The Environmental Awakening
Of a Somewhat Contaminated
Wizard of Oz
This story is the
Wizard’s fault
…so
he is not going to blame it on anybody else,
even indirectly in the acknowledgements!
But he loves everyone who contributed in any way whatsoever, particularly the Joint Ozonian/Alqui Network of Active Readers & Critics.
They
know who they are.
Night
Many, many years ago in a far
country that lay on the shore of a great inland sea, or at least such a large
body of fresh water that you could not see the other side of it, even if you
tried, the Wizard’s mother bought 92 acres of woodland that was swampy,
covered with thorny vines and briars, and inhabited by tens of thousands of
mosquitoes, and swore to retire there, and she did, and she took the Wizard’s
father there with her, too.
The Wizard hated to go there as
a child because the whole family was put to work cutting briars and
consequently getting eaten by mosquitoes. There were no birds, there were no
butterflies, there were no frogs, there were no flowers, there were no herbs,
there were no raccoons or deer or squirrels or snakes or anything that the boy
Wizard liked to watch or catch and keep in jars. This place, called The Land by
the Wizard’s mother, had been logged off in the 1900’s and left for
dead. The rotting corpses of the huge trees lay scattered on the ground,
cesspools in which mosquitoes bred.
Over time, and it took many,
many years of time, The Land reached a balance. The deer returned, and the
Wizard’s mother protected them from hunters. The uncommon and esculent
morel mushrooms came back. The mosquitoes departed for other places. Frogs
sang. Birds moved in to raise their families. A wildcat took up residence far
from the house. Orchids bloomed, and they were rare pink and yellow lady’s
slippers. Giant silk moths fluttered around the lights at night. The
Wizard’s father fed hummingbirds, and hundreds zipped and zizzed over and
around the grapevines that grew in profusion near the woodland ponds that the
Wizard’s mother kept fresh with bubblers and Koi.
The Land became a paradise for
the plants, birds, beasts and his parents, and its spirit grew strong and
wonderful.
Then, in 1996, the Gypsy Moth
arrived in that far country, and infested The Land, too. The caterpillars ate
anything that was green. On the herbs and shrubs in the forest they wove in the
air, searching for the next leaf. In the tall trees there was a ceaseless sound
of tiny munching mouths, and a rain of tiny pellets of frass, which is the
polite name for caterpillar poop. Everywhere there was a restless and
directionless marching of furry larvae, which would often pile up so high at
the door of the house that the Wizard’s father would shovel them away
like fallen snow every morning.
They would return the next day.
The Authorities decided to take
Drastic Action, and spray the far country, including The Land, with a biocide,
BZ, that was harmless to birds and mammals. It only killed insects.
Unfortunately, it killed almost all
insects, and this was a great mistake. The Wizard’s mother knew this was
a great mistake, and objected to having The Land sprayed, but she was only one
person with only one voice, and hers was not listened to. The far country,
including The Land, was sprayed, and the Gypsy Moths died.
So did most of the other
insects.
And the birds left. The wildcat
took off for another country. The snakes and frogs had nothing to eat, and
died. The hummingbirds, which ate small insects attracted to nectar, left, but
the Bald-Faced (and bad-tempered) Hornets thrived on the sugar water at the
hummingbird feeders, until the Wizard’s father stopped feeding them. The
orchids disappeared. The raccoons and squirrels had no food for a year because
the Gypsy Moths ate the oak buds, and since everybody else left, they left,
too. The mosquitoes came back because there was nothing left to eat their vast
progeny. The giant Luna and Polyphemus and Cecropia and Io moths were poisoned
by the biocide and died. Their population was sparsely spread throughout the
far country, but all of the far country
was sprayed, and those that had come to visit The Land from miles away, drawn
by the delicious perfume of virgin female moths were either dead or too distant
to smell their fragrance, even if there had been any to smell. The Land lay
silent, empty, barren and desolate, without even the thorny vines and briars.
Its spirit had been horribly,
heartlessly mangled by the most damaging and dangerous, pervasive and powerful
toxin on the planet. It is an intelligent, thoughtless, usually well-intentioned,
soulless, bureaucratic, and technologically capable contaminant.
Man.
The Darkness
As above, so below. As a man
sows, so shall he reap. Garbage in, garbage out.
These and other statements from
many spiritual (and even secular) traditions suggest that humanity has an
instinctive knowledge that it is not divorced from the universe, although some
humans act as if they are. Shamans say that what we do to the Earth, we do to
ourselves. Shamans also believe that healing ourselves heals those around us,
including the Earth. And the Wizard has come to believe in these connections.
But he has also come to believe in a duality with a darker side, an ancient
light, if you will.
If there is a Web of Life, there
is a Web of Death interwoven into it. If we can invent a healthy reality, we
can invent a diseased reality. If anyone
gets sick, we get sick, also—to some extent. If we can be restored to
health, so can others. If the Earth gets sick, we can help heal it. But,
sometimes, for there to be a return to light, the darkness must spread.
And so it did.
The Wizard cannot explain what
happened, although, being human, he tries. However, he can observe
coincidences, and knows of the saying that there is no coincidence, only
providence. Big healings need big sicknesses. Bright light needs pitch
darkness.
The Wizard got it.
In the years immediately after
The Land was rendered barren, the Wizard’s parents retreated into their
home, and stayed there. His mother, in particular, grew bitter, angry and
miserable. She began to look only for what was wrong with the world, and since
she watched a lot of television (instead of the life on The Land, as she had
before), she found it. She spiraled into darkness, and lived in a room with the
windows boarded over, leaving it seldom. The Wizard’s father maintained
some connection to the outside, doing chores, running errands, and staying in
touch with friends by mail and over amateur radio. He orbited the black hole of
despair that his wife felt, as she grieved over the harm to The Land.
During these years, the Wizard
spoke only to his mother, who had no other outside contact, and listened to her
recount What Was Wrong With The Whole World. Now, the Wizard also had some
problems in his family, his profession, and his health, but they had been manageable so far (which makes most Alquis gasp in horror). And
it would take years for him to learn that we are “linked” to those
near and dear to us in the Web of Life. When he visited his parents just before
The Authorities took Drastic Action in 1996, he did not know this. But he
became even more closely linked to his parents and The Land anyway. And after
the disaster, unmanageable things
began to happen to him.
They did not show immediately.
During his six month sabbatical, the Wizard rented a small cabin in the
Cumberland Falls State Resort Park, and alone in nature, in a “dry”
part of Kentucky, studied a difficult theoretical paper that would lay the
groundwork for his future research. He wrote a seminal paper of his own that
formed the basis for a practical new paradigm of computing. After a long
day’s work, he would hike down the gorge to relax by watching the beauty
of the falls, listening to its hypnotic roar, and cooling himself in its mist.
Occasionally, back at the cabin, he would enjoy a beer from the sole six-pack
he brought back from his visit to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
All seemed well. Why not, when a single six-pack lasted several months?
The next four years became
increasingly horrible, yet, in the end, were wonderful. Neither genetics, nor
personal predilection, nor any moral weakness seems to be to blame, unless it
is this: since childhood, the Wizard had repressed certain gifts that did not
fit into our scientific culture.
To keep those gifts at bay, he had tried, successfully he thought, to deny his
spiritual being, and had done a good job of it. Well, a pretty good job of it.
He cast the Runes and kept a diary of the readings, but doesn’t everybody have a set of silver runes handmade by an elderly
Navajo silversmith in Arizona?
Magic was loose in the world,
and always had been, and magic knows how to take care of itself, and those it
has chosen since childhood. It took care of the Wizard. So to speak.
