Those with holes instead of eyes do not see. They are blind. Those with holes instead of ears do not hear. They are deaf. Emotionally numb devoid of empathy they are sleepwalking. The walking dead. Remember Lahaina (island of Maui): hurricane winds Hawaiian drought climate- fire and the seaside town, now but ashes of memory. [Read More…]
Within discipline to become: an eco-person within an eco-person soul within soul humility within humility courage within courage empathy within empathy fire within fire dignity within the prayer of dignity desire within desire voice within voice power within power perception within perception choice within choice place where Earth Warriors stand. Stand in the Grounding Dimension stand in the strength[Read More…]
It is in this way that the rebel…says yes and no simultaneously. Albert Camus, The Rebel No nukes and no thermobaric weapons no unregulated AI no child pornography no sex trafficking and no slavery no to tyranny rule of the gun and no to racist hate based ideology no to consumerism hoarding, polluting endemic desecration destroying the planet no[Read More…]
The day (once more) when the world as we know it stopped the Doomsday Clock, barely in the nick of time, stood still the power of political death over individual life ended, the civilization of greed and ego and violence collapsed returning to dust. Not because somebody, supernaturally, descended from the clouds, not because the sea miraculously parted. The[Read More…]
Edward Abbey park ranger desert solitary author – avatar of beautiful traumatized Earth wrote to us with a pine needle with tip of the tail of a gopher snake, “there is a kind of poetry, even a kind of truth in simple facts.” a pinyon jay on shaded ground a chickadee on a swaying branch a leaf, a bud[Read More…]
A Prose Poem or Ecosophic Meditation Look: Civilization ended in a post-midnight place named Auschwitz; with the terminal moment of anti-event, at the irreversible dropping of The Bomb on Hiroshima. The ultimate supermall of death. The ultimate militarization of ideological and scientific progress. There has been, of course, throughout the history of human crime, much deception, betrayal, atrocity. Suffering has[Read More…]
They wanted love. The young. The desire was inside them. A candle in the night. A match in a bedroom of fireworks. They wanted to tumble in pairs into the prayers of another world – hot unions of bodies and souls. To smell, to taste, to touch, to feel, and to experience (as if dreaming together) the light of[Read More…]
He stands on the Rock the beautiful rock beside the flourishing Tree of Life. He stands on the Rock on the beautiful rock beside the flowing river of light. He raises his arms like wings of lightning two beacon-flames of luminous fire. His voice goes out with the strength of a ringing bell with softness of a[Read More…]
When the corrupters, swindlers, betrayers, deniers – the practitioners of ecocide and insanity – tell you, “Calm down.” Don’t calm down. Rise up! When they tell you, “Don’t be an alarmist.” Don’t! But sound the alarm clear, loud, and relentlessly. There are no “alternative facts.” There is reality. And there is no Planet B. When they tell you, “Don’t panic.”[Read More…]
I am of flowers. I came out from the butterfly. I came out from the bee, the dancing bee – the hummingbird’s feathered breast. Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, the face of life was a flowers’ face. Flower perfume recited out song. Flower petals inscribed our naming across deserts and grasslands. At a time[Read More…]
House: house made of wood is on fire. Fiery winds blow our ashes away. Burning forests and the grasslands. House: house made of clay. Raging waters wash towns away. Death by drowning the epic ooze. House of storms house of stars without a roof without foundation. Children of thirst frail with hunger. Dreamers not dreaming the haven of[Read More…]
One: Earth is in danger. We are the source of Earth’s endangerment. Troubles are real. Consequences are rapidly becoming global reality. Two: Each person living on this Living Earth must take a clear, unwavering stand, standing in responsibility and raising an alerting voice. Three: Individual voices need to become a global chorus—the chorus of human choices. Four: Often people will[Read More…]
First Movement: Round Table and the Peers When Arthur realized he was to become king, and not just any king, but the illustrious Once and Future King, he went apart in solitude, looked out over the rolling land and for a long time contemplated the condition of the realm he was destined to guide, guard, and govern. Visibly on[Read More…]
I love my children. I love my grandchildren. And have deep concern for the youth of the Earth. Who and what do you love? What we value defines who we are. Who we are is shaped by what we love. My doctor and I are talking about despair, depression, hopelessness and the upset of constant stress. I say, “I am[Read More…]
