gelled and it became clear that this was an idea that appealed to quite a few of us, we named ourselves Sweetwater (after the song: “We are sweet water, and we are the seed; we are the storm winds that blow away greed…”) 

That was yesterday.  Today, our desire to work with water ceremonially during the action crystallized, and we came up with a plan to create a ritual that would involve inviting native people to ground and open the space for us, to honor those effected by the nuclear-industrial complex with a time line that invoked them historically and personally, to do a spiral dance to charge waters brought from all over the world, and then to do an act of civil disobedience and cross the line with the waters and bring them to the weapons lab as a prayer for healing and rejuvenation.  Unfortunately, it became clear after the spokescouncil that our elaborate ritual plan didn’t mesh with the plan that the organizers had for a procession and a skit at the gates of the lab.  So, as these things often go, we realized that we were going to need to switch it up and be flexible.  Luckily, we have a whole day to work it out – although tomorrow is our first day of actions out in the streets and also the last day we have to plan Friday’s big action, so whatever planning we do will have to be snappy. 

Three last thoughts: one, that today at dinner Jim Haber, a friend of mine from the Bay, showed up, and it felt really wonderful to have someone that I know from the rest of my life appear here magically, as if he’d heard the prayers at the end of my last post (although I happen to know he’s been planning on coming here for weeks, and I simply didn’t know).  The other thing that happened today is that a man that I’ve never met before in my life, who also happens to be from Boise, gave me one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever had. "I've always wondered what it looks like when you see one of these wise women elders -- what they look like when they're young,” he said.  “Seeing you, I feel like now I know."  

I’m not totally sure that I can live up to such an amazing compliment, but I’m trying it on anyway, trying to connect in with that wise woman self within even as I allow myself to open more and more to the power and intelligence of the youth here, as well as the elders, of course, and the land itself.  Which brings me to my last thought.  Seven years ago, I came through Albequerque on my way to New Orleans on a train.  I had fallen asleep in the barren sands of Arizona and woke up among the dark red clay earth and elegant pale sages and feathery osha plants of New Mexico, and was completely blown away by the beauty before me.  I only had a couple hours to be here, but it marked me.  A part of me whispered, knew in the depths of my self, that I would be back someday -- that I had to come back to this place, because something in me recognized this place from some time beyond my understanding, as if some part of me that was waiting to be awoken. 

Tonight, I made good on that promise.  As evening began to fall, I went down to the river that cuts across the edge of the property in a quicksilver flow and watched the sun go down over the chapparal and the orange layered rock and the trees that rise like miracles out of the dry desert floor, watered by the acequias, which is an ancient irrigation system created by the people that lived here 400 years ago.  I took my drum and my whistle and sang and played to the river, as I imagine people have done here for at least 400 years, but more likely, 4,000 or maybe even 40,000 years.  This land, in spite of the immense poisoning and the incalculateable damage, is magical.  I open deeply to her.  I listen to these winds, the river, the plants, so that I might learn wisdom and relationship.  I open to the understanding that if we can all do this, we will win.  

Nuclear Guardianship

"To call this stuff "waste" is a misnomer, it is hardly an accurate term, because the strange and almost mythic character of the poison fire -- uranium -- and our processing of it has been that at every stage of the fuel cycle, everything that we have employed, every glove, every boot, every truck, every reactor, every facility, every mine, every heap of mill tailings, everything becomes not only contaminated, but contaminating. And governments and industry and scientists themselves don't know what on earth to do with it. They don't know what to do with this stuff, and it is our most enduring legacy. They say they have a final solution to bury it in the ground in deep geological disposal, hiding it out of sight and out of mind, as if the earth were dead, as if the earth were not a living being, shifting with underground waters and seismic activities, as if the containers themselves could outlast a generation, which they cannot! For nothing lasts as long, no container lasts as long as the poison fire itself. And it will leak out and out to contaminate. We know that that is true from our own personal lives. We try to hide something in our personal life, you know that happens, and it contaminates everything. And North of me, up at the Hanford Reservations they talk about clean up. Clean up! And even though Congress through the DOE has allocated millions of dollars for that now, they push around and they move the earth with their trucks and their bulldozers and their scoops. Try asking them where they are going to put it!

This challenge -- it asks of us to evolve a different relationship with uranium, with plutonium, with the poison fire. . . more and more citizens are beholding, seeing, recognizing that this legacy must be guarded responsibly. Ground level storage on sight, and so we know better what to do with it, keep it visible with minimal transportation on sight where it is ecologically feasible. . .

I have been reading reports of five years of meetings between Soviet and American scientists from the Federation of American Scientists about what to do with the separated plutonium. There is a tremendous pressure to use it. . . . It is as if we don't know what to do with this unless we make it serve us, and that is exactly what I am beginning to think, that we cannot ask of the poison fire. If we want to make it serve us, it will kill us, and perhaps the plutonium is saying to us something like this: Look at me, just look at me.  I cannot be your slave, I cannot serve your ambitions and your comforts. You cannot use me to fight each other.  Just look at me and if you look at me, guarding me, keeping me out of the biosphere for the sake of your future generations, then I will become your teacher. And in the act of beholding me and guarding me, you will awaken to your courage and to your faithfulness and to your solidarity with each other."