Back at home, the Wizard began
to drink alcoholically, and in a few years, was drinking one gallon of whiskey
a day, most days, and living in a dark basement with the blinds drawn. This was
toxic behavior, and looking back on it, was the same thing his mother was doing
(well, she wasn’t drinking). In
Oz, things get started early so they will be done in time for when they are
supposed to happen later. They had certainly started, but what was happening
was larger than the Wizard. (He didn’t think so, of course.) However it
may be, he drank a lot of whiskey, and then something happened to him before he did all those things, like working the Twelve
Steps, that are suggested by the Fellowship of People Learning How to Be Human.
(You can be sure that he is very grateful to the Fellowship for helping him stay sober.) Here is what he wrote about the darkness and
his healing in an article to introduce Alquis to shamanic soul retrieval:
There was only darkness
I
am a recovering alcoholic. Before entering recovery I was a captain in the U.S.
Army, a Ph.D. student, a tenured university professor in the field of computer
science, the inventor of a robot and co-author of a book about it, and a
husband and a father. I am still some of those things. I was not religious, and
had given up belief in church and any spiritual life. If you had asked me, and
I would have been slightly embarrassed if you had, I would have admitted to a
belief in some sort of God, but would have really believed in my heart of
hearts that there was nothing science could not do. If science could not do it,
I did not believe it could be done.
I
did not believe that God took a hand in the world around me, even though the
evidence of my own eyes, indeed, my sight itself, was evidence to the contrary.
But in my view the days of miracles were long gone. If there were miracles to
be seen, they could be seen on television, itself a miracle of sorts and wholly
constructed using patented technologies based on science. There was no reason
to believe in a door to a faith of any sort. Faith was illogical anyway.
Believe in something without evidence? I didn’t think so!
There
were no doorways out of my alcoholic world—or so I believed.
The
light under the door
On
May 23, 2000, I was “struck sober” during my first good
night’s rest in years. The craving to drink was removed in an event
seemingly so insignificant that at the time it made little impression on me.
So, what happened? If it
wasn’t the Twelve Steps (the Wizard hadn’t worked them), and it
wasn’t prayer (he hadn’t said any), and it wasn’t going to
meetings (he often drank after meetings because they “made him
thirsty”), then what was it?
After over half a decade of
sobriety, and three years as a shamanic practitioner, the Wizard believes that
he, and others who deny similar gifts, suffer alcoholism as only one of the
many ways that the Net of All Life “lands” those who have great
spiritual sensitivity—and the Wizard has yet to meet a fellow Alqui who isn’t sensitive. Once their gifts are awakened, the Web of
Light puts them to work, as the Alquis’ “Big Book” says, to
be of maximum usefulness to God and the people about them. Since it is “God
as we understand God,” there is a lot
of room in the Fellowship for everybody, even rune-casting Wizards who practice
shamanic healing. This is a good thing, because the Earth desperately needs
everyone and their spiritual gifts, and Her need is growing.
We will see why later.
The Last Straw
As the years passed, and the
Wizard stayed sober, and he began to learn more about core shamanism, and
reflect on his past, and consider his future, and wonder what it all meant, he
grew distressed that his parents seemed trapped in some dark time warp on The
Land. He called his mother often, but her only news was bad news, which she
garnered from television. The only living creatures that prospered on The Land
were a colony of barn cats that grew or diminished, but never went away. The
cats caught and ate everything that tried to return to The Land. Birds, mice,
snakes, and even a stray turtle became the object of the cats' fancy, and it
was a cruel fancy at that.
The Wizard knows about it,
because the outdoor cat he had for several months caught and ate The Bluebird
of Happiness and left its little blue-feathered head on the welcome mat at the
front door of the Friendly House, and the Wizard, out of pity and a desire not
to waste a perfectly good Bluebird head, wrapped it carefully and stored it in
his freezer. He learned how to do this from his mother, who still has Victor,
the Scarlet Macaw who flew downstairs and hit a door and broke his neck, in her freezer. He was, after all, a very pretty bird, as
he would have told you himself when he was alive.
Eventually the Wizard’s
mother told him that they had nothing more to talk about, because the Wizard
had not caught SARS on his trips overseas, had stopped eating meat and so could
not catch Mad Cow Disease, refused to stop feeding the birds to avoid
contracting avian flu, had not been trapped in a falling house when the Big
Earthquake hit, had not been blown away by a tornado (two tornadoes, actually),
refused to refinance the Friendly House because he felt that he had a pretty
good rate, and still felt it important to attend meetings of the Fellowship of
People Learning How to Be Human, even though that meant that her baby boy was
consorting with alcoholics, and might be one himself, and that meant that he
was not perfect.
She was very disappointed.
So she asked him talk to the
Wizard’s father, instead, but as a result she now had no human contact
outside of The Land. The Wizard thought this was unhealthy, but Mother Knows
Best and she had talked to him for
years, and probably could use a rest.
The first few conversations with
the Wizard’s father were quite interesting, because his father is a
wizard himself, and knows how to build antennas that can bring in signals from
the middle of Siberia and the southernmost tip of Chile, and he has won the
esteem of his fellow Radio Sorcerers for doing that. This is where the Wizard
gets his professional abilities to build six-legged ant-like robots the size of
a business card, and powerful supercomputers made of plastic and Jell-O® brand gelatin.
But one day, not very long ago,
it seems that the Wizard’s father started to watch television, and he decided that the world was a terrible place, which
was Going to Hell in a Handbasket, and scheduled to leave for the Underworld
any day now, too. The Land was barren and desolate after nine years, and the
Wizard’s father told him that he was getting old, and would die, and The
Land was dead already, and there was nothing that could be done to help it by
anyone, anywhere, because it was All Just Too Much.
And that was the last straw.
The Healing
The Wizard’s mother and
father know he is a wizard, and spends a great deal of time healing people,
especially among the Alquis, who are members of the Fellowship of People
Learning How to Be Human. (His mother had been very suspicious of his
Fellowship, and later the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, believing that both
of them were some sort of cult. They are not, and that disappointed her a bit.)
But even though the Wizard had
given them some of the shamanic articles he had written, and they were proud of
him for writing them (as most parents would be, in fact, his mother would
probably be pleased if he wrote advertising copy for an outlet mall), they did
not have any interest in a healing. Everything was fine, the cats were fine,
they were fine, and The Land was fine. It was perfectly normal to hole up in
solitary confinement in a boarded-up room on 92 desolate acres with a colony of
hungry barn cats, and complain that there was no wildlife, which probably
carried disease anyway. And that included the cute little chipmunks.
Now, healings require
permission. That is a Law of Oz. The Wizard’s parents could live as they
chose, and nothing could be done for them without permission. But, and this is
important, The Land might want to be
healed, and the Wizard’s parents had complained long and loud about how
they wished something could be done, but of course nothing could be done because The Authorities had taken Drastic
Action and had killed off everything and, of course, the Drastic Action of The
Authorities was final.
The Wizard refused to believe
it. Saying that it was so did not make it so. That is denial. He went to look
for himself. No, he did not drive a long distance to visit his parents and see
The Land. Instead, he picked a very beautiful, very large crystal, bound it
into his black cloth, lit a candle, smudged the Friendly House, got his drum,
sat down in his chair, wrapped up his eyes and went on a journey to meet the
Spirit of The Land.
