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How Our Cultural Beliefs Effect The Way We Treat The earth

Aug 15th, 12 / 0 Comments

 

 

 

How Our Cultural Beliefs Affect the Way We Treat the Earth

Lanie Johnson, M.A. and Ken Fischman, Ph.D.

March 25, 2007(rev. 10/3/11)

Our cultural values, customs and beliefs affect the way we treat the Earth, and they have led to the twin crises of Peak Oil and Climate Change

                                                          1.  The Man Who Hated Bees

                                                                     by Lanie Johnson

         Ten years ago Ken and I left New York City in a truck camper and headed out West. We‘d intended to take about a year to look over a few towns and decide in which one we wanted to settle.

Seven years later we were still wandering in that truck camper. We had many adventures before we came to Sandpoint, some of them even good. But our most important adventure was our change of perspective.

We were able to see our culture with fresh eyes because for the first time, we were living outside it, wandering over the landscape but not being part of it.

For example, I remember the day we met the man who hated bees.

It was an early spring day, and we decided to ride our bikes in a marvelous park, along the Platt River right in the middle of the Denver.  There they had planted what seemed like millions of colorful wild flowers.

It was heavenly, and as we rode along we fell in with another biker. He told us that he was a retired engineer, living in the Denver suburbs and that he often rode his bike through that park.

Now, we were passing through the fields of magnificent and variously colored wild flowers that gently waved in the breeze.

But without warning, that man’s demeanor suddenly changed. He waved his arms around desperately as he rode.  “Those damn bees! Those damn bees,” he shouted. “They might sting me!”

As we passed out of range of the bees, he calmed down somewhat, but still agitated, he turned toward us and said angrily, “It’s those damn flowers! They’re attracting the bees. I wish they would cut them all down. That would get rid of the bees!”

b. How Our Culture Treats Others

The memory of that man still haunts me.  He had seemed like such a nice person, and probably was, under other circumstances.  Still, I’m grateful to the man who hated bees because I learned a lot about our culture from his behavior.

Never mind the question of whether or not bees and wild flowers are useful to us; that’s not the point. Do they have a right to be here on their own? Many people seem to believe that only man has a right to be here  – because he is special and clearly superior to everyone and everything else. If something is in your way – if it merely inconveniences you, get rid of it. Move it, destroy it, annihilate it if you see fit. From self-centered beliefs like these has come enormous environmental destruction.

Ken and I have read extensively about the lives of Hunter-Gatherers, both contemporary and ancient. I could not imagine a Hunter-Gatherer demanding that we annihilate all the wild flowers so that he could be bee-free.

We have come to another conclusion, too: attitudes like those of the man who hated bees are not necessarily due to inherent human nature. We believe that they come right out of our culture. And, that is what I want to address next.

2. Cultural Beliefs

a. Power, Role, & Invisibility

Culture can be extremely powerful in forming our ideas about how to live in this world. Every culture instills deep-seated beliefs that act as beacons, showing people the way they should organize their lives.

A society that has beliefs that do not work for them because they do not conform to the way the world really works, is in deep trouble.

Most of the time we are not even consciously aware that we have such beliefs. There is an old saying that if you want to know the nature of water, do not ask a fish.  Our culture is all around us, but because we are immersed in it, we do not feel or sense it. “Mother Culture is always whispering in your ear.” (Daniel Quinn, in Ishmael)

b. How Beliefs Arise

How do cultural beliefs arise?  They usually come out of the lifestyles of people.  Let’s look at a few examples:

Hunter-Gatherers place a great deal of importance on the natural cycles of Nature that they see all around them, as well as of their own bodies. They undoubtedly came to these ideas from their keen observation of the monthly waxing and waning of the moon, from the seasonal cycles, and from women’s menstrual cycles.

 

[ Image - Venus of Laussels ]

These HG beliefs go back a long way. The Venus of Laussels is a 22 – 30,000 year old image of a woman sculpted on a rock ledge in Western France. Her sexual features are exaggerated. Her left hand is on her belly.  Is she pregnant?  Perhaps. In her right hand she holds what appears to be a Bison’s horn, but which may also represent the moon in its fourth quarter.  It has fourteen parallel lines incised on it.  Fourteen is of course the midpoint of both the menstrual cycle and the monthly lunar cycle. So, we suspect that even back then Hunter-Gatherer cultures were thinking and organizing their lives in terms of these cycles.

Our own linear culture and its thirst for progress is very different from the ancient H-G traditions which are cyclical – reflecting and celebrating the cycles of Nature.

Ojibway Story

There is a story attributed to the Ojibway Indians of the Great Lakes region.  A young son of the tribe has the responsibility of hunting for game to keep his aged and weak parents alive.  One particularly severe winter, he has trouble finding sufficient game and becomes quite desperate.

One snowy morning, a handsome young chief walks into the young brave’s hunting camp, and challenges him to a wrestling match, promising a special reward if the boy wins.

The boy does win, and the chief instructs him to cut off his head, bury it, and periodically water it.  The boy does so reluctantly, and the next spring, a corn plant grows from that very spot.  The boy is overjoyed.  From now on, he will plant corn and will be able to feed his parents.

This story illustrates how that Indian tribe dealt mythically with their transition from a Hunter Gatherer society to an agricultural

Nature/Nurture Controversy

Let’s consider how we can distinguish between Inherent and Cultural Behavior.  Ken and I used to discuss the more destructive aspects of human behavior with some friends in the field of psychology. One, a psychotherapist, would simply shrug and say, “well, that’s just human nature.” We’d argue instead that it was our culture, “whispering in our ears.” Two other friends, a Developmental Psychologist and an Experimental Psychologist, both had the opposite view: they insisted that human beings are a “tabula rasa” – or a blank slate upon which culture writes behavioral instructions. Here was the old ‘Nature/Nurture controversy’ in living color.

A classical way of distinguishing environmental from inherited factors in human traits is to study these traits in identical twins, who have been reared apart.  Because their biology is the same, any differences can be attributed to their environments. These types of study have consistently shown that behavioral traits in humans are only 60-65% inherited.  This is not surprising.  We have long known that learning plays a large part in our development.

Well, why should all this matter to us?  It matters, because if a behavior is considered “just human nature,” that is, if it is inherent, then there is nothing we can do to change it.  However, if the behavior is produced by a combination of biology and cultural belief, it can be changed.

Recently, Psychologists set up a study in which participants played a game during which they could from time to time decide to be either competitive or cooperative with each other.  The brain activity of the players was monitored with an MRI.  The pleasure centers of their brains consistently lit up whenever they chose to cooperate, but not when they chose to compete.  Is it possible then that mankind is hard-wired to derive pleasure from cooperation?

Then, what are the consequences of our having created a society that emphasizes competition instead?   Just look at the front page of your daily newspaper or listen to the eleven O’clock news. This is something for all of us to think about.

 How Circumstances Changed the Lives of the Kalahari Bushmen

        I have a sad tale to tell.  Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, an Anthropologist, lived with some South African Bushmen in the Kalahari desert for several years and wrote a book about her adventures, called “The Harmless People. ”  In it, she describes their idyllic lives as Hunter-Gatherers in a physically challenging environment.

 

(Image child offering grub) Here’s a photo of Thomas, being offered a special treat by a Bushman child. Can anyone tell what it is?

 

She got to know and like them on an individual basis. But, I must warn you that if you read the last chapter, it will break your hearts.

Ten years later she revisited them. White South African farmers had penetrated into the Kalahari in their perpetual search for more land, and had taken over and fenced off the few water holes that the Bushmen had depended on for their very existence.  This forced the Bushmen to come in from the desert and become virtual serfs to the farmers.  The social fabric of these sweet, gentle people had been almost totally destroyed.  People whom Thomas had known previously had now become wracked with alcoholism, drugs, wife beating, and all the rest of the antisocial behaviors that plague our own society.

Does Our Culture Have Myths?

Does our contemporary, world-wide culture have unexamined beliefs?  Jared Diamond has written a terrific book, entitled ‘Collapse.’ In it,  he examines several civilizations around the world to see which have vanished and which have endured. He concludes that the answer lies in the ways in which each civilization has reacted to environmental challenges.

For example, Diamond tells of the Europeans who settled in Greenland around 1000 A.D. Greenland‘s rivers and surrounding ocean teemed with seals and fish, and the Inuit who lived there were experts at hunting and fishing.

However, the European Greenlanders, when faced with a change to a much colder climate during the Little Ice Age (1300 – 1800 AD) refused to learn how to fish and hunt for seals from their Inuit neighbors, whom they called “Skraelings” Translation – “dirty pagan wretches.”

Instead, the Europeans persisted in continuing to farm and raise cattle despite Greenland’s poor soil and short growing season, and most of them eventually starved to death.

The settlers were in the grips of a cultural belief that we call “there is only one right way, and it is ours.”

(Enter Culture Fairy.  He is a hairy guy, dressed in a tutu & he talks like Gus, the truck driver)

C.F.  “Hey, watcha gettin so upset about?  Nothins wrong with da Woild.  I’ve come to tell ya dat everythings gonna be O.K.”

LJ – “Who are you?  Are you one of those ridiculous fairies?  Look, I resent your breaking in on us like this. We reserved this room for a discussion of the serious situation that mankind faces from the decline in cheap energy and …

C.F.  – “Dat’s exactly what I mean.  Now, don’t getcha knickers all in a twist Girly, will ya!  I’m da Culture Fairy, see.  Ya know, dis is da best of all possible woilds, and we’re gonna come out fine.  Ya know why?  Because da woild was made for Man. Humans are da pinnacle of evolution, see?

LJ  “No, I do not see!  We are using up the finite resources of the Earth, killing off other life forms, and eventually we are going to cause our own extinction if we continue to believe nonsense like that”!

C.F. – “Hey, no problema.  Don’t ya know us humans are exempt from da rules a Nature? We can do stuff that would get any other creature in deep doo doo.  And besides, everybody knows da resources of da Universe are inexhaustible, and if we use up this planet, hey, we can go to Mars.

L.J.  “Now, that is a great idea.   I hear there’s a rocket leaving for Mars shortly.  Why don’t you take it, and establish a colony there?

C.F.  Hey, not a bad idea!  After all, Man was born to rule da Universe, wasn’t he? And in order to do it , he’s gotta conquer Nature, right?   So, Mars, here I come! (he dashes out the door)

The Importance of Cultures’ Alignment with the Earth

As I see it, the main problem is that our culture is not in accord with the way the World is organized.  In fact, it has put us on a collision course with these principles.

If instead, we were to become more grounded in the Earth (if you will excuse the pun), we would gain a deeper understanding of the laws of nature, and the fact that Mankind is not exempt from them.

