Category Archives: Sustainability

Activism, Environmentalism, Nature, Sustainability

Imbolc Beach Cleanup

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Ever since I moved my studio out to the Long beach peninsula in Washington and started splitting my time between there and Portland, I’ve had to give up some of my responsibilities and take on others as I’ve adjusted to the change. One of the things I gave up was my adopted stretch of the Columbia River near Sauvie Island. I just didn’t have the time any more to keep up on it, especially with the increased time away. Now that I’m more settled in I’m planning to get some more volunteer time this year.

These little bits of plastic are all over the beach, especially at the lines where the tides are highest each day.

I was able to kick off that effort with the first official beach-cleaning of 2017, conveniently on the weekend after Imbolc. A few times a year people on the peninsula get together on the beach and pick up garbage, some of it kicked up by the waves, and some of it (especially during summer) left by beachgoers. The past few times I’ve always had out of town obligations, so I was excited to finally get to be a part of this past Saturday’s efforts. I pick up litter when I’m on the beach anyway, but there’s something about being part of a concerted effort, you know?

Since it’s not yet tourist season, the beach didn’t have a ton of large, fresh debris like beer cans and the like. I found some half-buried plastic bottles and bags, a couple pieces of larger plastic bins and other items broken off and tossed on the waves–and lots and lots of tiny plastic and styrofoam fragments. It’s these latter ones that concern me; that’s the sort of thing that makes up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. And they’re tough to clean up. I was out there with a cat litter scoop sifting them out of the sand, and many of them were still small enough to slip through.

Eventually I just lightly scraped the top layer of the sand to catch the little bits of plastic there, and scooped the whole thing into my bag.

Still, I managed to collect a few bags of garbage, most of which were picked up by volunteers driving by (yes, this is one of the few beaches you can drive on–not that I’m happy about it.) I got a picture of my last partly-filled bag, and a chunk of what looks like a yellow recycling tub.

On the one hand I feel discouraged because I know I barely made a dent in the plastic litter on the beach. There are SO MANY tiny fragments on the beach just from the last couple of storms; I had to stop focusing on them because I knew I had other stuff to pick up and I needed to focus my efforts on getting a larger volume of plastic out of there. It would be impossible for me to sift them all out of the sand. And yet, all I can think about is how they may eventually make their way back out to the ocean to join the great, deadly gyre of plastic debris in the middle of the Pacific.

There’s still plenty of work to do, but at least I’m not the only one trying to clean up the mess.

But I can’t let myself despair. People ARE out there trying to get this stuff cleaned up before it makes its way into the ocean. And there’s growing awareness that the best way to keep the Patch from getting bigger is to reduce the manufacture and consumption of plastic in the first place–hence why I work primarily with natural materials instead of plastics like fake fur and pleather. Hell, there are even people making new inroads into non-petroleum-based plastics that actually biodegrade!

So I’ll keep doing cleanup when and as I’m able to, and reduce my own consumption as much as I can. I may not be able to win this battle by myself, but I can at least make my contribution, one bag of plastic bits at a time.

Activism, Anthropocentrism, Cosmology, Environmentalism, Ethics, Nature, Nature Spirituality, Science, Sustainability

A Call to Action

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I tend to not get overtly political on this platform very often, but current events necessitate it.

The Environmental Protection Agency is already under attack on multiple fronts. So is the National Park Service. Less than a week in, and the new administration is already trampling over the environmental work of the past several decades like a bunch of drunk tourists deliberately stomping all over ecologically sensitive off-trail areas–or, you know, toppling precariously balanced rock formations because they think it’s funny.

I have been an environmentalist for much of my life. I worked as a field and phone canvasser in Pittsburgh for Clean Water Action. I have done many hours of volunteer time doing everything from water pollutant testing to invasive species removal. I have a Masters-level certification in ecopsychology to go along with my MA in counseling psych, and my graduate work included rigorous training on research methods, statistics, and how to interpret scientific studies. I just started coursework for the Oregon Master Naturalist certification. I read voraciously about ecology and ecosystems and how they work–and how they break if we apply too much pressure to them. I arguably know more than the majority of Americans about nature and related topics, because I make it my business to do so.

Part of how I am able to do this is through the transparency of scientific research, particularly that funded by my tax dollars. Even if it’s filtered through popular media and put in layperson’s terms, it’s still a vector for knowledge by the people and for the people. A lot of it also comes from outreach on the part of scientists, national park employees, and other experts sharing what they know with the public. We need to have that communication between specialists, and those of us who are affected by what they are working on.

In the past four days, we have seen nothing short of an assault on this communication. This isn’t just a matter of “Waaaaahhh, we don’t get to use our nifty park service Twitter accounts any more!” This is a breach of the First Amendment, specifically the freedom of speech. EPA employees are now prohibited from talking about anything related to their research–research that is not classified, and which is paid for by the public–even on their personal social media accounts.

This sets a dangerous precedent. This administration came in already screaming about how they want to dismantle the various environmental safeguards that have been built up since the 1970s–the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, the EPA–and how they want to push through the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone Access Pipeline. If they gag anyone who tries to speak out about the massive negative effects of these actions, then they win. They get their money, they line the pockets of fossil fuel executives and investors, and the long-term goal of creating a more sustainable future is sold off for short-term greed.

And we lose. I have spent the past twenty years with my finger on the pulse of conservation and environmental issues. I have read research reports and statistics. I have done field work as a citizen scientist. I am paying more attention to these things than most people give to anything. To allow President Skroob’s* administration to wipe away the hard work of the past five decades is to doom future generations.

Because this is what we had before the EPA, before the CWA and the CAA. It never ceases to amaze me how people, even otherwise intelligent people, can so easily forget the recent past. The laws and regulations that are in place are there for very good reasons–there was a definite problem, and because the people responsible refused to take responsibility, the government had to step in. It worked, and it helped the problem, and now we no longer have the Cuyahoga River on fire.