The Land was unhappy. It was out
of balance. The trees were unhealthy but trying hard to grow, although much of
the understory had been lost. The Land wanted its birds, insects, mice,
chipmunks, deer, badgers, turkeys and orchids back. But with a colony of barn
cats roaming through the forest like a feline chainsaw, something had to be
done. But what? Well, the Spirit of The Land suggested, the cats would make
tasty tidbits for Coyote, if only Coyote was told where to find them.
Done—but not the cats
that stayed next to the Cabin in The Woods.
The Spirit of The Land agreed.
Next, it was suggested that balance was needed in the forest, and as it
happened, Tulip Poplars had once grown there, and would do well. Why not send a
thousand or more Tulip Poplar seeds to the Wizard’s father?
Done—it was easy to
gather a quart of them from the porch and deck of the Friendly House after the
journey was over.
Next, there needed to be more
weeds for Mouse and Butterfly and Goldfinch and Sparrow. Could the Wizard spare
seeds from Pokeweed, Goldenrod, Milkweed, Thistle, and the many other plants in
his backyard, which he had allowed to grow wild?
Of course—they would be
added to the quart of seeds.
Finally, without Power Animals
to mend and defend the lives of the little creatures, they would be at risk to
cats, stray dogs, and each other until they had made their homes. Would the
Wizard restore the Spirits of the Animals to the Spirit of Place?
Yes.
So several weeks before Christmas,
the Spirit Sisters of the Friendly House and the Animals who visit or live
there—Ant, Mouse, Coyote, Butterfly, Woodpecker, Frog, Snake, Squirrel
and all the rest—who had been invited into the crystal, were wrapped in
an old brown paper bag, packaged in a United States Postal Service priority
mailing box, and sent to the Wizard’s father as his Christmas present,
along with a gratitude list for everything that used to live on The Land, and
instructions to just throw the seeds and the crystal into the woods—or
better yet, bury it—and let Nature take her course. The Wizard declined
the postmaster’s offer of a return receipt.
He entrusted the package to The
Light.
And saved 74 cents.
The Community of Light
The Wizard’s Community of
Light had just gotten larger.
He began by learning from many
excellent teachers who are experienced shamanic practitioners, and who teach
core shamanism for the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. He no longer heals
precisely as he was taught. Indeed, Sandra Ingerman, who taught him soul
retrieval, advises her students to burn all their notes, and learn from Spirit.
The Wizard did. Well, he kept
the notes, but tucked them away in a box!
After being permitted to
complete a great many healings among the Alquis, he learned an important thing:
no one ever loses their soul. He no
longer performs soul “retrievals.” How can he? Our souls
are not lost, although they feel that way.
What Spirit has shown instead is that we are all beautiful
“origami” folded out of a rich, heavy, golden light. Our light may
be bent, crumpled, crushed, unfolded, stretched, entangled with others’
light, or unwillingly refolded in ways that are excruciating, but it
is never lost. The tension of a soul forced
into an agonizing configuration is the source of our pain.[1]
Eventually, when he was ready
(although he thought he was not, and argued with Spirit about it), the Wizard
was “collected” into The Light and lost his Power Animals, too
(although They are there in The Light still), and he was taught this and many other
things. A thing is useful and a thing is true if it is shared experience and if
it helps others and if there is independent evidence for it, and there has
been— for example, think about all of the “white light” Near
Death Experiences, and the many reports of angels who are often seen as Beings
of Light. The Wizard watched as a soul unfolded into The Light, and it appeared
to have angel’s wings at one stage of the passing.
Most importantly, this knowledge
helps the Wizard heal. He becomes The
Light (he once asked to see himself, and was shown the Sun Baby from the
Teletubbies, which deflated his ego nicely, thank you very much), and refolds
his own essence, or a great deal of it, to match the other person’s
essence very closely. Then he knows some of what they are thinking, feels some
of what they are feeling, sees some of what they are seeing, and in The Light,
brings back not their soul, but the wisdom to restore their soul to health.
But they have to do the work.
Those that the Wizard works with
heal themselves, and need only to know how to do it. We all heal
ourselves—but we need the help of another to show us how to accomplish
it. Why? The Wizard does not know, but he suspects that it is because we are
social beings. “Where two or three are gathered, there I am,” is an
ancient saying of love. Light strengthens Light. One alone may fall into
darkness, and become lost. Indeed, if we are lambs in a material World of
Wolves, we may need a shepherd to find us and return us to our flock. Or, as
Chief Frank Fools Crow said:
Curing
a single individual is only important in terms of what this teaches the entire
community.
Shamans and healers are, in the
end, social beings, members of a community. This may help explain why healers
find it difficult to heal themselves. Healing is not a selfish thing, although
in great need, often to help loved ones who are not present, people exhibit
amazing powers of self-healing. But just as doctors need a clinic or a hospital
in which to work, healers need a community, and the larger the community, the
better.
A healer alone is not a healer.
The Workshop
During the fall of 2005, at a
workshop on Death, Dying and Beyond, the Wizard learned that his first teacher
of core shamanism, Myron Eshowsky, would offer a two-part workshop called Shamanism
and the Healing of Cancer independently of
the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. Hearing about it touched something deep
within him, for he had begun to encounter more and more people who were cancer
survivors, one day at a time. Some lived to see remission of their disease, and
others died of it.
One woman he worked with, and
formed a close link to, did not, despite extensive chemotherapy, lose her hair,
which was one of the things she feared. The Wizard had done the crystal healing
thing, the aromatherapy thing, and even the Tibetan Singing Bowl CD recording
thing, but the woman eventually died as the cancer metastasized.
He had done everything he could,
and he had tried everything he knew about, but…
Could he have done more?
Could he have done better?
This is what wizards think about
at 3:00 am in the morning when
they cannot sleep. They are often hard on themselves. This is not a Law of Oz. Sometimes it is pride, and other times
it is how wizards learn compassion. So instead of beating up on himself, the
Wizard sent in his registration fee for the workshop, made a hotel reservation,
and opened his Spirit to learn more about the shamanic healing of cancer from a
teacher he greatly admires and respects, who has 30 years of experience healing
many aspects of disease, the planet, and making peace.
And, once again, the Wizard
would be changed.
The crowd of participants was as
warm and comfortable a group of people to be with as all of the others that the
Wizard has joined. Whoever they are, whenever they gather, they are the most
loving group of eclectic spiritual practitioners that the Wizard has ever met.
Each time the sacred space in the center of the room—OK, it is an
altar—may have everything from crystals to the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
eagle feathers to Tibetan singing bowls, pentacles, six-pointed stars, or
statues of Mother Mary and the Saints.
The Light loves everybody.
Sometimes there are Alquis
present, but it doesn’t matter if there are many or none at all. The
Wizard has become a Human Being again, which is what his Fellowship is all
about. Once restored to sanity, a whole world of Love, Light and Healing opened
up, and everyone, whether they were Alquis or those other people, Ozonians who
enjoy drinking alcohol and know when to stop, mingled and shared their joy of
life, learning and journeying. No one drank anything except juice, herbal tea
and water. Or cared.
The workshop began when everyone
had laid their blankies on the floor, and picked up their drums and joined in
with Myron as he called the Spirits to teach the group. The Power began to flow
as the group began to become One instead of Many.
Welcome home!
During the two days, much was
taught, but this memoir is not intended to instruct anyone who is reading it in
specific techniques. Myron does that. But what is important is that cancer bears many similarities to alcoholism, and
techniques similar to those used to help Alquis heal can be brought to bear by
a shamanic practitioner. Thus, the Wizard left the workshop with a lot of knowledge,
and a lot of questions, and hoped that they could be summed up with experience
to equal wisdom. How? Just as Sandra Ingerman asks that notes be burned, and
that the Spirits be asked for help, and just as Myron almost always suggested,
the Wizard began to “Journey on it!”
