Matthew Lennox

Now here's the best busker I've heard in years and Vancouverites can be thankful for his energy and talent, as he slaps on his guitar with his lively right hand and plays the riffs on his left. A really exciting talent - who was not permitted (yawn) to busk at the jazz festival. Typical mean-spirited bureaucracy strikes again. Check Mathew out in front of the Waterfront Station just about any time this summer. Thank you Matthew for your enlivening and welcome spirit.

Random Pix of Gastown Jazz Festival

Twas another great relief for all to have no road rage on Water Street and the sounds of laughter and music throughout these last two days. Obviously people are hungering for this kind of freedom, and dancing as much as they did, so exuberantly, was clear testament to that desire.

The Whole of the Law

Let us transform our city by our manners, in every way. By our words, our driving, our awareness of each other as unique beings, full of grace. We are the sum of our efforts in every way. Let us perhaps by ordinary divinity be the totality of goodness with every step. A blessed gait, affirmed by all nature and the personality of the infinite.

Quick Fix?
Dear Editor
re Quick Fix for the Homeless, Gary Mason

I live, work, shop and wander about the Downtown Eastside and witness every day the calamity that is becoming the lives of people who were once loved. They are troubled and troublesome and Yes many are homeless and addicted.

It’s heartbreaking to see young women picking away at the sidewalk for a hint of crack or offering favours for another hoot. But let us, as a civilized country, province, city, at least identify the issue here. It’s the drug suppliers. Their mules are usually addicts or here illegally or just imagining themselves as the next gang leader, Hollywood style.

The solution is, in my mind, rather simple but it requires courage and commitment to the laws we already have in place. Bust the supplier. That would be the Hells’ Angels who run the “hostels” in my neck of these woods and close their retail operations altogether, city-wide. With no supply, the mules have nothing to sell and those young women and men will have nothing on the sidewalk to pick away at. Just enforce the law. And help those who have been victimized by the creeps who think of themselves as being lord-like in our community. Bust the Angels. It takes guts and that’s where this city is lacking. Why are we wasting taxpayers’ money on rounding up and policing the mules and addicts when we all know down here from where the problem really stems. Bust the bastards across the country. Close them down. Now that would be a good use of our moral and financial resources.

Quick Fix for the Homeless, Gary Mason
The Globe and Mail

No one said solving the world's problems would be easy. Just ask Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.

When Mr. Robertson ran for mayor last fall, he said his top priority was the city's homeless problem. He's vowed to eradicate it completely by 2015. His plan is to build lots of social housing – or at least get the province to. Meantime, he's set up emergency shelters as a temporary measure.

And it's quickly turning into a PR fiasco.

The city opened five of the shelters late last year, two in residential areas where there happened to be vacant buildings available, the others in more industrial settings. They met a demand, especially during an unusually long, cold winter. Thousands flocked to them. Hundreds were turned away.

But the frigid temperatures and dark nights eventually gave way to warmer weather and longer days. And the shelters situated in a densely populated residential area were revealed to be cesspools for drug addicts and petty criminals.

The two are located near the much-travelled Granville Street Bridge. Nearby you will find a YWCA daycare, a Montessori school and a low-income seniors home. And condominium towers. You don't have to wait long to witness people shooting up in alleyways or having sex in the nearby park.

“The neighbourhood has completely changed,” says resident John Roberts, who has lived in his area condo for 10 years. “It's horrible what's happening and the city doesn't care. Kids can't go out now. The park can't be used by residents.

“The mayor doesn't care. Council doesn't care. They want to extend the shelters until April of next year.”

Deirdre Barlow, who moved into the neighbourhood with her husband 18 months ago, can't believe what has happened.

“The first part of the time here was wonderful,” she says. “The last six months have been a nightmare. Something horrible is going to happen here, I predict it. It's become a complete zoo. This once wonderful neighbourhood is completely disintegrating. It's becoming …”

The Downtown Eastside?

“Exactly,” she says. “The Downtown Eastside.”

The city's response has been to get police to bolster their presence in the area. So now, any time of day or night you can see a squad car or seven patrolling the area. According to residents, the increased police presence has done little to ameliorate the problem.

“The other day we saw one guy walking around carrying an axe,” reported Mr. Roberts. “A city councillor said the guy was a carver and that's why he had the axe. Well, he wasn't a carver. And they're still shooting up all over the place and doing drug deals.”

