A Tale of Grace

posted by Kamala on May 13

Dearest Friends and Family,

We are facing a planetary nightmare disaster – the Gulf Oil Spew.  Please read the following, excerpted from: Counter Currents. Org. I have bolded salient words to capture your eye to the points.

A Much Greater Disaster than Reported

According to Ian MacDonald, Florida State University biological oceanographer, about one million gallons of oil are leaking daily, based on NASA data he studied. If so, the incident already exceeds the 1989 Exxon Valdez catastrophe (topping 11 million gallons) from which affected areas haven’t recovered and won’t for decades, perhaps longer, from any spill that large. Already, said MacDonald, as of May 7, around 6,200 square miles are affected, a figure growing daily as long as leakage continues.

Other scientists agree, suggesting an estimated 25,000 daily barrels spilled, or over one million gallons. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports a worse potential if a so-called bent “riser pipe” deteriorates further. If so, daily leakage could more than double to over two million barrels.

Already, vast parts of the Gulf are at risk as well as marshes, other type wetlands, estuaries, beaches, fishing, wildlife, the mouth of the Mississippi River, East Coast, Florida Keys and Everglades, parts of the Atlantic up to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and beyond if Gulf Stream currents are affected, as well as inland cities, towns, rivers, and lakes if Gulf hurricanes spread oil-contaminated rain – a vast ecosystem threatened by corporate criminal negligence and government complicity, the usual combination behind virtually all destructive acts.

Public health is also affected from contaminated fish, water, rain, and air from oil smoke and vapors – problems that won’t abate for years because oil is a toxic brew and enough contaminating the environment causes an array of health problems, including potential chemical poisoning (hydrocarbon pneumonia).

According to Columbus, Ohio Nationwide Children’s Hospital Pharmacology and Toxicology head, Dr. Marcel Casavant:

“Smoke from burning oil contains many chemicals; some are potentially lethal poisons and some are nuisance irritants, but even these….can trigger breathing problems in people with asthma or emphysema or other lung disease(s).”

Why is because burning oil smoke contains carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organics, and other toxins – all harmful to human health. Once ingested, serious problems can result affecting the heart, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, liver, pregnancy, other bodily functions, and the potential for cancer and other diseases. It’ll be years before the full impact is known, but it’s already clear what happens when government and business share the same bed. The public always suffers – this time, like others, disastrously.

This article is by:

Stephen Lendman who lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the

url: http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman120510.ht

Already, we have read that many people have shaved their heads, put the hair in nylon stockings and sent it to the Gulf to act as booms.

I can’t tell you the seriousness of the situation we face.

I don’t know what to do.  Amma commented years ago, that the times to come would be so terrible that if we only knew about them, we would lose all heart to go on.  But she wants us to be like butterflies  and keep our minds light, lest we drown in anxieties and depressions, becoming useless even to ourselves.

Gandhi said:   “Birth and death are not two different states. They are different aspects of the same state.” from CWMG 25:333.

So, transition is nothing to fear, but seeing the innocents in Nature, our children be hurt, ourselves, is a very hard part.

Amma has commented that humanity will have to wipe the tears of each other for generations to come….the coming generations will be born into tremendous suffering.

I get the feeling, humanity has taken a very wrong turn, back in 1930′s. I frankly, despite Daddy’s great admiration for FDR,  feel he took the country, and the world, down a rotten  road. It was from FDR that the WTO, IMF and World Bank were formed, totally undemocratic and taxpayer funded institutions which are responsible for the global economic mess, ecological rape and decimation of human ethics and cultures;  from FDR that the atom bomb development was sponsored, although Truman hit the trigger;  from FDR that industrialization as a development model gained planetary credence to the point that even India thinks industrial development is the only kind of ‘real’ development possible; ( How I wish India would just open her eyes to the results of that development, seen in the human societies of the west, the ecological devastation of her own lands and peoples!)   FDR that made the US a military mighty power, began the pentagon and the CIA;  and FDR that planted the seeds for a later UN ‘security council’ based upon power and privileged for the hands of the richest….It was also FDR that forcibly put all Japanese American people into US concentration camps during WW 2;  FDR that got women out of the home after birthing their babies,  and into the workplace, letting television and  society raise their children to learn to hit, to become bullet targets,  wars, to hurt other mother’s children….

Please tell your leaders, your friends, any ideas you have to ease this situation.  Lets not pretend this is not happening….we need to make our communities fast…too many will be hurt for us to face this alone or as brave individuals…time to find out what gardening tools our neighbors have…what seeds…careful with the seeds….

We must all grow food, Amma has been saying for long that people should be growing vegetables….gardens gather us together….Let us gather together…

Loving you,

Aunty Kamala, Anni and Link

posted by Kamala on May 3

Dearest Friends and Family,

After posting URGENT! SOS! Yesterday, we went to talk with Holy Mother Amma, Mata Amritanandamayi about this.  She was giving darshan.  There were about 50 people crowded around her on all sides, and hundreds more sitting jammed around them, and a line of people left and right coming to meet her…the music was very loud, making it difficult to hear anything. In the midst of all this conflagration she indicated we should come near, and Link went up to her, while I stood back, and asked her to stop the oil leak…She expressed sadness for the Nature that is going to be destroyed, and hope that the human beings will think and do fast, then later spoke about the necessity of conserving water…that in Singapore they are relying on desalinating the Ocean, that she has wanted to see rain water harvesting here in the ashram on the hostels…I think we should understand the gravity of the situation from her hesitant words, and realize that we need to move forward with the utmost caution for water…

I saw one Bri. (Amma’s Nun) rinse her face with part of a mug of water, over a potted plant.  That’s conserving….lets try to think like this.  I need to get some non-plastic pans that I can wash dishes with…. The Brahmacharinis (Nuns) here always try hard to follow Amma’s restrictions and advises in resource use…I often see them turning off or tightening  dripping taps, checking that the electricity is off if not in use, etc….