The Questions
The Wizard recognized that many
of the healing techniques taught in the workshop were based on the principles
of the Twelve Steps of the Fellowship of People Learning How to Be Human,
although it would typically take an Alqui to see it.
Universal wisdom runs like a
Golden Thread through all healing practices. If cancer is a spiritual disease
caused in part by repressed anger—resentment—and there were a
multitude of ways to name and let go of resentments, which are “the number
one killer” according to the Alquis’ “Big Book,” and
they worked for cancer patients as well as for alcoholics, then what does that
say about the role of the healer (or the alcoholic’s sponsor)? If
listening to a Fourth Step works as well as planting a seed for every
resentment, then what is the healer doing?
What is the survivor of alcoholism or cancer doing?
If cancer cells are present in
all of us, but are quiescent in some of us, but not in others, and if both
cancer and alcoholism do not seem to be respecters of genetics, or stress, or
anything else (although they are predispositions), and these diseases crop up
when a person’s spiritual life is neglected, then what does that say
about the presence and toxicity of substances in our bodies? Could there be
some sort of natural immunity that we carry in our genes or within our spirits
that is linked to our activity in a spiritual practice?
At that point the Wizard began
to review his own exposure to toxins, thinking that he might be a somewhat
contaminated person, or perhaps a very contaminated one, or maybe even a toxic
waste dump. So he did what his Fellowship has taught him to do.
He made a list.
The Toxins
The Wizard realized that he was
a toxic waste dump.
He had played with, eaten,
breathed, walked through, drunk, even smeared himself with a huge number of
toxins. His list is presented here, because it was the next step he took in
wondering what might keep people’s cancer from becoming active. Yet he
found some good things on the list. In at least two cases his contamination led
to profound spiritual experiences. You have read of the one due to alcohol. A
second experience that was even more ecstatic is described (see the University
chemistry lab).
Those who read this list are
encouraged not to judge the Wizard (or others) for their casual, sometimes
ignorant, and sometimes foolhardy behavior, but to focus on the degree to which
human beings can easily buy, find or even be administered dangerous toxins in a
technological society, and then ask themselves one question:
“What
have I been exposed to?”
Here is the Wizard’s list.
It is probably incomplete:
1950s Atomic
fallout The
child Wizard lived in an area of moderate fallout from open-air atomic bomb
testing.
1957 “Radium
Everlasting” clock Played
with it; slept with it as a night light; watched it scintillate; scraped off
glowing material to play with
1960 Gilbert
chemistry set Mixed
various toxic chemicals (for example, cobalt chloride); several times when
angry at parents mixed “poisons” and drank them to “show
them;” no apparent ill effects from a green potion with brown froth on
top
1960s Homemade
gunpowder Sulfur,
saltpeter and powdered charcoal purchased at local drugstore; mixed to form
gunpowder; no explosion but once had a “flame like a Saturn V
rocket” which scorched the garage and took some explaining
1960s Insecticide
powder Dusted
grandparents’ flower and vegetable garden with Chlordane, Sevin and other
insecticides
1960s Insecticide
aerosol On
family camping trips, park authorities fogged campgrounds with DDT aerosols
from trucks to keep mosquitoes under control
1960-1975 Cyanide, carbon Used
killing bottles containing cyanide or the less
tetrachloride
and immediately
lethal “carbon tet” to kill specimens of
naphthalene moths
and butterflies; preserved in cases with mothballs; enjoyed the smell of all of
them!
1960-present Poison ivy Two
spry elderly ladies taught a nature photographer and the boy Wizard who worked
for him during several summers to eat a small piece of poison ivy in a salad to
avoid getting the rash; the Wizard includes a poison ivy leaf in his Gaia
Springtime Oil; no rash…so far
1965 Mercury Stole
small amounts from junior high school science laboratory to play with; lost
most of it in cracks in hardwood floor under bed in bedroom
1965-1973 Paper mill sludge As
a day camper and counselor took six to eight trips each summer to a river
contaminated with paper mill sludge; later learned it was contaminated with
PCBs; waded in it; had “sludge fights” with other campers and counselors
leaving all covered with this toxic waste
1972-1973 University chemistry lab Prepared a
variety of potentially anti-carcinogenic
(spiritual
experience)
compounds for research by pharmaceutical companies, most based on highly toxic
and easily absorbed cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (such as pyridine); this led
to a three-day unexpected illness that terminated with an amazing sense of
re-birth and light, similar to a near-death experience; the sense of clarity
and freedom that it left has been unforgettable, as if the world changed from
black-and-white to color, with a sense of boundless love merging with the
gratitude simply to be alive
1969-1973 ROTC rifle team Frequent
target practice in an indoor unventilated shooting range with unclad lead bullets
1974-1978 U.S. Army chemical officer Conducted training in chemical warfare using CS
gas (tear gas); conducted limited training with nuclear isotopes; conducted
various range exercises using large munitions; special duty to study
decontamination of chemical agents using toxic hydrocarbon solvents, bleach and
other substances
1980-1985 Fish from polluted lakes Ate
“safe” levels of fish containing various toxins such as PCBs and
organic mercury
1996-2000 Insecticide/radon Lived
in a basement heavily permeated by chemicals used in termite treatment;
limestone substrate posed a radon threat which was ignored: too
“expensive”
1996-2000 Alcohol abuse For
the last two years drank one gallon of whiskey daily
(spiritual
experience) five
days a week, and “only” a fifth on other two days; this terminated
with a spiritual awakening which included a release from the craving to drink
and a sense of calm, pervasive well-being and serenity
1996-2002 Indoor shooting at home Frequent
target practice and reloading in the basement of home with first lead, then
“environmentally safe” copper-plated bullets; chemical gasses and
unburned toxic propellants from smokeless powder
2004-present Essential oils Frequent
blending of numerous essential oils, which, while generally regarded as safe in
small quantities, were used so often that sensitization to skin occurred (red
patches), suggesting overexposure
This list caused the Wizard to
reflect on what limits there were to toxicity; whether the effects of toxins
varied based on—of all things!—one’s spiritual condition; and
whether there might be natural forces at work in the human species, as the
Industrial Revolution had been underway for quite a long time. Could it be
that humans had evolved to live in “toxic” environments? Could a toxic
excess be relieved during a spiritual experience?
The Awakening
The list, and the spiritual
experiences on it, made it clear (at least to the Wizard) that exposure to
toxins and spiritual experiences are not mutually exclusive. For millennia
human tribes have initiated their shamans with drugs, dangerous quests or
deadly rites. In our modern technological society, Wizards are also initiated,
except that they often do not realize it until something happens to put them in
touch with their spiritual gifts.
“Toxic” is a state
of mind. It creates a belief in some “maximum” result—like
death, or cancer. But these do not always happen. Statistically, toxins are
known to have different effects on different individuals. This is why toxicity
is defined in terms of an LD50,
the dose of a substance that is lethal to 50% of the subjects to whom it is
administered. Half die, and half live. Why? Here are some ideas for you to
journey on. What will you learn?
We
may be “hardwired” in our genes to survive some toxins.
We
may be “hardwired” in our genes to be an exponentially growing toxin to the Earth.
We
may also, because of our “hardwired” intellect and memory, have the
chance to change our behavior as
no other creature before us has ever been able to change because we have
tribal wisdom.
And,
we may be on the brink of learning to live harmoniously with the Earth as never
before…
…or
not.
