If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
Although environmental awareness sometimes seems to drop off the day after Earth Day, this spring there are a number of eco-justice groups taking their message on the road, making connections, and building broader coalitions in the process.
It's not a question of do nothing or spend a lot of money to avoid a catastrophe that may or may not materialize contingent upon the vicissitudes of clouds. That's what wizards of denial want you to fall for, and what the NY Times has helped to perpetuate.
During dinner with our children, we asked them, all enthusiastic carnivores, why they thought it was OK to eat meat. Their varying responses inspired us to frame this discussion in terms of the Passover Haggadah's description of the Four Children.
Can we schmooze and trade business cards and crack jokes and slap backs and form partnerships? Or will we keep alienating potential collaborators with a brand of green fundamentalism?
We are building a new world in the shell of the old one. We see grass piercing concrete. We see a neighborhood coming back to life, rising from the dead.
Eco-spirituality isn't just a philosophy or a prayerful way of life. For Sister Ginny, it has been a passionate call to action.
What was the revelation contained in my dream? In my dream I felt the pain of the earth. I also felt the shame of the perpetrator. I felt relieved when the people around me joined in to call out the abuser.
Native Hawaiians have traded in for a religion that, though it varies in its particulars from Catholic to Protestant to Mormon, unites in its focus on the hereafter. Who cares if this world goes to hell, so long as you go to heaven?
All that we reject, parts of ourselves that we push into the unconscious, whether anger, sexuality, vulnerability, creativity, what ever we have disowned, has power we need to reclaim.
We are not going to be able to rein in the powerful institutions that stand in the way until we rein in the worst traits of humanity -- those that allow us to desecrate nature and exploit our fellow human beings without conscience.
Under the Bodhi tree, where the Buddha achieved enlightenment, a stream of people passes in silent contemplation. Meanwhile, India is in denial about the effects of its burgeoning CO2 emissions.
Our motto at the Arava Institute is "Nature Knows No Borders." In Dubai, I experienced what we teach in Israel at the Arava Institute.
We need to join God in environmental reconciliation by adjusting our habits, our public policies and our understanding of how the world works.
Animals live and care for each other as much as humans do... How is it that we can be so callous towards these creatures of God?
The road to wholeness after Irene for some was quick and for others longer. Some are still travelers on that journey. The message of the shofar can help remind us not to lose hope along that path.
The meaning of our existence, our purpose, requires truth. To deny the truth about ourselves, or about a problem like global warming, is to thwart both love and the truth.