Another day a guy was seen carrying a ball and chain – and not the kind you used to drag around in prison. “It was to hurt someone,” Ms. Barlow said.

The “low-barrier” shelters are intended for the hardest-to-home. Those who use them are allowed to bring their shopping carts and pets in with them. Drug users aren't turned away the way they are in other shelters. While no one argues the need for these kinds of accommodations as temporary measures, the problem is the type of individuals they attract if open for long. Drug addicts attract drug suppliers. Drug suppliers attract young boys to run their drugs. Consequently, there are emerging gangs of young kids – drug mules – congregating in the area and intimidating residents.

The city maintains the shelters have to stay open until there is enough social housing to accommodate all the homeless. But many of those using the shelters were evicted from social housing because of their behaviour. Someone at city hall came up with the brilliant idea of asking shelter users to wear green vests and go around cleaning up the neighbourhood. The program has been a bust.

Mr. Robertson, meantime, has been mostly silent on the issue. He showed up unannounced at one shelter a week ago around 11 p.m. to check out the situation for himself. He was spotted by residents who began to jeer him and call him a coward. To his credit, he stopped and talked to them for more than an hour. But nothing changed.

Last Saturday, a man was stabbed near the shelter located next to Mr. Roberts' condominium tower. The next day, Ms. Barlow found a switchblade and reported it to police, who told her it might be a key piece of evidence in a possible attempted homicide.

Residents have had enough. They want the two shelters closed. A retired American couple who live in the area part-time have written to the U.S. State Department urging it to issue a travel advisory to Americans visiting the city. Residents have also contacted The New York Times and other prominent U.S. publications warning them of the danger that lurks in downtown Vancouver.

Not exactly the kind of publicity a city getting ready to host the Olympics wants or needs.

It's time Mr. Robertson brought some leadership to the issue. Or opened up a shelter near his house.

Glorious Spring in Troubled Land

African Grandmothers and Car-Free Festivals

Very next day after encountering legitimate protests and expressions of freedom in this grand old country, I witnessed a rally of elders re Grandmothers from Africa concerned for the abandoned orphans. Another inarguable case.

Then Stephen and I, while running an errand, happily bumped into Main Street free of cars all the way from 12th to 25th streets.

Easily thousands of people were joyous and dancing and Tai-chi-ing, playing music and just celebrating the event which we discovered later was also happening that same day on Commercial Drive, downtown and Broadway (should'a been there for the Greek food!).

We can only imagine how exciting and pleasant it would be if the entire city was car-free at this critical time for our globe, de-industrialized
and all we really had to commute to was our gardens where we all ate well and rejoiced in the company of people of peace.


See pictures above and below.
More later re one Canadian’s tireless efforts in Africa to eradicate AIDS and poverty… a hero this author will always support, a man appointed originally by no less than Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

And after all was said and done, someone looked pretty happy... and thank God for that and this country.

Lively Protests, Songs and Freedom

Today en route to the joy of grocery shopping I encountered two protest groups. The first was mostly comprised of native people by Abbott Street in the downtown eastside rallying and singing for “homes not war” – affordable housing. An inarguable issue given that our premier over the many years of his negligent leadership has managed to provide a shameful explosion in homelessness, the abandonment of the mentally ill and the prevalence of all those empty condos being bought as investments by disinterested foreigners. Even Caligula, demonized by movies, was a better leader assuring access to all public bathhouses and bins of corn and food. The criminalized Gordon Campbell could take a few lessons from that Caesar.

* * *

The next group of protestors, wildly attired were situated in front of the scientology store where ‘personality tests’ are offered as a guise to their inveigling process to dogmatize innocents into a truly weird theology constructed by a science fiction writer who spent his last years on his yacht avoiding the light of the media. Their signs speak for themselves.

Thank God for the freedom to protest. More power to you all, whatever your opinion.

Mining for Optimism

Mining.NOW and The English Bay Banner were recently introduced to the exhibitors at the World Resources Conference at the new Convention Centre in Vancouver, June 7th and 8th.

It was a pleasure to see old clients and meet new friends.

The optimists among the promoters spoke in terms of millions of dollars recently raised for their latest mining projects and others were frank about how the downturn has seriously affected their ability to continue but there they were all of them with optimism and hopefully with candor.

I wish them all well.

