[Dialogue] Fwd: Inside Passages—Conversations Around the Fire

Mon Jun 1 12:38:43 PDT 2015

Dear Randy and Sherwood,

I am sending this article/blog entry in response to you messages about ways
of caring for the world and for ourselves.  I found it helpful and
provocative, thought it might bring some responses.

Be well,

Nancy

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nancy Lanphear <nancy at songaia.com>
Date: Mon, May 25, 2015 at 3:31 PM
Subject: Fwd: Inside Passages—Conversations Around the Fire
To: Jim Clarke <jimfortheearth at earthlink.net>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marilyn Hanna-Myrick <marilyn at songaia.com>
Date: Wed, May 20, 2015 at 10:15 AM
Subject: Fwd: Inside Passages—Conversations Around the Fire
To: Nancy Cell <nancy at songaia.com>, Patricia Newkirk <patricia at songaia.com>,
"jean at songaia.com" <jean at songaia.com>, Helen Gabel <helen at newearthsong.com>,
Phil Notermann <phil.notermann at gmail.com>

Once again Kurt Hoetling has wise words about a situation.

Marilyn
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <noreply+feedproxy at google.com>
Date: Wed, May 20, 2015 at 9:12 AM
Subject: Inside Passages—Conversations Around the Fire
To: marilyn at songaia.com

    Inside Passages—Conversations Around the Fire
<http://insidepassages.com>
------------------------------

Saying “S-Hell No!” as a Buddhist peacemaker
<http://insidepassages.com/2015/05/19/saying-s-hell-no-as-a-buddhist-peacemaker/>

Posted: 19 May 2015 12:53 PM PDT

[image: IMG_2542]
<http://insidepassages.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_2542.jpg>

Puget Sound tribal canoes leading the way to the 307 foot high Shell oil
rig in Seattle’s Duwamish waterway.

Our flotilla of several hundred kayaks was appropriately led into the
Duwamish River waterway – Chief Seattle’s home ground – by five native
canoes representing Puget Sound First Nations people. On Saturday, May
16th, I joined a flotilla of several hundred “kayaktivists” to  say “S-Hell
No!” to Seattle’s back room decision to provide home port facilities to
Shell Oil’s fleet of Arctic oil rigs. Shell’s first rig – the “Polar
Pioneer” – arrived on Seattle waterfront on Thursday. It’s progress down
Admiralty Inlet past my home on Whidbey Island, under tow of several large
tugs, had the feel of Mordor itself arriving in our midst.
[image: IMG_2529]
<http://insidepassages.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_2529.jpg>

A huge raft of kayaks hoisting the banner “Climate Justice Now” with
Seattle’s skyline in the background

It is difficult to describe the scale or the audacity of this venture by
Shell to profit from the destruction of the Arctic ice cap – a catastrophe
that is itself the direct result of our runaway addiction to fossil fuels.
In his guest editorial in the Seattle Times last week, titled *Shell and
high water: the climate battle of Seattle
<http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/shell-and-high-water-the-climate-battle-of-seattle/>,
*KC
Golden <http://climatesolutions.org/staff/kc-golden> of Climate Solutions
put it this way. “If you had to pick a logo for the campaign to wreak
climate havoc, you could hardly do better than Shell’s Arctic drilling rig,
the “Polar Pioneer.” Climate denial has reached its fullest expression when
the melting of the Arctic ice cap is greeted as a signal to drill for more
oil where the ice used to be.”

[image: IMG_2523]
<http://insidepassages.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_2523.jpg>As a
city, Seattle has staked its identity on leading the nation in its quest
toward carbon neutrality
<http://www.seattle.gov/environment/climate-change/climate-action-plan>,
and Shell’s deal with the Port of Seattle has generated a storm of moral
outrage here. As Golden put it in his editorial, “Shell has stirred up a
hornet’s nest. Their lease to establish a “home port” in Seattle was
negotiated under a “verbal nondisclosure agreement,” which allowed Shell’s
hired guns to campaign aggressively for approval, while opponents were kept
in the dark. Citizens are incensed, and the mayor and City Council are
trying to assert the overwhelming opposition of the community they
represent. Even Port of Seattle commissioners who approved the lease
profess to oppose Arctic drilling.”

[image: IMG_2580]
<http://insidepassages.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_2580.jpg>

Kurt (on the left) at the base of Shell’s Polar Pioneer oil rig

My experience on the water last Saturday brought home to me more viscerally
the truth in these words. Gazing up at the towering monstrosity of the
Polar Pioneer from my tiny perch on the water in a kayak, I was able to
connect more directly to the towering hubris that is behind it. I felt much
less alone in my sense of moral violation. I was both appalled by what I
was seeing, and uplifted by being part of this spontaneous outpouring of
resistance.

Yet as a practicing Buddhist, my motivation for being there was more
complex than simply outrage. I cannot know whether my presence there, or
this creative expression of moral concern by so many, will actually make a
difference. I cannot know whether Shell’s audacious plan to continue
profiting from the climate chaos it has been instrumental in creating will
pay off, even in Seattle. I don’t know if our technological hubris will
once again win the day.

Zen teacher Bernie Glassman has three tenets for his Order of Zen
Peacemakers. They include, 1) Not knowing, 2) Bearing witness, and 3)
Compassionate action. I was there primarily to bear witness. My Buddhist
practice tells me that these are wise precepts, and I do my best to live in
this spirit. I have a commitment to show up without attachment to outcome.
I do my best to show up without fixed ideas about who is to “right” and who
is to “blame”. My experience tells me that we are in this fix for reasons
that are far more complex than anyone can fully understand, and that no one
is exclusively to blame. It tells me that compassion is more powerful than
anger and outrage as a motivation for action – and ultimately more
effective. This is often hard to explain to other activists.

[image: IMG_2581]
<http://insidepassages.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_2581.jpg>I hope
we win this historic battle with Shell and the Port of Seattle. I hope this
marks an important moment of turning away from the economics of
self-destruction that has us all in its grip. I am fully with KC Golden in
his hope that Seattle chooses not to “service drilling operations that
recklessly stoke the climate crisis and mock our community’s values.” I
passionately agree with Seattle’s Mayor Ed Murray that, “It’s time to turn
the page. Things like oil trains and coal trains and oil-drilling rigs are
the past. It’s time to focus on the economy of the future.” In support of
that vision, I will continue to show up. But I refuse to do so in a spirit
that breeds animosity and discord in my own heart, and spreads that
dischord to others.

It’s not easy, in these times, to keep compassion at the center of our
efforts to show up. The losses are so great. The heartbreak so palpable.
The anger and outrage so alluring. The delusions of grandeur so
infuriatingly dominant in our culture of endless growth and consumption.
Holding to a compassionate center in relation to our climate debacle is one
of the most challenging things I have ever tried to do. But bearing witness
in a spirit of of compassionate action – actually keeping my heart open,
when I am able to pull it off, has consistently left me feeling more
powerful, rather than less so. It has shown itself to be the most effective
strategy for opening new doors of possibility and of connection. And,
frankly, it just feels better, and is more fun.

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