Street Arts for the Earth

The Balinese barong has been described as a cross between a lion and a caterpillar. With a carved wooden head worn by one dancer and a long body made of raffia or palm fiber, the far end of which is worn by another dancer, the barong is a benevolent creature that appears at Balinese sacred dance performances to bring peace and well-being.

On Sunday, December 6, at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia, a different kind of barong came to life, and in a way that well suited this particular gathering, whose theme is “Hearing Each Other, Healing the Earth.”

The World Peace Barong was conceived in 2003 at an international gathering called "Sharing Art & Religiosity," held in the vicinity of the temple Pura Samuan Tiga in Bedulu, Bali. Painter I Wayan Sudiarta from the village of Peliatan got the idea of creating a barong made of materials offered by people from any culture and faith. The mask of the barong was carved by Tjok Alit, a maskmaker in Singapadu, Bali. Elements that arrived from twenty-three other lands to adorn it included prayer bells from Japan, cow bells from Switzerland, feathers from India, and fabric from Assisi, Italy.

As the barong prepared to journey to Australia, parliament officials became concerned that its many natural materials would prevent it from clearing customs smoothly. As a result the World Peace Barong traveled with new black velvet garments. Garuda Airlines designated it executive class. At Melbourne's airport, customs officials greeted it graciously, charmed by its gentle, smiling face. But once the seventeen-kilo barong arrived at the Melbourne convention center, there was no place to put it. The sacred barong actually spent one night in the kitchen convention center, laughed Suprato Suyodarmo, Indonesian movement artist and founder of the Padepokan Lemah Putih school in Solo, Central Java.

The barong danced "Tri Yoni Saraswati" with eight artists from Bali and South Sulawesi for the International Plenary of sacred music. Although it was scheduled for an interactive session with parliament participants in one of the meeting rooms of the convention center, Suprato conceived of another idea.

He had noticed a strange figure, dressed in black and bearing a dire warning, who stood all day every day at the entrance to the convention center. Benny Zable, of Nimbun, New South Wales, and Woodstock, New York, wore a gas mask and a long black cloak on which were painted the words, FOSSIL FOOLS and THERE ARE NO JOBS ON A DEAD PLANET. Day after day he stood there, his hands rising and falling in mute supplication or despair. A few people stopped to look at him, but most rushed past.

Because Suprato Suryodarmo is interested in the relationship of sacred theatre and the natural environment, he asked Zable if the World Peace Barong could join him on the plaza. Late on the afternoon of the 6th, when most of the parliament participants were attending sessions inside the convention center, Suryodarmo and Diane Butler, an American dancer who has lived and danced in Bali for many years, carried the barong out to the front of the convention center and arranged it with offerings on the pavement. After sitting on the ground and praying softly, Suryodarmo rose and began to dance. His feet moved with slow-motion precision, turning in perfect balance. His hands and long fingers created mudras, formal patterns of meaning. Then Benny Zable began to move in response. Both the Indonesian dancer and the Australian street artist moved in harmony, their movements reflected in the tall plate glass windows of the convention center as the barong stared benignly out at the passing crowd.

One dancer brought a message of peace through the form of a figure from an ancient religious tradition; the other delivered a message of environmental urgency through artistic improvisation. One was dressed in traditional ceremonial clothing, one in a hand-made costume. Together they wove a message that religious leaders of many faiths were attempting to spread inside the convention center all week: in matters of environmental stewardship and peace among nations, it is only through creative collaboration, the willingness to listen to others, and the invention of new forms of expression that change can occur.

World Religions Get Down to Earth

"Welcome to country" is how the Aboriginal Australians greet visitors, and it was the greeting of "Aunty" Joy Murphy Wandin, a senior Aboriginal leader of the Wurundgeri people, to participants in the Parliament of the World's Religions, currently being held in Melbourne, Australia. The theme of the parliament, which was first held in 1893, is the environment: "Hearing Each Other, Healing the Earth."

