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Archive for April 25th, 2008

No amount of planning, no skills or specs or spreadsheets, can stop a force that moves the planet- Nancy Gibbs on the 9.0 quake that hit Japan – Time Magazine, March 28, 2011

This article was first published in December 2010

Back in Might 2010, at the time of the eruption of Eyjafjallajökul, the Nordic volcano, I wrote a five-part blog, Lid Blown on What’s Brewing Below, on how collectively *we* have managed to make the planet angrier with our mindless progress and its corollary – a penchant for taking as much as we can of whatever, matched by a limited capability to give much of anything to anyone … unconditionally.

As a result, collectively, regardless of which part of the world we happen to be living in, nature a.k.a. the Cosmos is making us accountable. It is forcing us to reap collective karma that needs to be amended collectively.

Back in Might 2010, while the BP spill was still spreading its oily ugliness crossways Florida’s coastline and into the Mississippi delta, I concluded one of my articles with this thought: The forces of nature along with individualized as well as separate/collective karma are going about the business of teaching us, mankind, essential lessons in spiritual survival with a single-mindedness similar to one who, stranded on an island, must break open coconuts with bare hands to get to the sweet milk within.

By that I meant that nature is stirring and shaking our psyche by finally reacting up close and individualized with us who live in so-called civilised parts of the world as opposed to those it has challenged for decades – those who live in harsh lands and remote areas of Third World countries. Separately and together, it would be ideal if we managed to rethink our thinking in regards to *science*, *progress* and *lifestyle* because the viability of individualized options are narrowing, as we speak.

According to a snip on Wikipedia,in April 2010, Ólafur Grímsson, the Nordic President warned about a second much larger volcano: ‘The time for Katla to erupt is coming close…we [Iceland] have prepared…it is high time for European governments and airline authorities all over the world to begin planning for the eventual Katla eruption.’” [1]

Right. And then what? I asked myself.

On the 7th of November 2010, on a lovely sunny Sunday somewhere in Australia, I read that international flights have been suspended to and from Indonesia and that Air Asia has cancelled 11 of its own because the activity of Mount Merapi, a volcano, a few hundred kilometres out of Jakarta, in Indonesia.

Today, a week later, I see that villages and all that makes them – from huts to buildings, to statues, to the common place palm trees and roads in between – are *ghosted* by layers of sticky, thick, grey ash. 206 people have so far died. 400.000 more have fled their homes and the clean-up cost is counted in billions of dollars.

The ancient ones considered volcanic ash the messenger heralding the awakening of the earth-shaking, fire-spitting dragon – the eruption of lava. Indonesia has had an uneasy past and, to this day, corruption is rampant and costly. Again, it might well be that for the local government, as well as for the world around, an eruption of molten lava there should be interpreted as yet another of nature’s gesture to cleanse, not just the immediate area, a mere dot on the world map, but to burn out the spread of the pandemic virus identified as GaD, short for Greed and Deceit.

No one can ever know why it has so far been the Indonesians’ collective [inherited] karma to bear the brunt of these acts of god/nature but, knowing that disasters are not only aimed at the ones, victims and survivors who are directly affected, it certainly would not injured if all government officials, huge billionaires, tiny millionaires, business folks as well as us, tiny people, currently suffering from the GaD syndrome managed to wake up long enough to address our priorities and redress our M.O. while we still can.

Sadly, it is also in Indonesia that, in 2006, a giant wave killed more than 130,000 people – only two years after another ocean quake triggered off the coast. That monster wave, referred to as the Boxing Day tsunami, plucked 230,000 people off the coast line of fourteen neighboring countries.

News headlines make it clear that, as rolling waves born out of nowhere suddenly ride hard the horizon line to slam against jetties and destroy livelihood, flood our streets and occasionally take lives, the answer to “And then what?” has already come to us in multiple ways.

Last month, also in Indonesia, on Mentawai island, a legendary destination for surfers, more than 400 people died including many kids when the approaching giant wave unsuccessful to trigger signal warnings.

