Author: Dena Eakles

Ah, the good life. I want my children to have a good life. Living the life…and on the story goes.

When my mother first visited our small community farm, she was quick to show displeasure. “You are going backwards,” she said, “This all left when your grandmother died.” My grandmother had grown their food, baked bread in an outdoor oven and sold it for a meager income to keep the family together. She lived in Little Italy, surrounded by other immigrant families who had come to escape the poverty of Europe. They brought with them village life and as a child I thrived on the garden goodies, the fresh fruit from trees they planted and their camaraderie.

It took years before my Mother saw the wisdom of the community life I helped to create. Before she passed she was extolling a life where, “you know where your food comes from, you know where your water comes from and you are surrounded by people who love you.”

The good life? My mother’s initial distain for living off the land or being different in any way is not uncommon. It seems we have moved so far away from ourselves, the land and each other that simplicity is foolish. We have equated monetary wealth, accumulation of gadgets and a propensity for being buzzed – take your pick on the legal or non-legal escapes – as the good life. We have allowed fear of other to usurp community. We use religion as a battering ram. And civility in politics no longer exists.

The good life.

We struggle with the litmus of standards set for us. Post WWII ushered in dramatic changes, the least of which was the rise of agri-business, commercialized and processed foods, father knows best, don’t nurse your babies, and the calculated fear produced by the cold war, the rise of nuclear power and the industrial military complex. This “melting pot” was determined to “Americanize” the people who found their way here, a continuation of the attempt to purge the Native Americans of their “Indian-ness” and African Americans of their dignity.

The good life.

There is indeed a good life but it cannot be measured by the arbitrary and ever changing standards we have set. It can and needs to be felt. Every human being regardless of stature, wealth or education has the ability to feel it. My mother did. As she accepted her own, she was able to rejoice in mine.

Cut a path for the good life. Make it a good life. Rural, urban, nomadic or some yet undefined existence. Love yourself, make room for “others” and let gratitude guide you. Enjoy and rejuvenate the precious earth that holds you. Cut a path for a good life. It is waiting.

With a mountain of work on my desk and the very first sunny day in a long while ahead, I made the choice to hang out with Beauty. Beauty is one of four mules we rescued about five years ago. I had only wanted two, but that is another story. Never having worked with horses, mules and such, the learning curve has been steep. And of course there are countless reasons given – both inside and outside my head – why “you can’t do that.” If you read Can’t Do That part I, you know my habitual response to neh saying is “uh, huh” and then I keep moving right along.

The first time I tried to “train” Beauty, I stepped into a circle corral with him – and he let me know right away that wasn’t his plan. I moved faster than I had in 40 years. The second time, he ran off and made his way to a horse camp, pestering all the mares. After great effort, much shenanigans and cries from the men, “Anyone got a 45?” we captured him and returned him home.

Learned a lot that day. For one, a mule, though sterile, still has impulses that apparently only castration can curb. Aggression is among them. So we had a veterinarian come and do the deed and I preceded with what most considered the impossible.

Apparently everyone but me knows that mules are tough to “train”. Some mules, who just happen to look a lot like Beauty are the hardest to “train”, I keep being told.

Can’t do that.

Uh-huh.

For city folk, of which I was one, a mule is a cross between a horse and a donkey. The type of mule depends on if the mother or father was a horse. Literal followers of the Bible consider mules an abomination. I kind of like having an abomination in my front yard.

But the front yard got flooded by unusually wet December rains, and while Beauty is sporting his harness these days, he is still a long way off from being “trained”. It took a bit of effort to rework his space getting him to higher ground especially with his propensity for curiosity.

So today was our day and as I moved along his new space with him in tow I mused at the relationship we have cultivated. Oh, and the reason I use quotations around the word “trained”, I think the word should be removed from our language especially when it comes to human beings. And as I get to know my family of animals it feels as though we are in one another’s keeping. “Training” just doesn’t fit. When asked, “What are you hoping to do with him?” I simply reply, “Do? I just want to be his friend.” And so it goes, and it is possible and we can do it, Beauty and I.

Kathy L. this one’s for you…keep getting better!

I had the opportunity to converse with a young scientist, and I asked him to explain how science “polices” itself. I wanted to understand why so many scientific discoveries lead to tremendous destruction – like the atomic bomb, and bullets that travel around corners to hit human targets, etc. He told me it was not the science, but the engineers who created with the scientific discovery…and I asked, “Isn’t this is an excuse? If I created something I wouldn’t want it to slip into the hands of people who might use it to foul end. Isn’t this taking compartmentalization a bit too far”?

He tried to convince me of the importance of the scientific method and how the scientists strive to maintain that stringent and high mark. He told me it was the media and the corporations who misused science. I was impressed by his loyalty and I found in it something we share. I remembered my first tastes of loyalty – to my high school football team, to my church, to my country…and I remembered how hard it was to admit when those I had been loyal to had let me down. “It may be time to examine where your loyalty has been placed”, I said, knowing how hard this had been and sometimes still is for me, yet knowing it is a critical moment we all must face. I said, “It is important we find a way to be loyal to our humanity first”.