In a recent report, the United Nations set out some top priorities everyone can practice in helping to counter climate change and keep Earth (humanly) habitable. Here is the short list: (1) eat a plant-based diet, (2) reduce unnecessary consumption and excessive waste (in the United States the reduction needs to be radical because the abuses are extreme and constant)[Read More…]
The burden of absence savages the heart. How to give voice to the horrors of grief? In the valley of tears rivers from Eden run red with the salt of blood. In this Promise Land parents and prayers are exiled by violence. Each day an angel is fallen. The naming of victims! In gardens of hatred the flowering of graves.[Read More…]
Most in the white West are not raised to expect seriousness. A carefree lifestyle is that of privilege. Individuals, of course, suffer hardships from disease, domestic or social violence. Some from poverty despite color. Some from disabling, intimate betrayals. But generally, life is not expected to be a tragedy. Yet the world has become serious, and none are excused[Read More…]
written on the eve of Earth Day, 2022 i spit an iron ball at you i spit a ball a meteor of fire… i spit into your eyes i spit into your ruptured heart on puddles of your interrupted blood into your splattered brain, onto your speechless tongue i spit on the splinters and charred ruins that before were houses[Read More…]
The angel of death with a man’s face; the mother of life comforting children. Here is where we are a planet shaken by war. People riven. We come to a turning point in the guilty history of crime. We gather to listen to witnessing voices of blood and corpses. Every one of us, deliberately or[Read More…]
Eat this. There is not much time for eating. We fight and food is scarce and getting scarcer. Maybe this is our last supper? Perhaps the world is ending? This shattered bone-bread is bodies of our people – fallen, falling bread crumbs and scattered black seeds of sunflowers. Citizens who are dismembered sleep now, never to waken[Read More…]
There is war. Again there is war on the European continent – war of type and magnitude not experienced in Europe since Hitler and the racism imperialism of Nazi Germany. The war now is Putin’s war. Last night, this morning, tomorrow, always the same. War is murder. It is organized murder on a large scale. War technology increases the[Read More…]
Part One: inspired & freely adapted from a poem by the French lyric poet Paul Eluard On every door at every gate in every doorway on all the windows, mirrors of all the world I write your name. On every road with every step in the wide meander and the sand on the straight and narrow and around[Read More…]
I am speaking with you. We are talking together, speaking of ordinary things, using ordinary words. It is good talk too. The everyday is as much at risk as the light of the sky and as angels, robed in feathers, of heaven. On that note, I wish to speak with you in soul-talk, to talk in my native tongue, to[Read More…]
This is not lifeless Saturn or Jupiter, the Moon, Venus, or Mars. Because a neighboring planet is named for a Roman goddess does not mean that women originate there as if from an unearthly temple of extraterrestrial love. Because another is named for a Roman god does not prove that men are hard wired and destined for war. [Read More…]
Globally, bees and butterflies, the winged beauties of the insect-beasty world, are dying, vanishing from habitat and planet. Bees and butterflies are pollinators. Without them, there will be no flowers. But it does not stop there. The agricultural food chain of humanity collapses. A horrifying explosion of worldwide starvation then results. What happens when people are chronically hungry? What are[Read More…]
Look. I am before you. Now I am here: I am making a statement proclaiming a truth nothing less than an outcry. Listen. I am speaking truth crying out. Listen: Earth is dying one-only Earth. Earth is dying ravaged, abused. Not dying from old age not expiring by the will of God but perishing through serial extinctions from human[Read More…]
I suppose I could have titled this writing Applying Nonviolent Noncooperation to Pernicious Consumerism, or to Malignant Normalcy. Notwithstanding, here are my thoughts…. For as long as it remains profitable NOT to find or accept solutions to planetary problems, those who possess economic and political power will not allow solutions. Looked at from another side, it is the same as[Read More…]
He is an old man, truly a very old man, and the sudden crashing into splintered smallness of his life is playing out on a tightrope, a fraying tightrope, sawed at along a razor’s edge. Tense he is and dread-beset between vulnerable tears and collapse and imploding rage. He is an old man clutching his palsy hands, with a broken[Read More…]