I look to the past, and I learn from it. I don’t stomp my feet and say “BUT I WANT MORE MONEY AND THE EPA IS IN THE WAY OF ME GETTING MORE MONEY!” I look at the condition the environment was in when the EPA was formed, when the CWA and CAA and other important environmental laws were enacted. I look at the reasons for those things.

I look to the present, and I examine it. I look at all the work that STILL has to be done to repair the damage we’ve done. I read research that came about in part because of the water testing I did on the Columbia River for the better part of a year. I pull Scotch broom and other invasive plants out of the soil on the land in Washington that I am helping to rehabilitate. I consider how the laws in place can help further improve and stabilize these and other damaged places.

I look to the future, and I hope for it. I am only here for a few more decades, if I’m lucky. But there will be humans on this planet likely for many centuries to come, and I want them to have a good life. Part of that includes healthy air to breathe and clean water to drink, and the biodiversity that is necessary to maintain both and more. And that’s not going to happen if Skroob and his ilk have their way.

So I offer you a few quick things you can to do help:

–Contact your elected officials. Phone is best, but email works too. Tell them your concerns, Give them specifics. Contact them any time an issue comes up that you want them to work toward fixing. Even if they’re against your view–especially if they are–give ’em hell anyway. Here’s an easy way to find who your elected officials are.

–If you have Twitter, follow the Alternative US National Park Service account, where national park employees are anonymously sharing important information. Oh, and a healthy dash of snark, too. Same goes for the BadIands (note the I instead of L) NPS account.

–Read about the Scientists’ March on Washington, and consider volunteering toward that effort. Scientific illiteracy is becoming more prevalent, especially as our public education system continues to degrade due to lack of funding, and as the culture of deliberate ignorance rises.

–If you have a few dollars to spare, consider donating to the National Parks Service. I’m guessing that by the time Skroob is out of office the NPS’s already inadequate federal funding will be even more thin on the ground.

–Most importantly, keep educating yourself on environmental issues. Listen to the people actually doing the work, not the talking heads trying to squeeze more cash out of the system at the expense of everyone else. Read books and magazines. Watch documentaries on Netflix. If you can, take science classes at your local community college–you don’t have to actually work toward a degree. Go to seminars, meetups, group hikes led by naturalists, anything that gives you a chance to learn. Learning shouldn’t stop once you’re done with school. Let your curiosity guide you!

These are dangerous times, and it’s going to be hard to not feel despair. (I recommend the writings of Joanna Macy as a good antidote.) Engage in self-care when and as you need to, and keep building your resilience. If you feel all alone, remember that at least I’m here with you in this fight, and I have a pretty good bunch of people at my side, too.

We’re in this together.

*I refuse to refer to our current president by his name. Instead, I shall compare him to the commander-in-chief in Spaceballs, and apologize to Mel Brooks for any insult.

Anthropocentrism, Bioregion, Body Modifications, Cosmology, Death, Environmentalism, Ethics, Health and Healing, Nature, Nature Spirituality, Paganism, Rites of Passage, Sustainability, Way of the Scavenger

A Pagan Argument For Organ Donation

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I am an organ donor. Or at least a potential one, in the event of my death. I’ve been signed up for over a decade through my various state driver’s licenses. I’m also on the bone marrow donor registry at Be the Match. I haven’t yet been a match for anyone, but I’m there for the call if they need me. (For what it’s worth, they really need people of color to increase potential donors for non-white patients, since white people like me are less likely to be a match for non-white donors thanks to tissue typing. But I encourage anyone who can join to do so, regardless of your race.)

I consider it an important part of my spiritual path to be a potential donor. I’m not especially invested in any particular idea about the afterlife, if there even is one. All I have guaranteed is the here and now, and what I have here and now is a body that I borrowed from the Earth. Every atom in my body came from food I consumed, water I drank, air I breathed. And when I die, I’m going to have to give it all back; I’m a huge proponent of green burial, by the way, and I’d like a spot at Herland Forest.

But not all of me may end up in that ground. If, when I die, my organs are still in good enough condition, I’d like them to go to people who need them. After all, I’m certainly not going to need them. I’ll be dead, and the worms and bacteria and other little critters won’t care that there’s no liver, or I’m missing an eyeball or two. I could selfishly say that since I am against embalming I refuse to allow any part of my body to be embalmed, and therefore refuse to be a donor on the grounds that it’s likely when the recipients die they’ll end up full of embalming fluids–to include my old spare parts. But as I said, that’s selfish, and I’ll sacrifice a few pieces if it means someone else gets to enjoy this world a little longer.

I’m not at all worried about not making it into some possible afterlife because my body wasn’t complete. Do soldiers who lose body parts in combat not get to go to the next life? What about tradespeople who end up losing a finger to machinery, or someone who had their original teeth knocked out in an auto accident? Hell, what about pagans who donate blood and plasma? I mean, really, we’re shedding hair and skin cells all the damned time, and we aren’t able to vacuum them up again, store them in bags and then take them with us to the grave. (Ewww. No, really, ewwww.)

Loss is normal. Other animals run around in the wilderness all the time with missing toes, shortened tails, cropped ears from fights, accidents, frostbite. Our medical technology just allows us to save more damaged bits and parts. The idea that only someone with a “whole” body gets to go to the afterlife just seems antithetical to reality. I mean, I had a large lipoma removed from my hip when I was seventeen. I’m sure it got sent to an incinerator (if it wasn’t plopped into a jar of preservative as a study specimen for students). It left a pretty big scar (which, quite honestly, I think looks really damned cool.) I also had my wisdom teeth removed a few years later. Am I automatically denied an afterlife, if such a thing even exists? Better to bank on what I know I have for sure–this life, and this world–than gamble valuable resources on the idea that there’s something after death and that somehow the integrity of my borrowed, physical body matters there.