How Do Myths Come About?

A recent poll showed that 60% of Americans believe that the Sun rotates around the Earth. If you asked these same people whether the Earth is flat or spherical, what do you suppose they would say?  Would they tell you that if you were to drive to New Jersey, you would fall off the end of the Earth?  I don’t think so.

However, if people believe that the World was made for man, and he was made to rule it, then it follows that we are the most important thing in the Universe.  It is possible then that so many Americans believe that the Sun rotates around the Earth because they believe mythologically that we are the center of the Universe and therefore the Earth is also at the center.

Looking at it this way, it seems clear to me that this human-centered view comes right out of the deepest beliefs of our culture.  Regarding another belief, my psychotherapist friend told me some time ago that all humans are competitive, and that is just human nature.

Well, try explaining this idea of competition to a South African Bushman or a Congolese Pygmy.  One of my favorite stories is of some Australian Aborigines who were being taught the rudiments of soccer by European missionaries.  After each side had scored a goal, they all walked off the field together, thinking they had achieved the object of the game.

We’ve just looked at some different cultural beliefs-Now, let’s look at an example of how cultural beliefs can be changed. 

                                              Can We Consciously Change our Beliefs?

 

Some scholars believe that a society cannot consciously change its beliefs – that such beliefs come out of some sort of collective unconscious interacting with millions of bits of information and experiences.

If I believed this, I would not be addressing you right now.  How else do you explain how a hitherto obscure southern black preacher, named Martin Luther King, Jr., changed the face of America back in the 1960s?

Now, instead of extreme racial inequality, we face the end of cheap oil and a changing climate. Both situations have come about because we have extracted and used so much oil However, the end of oil offers a ray of hope. If we can learn to limit CO2 emissions, as well as limit ourselves, that is. How? We think we can do so by not only changing our lifestyle but changing its underlying beliefs as well – such as the cornucopia of endless natural resources and the human right to do whatever we please with the Earth.

Well, so how do we go about changing the beliefs of our culture?

We do not have all the answers but, here’s one thought. We don’t have to throw out our birth religions in order to change our cultural beliefs.

The most holy day of the Jewish calendar is the Day of Atonement.  It is called Yom Kippur.  On that day, you are supposed to fast and to think about the offenses you have committed against others and their offenses against you.  You try to forgive them, and also yourself for your own failures.  Every year, for most of my adult life, I, Ken, would mark that day by fasting and sitting in a Synagogue all day long, chanting prayers in a language with which I was barely acquainted.  Most of the time, quite frankly, I was not spiritually uplifted. I was bored to death.

One Yum Kippur, I could not stand the thought of another dreary day like that, and instead went kayaking all by myself in a lovely little stream.

That turned out to be one of the most unforgettable days of my life.  As I floated down the stream, gazing at the ripples and waves, with the breeze in my face and the sun shining out of a clear blue sky, I never felt more spiritual and in tune with the Universe.

Ever since then, I have gone off by myself on that special day, to fast, and to be alone with my thoughts in some beautiful and sacred natural spot.

One December, Ken and I celebrated the Solstice with some friends.  Two of them, Phil and Sandy Deutchman, suggested that we celebrate it in different way this time, the way Sandy’s Finnish ancestors did over 10,000 years ago. In Finland, people still make candle lanterns of ice to provide light and hope for the return of light in the Spring. During this season, an ancient pagan tradition has it that a goat (the “Joulupukki”) comes out of the woods and gives people presents – if they’ve been good, that is. If they’ve been bad, he gives them a butt!

images

• ice candles

• here are Sandy with a flashlight (the Sun) and physicist Phil – dressed as the Joulupukki – with an orange (the Earth) showing the modern Astronomy behind the ancient Solstice celebration.

 

Other people around the little town in which we live, Sandpoint, Idaho, have adopted various Native American practices, the purpose of which is to re-connect people to the Earth.

Tim Corcoran and Jeannine Tidwell, founders of the Twin Eagles Wilderness School in Sandpoint, have studied with native teachers across the country, including elders from the Lakota tribe. Their school is a center for learning nature awareness and wilderness skills, in order to reconnect children with the Earth. They have also started a local Lakota Inipi, or sweat lodge group.

Randy Russell, who has Choctaw heritage, and is an adopted Lakota, has started a monthly Waneeshpa, or Gathering of Elders.  Randy runs the Soul Lore program, designed to bring back ritual, rights of passage, and other paths to true adulthood for young people.

 Mother Culture Meets Mother Nature

by Lanie Johnson(Rev 3/1/07, 3/6/07

MC         My son, the Culture Fairy had it completely right and you are a lot of hysterics, carrying on with a lot of pointless worry about the world coming to an end.  And, what’s more, you’re wallowing in guilt about the silly idea that humans are responsible for what you think a mess.

LJ         Who are you? I’ve never seen you around Sandpoint.

MC         I don’t ordinarily identify myself with a name, but rather by my wonderful contributions to the world. Some choose to call me “Mother Culture.” I am in charge of designing human society, and if I do say so myself, I have done a splendid job of it.

LJ         I’ve never heard of you. Is there anyone here who can answer her objections?

MN         I can.

LJ         And who are you?

MN         I am Mother Nature. I’m sure you’ve heard of me. I am painfully familiar with Mother Culture’s ideas. Her objections basically target me and my laws.

MC         Of course I object to you. And for many 1000’s of years I have been teaching humans to overcome you. They have learned well, if I do say so myself. Little by little they have come to understand that they are exempt from your annoying and inconvenient laws, and that there is no limit to what they can achieve.

MN         Really? How interesting! You call it progress, but at what price?  Your cleverness has caused a lot of damage to the Earth, and Mankind needs the Earth in order to live. Why don’t you teach them instead to use their cleverness to save the Earth?   They’ve used up most of the Earth’s oil and now the climate is changing –

MC   Now, there you go again, exaggerating a little change in temperature.  My goodness, the culture that brought you leaf blowers, SUVs, and YouTube will easily be able to conquer the Universe and make it ours!

MN  The Universe is a mystery to be celebrated, not solved.  Humans lived in harmony with the Universe for hundreds of thousands of years, and they can learn to do so again, and have more time to experience life.

MC  Ugh!  If they just enjoy life and let everything go, they will never make any progress.  The Culture that brought you Chicken McNuggets, Botox, and American Idol will really get them somewhere even more wonderful.

MN  Well, the way I see it, they are already somewhere.  They are here.  They are surrounded by life in all its many forms.  You could teach them that all other beings are their brothers and sisters, who are to be respected and treasured instead of exploited in your never-ending search for more stuff.

MC  Lower forms of life are not my relatives!  The world was made for Man, and no other life forms have any rights.  It’s pointless to talk to you, Mother Nature.  You are hopelessly old-fashioned.

MN  The Earth is dying, Mother Culture, and I will not let that happen to it.

MC  You couldn’t be more wrong.  Mother Culture will fool you yet.

MN  In that case, I have only one more thing to say to you.

MC  And what is that?

MN  Its not nice to fool Mother Nature (Thunder & exit)

]

 

                                    10. Finale (de Nile) and Bows

Animism, Hunter Gatherers, Paleoanthropology, Programs, The Earth

THE END OF OIL, AND THE RISE OF DENIAL

Jul 10th, 11 / 0 Comments

 

                  THE END OF OIL, AND THE RISE OF DENIAL       

Climbing Hubbert’s Peak        

         Good evening everyone.  We are here tonight to give you some facts, and some surprises.  We hope that you will like what we call our entertainment.

          I am going to start with a bit of history, about a man with a peculiar name.  Back in 1956, an oil geologist, by the name of L. King Hubbert, published an article in which he predicted that oil production in the United States would reach its peak between 1970 and 1972, and from then on would decrease every year.

         Despite the fact that Hubbert was a respected scientist and that he presented solid evidence for his conclusions, he was derided, laughed at, or ignored by almost everyone in the oil industry.

         Then came 1972.  In that year, oil production in the U.S. peaked, and since then it has declined every year. That, and not oil industry greed, China’s new energy appetite, or rebellions in Nigeria, is the main reason why you paid over $3.00/gallon for gasoline last summer, and our country is dependent on foreign oil.

          By the way, whose bill for heating and cooking with Propane went up this winter? ___________  Mine increased 50%.

         Other scientists have improved Hubbert’s calculations, and have extended the methodology he successfully used to predict Peak Oil in the U.S., to Peak World oil production. They have concluded that world oil production will peak within a few years from now, or has already peaked.

         It is in the nature of the oil industry that the figures given out by oil companies and OPEC countries cannot be trusted.  We only learn about such events sometime after they have happened.

         Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton University, Colin Campbell, who is a geophysicist, energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, and a Republican Congressman from Maryland, Roscoe Bartlett, have been sounding the alarm. They have been derided, laughed at, or just plain ignored. It is only now, after the price of energy sky-rocketed last summer, that they are getting any public attention at all.    

The End of Cheap Oil

         The impending loss of cheap oil is going to profoundly affect the way we and our children lead our lives.

(enter stage L — a fairy, dressed in pink tutu, with a diamond tiara, and a wand with a star at its end – “she” is flippant and bubbly, and speaks in falsetto, kind of like Glenda the Good, from Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz)

[TF]         “Hi, I’m the Tooth Fairy (TF) and I’ve come to tell you that there’s nothing to worry about. There’s plenty of oil left. All you have to do is look for it under your pillow!”

[KF]         Hey, wait a minute! You’re interrupting a serious discussion. And you look ridiculous in that tutu. These people are here to learn important things that will affect their lives. Please do not interrupt us.  (TF glares at K, petulantly, hands on hips)

         Now, where was I?  Oh yes, even the phrase “oil production,” is misleading. Human beings have never produced even one drop of oil. It was all produced by Nature some 600 million years ago. More properly, we ought to call it “oil extraction.” The amount of oil available is, for all intents and purposes, finite (unless you want to wait around another 600 million years.) When it’s gone, it’s gone, and all the wishful thinking in the world won’t bring back a drop of it.

         Our contemporary, technological civilization is organized around and totally dependant on cheap oil. This situation is being compounded because every year America’s appetite for oil is increasing. China and India’s economies are growing at 10%/year and they are running around the world, trying to lock up all the existing and potential oil and natural gas sources they can get their hands on. When demand increases and supply goes down, the law of economics tells us that the price will increase.         

[TF]         Oh, yoo–hoo! I have an easy solution. You know, when children lose a tooth, all they have to do is put it under the pillow, and the tooth fairy (that’s me!) will come in the middle of the night and replace it with a dollar bill. Now, all you have to do is place your empty gas tank under your pillow and the Tooth Fairy will fill it up with oil made from Canadian tar sands, or Pennsylvania coal, or Ethanol from corn

[KF] Now look here, you demented elf! You are interrupting a serious discourse and making a farce out of this. Leave this room right now, or I’ll Canadian tar-sand and feather you! (TF exits in a huff, stage Rt.)

