Contents
INTRODUCTION
PROGRAMME
BUDGET
REFERENCES
Introduction
We were a small group who gathered
here by Lake Søtorup to bring clearer focus to our place in the the web of life, to
experience ourselves as children of Gaia, talk of the great story of our creation, and
find renewed energy and inspiration for our own work. Our common bond being that we are
troubled deeply by the destruction to the earth that we are witnessing in our lifetime. We
gathered to give voice to our concern what is happening in the world and to form a circle
that may in some way, help to heal this destruction. In the words of the Buddhist poet
Thich Nhat Hanh, we were gathered to "hear within ourselves the sound of the earth
crying".
John Seed was our facilitator, well-known and respected for his Deep Ecology
teaching and activist work on behalf of the Earth. At his roadshow, held at Gaia Center,
Nærum on Thursday 13 April, he told us of some of the projects he has been and is
involved in. From protests against the World Bank and Burger King to protection of
rainforest in Equador , to re-generation of forest in India. John is earth teacher,
story-teller, song-singer, Gaia-rapper and one of the most energetic, creative souls one
is likely to meet.
We held our gathering beside the lake, with tents and teepee and Anna and Jesper’s
small house to camp in. The leaves were just about to burst forth. Spring was still
waiting to overwhelm us with its abundance and bright miracles of colour, but it had sent
us heralds in the form of bright bluebells and anenomes. However, winter was still in the
air and we clothed ourselves in warm blankets and jackets and woolly hats. We were fifteen
humans and thousands of seagulls, that each evening flew over our heads to settle on the
cold waters of the lake. Each evening the sky filled with their raucous yet graceful
presence. We slept to the background noise of their courtships. Birds all around us, birds
within us, birds in our dreams: geese, coots, grebes and ducks, blackbirds, lapwings,
magpies and marsh harrier, great tits, dunnock and yellow hammers. Later the birds came
into our circle during the Council of All Beings.
Programme
Here is a brief outline of the
exercises we used during the weekend, for your information and hopefully for you to use in
your own workshops! There is an abundance of good literature and helpful guidelines for
deep ecology workshops. See the enclosed references and attachments.
Introduction
We started the workshop around a smoky
fire (throughout the weekend we kept the fire burning). We had fire, water, earth and wind
with us. We introduced ourselves as our "ecological-selves" by telling of some
place or aspect of nature that we love. Moss on a stone, nature’s fine and miraculous
details, a plant revived by love, the feel of water on ones skin, a beloved marshland.
Eco-milling
The next morning we started with a
milling – a non-verbal form of interaction where we move around a space encountering
each other without words, concentrating on each other as living breathing, miraculous
beings. Always powerful – to look into another’s eyes and into their heart,
their love, their true selves. John asked us to see the child within each other, the love
and vunerability and the vast history of evolution that lies behind this manifestation of
life. Touching each other’s hands with eyes closed, marvelling at the story of our
evolution as told by the hand.
Blind walk
Find a partner and guide each other
"blindly" - taking turns to lead a "blind" partner to touch and feel
and experience the world from a place of trust. The feel of bark beneath the fingertips,
the smell of wet earth, the sensation of leaves brushing against the cheek.
Medicine Wheel –
spontaneous
ceremony led by Karen combining an idea of Anna’s to make a sculpture in honour of
Mother Earth. We chose a direction according to where we felt our energy was most drawn in
our work for Mother Earth :
East – fire, nuclear power and weapons. (Øst: ild - atomkraft og atomvåben)
West – our beautiful mother Earth, her landscapes that we wish to preserve. Alos
to hold the Earth free from poisonous waste and pesticides. (Vest: jord: vores smukke
Moder Jord med landskaber, vi ønsker at bevare. Også at holde Jorden fri for giftigt
affald og fra pesticider.)
South – water: seas, rivers, lakes, water courses. The plants. (Syd: vand:
havene, floderne, søerne, vandløbene. Plantearterne.)
North – the air we breathe. The animals. (Nord: luft: Luften vi indånder.
Dyrearterne)
The four elements were with us clearly throughout this ceremony. When we turned to the
east, there was the sun. When we turned to the south, there was the lake. When we turned
to the west, there were the fields and gentle hills. When we turned to the north, there
was the windmill turning in the wind.
We gathered gifts which represented these four corners, and made the medicine wheel,
decorating the tree stump with these gifts. After the wheel was closed, the gifts remained
as a nature sculpture in honour of our circle and our love for the Earth.
Timeline of
Light
Remembering our evolutionary journey
by the lighting of candles, each one representing an epoch in the history of the universe.
We celebrate our "new" creation myth!
The Shambala
Warrior
The coming of the Kingdom of Shambala
is a Tibetan Buddist prophesy. The signs say that a time of terrible danger is coming. A
new order is arising. One version of this prophesy is that it is only an internal event
– on the metaphysical/spiritual level only. Another interpretationredsthat this is an
external event,but we can do nothing about it – it will happen. The third version of
this prophesy is the one which is most empowering and can be used by us as we are called
to support all life on earth – it gives a meaningful metaphor for acting in the world
from a deep ecology platform.. This third version states that the prophesy will come about
at a time when great barbaric powers will rule the world with great stored accumulation of
wealth. The kingdom of the Shambala is in the minds and the hearts of the shambal
warriors. There will come a time when the warriors will have to go into the corridors of
power and they will need great bravery.