While sometimes a tense atmosphere (“No soliciting of Exhibitors” and the disquiet of some of the exhibitors themselves, including the absentee CEO’s) it was for me and Stephen an intriguing and sometimes joyous occasion. (But what happened to the hospitality suites for the after-party? Hey, next year huh?).

It was a good two days to launch the upcoming hard copy of The English Bay Banner and Harry Langen’s Mining.NOW mixed together, crossing platforms from “Phocken’ Money, Phun and Philosophy.” New slogan. U like?

With my less than humble self as cameraman, journalist, layout guy, sales dude and chief troubleshooter alongside the shrewd mother/son team of Marie and Morgan selling and Stephen in tow hauling papers, methinks a monthly endeavor with a provable and transparent distribution strategy to all interested jr mining investors will work just swell.

Let us all step up to the plate and get in the game and rid ourselves of this hysteria of negativity, as foolish as an electronic herd of frightened lemmings -which by the way never did leap over the cliff. Only we can be that stupid.

Stay the course of optimism over time and see real success.



GORBACHEV CALLS FOR A NEW REVOLUTION

Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's last communist general secretary, called for a new American "revolution" - also calling it a "perestroika," or government restructuring - [1] in an editorial published Wednesday in The Sydney Morning Herald.



"Some have reacted with understanding. Others have objected, sometimes sarcastically, suggesting that I want the United States to experience upheaval, just like the former Soviet Union. In my country, particularly caustic reactions have come from the opponents of perestroika, people with short memories and a deficit of conscience," the former Soviet leader wrote.

He continued: "Our perestroika signalled the need for change in the Soviet Union, but it was not meant to suggest a capitulation to the US model. Today, the need for a more far-reaching perestroika - one for America and the world - has become clearer than ever."

In Russia, Gorbachev's perestroika was a government restructuring and the introduction of limited market economy freedoms into the Communist model, which initially caused a great deal of social unrest before eventually becoming an integral part of society.

Gorbachev called for something similar in November, when he declared then-U.S. President-elect Barack Obama "a man of our times" and suggested his administration would need to bring about an American perestroika.

"[He] is capable of restarting dialogue, all the more since the circumstances will allow him to get out of a dead-end situation,"

"Barack Obama has not had a very long career, but it is hard to find faults, and he has led an election campaign winning over the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton herself. We can judge from this that this person is capable of engaging in dialogue and understanding current realities."

The Russian Communist, in his concluding paragraphs, strikes a surprising balance between capitalistic freedom and government controls.

"[If] all the proposed solutions and action now come down to a mere rebranding of the old system, we are bound to see another, perhaps even greater upheaval down the road," he wrote. "The current model does not need adjusting; it needs replacing. I have no ready-made prescriptions. But I am convinced that a new model will emerge, one that will emphasise public needs and public good, such as a cleaner environment, well-functioning infrastructure and public transport, sound education and health systems and affordable housing."

He continued: "The time has come to strike the right balance between the government and the market, for integrating social and environmental factors and demilitarising the economy."

Finally, Gorbachev warns that the world's current economic model, created by America's elite, is cracking. As it comes undone, many will suffer, he predicted. "Including the United States."

Gorbachev concludes: "However different the problems that the Soviet Union confronted during our perestroika and the challenges now facing the United States, the need for new thinking makes these two eras similar. In our time, we faced up to the main tasks of putting an end to the division of the world, winding down the nuclear arms race and defusing conflicts. We will cope with the new global challenges as well, but only if everyone understands the need for real, cardinal change - for a global perestroika."

BUILDING A GLOBAL COMMUNITY

Think of no one as "them."

Don't confuse your comfort with your safety.

Talk to strangers.

Imagine other cultures through their art, poetry and novels.

Listen to music you don't understand,

Dance to it.

Act locally.



Notice the workings of power & privilege in your culture.

Question consumption.

Know how your lettuce and coffee are grown; wake up and smell the exploitation.
Look for fair trade and union labels.

Help build economies from the bottom up.
Acquire few needs.

Learn a second (or third) language.
Visit people, places, and cultures - not tourist attractions.

Learn people's history.

Re-define progress.

Know physical and political geography.

Play games from other cultures.
Watch films with subtitles.

Know your heritage.

Honor everyone's holidays.

Look at the moon and imagine someone else, somewhere else, looking at it too.