Say Goodbye To Cheap Oil

         Thank goodness were rid of that ridiculous person.  Magical thinking will not help us. Only a few years ago, the price of oil was 35$ per barrel. Last summer it shot up over $70. 

         Do not allow yourself to be fooled by the short-term ups and downs of the market.  When oil pipelines get blown up in Nigeria, or Putin threatens to cut off Russia’s oil supply to Belarus, the price spikes.  When the Northeastern United States experiences a tropical winter, oil prices dip down. Notice what happened recently to prices at your local gas station when old man winter finally hit New England.

          I am going to go out on a limb and predict that the price of oil next summer will jump over $70 per barrel again (sotto voce – may be even $80) and that the price will go up every year from now on. 

         The high price of energy will profoundly change our lifestyles.  The Global Economy, which is based on the ability to cheaply transport goods from one part of the world to another, will inevitably collapse.  Economies will, of necessity, become localized, and we will have to depend on local food supplies.

         Everyone knows. . .

[OF]   Hi there. I’m the Oil Fairy and I’ve come to tell you that there’s plenty of oil around the Caspian Sea. And, we know there’s lots of oil under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge without having even drilled test wells there, or ……

[KF]   Great! Another idiot! Look here!  If they started exploring ANWAR tomorrow and found oil, which is not certain, it would take at least 10 years to locate, drill, and build a pipeline to carry the oil down to us. But, it sure would make a lot of money for Exxon, BP, etc. And maybe they can even get Halliburton to build the pipeline.

[OF]           Oh, but what about that oil they just found in the Gulf of Mexico?

[KF]   First, they have to go down 3,000 feet from the surface to the sea floor, and then drill another 5,000 feet to reach oil that may or may not be there.  You see, that oil is going to be very expensive to get, and that is just my point. 

[OF] But all I have to do is wave my magic wand and. . .

[KF] There is no such thing as magic!  You can’t make something from nothing. Why don’t you go away and stop bothering us with your wishful thinking?  (TF stands petulantly, hands on hips, & glares at KF)

         They have looked everywhere, and there are no hidden sources of oil. There is no adequate substitute for oil. You can’t stick a nuclear energy plant in your car and make it run. Too heavy. You can convert coal to gas, but the more coal you dig, the more expensive it will be to get to.  And up and up will go the costs.

         As for corn-derived Ethanol, it is the latest fad of the technofixers. Corn is a very energy- demanding crop.  At least two scientific studies have shown that more energy has to be put into the process than can be gotten out of it.  That’s a heck of a way to free yourself from foreign oil.

         Not only that, but every acre put into production of corn for Ethanol, is an acre taken out of the production of food in a country where the number of food-producing farms is shrinking every year. If our government is so worried about our dependency on foreign oil, how vulnerable will we feel when we become dependant on foreign-grown food?

         This is not theoretical.  The price of tortillas in Mexico has risen 50% in the last few months because a large portion of the US corn crop that used to be sent there has been diverted into ethanol.  And that’s no joke to the average Mexican family, who use tortillas for almost all their meals. 

         If you think that this situation is a concern only for poor Mexicans, think again.  The Associated Press reported only a few weeks ago that “strong demand for corn from ethanol plants is driving up the cost of livestock, and will raise the prices for beef, pork and chicken.” 

         What we now have is what amounts to a competition for shrinking agricultural land between automobile owners and families, who need to put food on the table for their children.  If you will excuse the expression, there is no free lunch, and that is for sure.

What Is Oil Good For?

         The first thing people think about when you mention oil is fuel – energy – energy to drive your car to work, to fly by plane to the West Coast, energy to push that diesel truck up the Interstate bringing cheap stuff to Home Depot and Wall Mart.

         But energy needs are just the tip of the iceberg. Where do you think your anti-allergy pills come from? Your antibiotics?   Most medications are synthesized from oil.  What do you think will happen to your medical bills when oil hits $100/barrel? $200/barrel?

         Does anyone here know what the Asphalt that our highways are built with is made from?  ________________ 

         Did you notice that last summer, Bonner County cut back on paving local roads  by 50%?  And, a few weeks ago, the Idaho Transportation Department announced that they were delaying 2 out of 4 widening projects for highway 95.  Both situations occurred because the price of asphalt has doubled in less than a year. That is just a little taste of what is to come.   Will Idaho be able to build more highways?  We will be lucky if they have enough money to fill in this winter’s pot holes.

                  What do you think plastic is made from? Take a wild guess. ( _________ )

[KF]  Hey, Oil Fairy, do you know how much plastic there is in your refrigerator? your iPod?  your automobile?  I’ll bet even your magic wand is plastic. 

         Another question for you fairy! Do you like bananas in your cereal for breakfast? Now, don’t tell me you just wave your wand and make them  appear!  Do you know where that banana came from?

[OF] (Timorously) – Ecuador? 

{KF} How many bananas are you going to eat when the cost of transporting them from Ecuador doubles, triples?  Food distribution patterns are going to have to change or we will not be able to feed over 300 million Americans. 

Bioregionalism anyone?

[OF}  I think I’ll leave. The batteries in my magic wand seem to have run down.  I wonder what batteries are made of?  Goodbye.

[KF] Good riddance! Whew! We are finally rid of her! Now, where was I?  

         Oh yes. Let’s talk more about food.  After all, it is your ultimate energy supply.  What is the fertilizer that makes that food grow, made from?  Anyone?  _________

         How about the pesticides and herbicides that they use on farms? What are they made from?  _______________ How much oil did they expend to manufacture the combines, tractors, and the other mechanized equipment found on most farms today?  And, how much energy is used to run them?  How much fuel was expended to transport food from Imperial Valley, California to your dining room table last night?

The Technofixers

         And that’s just the beginning. What about – - – - – - – - – - – (Big rumpus –Technology Fairy enters – stage L)

[TF]  Hi – I’m the Technology Fairy, and I’ve come to save you! Not to worry! I’ve got a technological fix for everything! Just look under your pillow!

(someone in audience shouts – “Hey “Techy,” you’re cute”)

[TF]   I’m not only cute, I’m clever. Hey, do you know what we can do to squeeze more out of an oil field? I can drill on a slant to get oil from under nearby mountains or drill down a mile with offshore drilling rigs.

[KF] (exasperatedly) It’s already been done.

[TF] Oh – well, I can pump water or steam into the wells to push up more oil.

[KF]   Been there – done that. It adds to the cost, and eventually it messes up the entire oil field.

[TF]    Oh – well, I can explore other parts of the world, using high-tech equipment, 3-D computer imaging, and find loads of oil.

[KF]   (addressing audience)  They have almost certainly already found all the great oil fields on Earth.  There is no other place to look for large amounts of oil except the Arctic Ocean and the South China Sea.  That’s why China, Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam have recently been threatening each other over that area. I don’t think that superpowers fighting an oil war is going to help lower the cost of oil.

[TF, getting surly]  Yeah, well how about all those hydrogen-driven cars? -  clean, no pollution, free energy. yippee!

[KF]    You know, it’s a funny thing.  Nobody talks about where they’re going to get all those H2 atoms. You see, they’re going to pull them off of – guess what?  _____________ oil and natural gas. That’s like robbing Peter to pay Paul. You see, H2 cars are not energy sources. They are really just big batteries, and where is all that infrastructure to transport the H2 atoms to where they can be pumped into cars? It’s non-existent.  And, are they going to store the H2 in tanks.  I do not think I would want to live near one of them.

(Image – Hindenburg exploding)

[TF]   Well, what about all the energy you can get from that Liquefied Natural Gas from Africa?

[KF] Listen, speaking of energy, you’re wasting ours. What’s next? Are you going to invent a perpetual-motion machine?  First, they must transport the LNG at -260° F in tankers.  Then, what do you do with it?  They will need to build special ports to receive LNG, and special facilities to store and transport it throughout the United States.

          Do me a favor Technology Fairy. Get lost!  Put an egg in your shoe and beat it!                                         

[TF]    Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, go drown in your misery. What a grouch! I have a million ideas of how to get more oil. Maybe there’s some on Mars. There’ll always be a technological fix right around the corner. Off I go to find one. Don’t worry – be happy. La De Dah De Dah – - – - – - – -  [exit stage R]

[KF]   Well, I sure hope we’ve seen the last Fairy.

(voice from audience –“Don’t you bet on it”!)

         One of things that most concerns me about Peak Oil is that in our efforts to find substitutes, the world will turn to even more highly polluting fuels, like coal, that emit high amounts of CO2.  This will only exacerbate and speed up Climate Change.

          The end of cheap oil will obviously have profound effects on our lives, both upon our economy and our social structure.  Lanie will talk more about that when she speaks to you about the role of cultural beliefs in the way we treat the Earth.

The Role of Psychological Denial

         If you accept the seriousness of what I have just been telling you, you must be thinking ‘How on Earth have we gotten ourselves into such a predicament?’  After all, there are very smart people in governments, business, and academia all over the world.  How could they have overlooked this situation?  Why did they not start planning for these contingencies long ago?

         I would like to take a few moments to explore these questions because I think that they are important in understanding what we are up against when we try to change people’s attitudes.

         Three weeks ago (3/7/07), there was a public meeting in New Orleans, called by city officials to discuss plans for the reconstruction of the city after the devastation of Katrina.

         After discussing such critical matters as where a new baseball stadium would be constructed and the repair of an historical fort, a woman stood up and demanded to know why strengthening New Orleans’ levies was not included in the plans.  A city official replied that, “It was an oversight, and would be corrected in the revised plan.”

         How would you account for such an “oversight” as forgetting the levies?  There is an explanation for this.  It is called Denial.

         Psychological Denial is a defense mechanism, often put into use when a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept, and rejects it instead, despite what may be overwhelming evidence.

 I believe that not only individuals but, entire cultures can go into a state of denial when faced with a situation, which, if taken seriously, would force them to reevaluate their entire lifestyle and change it.

         I believe that is the situation our culture is facing right now with respect to the end of Oil and Climate Change.

          Polls show that it is only recently that a majority of the American people has accepted the reality of Global Climate Change.  This has happened only after: a lot of strange weather, many showings of “An Inconvenient Truth,” and the recent well-publicized report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that states unequivocally that climate change is a reality and that Man has had a central role in bringing it about.

         In order to convince the Doubting Thomases, we need to just keep chipping away, and not get discouraged.  Eventually, their defenses will break down, and they will admit reality.  Of course that long delay may put our entire society in a position from which it cannot extricate itself.