We have choices, and they start
every day, one day at a time, for each of us. The many possibilities are
staggering. And the Wizard is by no means at all, even a tiny bit, the first
one to realize them. His teachers, Myron Eshowsky and Sandra Ingerman, reached
this understanding, each in their own way, many years ago. Myron began to teach
peacemaking as a healing practice for
the Earth. Sandra began to teach transmutation as Medicine for the Earth. The Wizard? He is
learning how to use the principles of the Fellowship of People Learning How to
Be Human to heal the Earth. He will heal in a local way, for he is just another
person with a limited “reach” living on this Beautiful Blue-Green
Jewel In The Cosmos, although his “reach” may be wider than
others’. After all, the Friendly House sits on almost five acres. But
there is enough to do there.
He is sharing what he has found
with you, for truth is shared experience—and isn’t all myth magic,
so doesn’t all shamanic story-telling lead to the truth? You will decide.
The Fossils
If Man evolved in the
presence of toxins, do we carry some kind of immunity in our genes?
About 1.7 billion years ago, in
what is now the country of Gabon in Africa, near the town of Oklo, seams of ore
that were rich in uranium began to spontaneously undergo nuclear fission. For
the next 150,000 years, these natural nuclear reactors generated energy, heat
and nuclear waste. And after they exhausted their “fuel,” most of
their radioactive heavy-metal byproducts, such as plutonium, remained buried in
the Earth. Fourteen of these fossil nuclear reactors have been found!
Some scientists have wondered
why these reactors did not experience a catastrophic meltdown. The reason,
strongly indicated by analyzing the half-lives of the trace elements in the
spent ore, is that there were constant cycles during which fission occurred as
the ore “went critical,” and then was damped. The cycles resumed
every few hours. The only natural cause that could explain this is a geyser.
Thus, for 150,000 years near the west coast of Africa, radioactive geysers
spouted hot toxic water, and sprayed volatile and particulate wastes into the
air, contaminating the land for hundreds or even thousands of miles around
them. Why is this significant?
Most of the fossil record of
early Man can be traced backwards in time and westwards in space across Africa.
The oldest fossils come from Massénya in Chad—about 800 miles away
from the Oklo fossil reactors and their radioactive geyser cooling systems.
Did the creatures, not yet
primates, who would become early humans begin to mutate over 50 million years
ago due to that nuclear waste? Does the vast amount of “useless”
DNA in our genes have a purpose, conferring immunity to the same radioactivity
that might have given rise to Man? Do our thyroid glands scavenge iodine and
strontium, common radioactive wastes, because we evolved in a contaminated
environment?
Studies of Chernobyl suggest
that we have some immunity—and the real toxin is Man.
The Wormwood Forest
For life on the planet to
survive, must the Earth be partly or wholly decontaminated of Man?
In the book Wormwood Forest, from which the following excerpts were taken,
Chernobyl appears to have become a nature sanctuary rather than a grim warning
of the state of the planet in a post-apocalyptic world. Even more surprising
has been the apparent immunity to many cancers of the residents who were
exposed to radiation. The types and numbers of cancers do not match those
predicted by observations of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What went
wrong, or, what do we not understand?
Chernobyl is also the first
example of the toxicity of Man, illustrating how the human presence damages the
Earth. Substantial ecological harm was done by the nuclear power plant
disaster, yet, as surprising as it may seem, in a brief span of years it has
been the absence of Man that has been most important to heal the hurt.
[Many
science fiction writers] once gloomily predicted a post-apocalyptic world:
“There may be a few [human] survivors in very deep, very well-stocked
shelters, but there will be nothing for them to do when they come out.
They’ll mostly serve as food for cockroaches and rats that are likely to
survive the war much better than human beings.”
As
if to confirm all of the darkest scenarios, rodents actually did have a
population boom after Chernobyl. In 1987 and 1988, house and field mice seemed
poised to overrun the evacuated zone when their numbers exploded from about 20
to 30 per hectare to as many as 2,500! Evidently attracted by plentiful food in
the unharvested fields left behind after the evacuation, the rodent problem
became so acute that some zone authorities wanted to poison them. But
biologists stepped in and predicted that the population would soon stabilize on
its own. And that is exactly what happened.
First
the population explosion attracted predators: foxes, weasels, and especially
raptors. In just one square mile of meadow near the buried village of Kopachi
in the 10-kilometer zone, there were enough rodents to support marsh harriers
and short-eared owls, kestrels, and falcons.
Still,
there were too many mice and there wasn’t enough in the fields for all of
them to eat. But these critters have small ranges and couldn’t go on long
treks in search of food. Nor could they escape into the neighboring forest to
which they are not adapted. So, in the autumn of 1988, most of the mice
starved. This, in turn, caused another temporary boom in the number of
meat-eating scavengers that descended on the bonanza of dead. But once the
fields were cleansed of rodent corpses, nature’s sanitation workers also
left.
It
was one of the first examples of how, in the absence of human intervention,
nature in the zone could recover its balance. [But many other animals came to
stay.]
“It’s
a white-tailed eagle nest,” Igor explained. Large raptors with eight-foot
wingspans, white-tailed eagles are very rare in most of Europe. In Ukraine and
Belarus, they are listed as endangered. In the zone, though, with its rich
supplies of favorite foods such as fish and hares, there are as many as 50
white-tailed eagles. This may not seem like very many, but before Chernobyl,
there weren’t any. They probably discovered the inviting habitat during
their migrations to and from their nesting grounds in Finland.
[Igor,
a nature conservator at Chernobyl,] also had a series of dusky photos taken
with automatic cameras: a badger, three wolves, a beaver, some red deer, moose,
boars, and a polecat. A raccoon dog stuck its nose towards the lens, distorting
its face like a funhouse mirror.
Originally
from East Asia, raccoon dogs look just like what their name suggests—very
furry dogs with raccoon-like masks. They are unusual amid canids in being able
to climb well, and they are the only canids to hibernate in winter. They swim
well, too, and often like to hunt in wetlands, near shores, and in thick reeds.
The Soviet Union introduced them in the 1950s as fur animals. Some were
deliberately released into the wild, and their descendants became a serious
pest in Eastern Europe before their populations stabilized.
Since
the health of an animal population is measured by its size rather than the
health of all of its individual members (which is practically impossible to
measure), then—however counterintuitive it may seem—the huge
populations of large Chernobyl mammals are healthy indeed. The same is true of
smaller mammals, including rodents.
[But
what about humans?]
The
main sources of these statistical predictions [of the number of cancer cases]
are the studies of 87,000 Japanese atomic bomb survivors. Among them, an
increase in leukemia was observed only a few years after A-bomb exposure.
Decades later, excess cases of solid cancers were seen in lungs, breast, and
thyroid, although radiation evidently does not increase the risk of cancer of
the prostate, pancreas, uterus, or kidney. More recently, non-cancerous
illnesses such as heart disease have also been linked to radiation exposure.
From
the atomic bomb survivors, scientists developed risk factors that were supposed
to predict the number of “extra” cancer cases that would occur when
a large population was exposed to a certain total amount of radiation, which is
known as the “collective dose.” The formulas estimating from 1.25
to 2.3 extra cancers for every 10,000 rem were behind the confusing and
alarming predictions of thousands of “extra” Chernobyl cancers that
scientists bandied about soon after the disaster. While the Soviets predicted
6,500 extra cancers among the 75 million people who lived in the European part
of the Soviet Union most affected by radiation, and other experts predicted
twice that number, all agreed that those “extra” cancers would be
impossible to detect against the background noise of 9.5 million non-Chernobyl
cancers in that same population. With the exception of thyroid cancer, as we
shall see, proving that any particular cancer was related to Chernobyl is
practically impossible.