It would be hard to find one of the world's religions NOT represented at this gathering. The Aboriginal people of Australia are here, of course, as are other indigenous people from Scandinavia, America, Africa, and other lands; Christians of different denominations; Jews; Hindus; Muslims; Buddhists; Zoroastrians; Sikhs; Pagans. What is even more extraordinary than the diversity, however, is the willingness of people of different faiths to listen to and learn from one another. Those who have attended previous parliaments claim that there is an openness and honesty here that has not been seen before, from the native Australians' expressions of sorrow and distress over the failure of the government to recognize them to the admission of several religious leaders that they have not always been mindful of holding the earth in respect.

My own particular interest is in finding ways to reconcile people and wounded places, and I'm curious how people of different religious traditions view that challenge. A few responses:

Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin: "My people know that the pavement all over Melbourne is not the real surface of the Earth. It's a covering over the hills, the rivers. There is a cemetery that now has buildings over it. But we remember what is really here."

John Grim, Senior Lecturer and Scholar, Yale University (at a panel on the work of Thomas Berry): "Thomas was very concerned about the degradation of the environment, but then as he got older, he wanted to turn away from a negative view. He wanted to be more hopeful, especially for the sake of the younger generations."

Leo Killsback, Northern Cheyenne: "They said that the killing at Virginia Tech was the worst mass murder ever in the U.S. The [1864] massacre at Sand Creek that killed 250 of my people was even worse."

Vidya Sarveswaran, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Deep Ecologist: "We must work to heal what is broken on the inside, as we heal what is broken on the outside."

H.H. Swami Sandeep Chaitanya, Hindu, founder of the School of the Bhagavad Gita, India: "Become a vegetarian. Meditate. You cannot change what is already done. You can only improve yourself."

Chris Peters, Yurok, director of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development, Arcata, CA: "It's a good question. Indian people never used to have to worry about this. If the forest burned, you knew it would grow back."

Freya Mathews, Associate Professor, LaTrobe University, Melbourne, and author of The Ecological Self and other books: "That's what the Kingfisher Festival is all about. It's finding revelation in the midst of a fallen state."

The concept of "wounded places" obviously has a lot of different connotations for people. Religious people have the capacity for awe, which means they can see the beauty of the Earth and be transported, can see the Earth either as sacred or as a manifestation of the sacred that is the Creator. However, many religions also tend to focus on teaching people to live today in ways that will make the next life (or after-life) better. Can both these perspectives be merged to help us solve the problems of living on our wounded and ailing planet today?

In My Back Yard

For many years I have been searching for some way to bring attention, personal stories, and beauty to ecologically damaged places. In a way, I think this way of approaching life and death, joy and sorrow, and the strange beauty that can be found when we gaze at that which we least want to look at has been pursuing me all my life.

Over the years I've held small gatherings and longer programs in several wounded places, from a clearcut forest in British Columbia to Ground Zero in New York City to a coal-fired power plant for 350: the International Day of Climate Action last month. When I founded Radical Joy for Hard Times, I joined others who shared the vision of finding and creating beauty in wounded places.

And now, by strange fate or synchronicity, this long search is becoming very personal.

The Marcellus shale beneath the earth in Susquehanna County in northeastern Pennsylvania, where I live, has been found to have one of the largest reserves of natural gas anywhere in the world. In the past two years, the momentum has been building to tap this source of energy with new technology. Unlike more affluent counties in New York, just north of us, where people are fighting this encroachment, here in rural, low-income Pennsylvania, poor farmers are eagerly leasing their lands... and many are already regretting it.

The problems, not surprisingly, have begun: polluted wells; damage to the hilly, winding, rural roads by heavy trucks; and even the recent discovery that the water that has been used to shatter, or "frack," the shale thousands of feet in the Earth, may be radioactive after it is pumped back out.

Two months ago, to my surprise, my husband and I were offered $5,700 an acre for our five and a half acres, plus 20% royalties for a portion of a larger consolidated leasing area.

For weeks Andy and I were immersed in long, tearful discussions together and with friends about our options. Neither of us has much money, and we have lost much of what we did have in the current recession. If we leased, we would not only get a settlement up front, but a regular income. For me, however, there was never any dilemma. I knew I could not live with myself if I were to condone, and even profit from, the exploitation of the Earth.