Interestingly, back in Might 4 2010 – freak waves batter la Promenade des Anglais, in Nice, France – my hometown. The reality of a sea storm on the famed Riviera is even more ‘odd’ when we know that on the littoral, the Mediterranean sea, unlike the Atlantic, is normally quite still.

Only days before the official opening of the tourist season, this natural disaster spelt economic doom for the season. The cost of repair, mostly of the sea front restaurants between Nice and Cannes, was estimated to be between 3 and 8 millions of Euros.

Most of us do nod in agreement that everything happens for a reason, but we usually change to search for *the reason*. Contextualizing natural events, these so-called book of God, helps make meaning out of events that are occurring more frequently and with more intensity than in the past.

Saying that these disasters are due to global warming or to the El Nino effect only addresses the symptoms not the primary cause. It’s no different than saying that cancer is caused by the genetic mutation of cells while the real question is the one that precedes why have cells mutated in any one particular human being?

Also in Might 2010:  in Poland, village residents found themselves flooded by the Visla river. Their Prime Minister reassured them that financial aid was on its way and that they would be healthy to rebuild their lives.

Again, I remembered thinking, And then what?

As an aside, what I found symbolically interesting is that the Vista’s swell reached all the way to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site. About time! Its flood finally sanitized the horrid energy that undoubtedly still lingered, as energy does, so many years after the last prisoner walked out of the gates.

The death camp ‘artefacts’ were moved to higher grounds, which in itself recommends the symbolisms of Elevation and Purification. Why dismiss the notion that this *act of god* – one that did not take any lives – could be the hint that generally speaking, we all need to forgive, forget and move on?

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The thing to keep in mind it that the greater the flood regardless of where it happens, the greater the need for us, individuals, to wash off ourselves in the present moment the deeply engrained scenarios from the past that have long dropped out of real-time, the present suspicion of others’ motives, the dark emotions and the murky fears of the future that, too, only exist in our mind. It’s either that or risk being flooded by them, swept away and left to drown in them – literally as well as figuratively.

Since, it has been confirmed that 20 million people have been affected by the devastating monsoonal floods that began drowning Pakistan in July. One side-result of the catastrophe is that 99 cases of cholera have been detected since, and another is that there have been more than 3,000 cases of Dengue fever leading to 29 deaths, and counting.

In June 2010, came the string of nimble-footed, beautiful and big supercell storms that hit Dakota.

In the grappling of more frequent natural and man-made disasters pockmarking our landscape, heart-in-mouth won’t do. Heart-on-sleeve won’t do.

Heart and soul would fare much better.

Early in October, this year, still in 2010, too soon on the heels of the BP spill, Hungary found itself besieged by toxic red sludge of comparable amplitude. The waters of the famed *Blue Danube* have since become poisonous.

“According to the current evaluation, company management could not have noticed the signs of the natural catastrophe nor done anything to prevent it even while carefully respecting technological procedures,” said a statement issued by the company, Hungarian Aluminium Production and Trade Company. [2]

The residents of Kolontar, the area nearest the leaking reservoir, are due to return to their homes any day now. Apparently, a conserving surround erected for that purpose will keep them innocuous from further leakage. Within the context of this article written for a readership interested in understanding day-to-day matters from a spiritual perspective, I think it is innocuous to say that this so-called conserving surround stands for the hard surround that is around the heart of the industrial hunger we, as a consumerist society, keep feeding.

One month before, in September, a big seism shook the city of Christchurch in *little* New Zealand. The city sustained NZ$ 4 billion worth of alteration – a big amount for any country of its size – but, again, the fortuitous demand of casualties points to the fact that nature knows well that the contract strings around our collective heart are knotted so tightly that the contract has to be slashed open.

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At the moment, Nature is still not that interested in destroying lives, only livelihood, savings,  individualized plans – horded billions of taxpayers’ money = the Economy.

In that respect, yes, 2010 has been a BIG year, indeed, to its very last days.

Epic floods that began between Christmas 2010 and the new year are currently still affecting the say of Queensland, in the south-east corner of Australia, a predominantly agricultural, cattle-farming area also responsible for 75% of our coal export. This area is larger than France and Germany combined.