But
many of the initial predictions turned out to be simply wrong. Despite
virtually universal expert expectations based on A-bomb research, there has not
been any statistically detectable increase in leukemia—even among the
800,000 cleanup workers, or “liquidators,” who were exposed to the
highest radiation levels and whose health has been followed closely since the
disaster.
This
may be in part because many people who were granted liquidator status, and the
perks that come with it, never actually worked at Chernobyl. Indeed, poverty
led many people to claim Chernobyl benefits with no factual reason for doing so
because official recognition as a victim meant access to income and health
care. Moreover, it seems impossible to tease the health effects of radiation
out of the tangle of poverty, alcoholism, smoking, poor diet, and other factors
that plague public health in places in the former Soviet Union that were
unaffected by Chernobyl and that have made life expectancy—especially
among men—the lowest in Europe.
The implications of this report
are that Nature does better without Man, even after Man leaves nuclear garbage
behind him. It is Man that is the toxin. And for Man, it is the other problems
that he creates for himself due to the injury to people’s souls, that
pose the larger problems for shamanic practice. This is not intended to
downplay the need to heal cancer. But many of the poor suffer from hunger, and
spend their meager income on vodka and cigarettes because their spirits are
injured. Can we help shamanically?
There are many other places
where the absence of Man has been healing to the Earth, even in the presence of
his toxic wastes, some of them explosive. They are much nearer to home for many
of the readers of this story—and may be even more unbelievable.
The Beaten Zone
At the numerous U.S. military
bases across the country, there are a wealth of plants and animals, often
endangered, that thrive there—and they thrive on the dangerous firing
ranges where small arms fire, mortar rounds, anti-tank missiles, artillery
shells, bombs, and napalm are fired, dropped, and exploded. This place is
called the beaten zone.
In Dugway Proving Ground there
is a wealth of desert life amid old radiological and chemical weapon test
sites. Eventually even the military recognized that outdoor testing was
unhealthy, and changed its policies. Today the chemical testing is done
indoors, in a carefully sealed, decontaminated and monitored building. But
before that happened, nerve gas, radioactive isotopes and other toxic
substances were tested in the open air (and caused the famous sheep killings).
We know that in some of the driest deserts on Earth motorcycle tracks will
persist for centuries. Why is life so rich on military bases?
Surprisingly, the answer seems
to be due to the absence of Man.
In this illustration, typical of
a military base surrounded by a civilian population, there are four clear
zones. They are especially obvious from the air, as someone flying overhead in
a helicopter (such as the Wizard as a young officer) would see.
In the civilian zone (orange),
Man dominates the landscape. Houses, junk cars, trash piles, gardens, farms,
shopping centers, roads, subdivisions, power lines, telephone lines and
pipeline right-of-way cuts cover most of the ground. Wooded areas are few and
isolated from each other. But when the boundary of the military reservation is
crossed (green), a forested area appears. It is sparsely covered, by comparison
to the civilian zone, with rutted tracks becoming overgrown and a few unpaved
roads where the armored vehicles travel to and from their exercises.
Somewhere on the reservation is
a residential area (yellow), but it is compact, and often filled with barracks
for the unmarried soldiers, apartments for the married enlisted men and
low-ranking officers, and only a few homes for the higher ranks. There is a PX
(post exchange), a few other small stores and a hospital, but the civilian
urban sprawl is missing. The trashy spread of a property owner with acreage is
absent. Military housing is kept spic-and-span by those who commit small
violations of military regulations.
Finally, usually in the center
of the post far from the residential housing, is an area that even from the air
is conspicuously intact. What could it be? It is the firing range (dark green)—the
place where our military goes to train on the use of its weapons, the place
where things explode, the beaten zone. And it is in this zone where small
mammals, deer, even bear, rare plants, and uncommon butterflies (like the rare
Regal Fritillary, Speyeria idalia, found
at Fort Riley, Kansas) make their homes. How do they survive?
First, it costs money to train
with live rounds, and that limits the frequency of their use. Next, the Wizard
has seen that even modern weapons, designed to “kill” modern vehicles,
do a surprisingly poor job against agile animals. For example, a Vulcan
mini-gun, the modern version of the Civil War’s Gatling gun, was unable
to hit a twelve-point buck that was flushed out of the woods near a firing
range. Although the gun crew tried frantically to hit the deer, it bounded
along just yards ahead of and just fast enough to avoid the stream of bullets
sprayed at it as if from a fire hose—and escaped.
No wonder the Viet Cong and the
Afghan rebels defeated the technological military might of the U.S. and the
U.S.S.R. But what is unhealthy for politics may be very healthy for the planet!
Finally, that twelve-point buck
may have been more than just lucky to live that long. Many animals, even the
butterflies that the boy Wizard chased, seem to have a sixth sense. They know
when it is time to freeze, hide, or “make for bush.” This makes
sense, for animals are very closely attuned to The Light and the Earth. It is
only ourselves, and our overpoweringly loud minds, that make it so difficult to
hear that still, small voice. The Voice of the Universe speaks as gently as a
peaceful child—and as quietly.
The Limits of Growth
Bacteria double their
population every generation, if given enough resources. So do lemmings. And so
does Man. But the resources do not multiply.
This observation led a group of
scientists to form a global think tank called the Club of Rome. In 1972 they
developed a simple model for the interactions of Man with the Earth, and
programmed it into a very large computer, for that time. When run, the model
showed, over and over again, that in the absence of a change in human behavior,
Man’s population would explode exponentially and then crash, just as did
the population of the rodents in 1987 and 1988 at Chernobyl. If this model is
correct, and it is grimly possible, the Club of Rome predicted that we have at
most until 2100 a.d. to change our
ways, and learn to live harmoniously and sustainably on the Earth.
The sigh of relief was loud and
global—whew! No need to do anything yet. Except that by the time the need
is obvious, it will probably be too late. And who wants to live in some dull,
boring sustainable society? It would be a pretty grim place, right?
Wrong.
The Club of Rome pointed out
that in a world in equilibrium—in balance!—growth could still satisfying, and even luxurious, but not
as we are accustomed to thinking of it. They quoted John Stuart Mill, a
hardheaded economist, to show that their vision for a hopeful future has been
around for over a century. Will we reconsider it today?
In
1857 John Stuart Mill wrote:
It
is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and
population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as
much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social
progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living and much more likelihood
of its being improved.
Population
and capital are the only quantities that need be constant in the equilibrium
state. Any human activity that does not require a large flow of irreplaceable
resources or produce severe environmental degradation might continue to grow
indefinitely [in ways other than size—tW]. In particular, those pursuits
that many people would list as the most desirable and satisfying activities of
man—education, art, music, religion, basic scientific research, athletics
and social interactions—could flourish.
The Wizard has always marveled
that many humans in the Western Age of Discovery navigated the globe in sailing
vessels, and lived full lives doing so, using only the wind. Rather different
than a Carnival Cruise, but what is to prevent it? Or how about Arthur C.
Clarke’s vision of modern cruise dirigibles in A Meeting with Medusa? (He crashed it for literary reasons.) Or
telecommuting to work over the Internet, while living in small neighborhood
communities close to our families, where we can walk to the market to buy
necessities (like the Europeans), with precious fuel used only to truck in
supplies? Or even the Wizard’s supercomputers built out of cheap plastic
foam? High technology need not be complex or expensive. A sustainable society
might rely upon just such an oddball mix of high and low-technology. People
might stay closer to home—and like it! Man would have to change his habits,
though, and learn to be happy with “enough.”