( Joshua Walters comes in, plays “Swimming in D’ Nile” on his guitar, & leads the audience in the refrain)

         The good news is that, we in Sandpoint do not have to wait for our government and most of the country to catch up with our understanding of this situation.  We can start planning right now.  With the help of local groups like ClimateCAN, we can work to assess what needs to be done to make our region more self sufficient in the basics, like food, fuel, and transportation, and to persuade our public officials to start planning for the inevitable.

         Yes, we can come together and start to form a true community like the ones that prevailed in small town America little more than a century ago.  A lot of the changes we have to make will be inconvenient and even painful. But Sandpoint at least will have a head start, and we may find some of the changes even to be good, with a renewed emphasis on family, friends, and community.

 

 

 

                                                   

        

        

         

Ancient Pathways Group, climate change, End of oil, Peak Oil, Programs

The Dark Side Of Genetic Engineering

Jun 27th, 11 / 1 Comment

 

 

 

THE DARK SIDE OF GENETIC ENGINEERING

Ken Fischman, Ph.D.

"Everything has both intended & unintended consequences, & the intended

consequences may or may not happen, but the unintended consequences always do."

                                                      Dee Hock, former CEO of VISA International

         In 1988, Showa Denko, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, shipped the first batch of genetically engineered L-Tryptophan to the United States. L-Tryptophan is an amino acid, normally contained in all of our cells. Naturally-derived L-Tryptophan had been sold over the counter for decades to thousands, perhaps millions, of people to relieve symptoms of insomnia or depression. There had never been reports of any ill effects.

         The genetically engineered L-Tryptophan killed 37 Americans, more than 5,000 others came down with a hitherto unheard of disease called Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome, and many were permanently injured. 

         Showa Denko's attorney admitted in federal court that it was most likely that the genetic engineering had caused the calamity. Just prior to the trial, Showa Denko destroyed the original batches of bacteria from which the L-Tryptophan had been extracted.  Showa Denko was clearly at fault, but because the bacteria were no longer available for analysis, it could never be definitively proven that it was specifically the genetic engineering that did it. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared that it was not the genetic engineering that was at fault, and the deaths and injuries were probably due to some manufacturing error. Instead of banning only the genetically engineered variety, they banned all over-the-counter sales of L-Tryptophan.

         When Watson and Crick unlocked the secret of DNA in 1956, they fundamentally changed our world. They enabled scientists to understand many of the basic properties of inheritance. This was followed by the introduction of techniques enabling scientists to manipulate those processes in order to alter living organisms in ways that had never before been possible. In rapid succession, scientists deciphered the code found in the sequence of molecules along the long DNA chain, and discovered that DNA produced a similar molecule called RNA, which in turn produced proteins. Some kinds of proteins make up most of our cell structures, while others function as enzymes, controlling essential bodily processes. This new field of science is called Genetic Engineering (GE) and the new forms of life produced by it are termed Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). They are brought to you by modern wizards called Molecular Biologists.

         Molecular Biologists have been able to decipher the genetic code laid out in the linear sequence of genes and identify many of their functions.  They can snip them out of the chains of DNA and insert them in the cells of other organisms. Farmers, animal husbandmen, and scientists have been breeding animals and plants for thousands of years in order to produce new combinations of characteristics. However, up until now, these characteristics had always been ones that had preexisted in some members of the same species. Through eons of evolution, living organisms accumulated combinations and sequences of genes that for the most part work together harmoniously. However, the techniques of Molecular Biology shorten the time dimension and leapfrog the species barrier. For example, it is now possible to take the "antifreeze" gene from Flounders, a cold-water species of fish, and insert it into the genome (total array of genes in an organism) of a potato! This enables GE potatoes to survive periods of frost, and to extend their growing seasons. Thus, scientists can now combine genes that had never before been in the same organism.

         The wonderful potentialities of this science have been emphasized for years by molecular biologists, the medical establishment, agribusiness, and government itself. They tell us that they will be able to cure humanity's illnesses, produce wonder drugs grown in genetically-altered animals, grow made-to-order organs for transplantation, feed the starving millions of mankind, etc. However, none of these institutions talk about the dark side. This article explores the dark side.

         In 1992 the FDA issued a ruling, stating that genetically engineered foods are "substantially" like natural foods, and therefore do not need to be regulated.  This has come to be known as the "Substantial Equivalence" rule.  The significance of this ruling was that the food industry would not have to perform safety studies and clinical tests on GMOs, such as are required before new drugs come onto the market. The ruling also removed much of the oversight that the FDA would exercise on drugs after they reached the market. The Federal Government could thus argue, and subsequently did, that because these GE foods are just like regular foods, there is of course no need to label them in order to distinguish them from other, non-GE foods.

         European countries, on the contrary, have adopted a different approach  to the marketing of GMOs.  They have put the onus of proving the safety of these foods on the manufacturers, by invoking what is called the "Precautionary Principle".  This states, in part, that "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health, or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.  In this context, the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof."

         Due mostly to these fundamentally different approaches, the United States and the European Union are locked in a struggle, and the Bush administration has recently appealed to the World Trade Organization to issue substantial fines on European countries which do not allow importation and sale of GMO food from the US.

         It has been repeatedly stated by both government and food industry spokesmen that there have been no documented cases of someone being harmed by GE food.

         In light of these claims, an interesting incident occurred in 1996. Pioneer Hybrid, then the largest seed company in the world, wanted to make an improved soybean. Soybeans lack some of the 21 Essential Amino Acids (EAA) that human beings and most other animals need for life, but cannot produce on their own. Most of us get our EAAs from meat. Vegans, however, must carefully balance the types of plants they eat in order to make sure that they get all 21 EAAs in their diet. Pioneer extracted a gene from Brazil nuts in order to increase the soybean's production of another amino acid, Methionine. They then gene-spliced it into their soybeans in an effort to improve their nutritional value, and hopefully the company's profitability.

         Just before this GE soybean was scheduled to go on the market, it came to the attention of some University of Nebraska scientists. By a stroke of good luck, they just happened to have some blood sera from people who were allergic to Brazil Nuts, and they decided to test these beans on it. They got a strong allergic reaction. Quite a few people are allergic to Brazil nuts, and eating these soybeans might have killed many of them. Obviously, something else besides the gene for the amino acid had been transferred into the soybeans.

         When genes are to be introduced into host cells, they do not come alone. After the donor DNA has been cut into many pieces, it is then inserted into bacterial plasmids (circular bacterial DNA), and in this form, the genes can be duplicated to any number necessary. Then, they must overcome the host cell's defenses against invasion of foreign DNA. This is usually accomplished by attaching a "ferry," – an infectious virus or bacterium – to that gene. The virus or bacterium can penetrate into the cell and insert the gene into the native DNA. A way also has to be found to identify and select those cells in which the new gene has been inserted and to dispose of all cells that do not contain this gene. This is usually done by attaching a so-called Antibiotic Resistance Marker (ARM) gene. This ARM confers antibiotic resistance, usually to Streptomycin. Treating the cells with Streptomycin then kills all cells which do not possess the desired inserted gene.

         Genes do not function all by themselves. Most of them are active during only part of the life of the cell.  They may need the assistance of other genes, called Promoters, which “turn on” or activate them. Therefore, a promoter gene, derived from a virus,  is also attached. These genes may also bring with them uninvited guests. When genes are snipped out of their original DNA chain, the process is not exact. The chain is cut in various places by enzymes, leaving pieces of, or entire neighboring genes, attached to the gene to be inserted. The properties of these DNA Fragments may not be known and their presence may not even be detected.

         From this and other evidence, a reasonable person could draw the conclusion that contrary to what the FDA and food industry say, GMOs used as foods are definitely different from regular foods, and need to be tested and labeled to safeguard the health of both ourselves and the rest of the planet.

         There are several good arguments why GE foods should be labeled. For one, people should have the right to know what is in the food they feed to their families. But even more importantly, if GE foods are not labeled, and something goes wrong, and people get sick and/or die, what could be done to trace the source of the problem? Epidemiologists, those public health officials whose job it is to track down the causes of diseases and other health hazards, would have no way to trace the problem back to the GE foods.

         One more important point. Agribusiness companies such as Monsanto consistently claim that their GE seeds will increase crop yields with these techniques, thus being able to feed the world's ever-increasing human population and avoid famine and starvation. Unfortunately most of the evidence so far demonstrates that on the contrary, most of them either marginally increase or even decrease yields. One theory of why this occurs is that much of the plant's energy has been diverted from normal growth into perpetually producing the inserted gene's product.

         A holy grail of molecular biology has been the hope that GE will one day be able to cure inherited diseases by substituting normal genes for the abnormal ones. For the first government-sanctioned attempt at Gene Therapy, children with a hitherto consistently lethal disease were selected. These so-called bubble babies have non-functioning immune systems, and need to be physically isolated from the environment  in artificial enclosures. They usually die in early childhood from infections against which they have no defense. A number of clinical trials were begun around the world, in which ostensibly normal genes were inserted into such children.  Eleven children were selected for one trial in France. Their physicians were optimistic due to the preliminary results. Most of the children showed improved immune functioning. Then one boy came down with Childhood Leukemia. They assumed that this was an unfortunate coincidence. A few months later a second child developed Childhood Leukemia.

         Analysis of their DNA showed what had happened. In the first child the Promoter gene accompanying the therapeutic gene had landed square in the middle of an Oncogene called LMO-2, and turned it permanently on. An Oncogene is a gene, probably needed for normal development, which if switched on permanently, causes cancer. Analysis of the other child's DNA provoked  much more concern. The same Promoter gene landed near the same Oncogene, but not on it. Promoter genes show a gradation of effects, depending how close they are to the gene in question. The closer, the stronger the effect.  All gene therapy trials were immediately stopped.

         The results of this trial are exceptionally chilling. It showed that it matters very much where in the host genome the foreign gene is inserted. The fact is that the scientists have no idea of where the gene is going to land; where, if any, there is a "good" place to land; and no way exists at this time to direct it to such a place.  There has been much talk about "targeted gene repair" , but so far scientists have been unsuccessful in directing foreign genes to specific sites, and may never be able to do so. 

         Perhaps even more importantly, the question arises as to whether the insertion of the Promoter gene in the Oncogene in one case and near the Oncogene in the other, was a coincidence. Considering the vast amounts of DNA in a cell, and that a human cell is estimated to contain 10 – 30,000 genes, it is very unlikely that this was an accident. Therefore, we are left with the possibility that when foreign genes are inserted into a human cell, their destination may not be random, but directed, but not by us. In these cases, it was directed to an Oncogene, with tragic results.