In its primeval days, the big 31 ft [14 m] flooding has so devastated the towns of Rockhampton [population 75.000] and St George that it will take many, many months to rebuild the colonial waterlogged homes and businesses.

Snakes, such as the deadly taipans, brown snakes and red-bellied blacks, floated from the undergrowth, are clinging to trees and fences, just as they search for dry corners in people’s homes.

In this corner of the world, when town streets become overflowing wide river arms carrying fragments of putrefied, drowned cattle, pets and thousands of bush carcasses, crocodiles – symbols of the mechanical nastiness that lurks deep within apiece of us to strike from ‘below the surface’ -  can't be far away.

The residents of Gympie, in that same corner of Queensland, have just visaged 60 ft [20 m] river swells through their streets since the Mary has broken its banks. And, because *separation is only a figment of our imagination*, other towns and communities downstream are bracing themselves for the worst.

Floods and, the greater the flood, the greater the need for us, as separate entities, to wash from ourselves all negativity of thought, all dark emotions and actions or risk being flooded by them, swept away and left to drown in them – literally as well as figuratively. With that in mind, Senator Barnaby Joyce’s words on Sky News, are anything but *spiritually* encouraging. Still, they are the words that the afflicted residents want to hear. That, and the word Compensation – of course.

“It’s not clean on people’s lives to have water tearing through their homes,” he said. “It’s not good for our economy to be shut down and lose billions of dollars in production. In the future I think we need to look at building dams to mitigate the effects of floods.” [4]

Clearly, the message from Nature, our benevolent Nanny, is still not being heard.

Yesterday, Jan 10, 2011, still in Queensland, twelve days after the first flood in Rockhampton, pedestrians downtown Toowomba [population 90.000] ran for their lives to escape a tsunami-styled torrent of muddy water, a flash flood, that came out of nowhere, overturning automobiles and tearing trees in its path while inflicting swift and hulk-like unbelievable alteration to homes and businesses.

Then it was in Grantham that many houses were ripped off their stumps and floated away. The list of victim-towns grows daily. The floods have kept rolling down south. Tonight, they have just now reached the first river-side suburbs of inner Brisbane – third largest city in Australia, Brisbane [population 2 million approx] where I live.

The flood, here, is due to peak in two days’ time, but in the meantime, it is already on its angry course towards the say of New South Cambria – downstream from us.

Separation is, indeed, a figment of our imagination.

In an outburst of concern and emotion, our Prime Minister, the Say Premier and the leaders of all manner of support groups involved are urging us to keep ourselves safe, to look after apiece other, to go *meet* the neighbors we normally don’t see – or select to ignore – and check up on them..

We can replace your house, is the current motto, but we can’t replace you. Your individualized country is our priority. Please, make it yours.

Absolutely heart-warming

At the same time, many people are offering their time and efforts as volunteers.

That IS the Spirit. That is the blue-print of how Nature wants us to DO life – from now on.

Lesson learnt, if we can sustain this new M.O.

Although the Queensland flood death toll, is for now at an incredibly low 12, it will undoubtedly rise – maybe double.

Still, Nature seems much more interested in cleansing the planet by reducing our belongings to watery pulp, by leaving behind most of what we could not do without, and by forcing us to rebuild from the ground up – literally as much as figuratively, with a different awareness, with different individualized priorities.

However, as the saying goes, there is no more dumb than the one who does not want to learn and we are all familiar with the determination of five-year olds to get what they want.

Collectively, in spite of our self-inflated perception of maturity and in spite of our collective brain potential, we position ourselves again and again on the side of the *dumb* and the childlike. Our material losses break our heart. We hit our head against the surround and we pop our pills and drown our pain. And we cry, “My god! Why me?”

And we accuse Nature. We call her violent and we call her angry. And we keep our contract strings wrapped tightly around our heart.

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I never intended for this article, a compilation of blogs, to grow so long but whenever I hear of yet another blatant example of our ‘herd blindness’, my keyboard jumps up and down, demanding  words on paper – and who am I to refuse, huh?