This is not simply the problem with the field of science, but of all human endeavor. We avert our attention when things become uncomfortable. We deny our compliancy when in fact it was our thinking, our desires, our need for power or our willingness to compromise that brought us to this moment.

Not a pretty moment in our history, but one that can be turned around.

We must find a way to uphold our humanity in uncompromising ways.

Loyalty is not the problem. Science is not the problem. Allowing inhumanity to usurp our endeavors is a problem, and it will take of each, regardless of our walk in life, to end the compromise.

The question remains, in what will we, do we, place our loyalty?

Want to change the world?

Do what is in front of you every day to the best of your ability with as much love as you can muster – for as long as you can…

Yesterday was the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, it was also the 34^th anniversary of a peace vigil held every Monday on the corner of MLK and Doty in Madison, Wisconsin. I went to honor the people who have stood for peace all through the years and to add my voice to theirs. I held an old sign that reads “It’s time for peace, stop the war.” A woman approached me and asked, “To which war does your sign refer?” I replied, “I think the war within each of us is the war we must fight to end.” That was not a satisfactory answer and she continued to prod, “so there is no war worth fighting?” I said, “the war within is enough for me.” A veteran held her attention for a bit and explained he was not a pacifist, thought that military action would never end war, but he would have fought in WWII. She pushed me further asking, “are there any good wars?” “This is not a question I want to answer,” I replied. “The question I want to ask and answer is, can I stop the war within? I think if we can do that, war on the outside would end.”

“You are naïve,” she told me. “Perhaps,” I said, “but peace will never happen if we don’t try.  I am hopeful people can change,” I said. She then honored me as she turned and walked away saying, “you are like Anne Frank. She was naïve, too.”

It takes courage, clarity and love to stand for and to be in peace. Thank you to all who keep, or have kept the vigil – in your hearts and on the street.

“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” ― Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl

I was fortunate to be raised by an Italian Grandmother who could not speak English, who tickled the earth with a hoe for her food and who baked her bread in an outdoor oven. When she died I was too young to realize my nature was being corrupted by canned and later fast food, wonder bread and the pesticides left over from WWII chemicals that found its way to American tables in the 50’s…and continues.

I was fortunate that even though my childhood front door faced an industrial complex complete with glow in the dark, cancer spewing toxins, I never lost my love of nature, and yearned for the sweet smell of morning dew on the grass and of all things of the earth.

I was fortunate that although animals were not welcomed in my family home, I never lost my respect for and wonder of all things living.

I am fortunate that my love of life has been relentless in guiding me.

And I was fortunate to be welcomed home by a Navajo Grandmother, an amazing human being, who helped me to remember what, “Your people forgot long ago…”

I have met people all over the world who have helped me remember that I belong to this Earth. That my feet are always on sacred soil, and that with each step I have the opportunity to caress the Earth with love and beauty and dignity.

I am fortunate to know that in this great turning we must again remember we are one people, one planet. This is not a debate for me. It is a fact. As more individuals own that knowing, as more live from that knowing, the thread of consciousness that ties us together will rise.  And the Walk in Beauty will be more than a prayer.

After twenty one years of trying, it seems the world “leaders” are still in a quandary over what to do about climate change. As talks proceed until December 11th in Paris, perhaps it is time to give a new round of leaders the opportunity to sit at the table and put real solutions before the world. Take time to read and understand indigenous people’s perspective on climate change. Take time to connect the dots between Syrian and Iraqi people seeking asylum and people being driven from their traditional lands by force or ecological upheaval. Read and understand and then help others understand. No more fossil fuel. Love your Mother.

http://www.idlenomore.ca/        Idle No More

http://www.ienearth.org/            Indigenous Environmental Network

http://indigenousrising.org/about/   Indigenous Rising an Indigenous Environmental Network Project

“I think there is a huge change taking place in people’s minds. My own reading is, governments will be left behind. People will walk ahead of them both in implementing solutions and in working out ways to make a transition. And the governments will have to follow.”

-Vandana Shiva, www.navdanya.org in an interview Dec 3, 2015, on As It Happens, CBC radio

In this moment it is essential that people of hope not despair.

It will take a lot of kindness and a lot of conversation – not only with people you love, but also with people you fear – to overcome the darkness of hatred and anger.

It is not enough to fight labels with labels. It is not enough to minimize another, even if you are sickened by all they say and do. It is not enough to keep to your circles of agreement. It is not enough to stop listening in order to be right. It is not enough to say when will this end?

Darkness never kept the sun from rising. The sun does what the sun must do. And so must we.

Let hope rise within you.  Wait for it, call to it. When it comes to you, fill your cup. And when your cup runs over make sure it lands where it’s needed.

Ignorance begins with the word ignore. We cannot close our eyes in this moment, and we must hone our weapons for the fight. Hope, clarity, courage, conviction, peace…

In feeling hope we are alive. In feeling peace we find our way.  However desperate these times, I know we can turn this ship around.

Each of us, one drop at a time, together.