         The prospect of worldwide distribution of GMO's is particularly troubling because they differ in several crucial respects from pollution by petrochemicals and radioactive substances.  Unlike chemicals, GMOs can replicate themselves, thus producing potentially immense amounts.  They can mutate(change) their genetic constitutions, and therefore, their properties.  Furthermore they can disperse to other environments, either on their own, or by piggybacking on other organisms by becoming integrated into their DNA.  It is quite likely that if  some of them prove to have deleterious effects, it will be impossible to correct the situation, and put them back in Pandora's box.

         In this new world of GE, which we are entering so rapidly, the term caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) takes on a new and ominous meaning.

The Dark Side of GE, 10/29/03

         

Cancer, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), Molecular Genetics, Programs

The Biology And Politics Of Breast Cancer

Jun 27th, 11 / 3 Comments

 

The Reader 6/9/05

 

         THE BIOLOGY AND POLITICS OF BREAST CANCER

 

                                             by Ken Fischman, Ph.D.

 

Dedicated to the memories of:

         Vicki Long

         Mary Shackelford

         Barbara Veranium

 

A Parable for Our Time

         People in a town along a river spotted a person drowning in the turbulent waters and attempted to rescue him. The next day they noticed more and more people struggling in the torrent, and redoubled their efforts to save them. They became experts in river rescue and invented more and more ways to try to retrieve and resuscitate the drowning victims.  In fact, as time went on, they became world-famous for their ever-more innovative river rescue techniques, of which they were quite proud.

         However, don’t you think it odd that in all this time, they never thought to look upstream to find out who was pushing these people in? (adapted from Living Downstream, by Sandra Steingraber,)

         In this article, I invite the reader to walk with me upstream, along the banks of that river.

        

The Biology of Cancer

         In order for the reader to better understand what cancer is and what its medical and political implications are, it is necessary first to cover a few basic biological concepts. 

         Cancer cells are cells that no longer obey the body’s controls. They revert to a primitive state, and have a tendency for perpetual growth and tumor formation.  Genes are the basic units of heredity within cells. You can think of them as a set of blueprints for building and controlling your body. There are thousands of different kinds of genes in human beings.

         DNA is the chemical stuff that the genes are made of. DNA is an extremely long molecule, made of thousands of subunits.  The genes are attached to each other in groups of hundreds, like a string of pearls. There are 46 of these strings in each human cell and we call them Chromosomes.

         A remarkable property of genes is their ability to make identical copies of themselves.  They distribute these copies, one to each of the new cells produced through a process called Cell Division.  Therefore, every cell in your body contains a duplicate set of genes.

         If every cell in your body has an identical set of genes, then why do some cells look and act differently from each other?  Muscle cells produce a protein, called myosin, that enables them to contract.   Brain cells produce neurotransmitters, which enable them to send signals to other cells.  The explanation is that all of the genes in a cell are not functioning all of the time.  There is one set of genes functioning in a brain cell and a somewhat different set in a muscle cell.

         Which groups are functioning is controlled in two different ways.  The first way is controlled by other genes; the second, is by chemical signals from outside the genes, which may even come from distant parts of the body.  Hormones are the chemical messengers involved in this kind of remote control.

         An Oncogene (“cancer gene”) is one type of controller gene that plays important roles in Breast Cancer (BRCA). It is normally involved in directing growth and cell division.  It is only when genes of this type are malfunctioning that they cause cancer.  You can think of a faulty Oncogene as if it were a stuck accelerator on an automobile.

         There are two types of cancer: (1) inherited and (2) acquired: 

         The inherited type occurs as a defect in the person’s genes and has been passed on to him/her through the egg or sperm from one, or both parents . The defective gene is therefore found in every cell of his body.  This gene can be passed on to the next generation, again through the reproductive cells. Familial BRCA is of this type. 

         Acquired cancer, on the other hand, occurs due to changes that take place in the genes in at least one of the person’s cells during his lifetime. If it does not occur in one of his reproductive cells, it cannot be passed on to the next generation. Examples are: lung cancer, Leukemias, and most BRCAs.

         A mutation is a change in a gene.  The change is passed on to the cells resulting from division of the cell that carries the mutated gene.  When these cells divide in their turn, the mutation is passed on again, and so on and so on, until there can be millions of such cells, each with the identical defect. 

         There are several ways in which these mutations can come about. One way is for a mistake to happen while the DNA is duplicating itself.  Another way is for an environmental agent, like radiation or a chemical, to come in later, and damage the DNA in some way.  A third way is for a mistake to occur later, during cell division.  The chromosomes might break or not be distributed equally between the resulting cells.  Any one of these kinds of mutations, and sometimes all three, can be involved in producing a cancer cell.

 

 

 Breast Cancer – A World-Wide Epidemic

 

         Breast Cancer is a disease that strikes one woman in seven. The incidence of BRCA has risen steadily since World War II. It increased 60% between 1950 and 1988. This increase has nothing to do with increased longevity.  For example, women born in the USA between 1947 – 1958 have three times the rate of breast cancer as their grandmothers had at same age. In 1991, 170,000 American women were diagnosed with BRCA.  The latest available figures are for 2002, with 205,000 new cases.  That is an 20 % increase in eleven years.

         This type of cancer is effecting younger women more and more. BRCA kills more women between the ages of 35-50 than any other disease.  Why has this veritable explosion in BRCA occurred?

         The American Cancer Society (ACS) points to ‘lifestyle’ and heredity as the prime villains.  Their brochures exhort women to: (1) exercise, (2) lower fat in their diets, (3) perform breast self-examinations, (4) examine their family history, and (5) receive regular mammograms in order to detect BRCA, etc. Yet, the great majority of BRCAs cannot be explained by either inheritance or so-called ‘lifestyle’ factors. Let’s examine a few circumstances:

         The list of chemicals and other environmental agents, known or suspected to be cancer-causing is a very long one.  Yet, in all this time, only about a dozen have been banned by U.S. government agencies.  Here are just a few of the more egregious cases.

         Twenty seven years ago evidence was presented that women working in the plastics industry and exposed to Vinyl Chloride (VC), faced an increased risk of BRCA. (J. Occup. Med., 1977). VC was acknowledged by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be a human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent). It was not banned however, and enormous quantities of it are still being produced and distributed around the world.

         Polychlorinated Biphenyls, better known as PCBs, are strongly suspected of causing BRCA.  General Electric dumped PCBs into the Hudson River in New York state until the 1970s.  There are an estimated one million pounds lying on the bottom of a 40 mile stretch of the river .

         Well known risk factors for BRCA are: (1) early 1st menstruation, (2) late menopause,  and (3) late or no childbirths. What these factors have in common is that they all increase a woman’s lifetime exposure to estrogens. 

         Estrogens are hormones, secreted by a woman’s ovaries each month. It effects only cells with Estrogen Receptors on their surface. The hormone attaches to the receptor. Then the Estrogen-Receptor complex penetrates into the nucleus and activates one particular set of genes while turning off another set. The net effect is to increase cell proliferation in: (a) the vagina, (b) the uterus, and (c) the breast. Estrogen therefore stimulates ovulation, menstruation, and breast development. 

         A full term pregnancy early in a woman’s life protects against BRCA. Why? The current theory is that breasts do not completely develop until the last few months of the first pregnancy.  Once they are developed, cell division in them slows, and because DNA in non-dividing cells is less sensitive to damage from radiation and chemicals, these women are less vulnerable to BRCA.

         Early onset of puberty is also a strong risk factor for BRCA. Consider the following  facts: The average age of female puberty in the 1940s was 13 – 14 years. At present it is 10 – 11 among whites, and even earlier among black girls. Some possible explanations are:

         Since WWII, over 70,000 Synthetic Organic Chemicals (SOCs) have been produced, some in enormous quantities, and distributed all over the world.  They have infiltrated our air, water, food, and our very bodies.

          (1) many pesticides, herbicides and other SOCs are endocrine-imitators, (i.e they have estrogenic effects).  SOCs may hasten the onset of puberty. There is strong evidence that Atrazine, the most widely used herbicide in the world, has this type of effect.  Despite this, the EPA has recently refused to ban it.

         (2) Americans eat a greater proportion of meat in their diets than any other people. Chickens and cattle are often treated with hormones in order to make them grow faster.         

         Women who have fatty diets have greater risk for BRCA.  The NCI, and many other authorities, have concluded from this that fat causes cancer, and they have told women to change their lifestyles by doing more exercise and eating less fatty foods.  Some scientists however believe that it is not the fat, but what is in the fat that causes BRCA. Many SOCs are fat-soluble, and therefore tend to concentrate in fatty tissue such as the breast and bone marrow.  The more obese you are, the more carcinogens you accumulate. (Carcinogen concentration in fatty tissues may also explain why the incidence of Multiple Myeloma, a hitherto rare cancer of the bone marrow, has increased ten-fold in the past few decades) . 

         SOCs not only lodge in fatty tissues, they become biomagnified (concentrated) there.) In addition, SOCs are not easily metabolized and excreted.  Therefore, they may linger in tissues for years. Some researchers have called fat the body’s hazardous waste site.

 

Inherited Breast cancers

 

         You have probably heard of  Breast Cancer Families, in which several generations of women develop BRCA.  Two BRCA genes have been identified: BRCA-1 & BRCA-2. Women who possess BRCA-1 also have a higher risk for Ovarian cancer, but this does not appear to be so for those who have BRCA-2. Women who inherit either mutant gene are at much greater risk earlier in their lives for subsequent steps in the carcinogenesis process (described further on in this article). This is demonstrated by the high percentage of women possessing the gene, who get BRCA in their 20s (40%), compared with the much lower percentage of women who have the gene, who get BRCA in their 80s(1%).

         A good way to distinguish between inherited and environmentally-induced diseases is to compare populations in different parts of the world. It has been observed for example, that BRCA rates in the U.S. are thirty times higher than in parts of Africa.  We can also evaluate  groups of people before and after they migrate from an area of high disease incidence to one of low incidence, or vice versa.  BRCA rates rise in Jewish women who migrate from  North Africa to Israel; rates decrease when English women migrate to Australia.  Their genes  of course remain the same. Only their environment has changed.        

         As previously mentioned, inherited Breast Cancers were the predominant form of BRCA before the 1940s.  Their incidence has not increased in the ensuing years.  They are now a tiny minority of all BRCA cases, probably no more than 5 – 10%, and effecting only about 1/3 of 1% of all women. The other 90 – 95% of BRCAs are classified by US government agencies as ‘sporadic’, meaning that the cause is unknown.