Here are two lists of changes that can and should be made, restoring this Earth home more fully to a habitable, life-diversified, and evolving planet. Outward behaviors everyone can practice and contribute to: Reduce and eliminate uses of fossil fuels. Support and participate in clean energy alternatives. Reduce and eliminate non-biodegradable plastics. Support and participate in oceanic and fresh water[Read More…]
i have sought to love you unworthy that i am i have sat in the tall grass looking out over water watching a setting sun and i have sought to love you unworthy that i am i have walked poetic the meadow a red tailed hawk circled above i have traveled the narrow quiet path[Read More…]
I wish to write a little on a couple of terms, one of which, Ground or Grounding Dimension, I learned from an essay by Larry Dossey, and the other, Floating World, came to me as a designation for America but which I now understand was formerly applied to the urban culture of Edo Japan. One of these terms implies connectedness,[Read More…]
If we must choose between civilization and barbarity we must choose civilization. But only if the injustices and atrocities of civilization do not exceed those of barbarism. If we must choose identity between eco and ego we must choose eco and celebrate the global planting of trees and enacting an end to forced mass extinctions. If we must[Read More…]
Of all visions accessible on this living Earth, no natural sight is more beautiful that a mother and child. If the mother and child are human (no matter of what race), they are beautiful. If mother and child are lion or tiger, horse, bison, swan, or mountain sheep, beautiful. If mother and child are bear, be they black or brown,[Read More…]
There is something at the very core about us that needs to change. This cannot be emphasized often enough. We need to change how we think. How we think of ourselves, our place in creation, how we think of how we live, how we think of our relationships to the diversity of planetary life, to structures, elements, systems of nature[Read More…]
The disparity between America’s ideals and America’s main street realities are always vast and often stark. This has always been so, most apparently and appallingly for Americans of color and each new wave of immigrants regardless of color. America’s ideals have, at best, only been partially realized. Too often the nation’s relationship with American ideals has been the proverbial[Read More…]
Wherever on this distressed and yet magnificent Earth you live, this is for you. Right here, right now: Let’s be open and honest before one another. Please. Look at the world without illusions, without hiding, without trying to escape. Don’t be crippled by confusion or disgust. Don’t allow yourself to lose your natural born goodness and become infected with internal[Read More…]
Remember Gandhi. Practice nonviolence. Adhere to nonviolence. Refrain from attacking people as the means to achieve an interpersonal goal. You seek to change policies and systems that make policies, and attitudes and behaviors implementing policies of injustice and oppression. In opposing pernicious systems and the policies of pernicious systems you bring about change through clarified strategy, organized, and often[Read More…]
My maternal grandfather’s family name is Floyd. His mother was a Cherokee woman and Grandfather Floyd’s cousin was from the Choctaw nation. The cousin was considered the Robin Hood of the American Great Depression and was immortalized in song by Woody Guthrie as Pretty Boy Floyd the Outlaw. I do not know if there is a blood link between Grandpa’s[Read More…]
This poem was originally written on request and publicly recited by then Seattle Mayor, Norm Rice (a Black American) for the reopening of Key Arena and the Founders’ Fountain at the Seattle Center on 28 October 1995. At that time, what the poem expresses was an aspiration shared by the Mayor and me. Norm Rice did not make a speech[Read More…]
The mute boy as slender as a willow sapling looks at the world with eyes big and bright by light intake and color. He does not look at the world as others look. He looks in his own way His world is a world of maenad laughter. His world is a world of confusion; a world he can[Read More…]
I will not write much here. Those who read me often hear enough of my words and have become familiar with my convictions and concerns. What I am doing instead is putting together a series of quotations from African-American philosopher Cornel West, from his essay Putting on Our Democratic Armor from the book, DEMOCRACY MATTERS (1). Dr. West committed these[Read More…]
inspired by & freely adapted from a poem by the French poet Paul Eluard On every door at every gate in every doorway on all the windows, mirrors of all the world I write your name. On every road with every step in the wide meander and the sand on the straight and narrow and around each[Read More…]