-- Joanna Macy

excerpted from her address at The World Uranium Hearing, 1992

More about Nuclear Guardianship and Depleted Uranium, here.

The Messages of the Desert: Thinking Outside the Bomb Day 1

"The Tradition tells us that we should believe the messages of the desert.  Everything we know was taught to us by the desert."  

-- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I had no idea last week that I’d be in New Mexico this evening, but the fates decided otherwise.  And so here I am at the Think Outside the Bomb Encampment, on less than four hours of sleep, in a large tent made of tarps and alit by strings of Christmas tree lights and silver branches of lightening creating flashes of purple in the wide black sky, surrounded by activists of every age and persuasion who are living together and aligning heart and soul to do the work of healing this desert and her people. 

One of the most notable things about this group, aside from the general kindness and groundedness present here that sometimes evade activist communities, is the rainbow of skin colors.  There are natives here who’s families have lived near the Los Alamos labs for generations, young Latino water activists from Albuquerque who’s roots stem from Bolivia and Puerto Rico and Mexico, rosy-cheeked blonde dready hippies and silver-haired elders in baseball caps, an African-American fellow sporting a Lakers jersey, children with almond-shaped eyes and olive skin. 

Right now we’re talking about the legal ramifications of being arrested on Friday, which is the 65^th anniversary of the day that the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, and what I’m learning is that this group is part of a long tradition of contentious protestors at the labs who have been brought here by that strange mix of faith, innocence, disenfranchisement, and grief that marks so many activists and visionaries.  Then we’ll talk about tomorrow’s actions, which include banner drops, conversations with government officials, and postering – the kind of things that will raise awareness of our presence and our mission, and perhaps even raise support, among the community that lives here – many of whom work at the labs.  While their livelihood is dependent on them, their children are being poisoned by uranium in the waters here and their lands are being destroyed by mining.  So, it’s a complicated issue.

I know that I should be listening, but I’m sleepy and it all feels like a dream – both my magical journey here and the magical place that I have found myself in.  It began with Scarecrow, my partner, who told me that our dear friends Lisa and Juniper were working with these people and how inspired and inspiring they are. No, actually that’s not right -- it began last year at the two-week retreat that I did with my mentor, Joanna Macy, who has worked in the anti-nuclear movement for decades.  “We need to make shrines of these nuclear sites, to tend them and care for them as places of great and terrible power,” she says.  “For even if they are closed today their destructive legacy will outlive us far beyond the lives of our grandchildren’s grandchildren.  They must be marked, and we must dedicate our lives to healing and transforming the earth around them – for the half-life of their waste alone is tens of thousands of years.” 

Tens of thousands of years.  Beyond imaging.

Earlier today, Juniper led a workshop on Magical Activism, where she led us through an experience of grounding in the midst of crowds and then connecting in with our spirit allies to hear messages for our work here in Los Alamos.  Since this whole trip has been a blur for me – knowing that I wanted to come here and work and learn from these people, feeling unable to pull it off and slightly unwilling to go without Scarecrow (who had to stay home and work), then having everything synchronistically fall into place as if the whole universe was indeed conspiring to make it happen – in all of that, I hadn’t had much of a chance to meditate on my purpose here and what I can bring to this place.  So I felt incredibly grateful to her for creating a time and space to tune in and listen to the tres, the earth, the downpouring rain. 

In my meditation, I had visions of the role of wisdom and prayer in these issues, both in our organizing and in the work of the lab.  I saw that uranium is a very powerful magical tool, one that we dabble with and tamper with without understanding it and without connecting into the wisdom of our deepest selves and our connection to the earth.  Afterwards, talking to a beautiful mohaked woman who happens to share my name, I learned that the native peoples of this land honored uranium as powerful medicine, and that they feel that using it as a fuel is an aberration of its true purpose.  Hearing her, I felt a kinship with this mysterious element for the first time – for how many of us feel like our true purpose is tampered with and our power co-opted, used as fuel for death and destruction that we know in our heart is wrong?  What could we learn from this powerful medicine, if we were able to start from a place of wisdom and prayer?

My sense of being in a dream is heightened by the extreme majesty of the landscape here – such sky! such sweet air! – and the beauty of the camp itself.  Seeds of Peace is here cooking; there is a healing center and designated sacred spaces and altars and permaculture gardens; an art space for making puppets; even the composting toilets are clean and unsmelly.  

I suppose I should come out of the dreamworld and start paying attention, though, because I do want to get up in the morning for the banner drop.  I’ve always wanted to do a banner drop, I must confess, although I’m afraid of heights.  So, we’ll see how it goes.  Scarecrow, community, everyone – I wish you were here.  Stay open, though – I didn’t think I’d be here until I almost was, and perhaps if you listen and look, you’ll find the way “synchronistically” opening up as well.  I’ll continue to hold it in my heart as a possibility if you do.

Introduction to Disarmament Summer Video

The Pagan Cluster's Very Own Lisa Fithian Talks Nukes and Other Niceties