Which is what the Fellowship of
People Learning How to Be Human is teaching millions, practically, showing them
how to put the principles of balanced living into action every day. But the
wisdom is ancient. Societies before ours knew how to live this way. Tribal
wisdom strongly suggests that we can
heal the Earth. But how?
The Wisdom
Can Man change to become
tonic instead of toxic, healing instead of harmful, good for the Earth?
In his book, Gaia, J. E. Lovelock wrote:
“There
is only one pollution…People.”
We have seen that this is
true—but only part of the truth. The rest of the truth is this:
There
is only one solution…People.
If we are not a part of the
problem, then we cannot be a part of the solution. We have seen the scope of
the problem. Now, as intelligent two-legged toxins-desiring-to-be-tonic, how
do we become the solution?
First of all, there is no single
solution. There are many. Each of us has the power to find one. Each of us is
part of the problem, and it is a big problem. It has as many parts as grains of
sand on the beach of an ocean’s shore. Each grain of wet sand is part of
the burden of the Earth’s memories. It is wet sand, the Wet Sands of
Sorrow. It is too heavy a burden for any one of us to heal. So, then, how do we
heal the Earth?
It may first be necessary for
our enchantment with material things to burn itself out. The end stage of this
spiritual burnout is hopelessness. If we stop there, we can see only one
solution to the Wet Sands of Sorrow—killing ourselves. The Wizard saw
that solution when he fell into darkness. So have many others. Some have acted
on it, some have not. Here is an extract from Pannies Inna Wad, a self-published zine from an Alqui who has since
found a purpose in life. But at one time they felt despairing, and wrote this
short piece, in which they described the nadir of our solution to heal the
Earth:
Here are a few ways one can truly save the
environment….
*
don’t eat anything
*
don’t drink anything
*
don’t breathe
*
don’t buy anything
This is short and to the point,
but if we can find a reason to escape despondency, we can do better. First, we
might look to the Instructions given to all people by the Peacemaker, as told
by Tadodaho Chief Leon Shenandoah of the Iroquois, and recorded by Steven Wall
in To Become a Human Being, which have
been distilled into the slogan-like brevity that the Alquis love so dearly:
Laugh.
Enjoy
being here on the earth, and being part of creation.
Listen.
Work
for the good of all.
Watch
what you say.
Never
say anything in a harmful way.
Never
call on the Creator for anything; the Creator gives us all we need.
Make
the changes necessary to stop certain things from happening. You can do that.
You can prevent things from taking place if enough people will take action. Be
one of them.
Be
thankful.
Don’t
worry.
Sayings such as these are common
to all spiritual traditions. Here, for example, are two excerpts from The
Essence of Wisdom by His Holiness The Dalai
Lama. They are already distilled! Perhaps the Tibetan Buddhists anticipated the
spread of the Alquis?
We
humans are the only species with the power to destroy the earth as we know it.
The birds have no such power, nor do the insects, nor does any other mammal.
Yet if we have the capacity to destroy the earth, so, too, do we have the
capacity to protect it.
The
world will change when each individual makes the attempt to counter their
negative thought and emotions and when we practice compassion for its inhabitants irrespective of whether
or not we have direct relationships with them.
Healing the Earth is preceded by
being compassionate and considerate to all of its inhabitants, which in turn is
preceded by healing ourselves. There are innumerable elastic cords of healing
in the Web of Life, and each of us holds many in our hands and hearts. If we
are not healed, we cannot carry our weight, let alone help others with our
shared burden. We must be whole to be strong! Lynn Andrews, trained in the
Medicine Way, explains it this way in
her article “Mirroring the Life Force” from the book Healers
on Healing:
I
think that world healing begins with the individual. I think that people are
opening like they have never opened in their lives. I see a great hunger for
openness. I think people are not only looking for new answers, they’re
also looking for new questions.
The
direction of healing is back to the earth. We are beginning to remember and
understand that living in harmony with Mother Earth is more important than
almost anything else.
It is worth noting that the
Twelve Steps of the Fellowship of People Learning How to Be Human are a course
in self-healing. But, in the end, it is the last step, the Twelfth Step, that
opens a door outward, letting Alquis gather up those elastic cords and carry
their share of the burden of the Wet Sands—and even do more:
Having
had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this
message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
It is so simple! Become a Human
Being. Help others who suffer in darkness become Human Beings, too. Then live a
spiritual life. Turn it over, turn it outwards. And the fantastic proliferation
of Twelve Step Fellowships—there are reportedly over 168 of them
today—suggests that individual healing, and healing others in turn, is
spreading rapidly, under the noses of The Authorities Who Took Drastic Action.
Perhaps healing the Earth, certainly a drastic necessity, is not within the scope of thought or action of The
Authorities—yet. Eventually they may notice, for healing the Earth will
be noticeable. After all, as small as it is, the Earth contains an awful lot of
space.
How, specifically, can it be
done?
Chief Frank Fools Crow told us
that the way has been forgotten:
Is
it possible to heal the world? [asked Thomas E. Mails. Fools Crow replied...]
With
Wakan-Tanka, everything is
possible. Without Him, it is not. It begins with self-healing. People must let Wakan-Tanka and the Helpers heal them first so they will know how
healing works. Then this understanding can be sent out from them to the rest of
creation. Long ago, people knew how to do it, but they have forgotten the way.
But what has been forgotten
can be remembered.
All memories of every living
thing, even the stones, are in The Light—everything.
The Light is sending us the
knowledge, letting it seep into our hearts from many places. From indigenous
peoples. From the Foundation for Shamanic Studies and Pathways Foundation for
Peace and Healing. From local Circles of Light. The memories are there, even if
we forget them to buy fast food on the way home—because even fast food is
becoming healthier. Franchisers feel the irresistible tug of the Elastic Cords
of Healing.
If we take the words of the Alquis’ Twelfth Step
literally, then we may combine their principles with shamanic healing to dry up
the Wet Sands of Sorrow, and free the Web of All Things from a heavy weight.
For example, after getting sober, and journeying for the Spirit of the Friendly
House, the Wizard was told by the Spirits to do certain things. They were
actions to help clean up his place in the Community of Light. What were they?
Small things, like planting Luna
moth cocoons (instead of keeping them in a plastic box inside his barbecue
grill). Cleaning the two old tires out of the pond and throwing his best (well,
second best) crystal in to help purify it so that the frogs and turtles would
have cleaner water. And, as you have read, sending a healing to The Land his
parents live on. The Alquis call this “cleaning up my side of the street.”
These are amends, and we can each make amends to the Earth we live on, right
now, right where we live, for we usually can reach no farther.
We can heal what we can see. We
can touch what is within our reach. We can act as examples for those around us.
And we will heal the Earth, one memory, one place, one day at a time.
We will dry the Wet Sands of
Sorrow, and they will sift away through the Web of Life.
1,000 Breaths
If you have read this far then
you have taken about 1,000 breaths, inhaling in each one the same poison that
caused the greatest environmental disaster in the history of the Earth. It left
few survivors, none of them your direct ancestors except for the very few that
mutated afterwards. This disaster was even worse than the Killer Asteroid that
is believed to have exterminated the dinosaurs, leaving them all extinct except
for a few small ones that evolved to become birds. This disaster was worse than
any brief—in Gaia’s scheme of things—nuclear plant meltdown
or toxic chemical spill. In the end, this disaster gave rise to intelligence,
to an opportunity for Gaia to grow and maybe even reach the stars, joining the
other life in the universe in harmony, for, after all, if there is no other
life out there, it is an awful waste of space.