I’ve heard arguments that organ donation is against environmental ethics. I am keenly aware of the fact that we have 7 billion humans and counting on this planet; it’s one of the biggest reasons I chose not to have children. Some of the population rise is because people are living longer overall. Organ donation helps facilitate that, though it’s hardly the biggest factor. I don’t think helping organ recipients live a few years longer (or even decades, as we improve post-transplant medicine) is that big an impact compared to how poorly people use natural resources. We could be a lot wiser with our consumption, make birth control and information on how to use it universally available to lower the birth rate, and make room for a few successful organ recipients while we’re at it.

I’ve also seen it said that organ donors are “cheating death”. Well, so what? I cheated death several years ago. I had a nasty case of diverticulitis that turned into peritonitis that put me on 48 hours of IV antibiotics, and I likely would have died had I not gotten that medical attention. Should I have just let nature take its course and died at the age of 31? Taken a chance on some herbs maybe working quickly enough to kill the fast-moving infection in time? Would you prefer I wasn’t here? And would you like to tell organ recipients that they should have died instead? Because that is what I hear people say when they say organ recipients cheat death.

Finally, I feel a responsibility toward other humans to make what resources I am no longer using available to them. It’s a little more complicated than dropping unwanted clothing off at a shelter or taking excess art supplies to SCRAP, but the concept is the same to me. Some people refuse to donate because they think their organs will be wasted on those who in their mind don’t “deserve” them, or who won’t survive long post-transplant. Sure, my heart may go to someone who end up dying six months later because it just didn’t “take”. But it might also go to someone who gets to live another decade, in which they may finish that book they were writing, plant trees for future generations to enjoy, or simply bask in a few more glorious sunsets. My corneas may end up with someone who dies in an auto accident three years later–but then given that over 90% of cornea transplants are successful, they got three years of sight they wouldn’t have had otherwise. No one knows for sure who will get my spare parts, and as I’d be dead I’d have no control over it. But isn’t death the ultimate act of losing control anyway?

As a naturalist pagan, my primary loyalty is to this world and the beings I share it with. And it’s because I feel so deeply for all of this that I want to make the best use of what I have to offer, down to my very mortal remains. You may have very valid reasons for not being a donor, and I respect your reasons, and if applicable your disagreement. But for me, organ donation is just one more part of my spiritual path, one that will continue my journey beyond death itself–even if I’m not around to see it happen.

Go here for information about being an organ and tissue donor in the U.S.

Go here for information on being a bone marrow donor in the U.S.

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Anthropocentrism, Ethics, Food, Gardening, Nature, Nature Spirituality, Plants, Sustainability

Of Course My Priority is a Garden

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This past weekend I headed up to the coast house with my partner and our roommate for an overnight. The plan was to take measurements in my studio-to-be so I could figure out what I was taking in the way of furniture. I also wanted to get the old garden behind the garage covered over with tarps to kill off the weeds and other plants that had taken residence over several years of neglect. My goal is to be able to start planting in there by the start of June, but if that’s going to happen I’d need to get started on overhauling the space now.

beforeWhat I seem to have forgotten in the week between the two visits to the house is that the garden had been unattended long enough that several small trees were growing there. So it wouldn’t be a matter of just throwing down tarps and calling it good. No, we’d have to go in and remove the trees, as well as tamp down other plants so they could be covered, along with uprooting a bit of English ivy that had somehow managed to take root in one corner (it’s nasty, pernicious stuff that will take over if you aren’t careful).

I see the killing of plants as a weighty matter in the same way I view the killing of animals. In either case I am taking away a being’s place in this world. And because we’ve been conditioned to see trees as extra-special (compared to, say, dandelions) it somehow feels more difficult to fell a tree than pull out invasive ivy. So before my partners in gardening came down from the house to help, I said my apologies to every one of the plants in that space. I think I said an extra apology to the trees, though.

duringHowever, the land isn’t hurting for trees, not in the least. In fact, they need thinning, particularly where they’ve intruded onto the dunes, and where a lack of fire and old growth has made the forest grow thicker than is healthy. And in the long run what I’m doing will be more beneficial to the world in other ways. By growing even more of my own food (I’m also keeping the community garden plot in Portland and my roommate has signed on as a co-gardener) I can cut down on reliance on monocropped produce from the stores, particularly since I can’t always afford the organic option. It’s a good reminder of why I need to be close to the land. And it’s great exercise.

We were all reminded of that last bit as we started in on the preparation of the plot behind the garage. I chopped down seven young fir trees and an alder that was threatening to take down the fence using a pair of clippers and a hand axe. S., my partner (and ever the historical swordsman) helped with the alder using a reproduction Civil War-era Bowie knife (more of a small sword than a pocket knife). J., our roommate, went after the overflow of grass with much gusto, and by the time all was said and done we were tired and sweaty, but the tarps were down and weighted with whatever heavy items we could find (to include, perhaps macabrely, the fir trees I had cut down).

afterI figure I’ll leave the tarps for a month or so, then rake up whatever’s underneath into a compost pile, turn the soil and remove whatever roots I find. The tree stumps will be a bit more of a challenge but I can work around them if need be. I want to send in a soil sample, too, to see what condition it’s in–obviously it’s been supporting a variety of life, so it’s not sterile. But I’m curious, particularly since the garden is a raised bed and the soil was likely brought in by truck.

I’ll be moving my studio out to the house next week, but I already feel a little more at home knowing I have a garden in the works.

Want to help my garden grow–and help me survive a crazy month full of moving, taxes and other expenditures? Consider buying one of my books, or purchasing artwork from my Etsy shop, or even request a totem card reading!

Activism, Anthropocentrism, Bioregion, Cosmology, Environmentalism, Ethics, Nature, Nature Spirituality, Paganism, Sustainability

It’s Easy to be Pagan in the Wild

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It’s easy to be pagan in the wild. It’s easy to find the heart of a nature-based pagan path when you’re immersed in a quiet forest or secluded desert highway. Connecting with the divine is a simpler act when your breath catches at the sight of a graceful doe or soaring raptor. Inspiration flows when viewing a wild river or the pounding waves.