Today, as the public phase of impeachment hearings are underway, I am watching while reading from the Life of Frederick Douglass. Sadly, I admit to not trusting the American people as much as I might to see clearly, think honestly, and do what is right. I would welcome being mistaken in my skepticism. However, I am certain not to trust[Read More…]
The terrible and terrifying conditions of wind and fire devastating parts of California are showing us what happens when Earth Trauma approaches critical mass. We are not yet at global critical mass, but we do continue to move ever closer. Critical mass relative to environmental trauma or environmental catastrophe would be when either one of two major developments occur, both[Read More…]
“the wound of possibility” Soren Kierkegaard Earth is our home; Earth is our origin. There is not now any more than there has ever been a single, sane human being who can or could have claimed otherwise. Over billions of years, Earth has been in the process of evolving into a robust, living planet—a life place, abundant with intricate interweavers[Read More…]
I write these words in an agony of urgency. Already this year, 2019, there have been 31 mass shootings in the USA; more than in any other nation. Over half of these have been in the state of Texas. At what is only temporarily the most recent crime scene, in Odessa, one of the victims was 17 months old. The[Read More…]
Each expression of beauty is an act of love. Every manifestation of love is an act of beauty. To make a warrior’s choice in the clarity of human evolution is to invite the flowering of beauty. To make a warrior’s choice within the possibilities of wisdom is to work intimately in the garden of love. A person does not need[Read More…]
Today we will name The Day of Peace. And when tomorrow becomes today The Day of Social Justice. When the weekend rolls around first will be The Day of the Council of All Beings followed by The Day of Love our Neighbors along with The Love of Strangers. To start the new week Day of Earth First. Then[Read More…]
Much of my creative work these days (and indeed for decades before) is to address the mounting and sometimes engulfing Earth Crisis within which we are all entangled; which threatens us daily and overshadows the future. Earth Crisis is not only Climate Change, although climate change is a major component of Earth Crisis. Other components of the ongoing global condition[Read More…]
A day without hatred or fear a day without prejudice, suspicion or persecution a day without being lied to being swindled or mislead a day without bullying, without abuse, violation violence or murderous terror without the trauma of affliction without humiliation and without a loss of love. A day so natural that the sun rises in the east over the[Read More…]
Listen: it isn’t about me about ego and it isn’t about you your property income taxes but about EARTH about life about spirit and grandchildren about seven generations and seven times after that about the full spiral circle of planetary life with its shrinking diversity of species and the corrupting atmosphere but the circle goes around circles undulates comes back[Read More…]
Another mass shooting in America! They are so frequent they are anticipated. I favor stick gun control, and the application of the Second Amendment of the Constitution should be challenged as it now stands before weapons’ technology but continues to be interpreted along antiquated guidelines. How little is commonly known about the original purpose and history of the Second Amendment,[Read More…]
When a house is on fire an alarm must be sounded. An alarm is not always sounded solely out of fear. Sometimes an alarm must be sounded out of love, for fear that the house will be destroyed in the tyranny of conflagration. The political function of contemporary America serves corporate capitalism. This is capitalism as overwhelming force geared to[Read More…]
Truth-force, what is it? Truth is the expressed porousness and the vulnerability of soul, in the same way that soul is the humble courage, non-exploitative perception, reverence and gratitude of love, increasing through applied appreciation. The essence of openness and vulnerability of soul is most beautifully expressed as the passion and pathos of empathetic connectivity and dialogue, and the righteousness[Read More…]
Love, let us never forget that there are people in this troubled world, men especially, who are very different from you and I—who think abstractly and pride themselves on the suppression of emotion and the will with which they hold clearly, if ever so grimly, to their goals—men of unwavering principle, if not obsessive and infernal ideologies. Strong men, men[Read More…]