We finally have reached a decision. As my husband said, "You founded Radical Joy for Hard Times to bring beauty to wounded places, and now the wounded place is coming to your own backyard." So we will be staying, at least for now, and we will not be signing a lease.

Some people we know, including a good friend, think we have made a very foolish choice. And as I look at the rolling hills, the long expanses of woods and fields near my home, my heart aches for the ugliness and scarring that is probably inevitable. But I also am seeing new opportunities for exercising the principles of Radical Joy for Hard Times—the main goal of which is to reconcile people and wounded places through storytelling, bearing witness, and creating beauty. As seekers have known for millennia, you never have to go far from home to find the revelation you so long for.

On Monday I leave for Melbourne, Australia to attend the Parliament of World Religions. Watch for more blogs from there.

Message to a Power Plant: 350!

On October 24, Radical Joy for Hard Times chose to take part in 350: The International Day of Climate Action in a very direct way. We went right to a power plant to present our message.

Nine people braved heavy rain to gather in front of AES Westover, a coal-fired power plant in Johnson City, NY and a major supplier of the electricity in our area. The message we conveyed to them and to coal-fired power plants around the world: We demand a planet where 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the absolute maximum!

The 350 event was organized over the internet by Bill McKibben, the environmental activist and author of The End of Nature and other books. 350 is the parts per million of carbon dioxide that climate scientists have determined to be the maximum level for a healthy environment. Currently, levels are at 389 ppm. McKibben urged people around the world gather together to demand that policy makers take drastic steps to bring carbon levels to 350 ppm. All people had to do was somehow depict the number 350, take a photo, and send it to the website.

As of this posting, two days later, it is estimated that more than 5,400 events were held in 181 countries around the world. Looking at the 350.org website or at the photo stream on Flickr is an amazing and moving experience. Soldiers in Iraq, children in an orphanage in Bali, large groups of people forming the magic number with their bodies and being photographed from a height, small groups with hand-painted signs, people in front of historic buildings, ancient temples, glaciers, and mountains.

Radical Joy for Hard Times chose to take the message right to the source of the problem: the coal-fired power plant. Although AES Westover recently installed $50 million of new equipment to reduce emissions, “power plants are the nation’s biggest producer of toxic waste, surpassing industries like plastics and paint manufacturing and chemicals,” according to a recent report in The New York Times.

What we had in mind, however, was not protesting or blaming, but simply giving people the opportunity to reflect, up close, on the source of power that, as much as we want to hate it, we are all complicit in using.

I had called the plant a couple of weeks earlier to ask their permission for a small group to sit in front of the gate for two hours. I also invited Westover employees to join us. However, plant manager Jim Mulligan denied my request.

Nine of us showed up anyway. After we had introduced ourselves, Dick Rehberg, a member of the Radical Joy for Hard Times board, gave an introduction to coal and coal use. Coal provides 22% of energy use, and 91% of coal goes into firing power plants. Among the toxins emitted by coal plants are sulphur dioxide, arsenic, aluminum, and mercury.

Before long, a young security guard, on his first day on the job, approached us and told us we had to leave. We simply went across the street and stood under a bridge—after first snapping a photo with our 350 sign (made by local school students and recycled to other 350 events during the day). Under the bridge, we still had a good view of the power plant, and we were out of the rain as well. Over our heads, a steady stream of invisible traffic provided an audio accompaniment to our reflections on energy use.

Then, as is the practice on all our Earth Exchanges, each person took some time to be alone and reflect on the power plant, on energy use, coal, and whatever else in that immediate environment struck their attention—while also paying attention to how what they noticed sparked emotions, memories, thoughts, and ideas.

Here are some of the fascinating comments, each reflecting a completely different sensibility, experience, and perspective that people made as we sat under the bridge only half an hour later:

“While I was standing across the street looking at the power plant, I was struck by how, from this perspective, this maple tree towers over the smokestacks. It affirmed for me that nature will prevail.”

“Until recently I didn’t pay that much attention to global warming. Now I feel I’ve lost my innocence. Part of me wants to go back to that innocence, climb that tree like a little kid and pretend everything is all right. But I know I can’t do that.”