It takes more effort to see the sacred in human-dominated places, where we have so changed the landscape that it’s hard to see what was there before our arrival. Cow pastures and corn fields at least give us some green, growing things to look at and wonder upon. But what about deep within cities, with graffiti-tinged cement and stinking hot asphalt under the burning summer sun? Where is the sacred in a clearcut, or a landfill, or a mountaintop mine?

To me, everything is sacred and deserving of reverence–every bit of it. If anything, it is the missing peaks and filth-choked rivers that need reverence even more, for we have forgotten they are holy. We turn away from them in their time of distress, and seek out places that are more pure and easier to be with. Even I, after fifteen years of brick and concrete and steel, have finally found an avenue to escape for more than a few days at a time–and I’m taking it, by gods.

Like any human animal, by sheer weight of evolution alone I need the respite of relatively untrammeled places, where I can remember that I am a part of a vibrant, multi-species community. All those who work toward a better world need space to care for themselves, places where the fire is not burning so hot, away from the storm-stripped tornado’s path. It is a privilege to be able to step away from war and squalor, to only see refugee camps on television and not in person–or at home. And we share the effects of that privilege by diving back into the fray once we’ve had some time to recover.

It’s hard to look upon the damaged and destroyed. But if we are going to be truly naturalist pagans–nature-based in word and deed–we can’t look away forever. Nature is all things, us included, and to deny ourselves a place in that community, and the responsibilities that come with it, only enables further destruction. We have to celebrate the places that are no more than haunts, those that have been uprooted, those that have evaporated entirely. We need to find the sacred in traumatized eyes and bleeding wounds, in toxins suffusing soil and oil spreading through the Gulf, in the poacher’s rifle and the developer’s plans.

This does not mean we have to accept that things must stay their current course. We can work to move the momentum of an entire world in a healthier, more sustainable direction. We can extend our hands to those in need, human and not, and pull them out of dire circumstances.

But in order to do so, we must be willing to engage with all of it. We must not look away all the time. We must be as pagan in the city as we are in the wild.

Did you enjoy this post? Please consider buying my newest book, Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up, which is meant for people in any setting to connect with nature, whether urban, rural or somewhere in between.

Activism, Environmentalism, Health and Healing, Meaning, Nature, Psychology, Sustainability

Star Wars, Despair, and the Future of the World

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Over Christmas, I did my nerdly duty and saw the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. I won’t spoil it for you who haven’t seen it yet; suffice it to say that it had more than enough high-speed escapes from TIE Fighters, dramatic twists, and splashes of humor to remind me why I’ve been looking forward to this film. But by the end of it I was feeling despondent, and not just because I have to wait a loooong time to see the next one.

Despite the fact that Star Wars happened “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, 99% of space-based science fiction asks us to imagine forward, not back, so it’s easy to forget that it’s not a futuristic tale. And I found myself thinking when I walked out of the theater, “We don’t have a future”. Although I try to limit my media intake to what’s necessary, and balance it out with things like cute animal pictures and video game breaks, I’m still all too aware of the critical point we’re at with regards to climate change, ocean ecosystem collapse, loss of endangered species, and other environmental disasters. And so when the movie ended, so did my distraction from these overwhelming problems.

Beyond the distraction and the drop, The Force Awakens (and plenty of other movies) presents a massive enemy with potentially planet-destroying capabilities, something we know all too well. But everything works out in the end, the enemy is routed, and the whole story wraps up neatly in less than three hours. What should happen is that I should come out of the theater inspired to go fight the good fight anew. Instead, I found myself in deep despair.

It’s the same thing that happened to me after I went to see Tomorrowland earlier this year. In the same way the Star Wars franchise shows ways to defeat the Enemy (even as it regenerates in many disguises), Tomorrowland asks us to imagine a positive future, the possibility of better things than the current media-driven dystopia we seem to be hurtling toward. I hate that it was a box office flop; a lot of people could have used the messages it conveyed about how we don’t have to give in to the inevitability of an ever-worse world.

Yet even I can’t grab hold of that optimism. I’m not fooled by movies’ promises of simple answers to complex problems. As soon as the credits roll, I feel the weight of the world settle back onto my shoulders, and it hurts. I grieve. I get angry at the idea that all we need is the right heroes to come along and save the day. And I start to drown in perceived helplessness; I have no X-wing starfighter that miraculously avoids getting hit by enemy fire. I have no super powers, or advanced technology funded by Stark Industries or Wayne Enterprises. There no Q or Professor X to hand down much-needed information and wisdom to those who work to save the day.

So each time this happens I turn to my partner, my beloved, who knows my weaknesses and flaws and loves me anyway. He is an eternal optimist, but a realist. He knows the worst humanity can do, and yet believes in us anyway. I lay my sadness on him, and he carefully opens it up to see where it comes from. And then he gives me balance and perspective. Yes, there are horrible people with too much money and power, but there are also those who use their resources for the benefit of others. Yes, cynicism is often well-deserved, but that should not be the end of hope. Yes, our problems can’t be fixed with a well-aimed barrage of lasers and proton torpedoes, but there are people who are trying to enact very real solutions, just at a slower pace and smaller scale.

And then he tells me to go read the stack of publications that the various environmental groups I support send me each month. He says to focus especially on their victories and successes, and how even in the face of a battle lost they never give up the war. And so I immerse myself in the good news, often on conflicts and issues that they’ve been working on for years. I have to remember that sometimes I just have to sit back and enjoy the win, without letting the specter of “But the bad guys will attack again” loom over me. I go back over the positive messages of the movies I watch, and I absorb them, and I let their idealism inspire me.

I still often feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenges we face. It’s the price I pay for being aware of them, and refusing to spend my entire life in an ongoing search for more distractions. But I’m slowly trying to regain the optimism of my younger days, when I was less tired, and temper it with the experience I’ve had as I get older. There are still no simple solutions to complex problems; I don’t even believe that much in “good guys vs. bad guys” any more, only seven billion humans stumbling around trying to figure out what the hell is happening.

