Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Always Learning

This fall I have had some remarkable opportunities to ground myself in our environmental realities. I spent the day at Hidden Villa with an environmental leadership program called “Be the Change.” It was exactly what I’ve been hungry for — to spend time literally staring at a tree and listening to birds. Ever since I started reading Thomas Berry, it became clear how important it is for each of us to know our own place, for me to know the seasons and plants and birds of my own neighborhood, my own eco-system. It’s also good to get to know my political eco-system as well. Did you know that there was a comprehensive trolley system in the Bay area in the 1920s that was bought up by private interests and ripped out to promote the car and highway system? We live in such a highly mobile society, that it’s easy to loose sight of the fact that each place is different, follows different patterns, and offers particular gifts. We risk doing damage if we are not paying attention to our particular community, and we risk missing out on the beauty that is uniquely ours.

Then the next weekend I went up to Bioneers. First I was amazed by Paul Stamets and the crazy creepy world of mushrooms. Apparently during the first major extinction on the planet (we’re in the 6th right now) an asteroid hit the planet and the earth was covered by a dust cloud for about 10 years; the plants could not survive and the fungi ruled. I’m not even going to describe how a mushroom can kill an ant — it will give the little ones nightmares.

But for some reason what really got inside me was hearing Tzeporah Berman from Forest Ethics talk about the loss of forests on the planet. Only three countries in the world have forests left that are big enough to maintain full bio-diversity. She has been fighting for the “Great Bear Rain Forest” which runs along the North West coast of Canada. They renamed the forest because it is the last habitat left for the White Spirit Bear. It is known to the government as “Mid Coast Timber Supply.” It’s this clash of realities that disturbed me. It’s not just that beautiful balanced habitats and communities are being destroyed for short-term financial gain, it’s that the people who are making 1,000 year old trees into Victoria’s Secret catalogues don’t even see living beings — they see “timber supply.”

And what can I even do from so far away? It’s not much, but I can call the companies who send me catalogues and ask them to desist. I can help UUCPA find a way to use recycled paper products in our office and bathrooms.

I suppose the Buddhist Teacher and Deep Ecologist Joanna Macy would remind me that it’s not about avoiding despair, but hoping that this heart break will give me the courage to do something real to save what matters.