Its hot season, here, March was the hottest on record since 1880,  Amma has said, 1 bath a day, max, as by our water use now, we are killing the future generations….so, we are all stinky and sticky with oily looks…but, at least we get that one bath…and maybe the children who will inevitably come to their inheritance here, will have some water…We haven’t come here to posture to each other, but to be a participant in the goings on of the whole planet, not to be in synch with  sick people’s minds….but we get so confused….

Meanwhile the press has stopped using innocuous words like, ‘leak’ and ‘spill’, and is now saying ‘geyser’ and ‘spew’….I really wish the media would go for honesty rather than political and corporate  popularity!  I suppose many of you have seen the photos of  the beautiful creatures in peril  in the Gulf….

Today an American Bri. ( Nun) came by and talked about the simple measures they are taking in the residences on top the temple building, to save all laundry rinse water for the toilet use, collecting rain water, etc.

If we can begin to think that we need to be charitable to Nature as well, we will immediately put these things in place, much water can be saved….in the future we may have oily rains…if oil covers large parts of the ocean, those places will not evaporate water easily.

We have got to stop plastic production. We can spend to send plastics to where they can hopefully be re-used…the miserable fact is, that even there, that process is totally polluting as well, it can only be done once, and again, we have another toxic item…we have no choice on the plastic but to completely stop…we can use rubber as was done before….and glass….

We have gotten feedback from many people, and its good to know how many of us, from so many different backgrounds are united in our thinking!  Jai Ma!

Lets go forward in an all round corrective to the scene – lets teach our kids what they need to know to be able to LIVE on this damaged planet….Lets give them the skills, common sense and simple techs to be able to survive and the ethics to be happy…..

We don’t have to go backwards, except to common sense…we can move forwards, once we have returned to common sense, for then it will be a real forward movement….

Here is an essay from Peter Maurin (1877-1947), co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, an wise philosopher and visionary for human civilization as well:

A New Society

To be radically right

is to go to the roots

by fostering a society

based on creed,

systematic unselfishness

and gentle personalism.

To foster a society

based on creed

instead of greed,

on systematic unselfishness

instead of systematic

selfishness,

on gentle personalism

instead of rugged individualism,

is to create a new society

within the shell of the old.
From Peter Maurin’s Easy Essays: http://www.catholicworker.org/roundtable/easyessays.cfm

You might like to keep tabs on 350.org as well….

Loving you,

Aunty Kamala

posted by Kamala on May 2

Dearest Friends and Family,

The oil vent spewing into the Gulf of Mexico is going to quickly end a lot of life as we know it. In less than 3 months, our chances of survival for billions of us may grow very dim… Already, it is heading up the East Coast, it is not abating in the least, ‘they’ don’t know how to stop it. The Birds….the fish….everything….O Lord. What have we done!

As human beings we’ve done the Earth wrong, real wrong.

Anni used to say, ITS ALL WRONG. And that’s what it is.

What can we do?

We are part of the life that has made this EARTH, we can do something. WE are indivisible, and we must find solutions.

We need to bring back the sanctity in our relations to our beloved planet. The Reverence and the Love for every brave and growing thing, for all the creatures in the creation, the elements that sustain them, the earth, the earthworms….

Our survival as a human species is doomed, if our one big shared Ocean becomes covered in oil…

There is NO END in sight to this oil crisis….NO END IN SIGHT. All other spills have had a limited capacity, a tanker, this one is to a source of tankers…to fill tons of tankers for years.… we are looking at a catastrophe so huge it could easily cover the planet….All of our One Ocean…

We have to unite at this time, and move forward in fervent PRAYER, that in our Oneness, inescapable and indivisible from the entire planetary system, we can stop the SPEW….perhaps there is a rock, or upheaval of Earth that could jam the pipe from under it…I don’t know…

We have to wake up FAST from our slumbers, of seeking entertainments, of every other sort of stupidity,  we have to be alert now and SEE where we are headed!  This is so serious.  SO SERIOUS.

We have to turn away FAST from the entire social culture that has brought this on….We have to turn to

COMMUNITY. Localization. Sanctified Relations. TRUSTEESHIP. We hold all for each other. DEMOCRACY. Of the Creation as Well….

We can somehow, unite our minds, and close that spewing vent….Let us try…..and pray for God’s Grace to help us. Years ago, Holy Mother Amma said, only God’s Grace will be able to save humanity….

In the Deepest of Concern, I beseech you all to pray with us, to our Divine Mother who Sustains all Life, O Beloved! Please stop the oil spew!

Loving You,

Aunty Kamala