And so as I prepare to step into the new year, I resolve to keep taking care of myself, including in–especially in–my times of despair. I continue to heal the ongoing trauma of the destruction of my world, even as I fight to save it in my own way. I will still have the times when I have to ask for help. But that’s okay. In the movies every hero has support, and in the real world every person fighting to make things better has their allies. I need not carry all the weight of the world on my shoulders; we’re all carrying our own piece of it, and even if we can’t find a way to put it down for good in three hours or less, it doesn’t make us any less strong.

 

Animals, Artwork, Book Reviews, Books, Cosmology, Death, Environmentalism, Meaning, Nature, Nature Spirituality, Paganism, Rites of Passage, Science, Seasons, Sustainability

Book Review Roundup

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I wish I had more time to read; sadly, at least until the Tarot of Bones is done my time is going to be pretty chewed up with work. I have managed to finish a few books, though, and I wanted to offer up a selection of mini-reviews for your enjoyment!

Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, Volume 1
Hope Nicholson, editor
Alternate History Comics, 2015
176 pages

I was a backer of the Kickstarter that funded the publication of this incredible comics collection. Over two dozen indigenous writers and artists came together to share stories from their cultures; some are intensely personal, while others are community tales little told outside of their own people. Despite a wide variety of writing and artistic styles, the collection has a strong cohesion, and flows from mixed media poetry to science fiction to traditional storytelling like a well-worn riverbed. I highly recommend this collection to anyone seeking an excellent read, whether you’re normally a comics reader or not.

Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants
Robert Sullivan
Bloomsbury, 2004
252 pages

I borrowed this one from my sweetie, who recommended it highly. I’m a sucker for detailed looks at individual species, but tailored for the layperson so there’s more of a narrative to it. This exploration of New York City’s brown rats successfully blends natural and human history with anecdotes and humor, and is at least as much about the city itself as the critters hiding in its corners. It’s not always a nice book; there are descriptions of plague and death, extermination and suffering. Yet if you’ve felt that the intelligent, resourceful rat simply hasn’t gotten its proper due, this may be the book to wave at people who want nothing more than to see them all poisoned and trapped to extinction. I certainly came away with a greater appreciation for my quiet neighbors that I occasionally see when out on late-night walks.

The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
Richard Dawkins
Houghton Mifflin, 2004
688 pages

I’m not going to get into Dawkins’ views on religion here, so let’s just leave that aside. What I do admire is any attempt to make science accessible to laypeople without excessively dumbing it down, and despite being almost 700 pages long, The Ancestor’s Tale does just that. I have a serious love for evolutionary theory, and what this book does is present the long line of evolution that led specifically to us, starting with the very first spark of life on this planet. Better yet, Dawkins draws inspiration from the format of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and as each chapter introduces a new ancestor or very near relative in our past, we are given the image of an ever-growing pilgrimage to the dawn of life. I was absolutely fascinated by every page in this book, as I learned about everything from the first tetrapods to how sexual dimorphism developed, from evolutionary explosions and extinctions to the very first multicellular animals. And because we get to start with ourselves, everything is made more relevant to us, keeping our interest even more firmly invested in who we’ll meet next. A must for any of my fellow nature nerds out there.

Rituals of Celebration: Honoring the Seasons of Life Through the Wheel of the Year
Jane Meredith
Llewellyn Publications, 2013
336 pages

Some of us know exactly what we’re going to do when each Sabbat arises. Others…not so much. If you’ve been stuck trying to figure out how to make the next solstice more interesting, or you need some variety as you bring your children into family spiritual traditions, this is a book full of inspirations! Meredith takes the time to explain each Sabbat in more depth than many books do, and offers up anecdotes of her own sacred experiences. Rituals and activities flesh out the book in a more practical manner, offering readers concrete ways to incorporate the spirit of each Sabbat into their own celebrations. A fabulous book both for beginners, and those wanting to shake up their established practice in a good way.

Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
Terry Tempest Williams
Vintage Books, 1991
336 pages

You would think that as much as I love nature writing I would have read one of Williams’ books before, but somehow she eluded me until recently. I should have caught up to her sooner. In Refuge, she weaves together the tumultuous existence of a wetland on the brink of extinction, her mother’s battle with cancer, and the intricate threads these events entangle into the lives of Williams and her family. Three is spirit, there is nature, there is history, and yet all these seem as though they cannot be separated from each other. Just as in an ecosystem, the part is little without the whole. If ever there was a doubt that we were still a part of the natural world, Williams puts that doubt to rest. Prepare to cry, and to reflect, but please–do read this book.

Artwork, Creativity, Environmentalism, Sustainability

In Pursuit of Less Plastic: Acrylics vs. Tempera Paint

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Earlier this year I talked about my dislike of plastics in my art supplies, and how challenging it can be to find materials that don’t include petroleum-based synthetics. I already discussed the pros of using real fur (and, by extension, real leather) over plastic-based fake hides, and now I’d like to delve into a series of posts in which I try to find better alternatives to my usual materials.

(You can click on any of the images in this post to get bigger versions of them.)

The Contenders: Acrylic and Tempera

One of the most obvious sources of plastic in my art is acrylic paint. I use it for detailing headdresses and other hides, decorating pouches and other creations, and in my assemblage work. Acrylic paint combines pigments with an acrylic polymer emulsion, and water as the liquid vehicle. The water content allows the paint to dry much more quickly than oils, though early acrylics used mineral spirits instead of water for the same effect. As with almost all paints today, the pigments themselves are also usually synthetic or inorganic, though a few may still use organic pigments.

Since I’m a cheapskate, and I don’t actually like the thicker texture of professional-grade acrylics, I get the buck-fifty tubes of acrylic paint that are popular at craft stores. I find that the thinner texture works better for painting on leather and the like anyway; I very rarely use canvas, and even then the thicker texture still makes me unhappy. Most of my acrylics are actually secondhand; between the thrift stores and SCRAP I can get a whole rainbow of colors for way less than I’d pay new, and even if the bottles aren’t full the paint’s still perfectly usable. The only times I buy new acrylics are when I need to restock on colors I use frequently, like black, white and burnt umber, and I don’t have time to go searching through tubs and bags of secondhand bottles for the right shade.