To fall in love outward (Robinson Jeffers) is a major accomplishment in the Great Work of planetary renewal. This is especially significant (and challenging) in a commercialized society possessively enforcing estrangement from natural reality. Capitalism works to replace nature with market value. To fall in love outward means to embrace, fully, the implications of a radical awakening, namely that each[Read More…]
Look! There at the corner, the old man is crossing the children. All the saints and gods and goddesses of India are dancing around them. Pan is dancing. Nymphs and flowing hair maenads. Dervishes whirl around, like star-ribbons circling an astrolabe. Baal Shem Tov and the martyred, prayer-dance Hasidim. Jesus in cosmic circle dance. Sun smiles. Moon overflows with the[Read More…]
In your heart of hearts, a heart-shaped mirror. Mirror of peace between wings of fire. In that living crucible—a gleam of blue light. Light is your soul: Angel of Life. Soul is as hard to follow as footsteps of God. Soul is as easy to affirm as trust. Soul is felt. She is shared. The same as when lovers share[Read More…]
In the spring-early summer of my passage from 17 to 18 years old, Albert Camus helped to solidify my opposition to the war in Vietnam. Camus has never been far since then; a familiar recall to ordinary dignity and decency articulated with extraordinary clarity and courage. Now when I write about America, my words are tears. Every value held in[Read More…]
One: An angry, malcontent species is making an angry, uninhabitable planet. A violent species is making a violent, uninhabitable planet. Political power craves greater power. Flexes pleasure in being above law and question. Flexes pleasure in domination. Corporate wealth craves greater wealth. Buys security through dispossessing. Time in a quantum theory may not be linear. Yet a straight line might[Read More…]
The first response to inhumanity is shame. The sustained response—resistance. The way of compassion embraces both compassionate denouncement and compassionate affirmation. Compassionate denouncement deconstructs life denying, denigrating and destroying wrongdoing, so that it will, thereby, be exposed to universal view for what it is. Compassionate denouncement declares itself free from propaganda. Compassionate affirmation recognizes, respects and celebrates what is authentic;[Read More…]
Union Health Ministry placing a cap on new medical colleges in States on the basis of the population criterion violates federalism 
Reflections on the Revolutionary Legacy of Makhan Singh in Kenya 
Armenian civilians flee Nagorno-Karabakh after new offensive by Azerbaijan 
Manipur: a statement of concern and suggestions for peaceful resolution 
Global Leaders Plead for Peace in Ukraine at UN 
Ghosts of the Past: For Israel, War on UNESCO is an Existential Battle 
Keeping Cattle on Public Land Is Bad for People, Cows, Wildlife, and the Planet 
The United States in the World: Making Sense of the Past Forty Years (1981-2023) 
Canadian Youth At Risk and the Discrimination of Marginalized Demographics 
While Searching Worldwide for Terrorists, Uncle Sam Should Also Look in a Mirror 
American Abrams tanks roll into Ukraine 
An open letter to JNU VC – Your association with RSS defies humanism, anti-colonial struggle Indian democracy! 
From Education to Incarceration 
Tunakataa! Saying ‘No’ to Capitalism and Imperialism in Kenya 
Rising Islamophobia and Communal Discord: An Alarming Trend in BJP-Ruled States 
Speak Truth to Power and Pay the Price! 
USA’s Wars Took 12 Million Lives in The Last 25 Years 
US to send long-range ATACMS missile to Ukraine 
In Jawan, Shah Rukh Khan makes us an offer we can refuse 
Nijjar affair poses an existential dilemma 
On the Brink of Famine 
Appeal to withdraw the notification for the public hearing for the proposed Sijimali Bauxite Mining Project 
“Making a thriller from grain” 
Key Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) Likely To Collapse In 2025-2095 
Global Biofuel Alliance at G20: Land vs Water vs Food Security- Has the government addressed the trade-offs? 
The Nijjar Murder and Indian Government’s alleged “involvement”: Reactions and Reflections 
France Will Pull Out Its Diplomats And Military From Niger, Says Macron 
Imperial Footprints in Africa: The Dismal Role of AFRICOM 
Hunger in Africa has its roots in a History of Colonialism and Neo-colonialism 
The Climate March: Magnificent and Misdirected 
Imagining a Progressive Pentagon 
“Lost Voices of Fentanyl” Rally at the White House 
Indian Government Must First Evict Dalai Lama & his Followers before Admonishing Canada for Separatist Activities 
Peasant-rebels: lineages of insurgency 
Mission to Free Assange: Australian Parliamentarians in Washington 
Bayer-ICAR Collaboration Raises Serious Concerns Regarding Indian Farm Policy 
Place of Minorities as Allotted by Savarkar, Golwalkar and Upadhyaya 
What is in the name? Attempt to stop the usage of ‘India’ by the Government 
Poona Pact: A Reappraisal 
Hate Speech Inside Parliament: Reaching a New Low 
My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