Read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Understand the global economy in terms of people, land and water.

Know where your bank banks.

Never believe you have a right to anyone else's resources.

Refuse to wear corporate logos: defy corporate domination.

Question military/corporate connections.

Don't confuse money with wealth, or time with money.
Have a pen/email pal.

Honor indigenous cultures.

Judge governance by how well it meets all people's needs.
Be skeptical about what you read.

Eat adventurously;
Enjoy vegetables, beans and grains in your diet.

Choose curiosity over certainty.

Know where your water comes from and where your wastes go.

Pledge allegiance to the earth, question nationalism;
Think South, Central and North - there are many Americas.

Assume that many others share your dreams.

Know that no one is silent though many are not heard.
Work to change this.

Faithful Readers:

Here is a mix of photos and prose.

THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS ABOUT THE ENLIGHTENABLES... as we each of us may be - by not eliminating ourselves from the bounty of light.

FACING THE SUN

If one were to kneel one early morning in the face of the rising sun beseeching alone and enquiring in a voice audible to the sky, “Mirror, mirror on sacred wall, Who is the fairest of them all…” in vain hope of being declared most radiant, the abuse taken by the personality of the infinite would portend the shrill cries of an empty shell hastening the delirious supplicant’s mortality. So appears the fierceness of a wrathful entity.

Many of us have detected a light imbued with goodness pulsating with meaning and then in inexplicable fear have retreated being fond “of that dull bluish-yellow light from the human [world].” In that dimension of illusions and imaginings the individual prefers to dream of his own creativeness, his being the source of warmth, laughter and even love; benevolent in his eyes, blind to the root of charitableness and righteous awareness.

Such pretense, such thinking, creates only the perception of a wrathful deity - a jealous god – as the consequence of such presumptiveness is the apparent absenteeism of the loving aspects of that infinite personality.

All that which is given in life is by necessity continuous and must continue by necessity. Private vanity is necessary in small doses which serve to keep us living in some concert with beauty and correct hygiene but lop-sided preoccupation with vanity neither contributes to nor supports continuity. Such vanity requires constant propping, as does its cousin, judgement of others. “Judge not lest ye be judged…” refers also, among many other layers of instructive meaning to the threat of our judgeing ourselves according to the tight and mean-minded framework of our judgements of others and opens us to their judgements which may negatively impact on our confidence, self esteem and happiness. No degree of private vanity can withstand such constant assaults on our tenuous well-being.



Self-idolatry designs the pathway to a lack of continuity and thence the absence of steady joy or contentment. Breast-beating, similar to glad-handing and backslapping among the “all hail ye good fellows,” crowd is a hollow experience and an abhorrence to the divine, its precious markings subtle and lovely and as consistent and beautiful as the wind making visible the vibrance of the grasses.

So as we vacillate between vanity and innocence it is hoped my work will yield those words most inspired making effable that state of suspension from which one may enter into the chamber of the divine.

Yet I am alerted to the hazards of overt pride by fellow author Logan Pearsall Smith who stated, “Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.”

But encouraged somewhat cautiously by Benjamin Franklin’s remark that, “Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter, wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor and to others who are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.”

And it is in the balance of those wits I am supplicant early in the morn in the face of the radiant god, that elusive personality of the infinite, who enchants me each day to be a vessel full to the brim of His love and cognizant of His everlasting patience and sometimes agonizing compassion. All the earmarks of a loving Father.

Defining the Indefinable

And the Word was made flesh.

Let us make one assumption: Every individual is a thought of God. In this then we can see that God’s thoughts give form. And relative to this power, man’s thinking is an attempt to create, to give form. The reach of his thinking is circumscribed by the limited ability to manipulate circumstances but this shadowy activity cannot give substance, organize an embryo, arrange stars or conduct any of the other unwieldy elements in order to give and sustain life on multidimensional planes simultaneously. Man’s thinking, usually starring himself, is nothing more than an idle and futile attempt to imitate God.



Inherent in each member of every generation, regardless of culture or degree of programming or impact of imposed dogmas, is the way to know God, enjoy affirmations from nature and continuity of pleasure. It must be confounding to the personality of Creation that man is not wholeheartedly accepting this gift of comfort but rather chooses to act as the giver, ready to receive credit for Creation. This pose will strike an imbalance until nourishment of the mental and spiritual sort no longer can find its way past the illusions and the deepening shadows of the individual now lost in fantasies.