I decided one way I could potentially cut down on my plastic consumption was by buying tempera paints, since I’d heard they had a lower plastic content. I admit I grabbed my first set of temperas on a whim when I was at Fred Meyer (a regional chain of grocery/housewares/etc. stores run by Kroger). I don’t have a Michael’s nearby, so Freddy’s little aisle of limited art supplies is my go-to for when I need something really quickly–or when I remember I need paint or glue while grocery shopping. Plus I figure a lot of people will be similarly convenience-minded, so I wanted to speak to that first before diving into slightly more obscure materials.

Fred Meyer’s only tempera option is Pro Art, a company based in Beaverton, Oregon. They have a pretty limited selection of pint volume bottles, about eight or nine in the usual primary colors, black, white, and a few others. I grabbed the black, white, green and brown since those are the colors I use the most. I had also nabbed some Pro Art copper tempera paint at Columbia Art & Drafting Supply in Portland since I couldn’t find copper acrylic anywhere (this was before I’d had the idea to test tempera paints as an alternative to acrylics). Since metallic paints sometimes behave and wear a little differently than their less sparkly companions, I figured this would be a good addition to the lineup.

Examining the Contents

paints2While my acrylics are from a number of manufacturers due to their primarily secondhand nature, I decided to use the bottle of black I originally bought new as the primary comparison against the black tempera. The resident acrylic brand at Freddy’s, Delta Ceramcoat, is made by Plaid, who also manufactures Apple Barrel and FolkArt, the other two commonly found “little bottle” acrylic paints. On inspecting the labels of both the bottles of black paint, I found both conform to ASTM D-4236, which means they’re “non-toxic”. All that means is they aren’t immediately poisonous if you get some on your skin or accidentally swallow some. Obviously you don’t want to drink bottles of paint or get it in your eyes, but they’re less of a problem than, say, vermilion red oil paint made with cinnabar, which contains mercury. Both are also manufactured in the U.S., always a plus in my book.

However, Pro Art’s tempera paint has something very important that Ceramcoat’s acrylic doesn’t: a list of ingredients. There are no laws requiring paint manufacturers to include ingredients on the label, but Pro Art considers it “Right to Know Information”. Brownie points to them, then! The first ingredient listed in water, unsurprisingly, and then calcium carbonate, which is the same stuff that makes up limestone, chalk, coral and the like. Then there’s “Pigments”, with the specific “P.Bk.11”, which doesn’t tell us much. Ingredient four is the one that I didn’t notice til after I’d bought the paint: a proprietary blend of acrylic thickeners. Since there are no percentages given for the amount of each ingredient, I have no way of telling whether there’s less acrylic in an ounce of this tempera paint than in my usual acrylics. And below that is a preservative labeled CAS 4080-31-3. As it turns out, that’s the code for Quaternium-15 (examethylenetetramine chloroallyl chloride), an ammonium salt containing formaldehyde, and which is a known skin irritant for some people.

Since there aren’t any ingredient lists for Ceramcoat’s acrylics, I have no idea whether it’s even more toxic. But I have to still give kudos to Pro Art for their transparency. If I’m going to switch over to them for my quick-fix paint emergencies, I do need to test their product against Ceramcoat’s.

Performance Comparison

paints3I used some leather scraps for testing out the paints to see which I liked better. These first three patches are just a basic test for color and coverage; the top rows on the left and right patches are acrylics, the bottom tempera. The left and center are smooth leather, the right is suede. For the piece in the center with two black streaks, the left is acrylic and the right tempera. The black and white paints are exact matches; for the brown and green I did my best to match acrylics from my existing stock to the tempera shades. Since copper is a harder color to find, I had to go with whatever was available to me.

Right away I noticed the Pro Art tempera paints had a bit more body and viscosity than the acrylics, but nowhere near enough to affect their performance. They still laid down on the leather smoothly and without big clumps or ridges, and dried nice and flat. What I did notice was that, especially for the white and green, the tempera covered better with a single coat, even in the cases of the black and white paints where both the acrylics and tempera were bought brand new. This is a definite plus since the less paint I have to use, the better. And they did equally well on both smooth leather and suede.

paints4The one disappointment was the copper tempera paint by Pro Art. Where the other colors were vibrant and rich, and the paint coated easily, the copper was pale and the texture watery and thin. And the color was a lot less exciting compared to the copper acrylic. The pigments in the tempera were listed as “micaceous”, which leads me to believe actual mica was used in the pigmentation. This is a great idea; I think they just need to amp up the red tone in whatever their pigment mix is.

I found that for blending and layering, acrylics and temperas worked about the same, though since temperas are a little more viscous I found blending them to be a bit easier with the same amount of paint. Because acrylics and tempera both dry quickly and at about the same rate, any blending still needs to be done immediately. Sure, you can get slow-drying medium to add to the acrylics, but that just adds in more cost and chemical load. Since the temperas (other than the copper) are a bit thicker, you’ll need less per layer.

wearAs to durability? On smooth leather without sealant, acrylic holds up to being rigorously rubbed with a fingertip, while tempera wears off very quickly. However, on suede both held up just fine even without sealant. As with all painted leather, eventually both will likely crack and wear just from the movement of the leather, but with the right sealant tempera performs just as well as acrylic. The photo on the right shows unsealed black paint, an sealed brown (acrylic on top, tempera on bottom) after being distressed with a fingertip.

The Verdict?

While I’m still not happy with the acrylic content and preservatives in Pro Art’s tempera paint, the fact that they disclose those ingredients is a point in their favor. Additionally, I like supporting local businesses. So for my “I need white paint NOW and it’s 10:30 at night” emergencies, I’ll run to Fred Meyer and get a bottle of Pro Art. Otherwise, I’m going to keep buying secondhand bottles of acrylics from local thrift stores, and supplement with CeramCoat when there’s a color I need a lot of and Pro Art doesn’t make it.