         Saying that most BRCAs are ‘sporadic’ reminds me of a story about a novice boxer.  His manager sends him into the ring against a much more experienced opponent.  He is getting badly beaten.  At the end of one round he comes back to his corner with his nose bleeding, one eye almost closed, and bruises all over.  His manager tries to buck him up.  “You’re doing great kid” he says “You have him on the run. He hasn’t laid a glove on you.”  The kid turns around and looks at the manager.  “Yeh?”, he says, “Well you better keep an eye on the referee because someone out there is sure beatin the crap out of me!”                 

 

  Mechanism of Carcinogenesis

         Normal cells do not become cancer cells in one swoop. For example, Benzo(a)pyrene is the principal cancer-causing agent in tobacco smoke.  It and Croton oil are much more effective in inducing cancer when applied sequentially, rather than together. This is evidence that there is more than one step in cancer production.

         Mutations are usually chance events that could occur in any one of the cell’s thousands of genes. Routine errors could be made during DNA replication, or a gene could be damaged by a carcinogenic  agent.  The first step toward cancer is a mutation.  This is obvious because tumors continue to grow even after the carcinogen is removed.  Therefore, an event has occurred that is being passed from generation to generation of its cells.                          

        

         Another clue that cancer is a multi-step process is the long lag time, or latent period after first exposure to a carcinogen before a recognizable cancer develops.  It may take many years.  This lag time occurs because two or more rare chance events have to take place in order for a cell to become cancerous.  The probability that two rare events will both happen is the product of the chance for each of them to happen by itself. 

         A simple illustration of this is flipping a penny.  If you flip it once, the chance that it will come up heads is 1/2. If you flip it twice, the chance that it will come up heads both times is 1/2 X 1/2, or 1/4.  Imagine then that if the chances that each of these two mutations occurring in the same cell is a couple of thousand to one, the probability of both happening is a very long shot indeed. Time however, is an additional factor.  The longer the cell lives, the more likely it is that the second mutation will eventually occur.

          The stages for inducing a cancer cell are called: (1) Initiation, (2) Promotion, and (3) Progression

         1.  Initiation is usually a small subtle lesion in DNA. There are no visible changes, but it can be recognized by the body and reacted to.  The immune system may recognize changes in the cell surface and then destroy the aberrant cell. Any weakening in these defense mechanisms could lead to retention of initiated and therefore potentially cancerous cells, making it more likely that some of them will survive to reach the next stage of carcinogenesis.        

         2.  Promotion unfolds over long time period and does not involve mutations, but encourages changes in which certain genes are activated. Promotion can be stimulated by substances like Estrogens.  Here is the good news.  When the influence of these substances is removed, cells usually revert back to the previous stage.

         3. Progression – Mutations pile up at the molecular (i.e. DNA) level and chromosomes become increasingly damaged and unstable.  Some of these changed cells become cancer cells. The production of many different chromosome abnormalities in the same tumor has the effect of making it a heterogeneous group of cells with different properties.   It makes diagnosis & treatment more difficult.

          Many carcinogens have multiple roles. They can take part in more than one of these steps, and do so at: (1) different times, and (2) different concentrations. Dioxins, which are common byproducts of  incineration, suppress immunity, as well as induce mutations. This is why there is no such thing as a “safe” dose of a carcinogen. Similar exposures may pose very different threats to different people or at different times. e.g., those whose cells are already initiated, may react to trace amounts and move to the next stages.

         We are constantly exposed to more than one type of carcinogen at the same time and to many exposures of the same carcinogens over periods of time. There may be cumulative effects from multiple exposures.  DDT and another carcinogen, called AAPA, accelerate tumor formation when applied simultaneously, although neither alone is capable of doing so.  This effect is called synergism.

        

 

 A Real War on Cancer

 

         For many years, BRCA research went under-funded and the whole issue of BRCA was virtually ignored by both government and private research institutions.

         Finally, in the early nineties, women began to take note of the success of the Gay Community in turning these institutions’ attention to AIDs research.  Women quickly showed that they had learned a lesson in the politics of disease.  The Breast Cancer Fund, founded by women, emphasizes that women must stop thinking of BRCA as only a personal tragedy, and demand more emphasis on true prevention, removal of carcinogens from our environment.

         October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Women are showered at that time with literature emphasizing prevention and early detection. The message is: get a mammogram, go on a low fat diet, exercise, and cut back on alcohol consumption.

         There is not one word about primary prevention though – removing chemical carcinogens from our environment.  Is this merely an oversight?

         The chief sponsor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is AstraZenica, a giant multinational corporation, which manufactures the BRCA chemo- prevention drug, Tamoxifen.  It also produces herbicides and fungicides. In addition, AstraZenica now owns the Salick chain of cancer treatment centers.

         This seems like a cozy arrangement for AstraZenica.  It produces suspected BRCA carcinogens. It is also involved in the treatment of cancer, and it is now selling a BRCA-prevention drug.  It also gets all kinds of good publicity from Breast Cancer Prevention Month, and uses that to deflect our attention away from the environmental causes of cancer.

                  Sandra Steingraber, author of “Living Downstream”, a book documenting the environmental causes of cancer, states that  “By emphasizing personal habits rather than carcinogens, they frame the cause of the disease as a problem of behavior rather than as a problem of exposure to disease-causing agents…. It presumes that the ongoing contamination of our air, food, & water is an immutable fact of the human condition to which we must accommodate ourselves.”

 

How Can We Really Win The “War On Cancer”?

         The most important action we can take is to make the ‘Precautionary Principle’ the law of the land. The Principle states, in part, that "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health, or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.  In this context,

the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of

proof." The European Union has already invoked the Precautionary Principle, first against Genetically Engineered food, and now against suspected carcinogenic agents.

          Last, but not least, join an activist organization that will represent your interests. The next time that you are asked to donate to a ‘cure for cancer’, you might consider the Breast Cancer Fund when you ponder where your money will be most effective.

 

SIDE BAR

 

 

 

 

 

          

 

         

Cancer, health, Programs

Wilderness Awareness

Jun 20th, 11 / 0 Comments

WILDERNESS AWARENESS WALK

by Lanie Johnson, M.A., and Ken Fischman, Ph.D.

         Now, let’s all walk to the fire circle (or meeting spot). When we get there we’ll tell you what we’re going to do next. Please just bear with us this morning – what we do now will become clear to you later on.

at Fire Circle (Meeting Spot)        

          One of the most important elements in lost proofing is awareness. . . so what we’re going to do now is a Nature Awareness Walk.  Let’s just amble down this path (start walking) What do you notice as you walk? 

first stop

(Now, let me tell you ABOUT THIS WALK. an Awareness Walk is different from a regular Nature Walk. We won’t be identifying trees or plants; instead you will be learning some new ways to be aware of things around you, things you may not usually see or hear in the woods, like birds & animals & location of water.. How? we’ll be teaching you some special skills or tools — like SUPER HEARING, EXPANDED VISION & SILENT WALKING.

Question:  First, let me ask you to name a few different professions – such as what you or your parents do (did) for a living, or, what you do or want to do.                 

         Hundreds and thousands of years ago, ANCIENT PEOPLE had no specialized professions.

                  They had to be IN TOUCH WITH NATURE to live.

                  Nature Awareness was one of their most important living skills — no one had a particular job, but each one could do just about everything they needed to do to

live in their environment, to find everything they needed in Nature (“Wildness is a state of complete awareness”  said Gary Snyder, Pulitzer Prize winning poet, and author of the book, “Turtle Island”)

Question:  How were they in touch with Nature? Through the 5 SENSES  (and maybe more)

         The Ancient Ones used their SENSES in a different way        

                  We’re here to help you learn how they did it, not by book learning, but your own EXPERIENCE — you can’t expect to become EXPERTS in a few hours but we can show you the skills and you can PRACTICE them on your own.

         Nature Awareness skills help you get CLOSER TO NATURE & also NATURE WILL GET          CLOSER TO YOU. (Whipporwill/lizard stories from Pine Barrens)

(One instructor goes over the hill with bear bells. At a signal ( howl), he/she will ring the bells; that instructor then moves to different spot and rustles leaves, breaks sticks, etc.)

SUPER HEARING

The first sense we talk about is hearing. 

         • I would like to talk about hearing in the woods. Ancient people even heard in a different fashion — Do this:  stop, listen for 1 minute (signal). What did you hear ?

(list. . . .)

         • I will teach you a simple technique in which you turn into a wild animal.                          

                  1. Stop, cup your hands behind your ears, and listen.What do you hear?                                     Now, turn your torso left and listen. What do you hear? Now, right.                                     Again?

demo                  Be like deer feeding & listening (they can turn their ears independently)

                  2. Now: listen again for 1 minute with eyes closed, using your Super Hearing

                           (signal again. other instructor does same noises in same places again)

                           What’s different? (kind of sounds, loudness, direction, wind?) What                                     else is different?

                           (Emphasize efficiency – (a) Loudness and (b) Direction)

FOX WALK

Next, we’ll learn how to walk the Ancient Ones WALKED, using your sense of TOUCH.

demo                 

Many civilized people walk heel first, weight forward, leading with the head & looking down. You can’t see Nature if you are just looking at the ground, and nature’s creatures will certainly hear you if you make that much noise!

demo                 

So, we’ll walk like this – put one foot almost directly in front of the other. Feel the ground,  first with ball of your foot, Keep your weight back and head up, so you can look around as you walk. This is called the FOX                                  WALK. 

                  The fox walk is like a slow dance, with rhythm:

demo                          

1) standing still, place alternate feet forward

                           2) Do the same, but place alternate feet forward, on the balls of the                                              foot on their outside edges and roll them inward until flat.

                           3) Continue for a few steps – STOP! Where is your weight?

                           4) Move forward, (down a gentle hill if possible)

                                    Walk close to an invisible line between your feet (not one foot                                              directly in front of the other)

                           6) Keep your eyes ahead (pick a tree, rock, etc. to look at)

                                    Feel the ground. (It is as if your feet have eyes!)

                                    If you feel a sharp rock or twig, you can change course before                                              fully committing your weight.                                                      

Another stop  (after walking to an open area)

EXPANDED VISION

How did the Ancient Ones use their eyes. How can you use your eyes in the woods? We call it EXPANDED VISION

                  let’s try an experiment:

                           1) Spread out with arms sideways, not touching your neighbor.                                             2) Look straight ahead at something small in the distance.

                           3) Hold your arms straight out sideways with hands a little behind                                              in front of you so that you can’t see them.

                           4) Take a deep breath & let it out slowly.

demo                          

5) Wiggle fingers; slowly bring arms forward backward while                                                       looking at that object.

                           6) When you are barely aware of your fingers on both hands, STOP.