The prophecy promises that the amazingly destructive weapons of these great powers can
be dismantled for they are mind-made. They have not been created by some satanic force but
by our minds; they arise out of our decisions; they are created byus. This is the essense
of dharma.
The Shambala Warriors will be able to dismantle these weapons by using their own
weapons – they will go into training in the use of: COMPASSION AND INSIGHT/WISDOM (
into the radical interconnectedness of all things). They will use the heatof compassion
and the cool of insight.
The essence of karuna (compassion) is not to be afraid of feeling the pain of the
world. Thus we most open up to the painof the world. Deep ecology work gives us a forum
for expressing our feelings and thus awakening our compassion. Deep ecology is also based
on the insight that everything is interconnected. We are all a part of Gaia. Here are the
two tools of the Shambala Warrior at the heart of deep ecology.
Elm Dance
The background to this dance comes in the telling of the story of town in Belarussia
where Chernobyl radioactive waste was purposely seeded to rain down on the town, so that
it would not reach Moscow. The poison rain transformed their lives completely – their
houses were torn down and replaced with cement "blocks" and they were forbidden
to go to the forest which had become seriously radioactive. Their whole culture had
revolved around the nature around them and suddenley they could no longer touch it. Joanna
and Frances Macy who work with Nuclear Guardianship and deep ecology went to vist them.
The townspeople were amazed when Joanna and Fran asked them how they felt about the
tragedy – no one before had asked them about their feelings. The townspeople taught
Joanna and Fran the Elm Dance which they took with them when they left to use as a
powerful mourning tool ( a dance that can acknowledge sorrow in a powerful and beautiful
form).
We danced this dance and called to those we wished could also be with us to
participate.
Truth Mandala
We sit in a circle and in the middle
are four objects representing four feelings:
Anger – for example, a stick
Sorrow - for example, dead leaves
Hopelessness -
Numbness/unidentifiable feelings -
We allow ourselves to feel – open up to our pain anger confusion .. whatever we
feel about what is happening to our precious Earth, by coming into the centre of the
circle and picking up or touching the object that most represents the feeling we are now
experienceing. We try and release that feeling authentically, form the heart. The circle
holds us safely and answers "We hear you!".
Song
"Earth my body, water my blood,
air my breath and fire my spirit"
Council of All
Beings
The Council of All Beings includes
several stages:
To find the animal that wants to speak through you – "Being chosen"
Mask-making process preferably in silence.
Ceremony – speaking for the life form that has chosen you.
Mask burning to release the being.
At our Council, the following beings were present, giving each their message:
Blue Flower – to see the beauty in oneself and in each other
Badger – how do we understand and change the madness, violence and greed in
humanity? Stop talking so much – you send me to sleep!
Bumble bee – bring people’s attention to the beauty in the world
Lynx – be wild, go to the forest
Heron – patient, waiting, focus, aim
Blue Macaw –
Calf (domestic animals) – forgive the children because they don’t know
better. Use your wisdom to communicateto them so that when they grow up they will put a
stop to this destruction
Fox – ?
Bird – to be able to see things from a higher perspective
Water – be still
Tree – calmness, steadiness and strength especially to the humans who some of the
most unhappy creatures on Earth. "Please don't judge them too hard; - some of them do
a lot of dreadful things, but they don't always know what they're doing. I've seen them
when they come into the woods or to the single trees for comfort. They need our comfort,
and we are here for everyone who wants a ’chat without words’."
Spirit of Bialowieza forest – waiting for someone to come and communicate with me
Worm – compost this society. Teach the humans to turn the dead and dying aspects
of our culture into the nutrients of a new society
Grass – Lay down on the ground. Be at peace
Wind – take the new messages and a feeling of freedom to all beings
Networking
We told of our own work and how we
might support each other. Concrete effects or projects that have come out of the workshop
are as follows:
500 Australian dollars to Jesper Petersen’s ongoing work to protect Homegaard
marshland in South Sjaelland, Denmark.
500 Australian dollars to Workshop for All Beings, Poland towards work to protect the
Bialowieza Forest.
Possible film project telling the interesting, metaphor-rich and alarming story of the
Gisselfeld fight for power, which includes the fight for the rights of the badgers, trees,
orchids and many other life forms in this area.
Workshop for up to one hundred people to take place 15 July 2000 when Klods Hans
Karavan comes to Søtorup (eco-inspired caravan that will walk for two weeks through
Denmark in July) - you are all invited to be a part of this and maybe help in
facilitation.
A growing network of Deep Ecology interested people in Denmark, expressing interest in
working together
Letter
to Gaia
The workshop closed with a letter to
Gaia where we wrote a letter to ourselves from Mother Earth, containing any important
insights/messages we might want to remember!
Dear Anna
This is your Mother, Gaia….
Love Gaia
Budget
Income
Gaia Trust donation 5000
Course fees 8500
TOTAL 13500
Outgoings
Plane ticket - London Cph Return 1100
Postage 1650
Printing of brochure 1400
Advertising Nyt Aspekt 550
Food 2300