The ultimate spiritual experience which constitutes the subject of my work is founded upon good health, a mind enlivened by curiosity, an abiding moral rigor, an intellectual life facing challenges daily and finally the willingness and courage to cross into a spiritual field where time dissolves and divine meaning is all-encompassing.

And this is meant as an ordinary experience.

It is intended as an ordinary experience to be enjoined without fanfare, drum rolls, trumpets or costumes. The individual standing next to you on the subway, bus or in the cafeteria may be experiencing this bliss and you would not be signaled whatsoever. The privacy is necessary for that man of power to enjoy without interference or uncalled for adulation.

That individual’s words are imbued with knowing, directed by compassion, are inclusive of so-called degenerates and ‘low-lifes,’ and are creative of loving situations. That individual’s words prompt and allow and may sustain a loving climate… as do the words of the Lord, that personality of the Righteous Teacher who is generously provided by the Father of Creation every second generation (avoiding overlaps).

Such is the bounty of Light.


And from this perspective one may see time as a pulse, as a field which facilitates growth, as freedom from fear and anxiety and as the ultimate reaper of those individuals who have squandered their awareness allowing themselves to be distracted by self indulgences which amount to nothing more than that constant and futile play at being God, the source of warmth, comfort, joy and peace; the one personality who defies all usurpations.

My mentor, Ted Lewis, taught me at the formative age of 17 that “words are organic” and after a lifetime of contemplation and some reluctant growth I continue to view this declaration from heightened perspectives and am emboldened to see this wisdom at work, observing as I have the power of words spoken to a young person who has since matured and allowed them to come to a kind of unique fruition. The seed was planted at its most auspicious moment.

Magi, shamans, contemporary legitimate practitioners of occultism experience the power of words in a way which exposes the impotence of the uninformed, vacant-minded youth of today whose vocabulary seldom stretches beyond “awesome,” “sweet,” or “cool.” (They had to borrow that last one from the beat generation of 70 years ago.)

“Awesome” is the day they stand and face the curtains of fire as they gird themselves to enter into their spiritual realm after a lifetime of contemplation, meditation, correct hearing and righteous speaking – supported by a vocabulary stuffed with words of optimism, meaningful import and facilitation of peaceable circumstance. Words of thrilling import.

“Sweet” is the nectar of bliss when that individual acknowledges that his joy is affirmed by nature in the appearance of apparently sacred forms and those beings which present themselves to the sense of touch and sound and sometimes smell.

“Cool” is the refreshment of baptism in the river of knowing.

The enlightened man may by his words create the context wherein others may abide in peace and discover a familiar atmosphere, a dimension they may call “home.”

Enlightenment is indefinable only insofar as the experience belongs privately to the individual and the way he arrived at the sublime state may be ineffable even to the enjoyer but the words of Light he speaks open avenues for the hearer to follow at his own pace and his gathering confidence is fortified by the memories of his own experiences.






Lewis taught me that the posture then of the enlightened individual is one of waiting.

He offers no judgement nor critique. He simply allows and his words, each of them, throughout all circumstances, all interactions, all moments are driven, formed and uttered in a field of goodness and placed there to expand the horizons of the hearer.

The bounty of the Lord-speaker is such that He speaks and a multitude may hear and according to their own interpretations receive what they can ‘carry.’ The growth is each a separate and necessarily a private matter.

Self-appointed gurus have been multiplying like maggots on rotting flesh and are assaulting our common sense with real boners akin to this kind of gobbledygook… "the unconscious attempt to be the mindbody that you think that you are - the mindbody that this "you" is currently flowing through while you may bruise your right palm spanking your inner child and working overtime in infinity trying to be here now – an inner sanctum next to Nowhereville. blah blah - Why are we listening to this mumbo jumbo. (And I thought that was a dance.)

Yippie, dippie, hippie, flippee trashtalk by Moonglow Pavanandishi.

These self-help halo-polishers aided and abetted by our modern telecommunications invade our living rooms and bedrooms seriously suggesting that their words can be injected into our spiritual bloodstream and thus our lives will undergo a profound change (with cheque or money order, shipping not included). More rot. All the ticket buyers streaming out of the auditoriums after a dose of the guru stagecraft are returning to their own version of mediocrity, long-established by rote.