                                    Keep looking ahead and at your fingers at the same time

                                    Notice how much more you see now – out of the corners of         

                                    eyes. You also see motion more easily – wild animals see this                                              way most of the time (If you are very still, they usually                                                       don’t see you)

         EXPANDED VISION works better without glasses, if possible (glasses inhibit                            expanded vision. They act like the frames of paintings. You learn not to                            look outside them)                                   

                  Now you can sense even more when you do the FOX WALK                                   

                  Let’s practice doing both at the same time — look at the woods like a                                     painting, which you enter like Alice going through the looking glass 

Question: What did you notice this time? (list. . . )

                                                            (walk ahead again)

Another stop

STALKING 

Now that you have become familiar with the FOX WALK, I’ll show you how to expand this so that you can get closer and observe animals (Don’t try this on a bear or lion): STALKING is difficult to do in boots – sneakers, moccasins, or barefoot are best.

story         e.g., I got 20’ from a wild deer in the open; my teacher actually touched a deer

Has anyone ever seen a dog or a cat stalking? Then you know how slowly they do it.

• Kinds of stalk:

                  cat (4-footed), heron (2-footed). people are also 2-footed

         • There are three main rules: stalk slow, stalk slow, stalk slower .

                  My teacher made us take one step/minute. I’ll ask only you to do one                             step/15 seconds.

demo        

• Steps of Heron Dance

                  1) lift knee with toes pointed downward (so as not to catch them on                                              anything as you lift)

                  2) Bring your foot down with toes up.

                  3) Touch the ground with outside edge of the ball of your foot and roll it to                                     the inside until flat.

                  4) Let your toes down and compress.

                  5) Only then, commit your weight by leaning forward. (Then your rear leg                                     comes up automatically).

                  (*Never pivot on ground. It may make noise)

         • Practice for a few minutes. Do not look down. Look at something in the                                     distance. Learn to see with your feet, as in the fox walk. 

• The 4 main elements of the Heron Dance 

                  Slow – one step/15 seconds.

                  Flow – have you ever seen Tai Chi ?

                  Compress – do not commit your weight at first.

                  Freeze (hands on chest with arms at your sides) – wait until animal resumes                                     what it was doing before you continue.

                  Animals learn that movement = danger. Unless you move, they think                                     you are a tree, a stump, etc. If you raise your hand ( = rifle); the                                              animal flees.  If the animal sees you, try imitating  a harmless grazing                                     animal, even to kneeling down and nibbling grass.(yum, yum!) 

         • TIPS: Stalk when: wind blows; animal’s head is down. Use expanded vision to pick out easiest pathway and keep your eyes on the animal at same time (It is much easier to go around a thicket          than to stalk through it.  Use a Quick Stalk when feasible (e.g. behind bushes and trees, etc.) Vary your height.  Look up, down, and in back of you.

         Let’s walk a little more

Another stop 

 STALKING GAME

         One instructor sits blindfolded with apple (or other object) five inches in front of          her/him.

         The participants stand in a semicircle (circle if it is a big group) – They stalk to          the apple.

         The seated instructor points to the noise (use super hearing at times) – The perpetrator of the noise must freeze for 1 minute (count to 60) – Another instructor is the umpire, and if he/she  points to you with stick, you freeze)

         The stalker who gets to the apple first, gets to eat it

You’ll get to try out some of your skills again when we do the Un-Nature walk

Ancient Pathways Group, awareness, Programs, Skills

Newsletters, 2011

Jun 20th, 11 / 0 Comments

Our Newsletters will begin in July, 2011.

With respect to our wild lands,  it will cover topics, such as Hunter Gatherers, Wilderness Survival, and Predator Prey Relationships, with emphasis on the role of wolves in healthy ecosystems. 

The environment takes in an even wider swath, so the Newsletter will also cover Cancer, Climate Change, Peak Oil, and Molecular Genetics, especially Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

Anything that effects the health of the Earth is grist for our mill, and hopefully of interest to you. We will therefore upon occasion, wander farther afield if it seems relevant to your interests, to such topics as primitive skills, wilderness awareness, the evolution of man, and so on.

 

 

Please check the News category for the latest topics of interest

Ancient Pathways Group, Cancer, Hunter Gatherers, Molecular Genetics, Newsletter, The Earth, uncategorized, Wolves

Animist Beliefs Compared With Those of Our Culture

May 4th, 11 / 0 Comments

Comparison of Taker & Leaver Beliefs

 by Ken Fischman, Ph.D.

(1)  Taker beliefs lead from one to another; they’re linear or sequential. (they do have some side branches – look like an amino acid)

Leaver beliefs seem more or less equal, or mutually dependant; they relate to each other in a non-linear fashion. what worked better: radial symmetry*, as in a medicine wheel or a Radiolarian (primitive protozoan which lives in the ocean)

* resembles a coral or a Hydra (phylum Coelenterata) or an orange

(2) Thinking of religion & mythology – J Campbell says that one of the functions of mythology is an attempt to put human behavior in harmony with the way the Universe as they know it functions. e.g., Venus of Laussel and the lunar cycle. and the first agricultural cities in the Near East (hieratic) which were laid out according to the paths of the sun, planets, and stars. Stonehenge is another example of this principle. These religions, their behavior, and even their city plans, were organized in accord with the way people of that time thought the Universe was ordered.

The problem with Taker mythology/beliefs: not in accord with what we presently understand how science & the Universe are organized. In fact, it puts us on a collision course with these principles. That is why we are on the way to destroying ourselves and the rest of the Earth.

The reason Animist beliefs prevailed for 100’s of 1000’s, perhaps millions of years, and that they did not destroy the Earth & each other – is not because they did not possess chainsaws & rockets, but because their belief systems put them in accord with the physical and biological laws that govern all living organisms on Earth.

The radial/spherical symmetry way of looking at Animist beliefs is analogous to the way the Universe is organized. it ain’t sequential.

I am not sure whether the Earth is radial, spherical or neither. An orange (radial) has 2 poles (flower & stem end): if cut in ½, between poles, you will not get 2 identical pieces. – You can cut it in an infinite # of ways & always get 2 identical halves as long as you include both of the poles. This is the pizza pie principle – an orange = inflated pizza pie. The difference between radial & spherical symmetry: In a spherically symmetrical object,  it doesn’t matter how you cut, because as long as you include the center, you’ll get identical halves.

If the Earth has radial or spherical symmetry: This would be yet another example of Animist beliefs being in accord with the way the Universe is organized.

J Campbell quotes the 15th century  philosopher, Nicolas Cusanus, who said “God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere.”

Animism, awareness, Four Directions, Hunter Gatherers, Programs, wilderness awareness

How To Go For A Walk In The Woods With Your Grandchild

May 4th, 11 / 0 Comments
Lanie and Ken's house in a typical Sandpoint winter

 

        HOW TO GO FOR A WALK IN THE WOODS  WITH YOUR GRANDCHILD

by Lanie johnson, M.A. and Ken Fischman, Ph.D>

 

            Discover how we as elders can teach our grandchildren to live in harmony with nature

 

1.  Gather together with brief self-intros.

2.  State Purpose.

3.  Warm-ups

4.  Awareness Walk

            A.  Superhearing

            B.  Expanded Vision

            C.  Meditation/inner stillness – wildlife observation

            D.  Foxwalk – respect the Earth

            E.   Blindfold walk

            F.  Stalking game – how close can you get to the deer?

5.  Just walk and enjoy – K and L point out natural things according

            present environment.

6.  Safety guidelines (*Tell someone where going *Lost-proofing*

            Weather-proofing*Poisonous plants)

7.  Elements of survival/demo

8.  Role of Elder (Ken's sheet)

            Story teller – story

9.  Plight of children + what we can do

            Book list

10. Return trip + Garbage bags

 

1.  Introductions:

            We are happy to see you here today! [Did anyone have trouble finding this location? - feedback will help us give better directions] Before we start out on our walk, we would like for all of us to know a little about each other, so lets form a circle, go around, and have everyone do a brief introduction – just your name, where your from, and if you have grandchildren, how many [,and their names].  I'll start …

            I'm Lanie, originally from Princeton, N.J.  I spent most of my adult life in NYC, but now live partly on Donnelly, ID and partly in our solar-powered truck camper.  I have one great-niece but no grandchildren, but I have done a lot of work with families and children so I feel as if I have quite a large number of grandchildren.

 

2.  Purpose

            To inspire people [seniors] to [take their rightful place in]save [saving]the Earth and their Grandchildren     

You say you can't walk very fast?  there's an advantage to that: if you walk more slowly, you'll see more and miss less. Younger people are always in a hurry to get from A to Z -  in so doing, they miss the alphabet in between.  One of the most important things you need to do in Nature, is to slow down. 

You say that you can't see as well as you used to?  You can actually use that to your advantage also, in heightening your other senses.  Ever close your eyes in order to hear better or feel something by touch?  And besides, we are going to show you a different kind of vision that's more appropriate to use in Nature, and you may be as good or better at it than a kid. etc.

          In The Woods  K.  "We are here today to give you some hints on how you can enjoy walking in the woods with your young grandchildren.  By the way, did you know that in traditional societies, it was the grandparents who brought up the children because their parents were busy hunting and gathering?  And. guess what?  The parents in our post-industrial society are again too busy to take care of their children – and may be that's part of the problem …"

4.  Awareness Walk

            In our society, we do everything high tech and sequential.  In the outdoors, we hike with clodhopper boots, carry our houses on our backs, and restrict ourselves to walking on trails.  We use pricy, space-age materials and technological gimmicks, and put synthetic chemicals on and into our bodies.  We focus straight ahead, with our goal being to get from place A to place Z as fast as possible.  The irony is that in doing so, we place a wall between ourselves and Nature, screening out the very things we came to appreciate and enjoy.  We are almost like the proverbial monkeys.  We see nothing, hear nothing, but boy do we chatter a lot! 

            Lanie and I have stood less than 50 feet off a trail many times, and watched hikers pass by entirely unaware of our presence.  In the first survival course we took, 50 presumably aware people walked down a trail entirely unaware that they had passed under one of our instructors perched on a tree limb 3 feet over their heads.  They had never looked up!

            Traditional people were silent, glided through the landscape, and were totally aware of everything around them.  Their next meal, and perhaps their very lives depended on it.  Today we will introduce you to some of these traditional skills and ways of being in Nature.  We cannot give you a thorough course in such a short time, but we hope to give you some experience of that wonderful way and to whet your appetite for more.  At the end of our walk, we will tell you of courses and books that can help you expand this experience.