What was this ancient disaster?
About two billion years ago a
tiny one-celled organism discovered that it could harness sunlight and the rich
atmosphere of methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide in which it lived to grow at
a phenomenal rate. Of course, it also pooped—everything does. This
organism, which today we would call algae,
swept through the seas of an Earth that was warmer then than it is now, and in
a few hundred thousand years—again, a short time in Gaia’s
existence—had polluted the air and killed almost every organism that
depended on Her rich atmosphere of complex hydrocarbons. The organisms that
could not tolerate living on the poopy surface were forced to live underground,
far from the atmosphere that was now polluted with this algae’s toxic
byproduct.
What was the toxin? A simple
element. We need it to live. We die without it in a few minutes. What’s
in a name? You may remember the subtitle of this story about Oz: The
Environmental Awakening of a Somewhat Contaminated Wizard of Oz.
Oz. O2. Oxygen. And now you know…
…the rest of the story.
Well, almost. What happened to
the Wizard’s parents and The Land?
Dawn
It takes time for the healing
of the spirit of a place to seep gently into the hearts and souls of the people
who live there.
But it may not take as long as
our pessimistic minds believe. On Christmas Day the Wizard called his father.
His father had been delighted to get the crystal, and wanted to know if he
could keep it in his Radio Sorcerer’s Shack, and not throw it into the
woods, or bury it. Yes! (The Wizard had hoped for that, but you never know.)
The gratitude list had helped his father see that they did have power, and that they could do something to heal The Land. Victims do not plant
trees. Empowered people plant trees.
The Wizard’s mother had
ordered a book for her Christmas present. The book? Wormwood Forest, from which you have already read some excerpts.
Maybe you believe that a book about a nuclear disaster and evacuating people
from their homes is a depressing book to read during the holidays, but the
Wizard saw it as the dawn of new hope for his mother. If Chernobyl can regain
its balance after only a few years in the absence of Man, then The Land ought
to regain its balance within his parents’ lifetimes. After all, his
mother and father come from long-lived families. Most of the Wizard’s
ancestors on both sides lived to be 95, and some even lived to be older than
100.
The week after Christmas, when
the Wizard and his father talked again, his father mentioned something that was
unusual. There had been a few warm days in the woods, and The Land, formerly
empty of butterflies, had suddenly blossomed with two Mourning Cloak
butterflies (which is not surprising, as they hibernate in cracks in trees and
under bark, and their amazing butterfly blood contains natural
antifreeze—another example of a toxin that promotes survival). But the
wonderful thing was that there were three or four common Cabbage Butterflies
fluttering around the Cabin in The Woods. These little white butterflies (which
were the first butterflies in his life that the boy Wizard caught and kept in a
jar with a metal screw-on lid that had holes punched in it for air) only come
out in the springtime, and never, ever come out in the winter. If they do, they
will die—usually. But sometimes the indicators of change from the Web of
All Life flicker in and out of the Mundane World as The Light gives Its Gifts,
and when It gives gifts, they always are given lovingly, and the Gifts always have a Meaning.
Jamie Sams’ book, Medicine
Cards, tells us the meaning of Butterfly:
The
power that Butterfly brings to us is akin to the air. It is the mind, and the
ability to know the mind or to change it. It is the art of transformation.
A change is in the air. The Land will be a paradise again, even in the presence
of Man. What about cancer, and the workshop that served as a catalyst for the
Wizard to see how contamination is not necessarily harmful? Well, Myron
remarked that cancer (and many other “modern” diseases) are a
result of our lack of harmony with the Earth. No wonder there were so many
cancers after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, compared to Chernobyl. As bad as the
Chernobyl disaster was, it was not due to hatred, or Man’s soulless,
dispassionate, cold intellectual curiosity that led him to drop two atomic
weapons on fellow human beings. Man was not in harmony with Man. War is not
living in harmony with the Earth. Cancer was a result of that lack of harmony.
When we begin to heal the Earth,
we will begin to heal ourselves in ways that are hard to imagine. Uncontrollable
things that we believe we are powerless over, such as crime, the incidence of
disease, addictions, poverty, the economy, the weather and even natural
disasters will change, and they will change for the better.
But it is not Toxic Man, but Spiritual
Man that will bring about the change. Man that is composed of people, women and
men, whose contact with The Light gives them one of the most important Gifts of
all, without which apathy drains away all action. The Gift?
Hope.
It is enough to begin with. The
Earth is waiting for us. Our Mother is calling.
Come, it is time to go home.
In love, Light and healing,
The Wizard
The Books, Articles &
Websites
Here are some books, articles
(and one zine, if you can find it) that you can read. Then you can decide for
yourself how you will choose to live with Gaia, our Mother. Many of you are
probably doing much better than the Wizard! After all, he just “woke
up!”
Alcoholics Anonymous, Fourth Edition, ——, 2001. (Available
on-line at www.aa.org)
Earth Abides, George R. Stewart, 1949 (Fawcett Crest paperback
1971). (Fiction, but surprisingly relevant over 50 years later. The disaster is
biological, but the events are plausible, including the outbreaks of ants, mice
and predators, which are nearly identical to those experienced at Chernobyl.
Science fiction proves a good predictor.)
The Essence of Wisdom, Tenzin Gyatso (His Holiness the Dalai Lama), Abacus
(an imprint of Time/Warner Books), London, UK, 2002.
Fools Crow: Wisdom and Power, as recorded by Thomas E. Mails, Council Oaks Books,
San Francisco/Tulsa, 1991. (One of the best books the Wizard has ever found to
learn how to “be healing” and live in harmony on the Earth. But
don’t take his word for it!)
The Foundation for Shamanic
Studies, http://www.shamanism.org
Gaia: A New Look at Life on
Earth, J. E. Lovelock, Oxford University
Press, 1979 (1987).
Healers on Healing, edited by Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield,
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1989.
The Limits of Growth, Donella H. Meadows et. al., Universe Books, New
York, 1972.
Medicine Cards, (revised, expanded edition), Jamie Sams & David
Carson, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1999.
Medicine for the Earth,
http://www.shamanicvisions.com/ingerman.html
Oklo: Natural Nuclear
Reactors, U.S. Department of Energy, Yucca
Mountain Project, www.ymp.gov (This is the site for a controversial project to
bury nuclear waste on tribal lands. The Wizard does not condone the project,
but found the information helpful.)
O-Zone, Paul Theroux, Ivy Books (paperback) 1987. (Fiction of
a possible near-future with a radioactively contaminated zone somewhere in the
Midwest—which is “the sticks” from the point of view of most
New Yorkers! Fascinating, nevertheless, and darkly reminiscent of
Chernobyl—science fiction, even artsy sci-fi, scores again.)
Pannies Inna Wad, Jen F., self-published, undated but circa 2001.
Pathways Foundation for Peace
and Healing, http://www.peacehealing.org
Record of Cycling Operation
in the Natural Nuclear Reactor in the Oklo/Okelobondo Area of Gabon, A.P. Meshik et. al., Physical Review
Letters, Vol. 93, Number 8, 29 October
2004.
To Become a Human Being: The
Message of Tadodaho Chief Leon Shenandoah,
as recorded by Steve Wall, Hampton Roads Publishing Company, 2001.
What insight has Toumaï
brought? [article on fossil humans in
Chad], which can be found at
http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2003/july/toumai.htm
Wormwood Forest: A Natural
History of Chernobyl, Mary Mycio, Joseph
Henry Press, 2005. (A searchable, free e-book version is available from
National Academies Press on-line at http://www.nap.edu/books/0309094305/html)