The appetite for truth is not sated by witnessing someone else’s pretense at knowing. And when watching these priestly types on TV we are attempting to drink from their well, an impossibility and a hoax as cheaply perpetrated on the weak and as deftly as the snake oil salesmen of yesteryear.

TV is insidious on a variety of levels. It is a constant flow of verbiage and sensationalism, loud sounds, gratuitous conflict and the glorification of grief. Boo hoo. Bring flowers. Indulge your false sentimentality.

When watching fictitious characters being presented by actors we are in effect witnessing an act of an act.

And after a lifetime of role-playing actors are apt to lose themselves in a maze of egocentric illusions and anxieties. Clearly dissatisfied with their own identity they humiliate themselves auditioning to be someone else and for the rest of their professional lives are galloping about in the Look-at-Me industry wondering whether they’re on foot, horseback or slithering in the grass. And in this shameful age of nescience who would want to be popular? And yet we have no shortage of candidates in the running for King of the Snakepit.

We are the words we speak. We are the words we hear. The mass of men trivialize themselves by the words they utter as they invite the mundane company of those who utter similar inanities all cornering themselves into dark frames populated by shifting judgements.

It is no wonder that Thoreau observed of his generation something which is equally applicable to our current lamentable situation, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Such is their choice in the spilling of the bounty of light.

on driving to Nottawasaga, with Angie

I have a depth of sadness within me
that I can never release
may some parched land
receive the imprint
of the wealth of my watery soul
let the absorption through my skin
of the suffering of others
be translated
into some new world's
life-giving sea
may my wife die in peace
and may my sons live
as long as I
and allow me to know
after my power of knowing is gone
that I was loved

-Roger Langen

Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there.

But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation – but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement.

Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.




This planet came with a set of operating instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like -- don’t poison the water, soil, or air, and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat -- have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food – but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: YOU ARE BRILLIANT, AND THE EARTH IS HIRING. The earth couldn’t afford to send any recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refugee camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen.

Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true.

Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, re-imagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown – Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood – and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, and non-governmental organizations, of companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not “out there” somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. Think about this: we are the only species on this planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time than to renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can’t print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe – exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead the stars come out every night, and we watch television
This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hopefulness only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and author. Starting at age 20, he dedicated his life to sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. His practice has included starting and running ecological businesses, writing and teaching about the impact of commerce on living systems, and consulting with governments and corporations on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy. His books include Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. He was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University president Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., in May, when he delivered this superb speech. Our thanks especially to Erica Linson for her help making that moment possible. For more, see http://www.paulhawken.com/paulhawken_frameset.html

A Collective Happy Gait

This society I want to increase in pleasure. With confidence and what might be described as a collective happy gait. So occasionally I dance at rough bars with smiling women. Let us all be guilty of having such private pleasure.

Recently, I was described as a friend by a man who taught me with enthusiasm when I was 15. Those words meant a lot to me.

Also recently, I have been losing a lover.

I miss him immensely. Nothing could hurt more.

I needed to write this to stay sane.

A Daunting Task and Great Pleasure

Today is #1 for The English Bay Banner to become a hard copy. I thank Roger Pratt for his support.

the flower of Pasto

she’s an Andes girl
with black hair and a volcano
drifts smoke
over her Pasto home town
and she’s brave

the ocean’s horses
blow through her hair and the mountains
take her by the hand
and could it be, Liliany
that Colombia
is in love with you?


grievous angel
your black mane is flying
the water of truth flows through you
and across the emerald valley
your name echoes
your name echoes

and the rivers take you down
on their strong and flowing backs
to the troubles in the valley
diamonds torn
from the soles of your lover’s feet
winking in her tears
hard sparkle in your eyes, Liliany
hard sparkle in your eyes

Pasto girl, they have found you
Colombia’s flower is in a cell and a paramilitary
with sunglasses and a cigarette
is drifting smoke
over your rivers and your cane
over the petals in your name
‘I shed no tears for them,’ you say
‘Shed none for me, for I am free.’

girl from the Andes, coca memory
you are free
you are all the water and the land
mother, child, burro and man

grievous angel
your black mane is flying
your eagle heart is screaming
and across this emerald land
your name echoes
your name echoes

because Colombia
is in love with you
Liliany Obando!
Liliany Obando!

-Roger Langen

Vancouver Architects and Arborists