For my next post, I’d like to explore a different brand of tempera paint that doesn’t have any acrylic content and see how it stands up to the test. After that, there’s a package of Earth Paints sitting here waiting to be tried out. Let’s see how my attempts to reduce the plastic content in my work goes, shall we?

Activism, Animal Totems, Anthropocentrism, Bioregion, Books, Cosmology, Environmentalism, Ethics, Fungus Totems, Health and Healing, Meaning, My Books, Paganism, Plant Totems, Psychology, Rites of Passage, Rituals, Sustainability, Totems, Wonder and Awe, Writing

Some Thoughts on Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up

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Last night I finished looking over the proofs for my next book, Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up, which will be coming out in January 2016. One of the things that struck me was how much of the book is spent simply showing readers how to connect with the land they live with. Most books on totemism and nature spirits give a bit of context, and then leap into the “how to find your guide” exercises. It’s not until the very last bit of the second chapter that we even start trying to contact totems. Even after that point, many of the exercises are intimately linked to the physical land, getting people outside and in direct contact where possible (though the material is still accessible to those who may be housebound).

Here in the U.S., most people are critically detached from the rest of nature, at least in their perception. This book is meant to help them reconnect, not just for self-help, but because we live in such an acutely anthropocentric world that we rarely consider the effects of our actions on the other beings in the world (to include other human beings). The problem seems immense: few of us give any thought to our environmental impact, either in part or in whole. When we are unwillingly confronted with it, it’s often in the most catastrophic manners–global climate change, mass deforestation, entire species disappearing overnight. We’ve learned to simply shut off the part that cares about nature any further than maybe sorting the recycling every week.

We’re afraid to care, because caring hurts. It’s hard to find hope in a world where the environmental news is largely bad. As far as I’m concerned, though, where there’s life, there’s hope. And I want to help people find that hope as a motivator to making the world–not just themselves–healthier and better. But because we’re used to seeing “THE ENVIRONMENT” as one big global problem, I reintroduce people to their local land–their bioregion–first in small steps, and then greater ones.

Some of that may be old hat to my nature pagan compatriots. After all, we’ve been hiking and wildcrafting and paying attention to the rest of nature for years. But this book isn’t only meant for the proverbial choir. There are plenty of people interested in non-indigenous totemism who wouldn’t describe themselves as “pagan”. Some of them are looking for self-improvement; others have some inkling that a being is trying to contact them, but they aren’t sure how to proceed. Still others want to feel connected to the greater world around them, but are too used to heavily structured spiritual paths that allow little room for personal experience.

That personal experience is absolutely crucial to my writing and the exercises I offer readers. If we’re going to reconnect with the rest of nature, we have to make it relevant to our own lives. Most of us in this country are used to being preached at, something the dominant religion is good at. But we quickly learn to tune it out, the same way we often tune out the messages about how horrible we are in our environmental practices.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about human psychology, it’s that most of us don’t do well when we’re being yelled at. There really is something to that whole “you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar” adage. Environmental scare headlines try to terrify people into reconnecting enough to take responsibility, but that approach can be counterproductive. By making reconnection a positive, constructive and appealing concept, I hope to get people interested not just in their own personal spirituality, but how that spirituality is set in a greater world context.

From the beginning, Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up talks about the importance of totemism in relation to entire ecosystems, not just “me, me, me, what can I get out of having a totem?” Most of the books I’ve read on the topic are mostly about how the reader can connect with individual totems; there’s very little about the context all that happens in. And that goes right back into the anthropocentrism I’m trying to counteract,.

I’ve had the occasional reviewer complain that the material in my books isn’t “hardcore” enough because I rely primarily on guided meditations and accessible excursions into open areas, that I’m not telling people how to take hallucinogenic plants and soar off into the spirit world, or spend twenty days fasting in the wilderness. Well, of course not! That’s not the kind of thing that I think can be appropriately–or safely–conveyed through a book. Most people simply aren’t cut out for that much hardship and risk, and I don’t think they should be denied this sort of spirituality simply because their bodies or minds may not be able to handle ordeals, or because they lack the money to travel to remote locations in South America for entheogenic training.

As an author (and by extension a teacher) it’s my job to meet people where they’re at and help them explore someplace new. I am a product of my culture, and so is my writing. I am not part of a culture that lives close to the land and its harsh realities; mine is conveniently cushioned through technology and the idea that we are superior animals to the rest of the world. We don’t have a culture-wide system for intense rites of passage or life-changing altered states of consciousness. And I don’t have the qualifications to single-handedly create such a system, beyond what help with personal rites I can give as a Masters-level mental health counselor.

So are my practices gentler than traditional indigenous practices worldwide? Absolutely. That’s what most people in my culture can reasonably handle at this point. Trying to force them into something more intense would go over about as well as Captain Howdy’s rantings about “being awakened” in Strangeland. Sure, sudden and seemingly catastrophic experiences can cause a person to reach higher levels of inner strength and ability–but they can also cause severe physical and psychological trauma, or even kill. And, again, since we don’t have a culture in which everyone goes through an intense rite of passage at a certain age (such as adulthood), we can’t expect everyone to accept such a thing immediately.

Maybe that’s not what we need, anyway. Plenty of people engage in outdoor, nature-loving activities like backpacking, kayaking and rock climbing without the foremost notion being that they’re going into some intensely scary and dangerous place that could kill them in a moment. Most experienced outdoors people are fully aware of the risks and take necessary precautions, but their primary intent is connecting in a positive way with the rest of nature.

I think it’s okay for our nature spirituality to be the same way. I don’t think we always have to work things up as “BEWARE NATURE WILL KILL YOU AND YOU HAVE TO DO THINGS THAT COULD POSSIBLY KILL YOU IN ORDER TO FIND GUIDANCE”. I’ve spent almost twenty years gradually rediscovering my childhood love of the outdoors and its denizens, as well as developing a deeper appreciation for it. I’ve had plenty of transformative experiences without fasts or hallucinogens, and they’ve served to both improve myself as a person AND make me feel even more connected to and responsible for the rest of nature.