            [One last thing before we begin.  It would be disingenuous not to tell you that we have some ulterior motives.  We are hoping that what you experience today will deepen your appreciation of the natural world and make you aware of the role you can play as the mature, wise guides of our society, and especially our children now desperately need.  Our society has wandered off the path of being in harmony with nature and our grandchildren will have to pay the price unless people like you can help them find their way back.]

            A.  Superhearing          

                        Summary

                                    – Have group stop, be silent, and listen for a

                                                moment

                                    – What do you hear? Anything that you did

                                                not hear previously?

                                    – Show SH tech.(turn into a deer, etc.) Try to

                                                hear again. what is the difference in

                                                louses, direction, etc.

                                    – Discuss uses

 

            Ask the group what and how they heard. (short discussion)  We will teach you a new, but ancient technique in which you turn yourself into a wild animal like a deer.  (Demo by cupped hands behind ears and turning torso from side to side to enhance loudness and determine direction of sound)  Ask Q's What do you hear now? How is it different?  (louder, sounds not previously heard, direction,  etc.)

   you can use SH to find your way out of the woods also.  You might be able to hear and locate the sounds of rivers or traffic, and head in that direction.  By the way, did you know that there is no place in this country that you can walk in a straight line for more than 75 miles without hitting a paved road?  Did you know that our National Forests are cris-crossed by thousands of miles of lumber roads?

            (Short discussion of Concentric Circles) You have created a disturbance among the nearer animals that spreads like the concentric circles a pebble dropped in a pond make. The animals near you make warning cries (or stop making sounds), and this change spreads to others farther away.  Your presence has now been detected far from you, and that is why although there is wildlife all around, you see so little of it.

            we will show you how to move silently in order to overcome the concentric circle problem

            B.  Expanded Vision

                        Summary

                                    -  Stop group again

                                    -  Lets try an Expt. with vision.  Explain purpose

                                    -  Describe method, e.g. arms extended, etc.

                                    –  Questions – How great an angle can you see at? 

                                                What are the differences from focused

                                                vision?

                                    – Purpose:  e.g. Wild animals see this way. 

                                                Movement more important in woods

                                                than detail.

                                    – Try walking this way for a few minutes. Anecdote-

                                                walking w. a w.o. flashlight

 

            Lets stop for a moment.  I want to show you something about vision.  Spread out in a line, about 2 arm-lengths apart.  In our society we learn early to stay focused, both physically and metaphorically.  we use this type of vision for reading, close work, and nowadays for watching TV  and computer screens.  This Tunnel vision.  We never learn that there is another way of seeing – Wide-Angle or Expanded Vision. 

            Look straight ahead at some object.  Extend your arms sideways.  Now start wiggling your fingers while slowly bringing your arms forward until you become aware of your fingers.  Notice how wide your angle of vision has become.  You can see a lot more now.  In this mode, you become more aware of movement than detail.  This is how wild animals and those traditional people who hunt them see.  This why if you stand stock still and an animal like a deer or rabbit appears to look right at you, they usually do not spook.  They see vague forms, and you may look like a tree trunk to them.  But if you raise an arm, they are gone like a flash.  Just then you reminded them of a hunter with a rifle.  Who says animals can't think and learn?  Why do the deer go to the tops of the mountains during hunting season while lazy hunters look for them in the valleys?  I have seen the reverse – Elk hunters on their horses on top of the mountains, and when I drove down into the valley, there were the Elk, grazing peacefully right by the road!

            Try this.  Look at the landscape like a painting, and while walking through it, enlarge your field of vision to take in as much as possible.  You will become aware of movement, like animals do and have a fighting chance of seeing them before they see you.  [Lanie and I once tried expanded vision while canoeing down a eastern rive at the height of Autumn color.  It was relaxing, like a form of meditation.  This is how Monet must have seen!]  We will ask you later what your experience was.  Don't worry about stumbling. You will be surprised at how well you can feel the ground with your feet.

            Discussion of EV experience).  A word about vision at night.  Most people use flashlights at night, but they therefore see only what is in the flashlight beam and their vision never accommodates to the dark.  Try this.  Stand in the dark for 3-5 minutes needed to accommodate and you will be amazed at how much you can see.  Also, try looking at things out of the corner of you eye.  You see better that way at night because you have more rods than cones there, and they are more sensitive to dim light.

 

flashlight beam = good metaphor for tunnel vision!             

            E.  Blindfold Walk – To experience the landscape through senses other than vision.

            Components:

                        – Set up prior to walk (previous day?) Need varied landscape, e.g. sun/shade, rough/smooth bark, damp/dry soil, vary height of rope, crawl/climb, hear dry leaves, wind, etc. (string leading away from main string to e.g. hole in tree) Knots in rope can alert class to important places.

                        -  Explain purpose of exercise, and how to proceed through course (e.g. stay on same side of rope. Do not run through course, etc.)

                        -  Blindfold each person, and L&K will alternately lead people through, one at a time, with sufficient distance between them.

                        -  Let them examine the course afterward in order to see what they experienced.

                        -  Discuss why experience was different w.o. vision.

            Someone once said that "vision leads the other senses".  We have become 80-90% visual beings, mainly because we neglect our other senses, like touch, smell, hearing.  They are still there for the most part, lying dormant like a sleeping animal, and all we need to do is to awaken and retrain them, like an athlete trains her muscles.  Children enjoy blindfold games immensely, and there are many blindfold games you can play with them.  One of our favorites is the Blindfold Drum game.  The children try to find their way through a woods to the drummer.  A variant is to have other blindfolded children around the drummer, who listen for and try to point out the children advancing on the drummer.  By the way, adults like these games too!

 

           

 

awareness, Hunter Gatherers, Programs, Skills, wilderness awareness

Recommended Books on Earth-Based Peoples and Animism

Apr 26th, 11 / 0 Comments

RECOMMENDED BOOKS ON ANIMISM

COMING HOME TO THE PLEISTOCENE. Paul Shepard.

            Do hunter-gatherers have something to tell modern culture? A brilliant analysis by the most respected scholar on the subject.

DANCING WITH THE WHEEL. The Medicine Wheel Workbook.

            Sun Bear is of Chippewa descent. He founded the Bear Tribe, which welcomes natives and non-natives, and is located near Spokane, WA. His book shows how to apply the Medicine Wheel, based on natural cycles, to your life. Includes the 4 directions.

LETTERS FROM A WILD STATE. Rediscovering Our True Relationship to Nature. James G. Cowan

            Cowen is an Australian, who has spent much time with Australian aborigines as well as with several other indigenous peoples. He brings the lyrical mind of a poet to penetrate deeply into the mythical minds of these people.

MESSENGER OF THE GODS.  Tribal Elders Reveal the Ancient Wisdom of the Earth. James G. Cowan.

            Cowen gains much wisdom and insight from his contacts with the few remaining animists living on islands between Australia and New Guinea. They tell him their personal stories, myths, and legends.

NATURE AND MADNESS. Paul Shepard.

            Shepard’s most profound work. Here he shows how the life cycle of an individual is intimately tied to natural cycles, and what happens when a culture  disconnects it.

ORIGINAL WISDOM: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing. Robert Wolff.

            A psychologist lives with the most remote people of Malaysia, the Sng’oi., and discovers remarkable things about these people’s abilities.

ISHMAEL. Daniel Quinn

             The transformative, award winning novel, depicting the contradictions between the animist and contemporary cultures. 

PROVIDENCE. The Story of a Fifty-Year Vision Quest. Daniel Quinn

            The autobiography of the prize winning author of Ishmael, Quinn’s dream as a seven year old and his vision in a Trappist monastery prefigure his inexorable path to his culminating work.

THE FOREST PEOPLE. A Study of the Pygmies of the Congo. Colin M. Turnbull.

            An anthropologist lives with Congo Pygmies. He admires their lifestyle and social organization, which they manage to retain despite the incursions of Bantu agriculturalists.

THE HARMLESS PEOPLE. Elizabeth Marshal Thomas.

            An anthropologist, as a teenager with her parents lived with South African Bushmen and describes a society that works – wonderfully. She returns 20 years later to see what effect our culture has had on theirs.

THE OLD WAY. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

            The author, who lived with the Bushmen for several years, uses the perspective of her mature years to examine their  culture in depth. It is interwoven with personal experiences and insights, as well as with comparisons to our culture.

THE LOST WORLD OF THE KALAHARI. Laurens Van der Post.

            The beautiful and insightful adventure of a South African WWII hero, who upon his return, searches for & finds the last remnants of the remarkable Bushmen. They are surviving in style in an inhospitable desert.

THE HEART OF THE HUNTER. Laurens Van der Post           

            Continues the story begun in Lost World of the Kalahari. It is an elegiac evocation of both the external & internal worlds of the last of the Hunter Gatherers, written by a keen observer.

THE ISLAND WITHIN. Richard Nelson

            An anthropologist, turned subsistence hunter, goes to an island off the coast of Alaska to find deer and grizzlies. He develops an animist spirituality. This is an astonishingly beautiful book about the relation of a man to nature.

THE TRACKER. Tom Brown, Jr.

            The story of the apprenticeship of seven year old Tom Brown to an Apache scout and elder, Stalking Wolf, in which Tom learns a lot more than wilderness survival skills.

TOM BROWN’S FIELD GUIDE TO NATURE OBSERVATION AND TRACKING. Tom Brown, Jr.

            The almost legendary master of tracking and primitive wilderness survival has written a manual on how to not only survive, but to flourish in Nature’s embrace. Tune into the man, who has reconnected thousands of people to the Earth and gain a little of his ethic and wisdom as a bonus.

THANKSGIVING ADDRESS. Jake Swamp

            Swamp was the Peacemaker for the 6 Nations of the Iroquois. He was head of the Tree of Peace Society. This pamphlet, which is a classic example of Native American thanksgiving, and said on every occasion, can be obtained from John Stokes , of Thetrackingproject.org

THE LOST CIVILIZATIONS OF THE STONE AGE. Richard Rudgley.

         A scholarly analysis of the impressive technological and cultural achievements of our ancient ancestors.

OUR BABIES, OURSELVES: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent. Meredith F. Small.

         A Pediatric Anthropologist examines different cultures’ approach to parenting.

LIMITED WANTS, UNLIMITED MEANS. A Reader on Hunter-Gatherer Economics and the Environment. John Gowdy, ed.

         The interaction between Hunter-Gatherer economics and the environment. Describes a culture in harmony with the Earth.

Ancient Pathways Group, Animism, Hunter Gatherers, Paleoanthropology, The Earth, wilderness awareness

The Earth Is Our Home

Jan 22nd, 11 / 0 Comments

 

What is Jack Staff's destination?
Ancient Pathways Group, Animism, Firebuilding, Four Directions, Hunter Gatherers, Programs, projects, shelter, Skills, wilderness awareness