“I was standing at the entrance staring at the plant, and the guard saw me. For a moment our eyes met. He seemed like a nice young man. I wondered what he is making of all this.”

“I’m a nurse. I take care of people with deep wounds. I feel I’m now being called to take care of the wounds of the Earth as well.”

“I was thinking about the shrubbery in front of the plant. When I was young and growing up in Chicago, you never thought twice about power plants. Now, with this shrubbery, it’s like they’re trying to hide what they are, what they do, to make it seem more ‘natural.’”

Besides calling attention to the urgency of bringing CO2 levels down to 350, our group had a personal encounter with the predominant force that suffuses the air with this planet-altering chemical. We all have a more personal understanding of what we’re dealing with and how, in matters of the environment, we are all deeply and personally involved in countless ways.

Message to Coal: 350!

Saturday October 24 was designated 350: The International Day of Climate Action. As of this posting, two days later, it is estimated that more than 5,400 events were held in 181 countries around the world to call attention to the urgency of attaining this number.

350 is the parts per million of carbon dioxide that climate scientists have determined to be the maximum level for a healthy environment. Currently, levels are at 389 ppm. The United States Congress, considering legislation on energy efficiency that won't

Seeking Pearls in the Waste

Old Persian legends relate the trials of Majnun, a man who devotes his life to searching for his beloved Layla. Majnun wanders endlessly in the desert. His clothes are ragged, his hair matted and filthy, and he becomes so exiled physically and spiritually from the niceties of human society that finally it is the wild animals who become his companions. Humans shun him and laugh at him, even though many of them recognize deep down that his search, dedicated to love, oblivious to external concerns, has actually brought him closer to the divine.

One day, a man noted for his piety came upon Majnun sifting through dirt in the middle of the road. “You claim such devotion to your beloved,” the holy man scoffed. “How can you say that and then grovel here, searching for such a pearl in the midst of all this rubbish?”

“Ah,” Majnun explained, “I seek Layla everywhere, so that one day I may find her somewhere.”

In his tireless search for his beloved, Majnun has discovered something extraordinary: the effort to become closer to what we love takes us to many places and puts us through many tasks, and in this process each encounter and event becomes beloved as well. Some events that sweep us up may be difficult, painful, and hard to bear. Yet, far from degrading our search, and especially the object of our search, they actually ennoble them. When the heart is filled with passion, with conviction that what it loves is wholly worth loving, protecting, and engaging ourselves with, then we see that every place that the search takes us to is part of that esteemed quest as well. Searching for what we love and abandoning judgment about what is good and bad and worthy and unworthy, we find worth and beauty in abundance. Even what has been used up and tossed out is valuable, since our hands and hearts sort through it mindfully and compassionately.

Radical Joy for Hard Times finds much to admire in Manjun. We are aim to seek out the lost, clearcut, damaged places, the endangered species, the waste places, and approach them with curiosity, community, and creativity, that we may find treasure there.

And so we do.

Magic Phragic Wands

In my blog for July 18, I described the Radical Joy for Hard Times retreat I led at the World Healing Institute at Cobb Island Station, Virginia on June 19-21. We spent one day considering the invasive common reed, phragmites, from different perspectives, the most startling and personal of which were the ones that emerged after each of us spent an hour sitting alone with the plant without any expectations or judgments about its place in the biosphere. As a result of what we gleaned from that exercise, we created a meandering path through the tall grasses as a way of interacting in a more personal way with their rampant, stubborn beauty.

A few days ago I had an email from Annie Hess, the WHI administrator. She wrote that they had held a program for children a couple of weeks after the Radical Joy for Hard Times event. In one project the children made magic fairy wands out of the dried phragmites stalks. They called them phragic wands.

This is how we can remake the world we live in: by having the willingness to enter into relationship with it, listen to what it has to tell us, and respond with creative acts that come from the heart. And we can invite our children and grandchildren to explore with us, and perhaps teach us a whole new way of perceiving beauty—and even magic—in what we have formerly considered waste.