Does that mean there’s no place for ordeals? No; they have their place for the people who respond well to them. But they shouldn’t be held up as the one and only way to do nature spirit work. Again: meet people where they’re at, whether that’s on the couch or on the trail. You’ll reach more people, and create change on a broader scale as more people participate in the ways they’re able. And isn’t that change ultimately what we’re after, those of us who want to save the world?

Like this post? Please consider pre-ordering a copy of Nature Spirituality From the Ground Up: Connect With Totems In Your Ecosystem!

Activism, Artwork, Environmentalism, Ethics, Science, Skin Spirits, Sustainability, Way of the Scavenger

Dear Fellow Artist: No, I Will Not Use Fake Fur, and Here’s Why

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This morning I got a message from another user on Etsy who shall remain anonymous. Unfortunately they seem to have deleted their shop shortly after they sent the message, so I was unable to respond to them directly. However, they raise a question that I get a fair bit  in my artwork with hides and bones, so I thought I’d reproduce it here, both in case the querent happens to see it, and for general information. Their original question was:

Hello, I’m a cute fairy who want to present my grand faux fur wrap to you. My faux fur is soft and warm enough. I think you will like it very much. So if you can use my good quality fur instead of animal’s “Clothing”, You and animals will be warm in winter and these cute guys will spend their Christmas eve with their family, too. I hope you can agree with my idea. Best wishes for your business on Etsy.

Here’s the response I would have given them:

Good morning,

Thank you for your inquiry. I am assuming you are attempting to get me to switch over to fake fur in the hopes of saving the lives of animals. While I appreciate your intent, I have very good reasons for not working with fake fur, to include not wanting to cause the deaths of animals. (Feel free to click the links in the following paragraphs for supporting evidence of what I’m about to write.)

See, all that fake fur you were trying to sell me? It’s made of plastic, specifically nylon, acrylic and polyester. Do you know what plastic is made of? That’s right: petroleum. The petroleum industry accounts for the direct deaths of millions upon millions of living beings each year, from birds and sea mammals to the tiny microscopic beings that make up the backbone of ocean ecosystems. 4,000 tons of oil were spilled in 2014, and that’s just from spills that were actually reported to authorities. Given that in 2013 there were almost 300 unreported oil spills in North Dakota alone, we can only imagine how many more go unreported worldwide, especially in countries with fewer or weaker regulations than the United States. This is to say nothing of the air, water and land pollution caused by oil drilling, which is sometimes done in ecologically fragile places like the Arctic, where the damage can take decades to be reversed. And since habitat destruction is the single most devastating cause of species endangerment and extinction, the amount of habitat destruction wrought by oil drilling operations should be of note. In fact, here are just a few examples of how oil spills negatively impact the environment, both short term and long term.

But that’s just the process of getting the oil out of the ground. It then has to be piped thousands of miles, leading to more spills–here’s a list of known spills in the U.S. just in the 21st century. Then it has to be turned into plastic, an energy-intensive process that not only uses more fossil fuels for production, but can also use natural gas, coal and other potentially polluting materials in the manufacture of the plastic itself. The process of creating plastic often also creates harmful chemicals such as BPA, and can release up to 500 million tons of greenhouse gases per year. This isn’t even including all the effects of the dyes used to color it (PDF here.)

Then that plastic has to be shipped to wherever fake fur is manufactured, often in China, which has poor track records with regards to worker’s rights and slave labor. And then it needs to be shipped again to whoever sews the fake fur into coats and such. All that shipping leads to even more pollution (and animal deaths) as ships cross the oceans again and again, both air pollution and marine pollution, to say nothing of the wildlife, coral reefs and other marine denizens physically damaged when struck by ships and their anchors.

So you go to your favorite big-box fabric store (which may have put any neighborhood fabric stores out of business, by the way) and buy a roll of fake fur for your project. (Or to try to resell to me in the name of the animals.) Let’s then fast-forward twenty years; the coat you made from fake fur is now ratty, old and torn, and the person who bought it from you no longer wants it–even Goodwill will throw it out if they donate it. Fake fur isn’t recyclable, and (at least in my opinion) doesn’t wear as nicely as real fur, so it doesn’t lend itself to crafty repurposing once it’s gotten all matted and discolored. The person could throw that old coat into a landfill, where it will sit and take up space; it’s not like it can biodegrade anyway. If it got incinerated, it could release all sorts of toxins from the plastic and dyes into the air. Or let’s say it somehow got dumped into a waterway, and then into the ocean (whee, littering!) That coat could take up to a thousand years to biodegrade. And while it’s in the process of breaking up into tinier plastic particles, once again that petroleum-based fake fur is killing animals. Larger wildlife can get entangled in plastic waste which can drown or starve them; they also eat it, which can cause painful deaths through intestinal blockage or rupture, or even longer, horrible deaths through starvation since they can no longer fit real food into their stomachs. And the same thing happens to tiny plankton, which are absolutely crucial to the health of the entire ocean. Even if your coat ends up in a landfill, the plastics can be washed into the water system as they break down, creating the same marine problems.

Is this to say real fur is without its pollutants and other environmental impacts? Absolutely not. As someone who has been working with hides for almost twenty years, I am quite aware of the chemicals used in commercial tanning, among other environmental problems associated with my materials. But for the reasons I’ve outlined above, no–I will not be switching over to fake fur any time soon. I have many reasons for my hide and bone work, ecological, spiritual and otherwise, and I think it’s incredibly hypocritical for you and other people to insist I switch to fake fur “for sake of the animals”. I think I’ve made it pretty clear above that your “animal-friendly alternative” is anything but animal-friendly. As an environmentalist, I do choose the real deal over fake, and I continue to donate part of the money I make from art sales to nonprofits that work to combat the pollution and habitat destruction your petroleum-based fake fur causes.