Be that as it may, since I’m sure my point and concerns are by now quite clear,  this one will probably be the concluding blog on the so-called *Angry Planet* or as I like to think of it, on *The Good Natured Nanny’s growing annoyance with her misguided charges*.

After a while, events and views and reasons and excuses do become very familiar, very repetitive. As it is, at the moment, *we* are already condoning by agent a new and big exploitation that is for now partly illegal. Yes, Nature contains yet another resource that is currently deemed essential to us – in the world as we have prefabricated it: minerals found in red clay and going by the study of  … rare connector – you got to love that name!

Though rare connector is not yet a part of our trivializing small speak – the reality is that the strong acids used by miners, gangster-miners, to process the minerals in Southern China are polluting all the wells, ponds and streams in the area. These have become watery poison for the local villagers.

Why are we, in absentia or by proxy, condoning yet another anti-Nature mining activity? Why are we generally willing to see the mining of rare connector legalized by the Chinese government?

For now, China has the monopoly on the rare connector alloys, which grants her government to turn on/off the supply. China, for now, decides the quotas granted for export to other countries and we turn yet *another* blind eye to the toxicity of this mining practice because rare connector minerals are deemed essential to the manufacturing of everything and anything ranging from our compact fluorescent light bulbs and our Iphones to our flat screens and missiles and also to our low-emission automobiles and our giant wind turbines

Here, in Australia, AustralianRareEarth.com says that, “‘Rare Earth Elements (REEs) can be regarded as the “vitamins” required for the shift from a carbon based economy to the new 21st century electron economy’ -SLS 2008″ and produces “some wonderful investment opportunities.” [5]

Even if that doesn’t sound lovely to our ears, how much, collectively, are we willing to be collectively inconvenienced by rejecting this mining practice? How determined are we to collectively miss out or do without while *Science* comes up with more alternatives to old alternatives from its collective linear-thinking brain?

Even though, as already stated, two of the key criteria for a successful global society are individualized contentment and individualized safety, science and technology have not yet prefabricated us more contented – or more safe.

When in the months ahead, as we read about more advancement, more discoveries, more *progress* prefabricated in our study and as we hear, feel and see more *coldness* inside our world and as we, doubtlessly, witness the Good Natured Nanny, becoming more and more impatient with us, her misguided charges, three questions will still be solicitation an answer:

How and when do we, personally and individually, decide to step aside from what appears to be the greatest herd any culture has ever created to take an individual stand on this, on that and the other?
How long will we, together and separately, go on frittering our collective potential?
Can we completely dismiss the fact that our ways of thinking/using/responding are too often as frozen, as barren and as toxic as the world we help create around us?

Nature is squeezing us from where we sin when, collectively, we place monetary preoccupations above all others with a careless exploitation of the planet’s natural resources and with our penchant for hording our money on the one hand while, on the other, using it as a hybrid of bribe and ersatz for love within our family units.

Mega billions of dollars are being squeezed out of our global economy by acts of nature and man-made disasters. One way of making it all less gloomy is to think that wasted as they are to all of us, at least these mega billion of dollars are no longer acquirable to fund more wars.

The use we make of money, as a commodity, has to be re-thought. Money, world-wide, needs to flow freely. A big cultural re-thinking is long overdue. Money does not want to be horded under beds, inside vaults or buried under the spot marked X, as on pirates’ maps of old. Nor should it be gripped by shut hearts and tight fists. Money should be used to do good, but not instead of physical engagement, not instead of real affection. It has to be given generously, not held in a tight bargain, not used as emotional blackmail, not to tip the equilibrise in power struggles, not instead of true affection – not solely for pleasuring our senses. If the flow of our global money is dammed high and deep, nature knows how to rip it away from us while, these days, it does so, sparing a maximum of lives.

cont’d in Global Warming or Global WarNing_beyond the scientific data [part 2/2]

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1. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37371442/ns/world_news-europe/

2.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/hungary/8043969

3. telegraph.co.uk

4.  http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/australian-floods-expected-to-peak-at-rockhampton-20110104-19eya.html

5.  http://www.australianrareearths.com/