Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I can’t say I was drawn by Occupy per say. I’m drawn to
water. I started a conversation with one of the organizers of Occupy the Pipeline about a year ago about introducing meditation into the activism, so she introduced me to someone
who was involved in the planning of the Global Frackdown that took place on
October 19th. I ended up leading a meditation at the end of that action. I’ve been involved in and around fracking for four
years now. Back in 2011, we were at a friend’s
house up in Hancock, NY, which is a ground zero of fracking. We had been to see Gasland
the night before, and the hostess was weeping halfway through the movie.
The next day, a friend of mine was playing his guitar while we were enjoying the lake. I looked at the lake and then looked at him playing the guitar, and I said, “You’ve got to write a song about this.” That song was called Waterback. We ended up recording it at an artist studio in the Park Slope area. Then, he had an idea of going on an I love water tour. We ended up meeting up with the Green Bus tour and organized a tour where we made several stops around New York State. We really wanted to bring some calm and some peace to the proceedings because there was just a very high level of stress. A lot of times, there can be fighting or disharmonious behavior because people are so worried. We wanted to bring a joyful aspect to the activism, so we did meditation and brought music, and there were a bunch of artists that went on that tour.
The next day, a friend of mine was playing his guitar while we were enjoying the lake. I looked at the lake and then looked at him playing the guitar, and I said, “You’ve got to write a song about this.” That song was called Waterback. We ended up recording it at an artist studio in the Park Slope area. Then, he had an idea of going on an I love water tour. We ended up meeting up with the Green Bus tour and organized a tour where we made several stops around New York State. We really wanted to bring some calm and some peace to the proceedings because there was just a very high level of stress. A lot of times, there can be fighting or disharmonious behavior because people are so worried. We wanted to bring a joyful aspect to the activism, so we did meditation and brought music, and there were a bunch of artists that went on that tour.
I went to the park a couple times. I remember it was
raining. I was very impressed with the People’s library. I thought it was wonderful
that there were so many news organizations from different parts of the world coming
to interview people. I really liked the spirit of it and this insistence and urgency for being
heard. It was a
good thing. I think there is a photo somewhere of me meditating by the tree. There
was a sacred tree there, a tree alter. It’s good to
call attention to things. It’s important. Awareness is important, but I think it’s also
important that people have a concrete road map.
I think it’s pretty obvious to everyone right now that our society is crumbling. It was probably destined to all along because it was never based on the principles of Dharma. It was never based on mercy, truthfulness, compassion and austerity. It was never based on those things, and you can only run things for so long on bankrupt principles. People are living chaos right now. There's environmental disaster, societal breakdown, financial ruin, no clear map for the future, greed and avarice at the top, poverty, confusion at the bottom, lack of education, lack of purpose. All you have to do is pick up the newspaper every day and read it to see how bad it is.
One of the things that I've focused on the most is fracking, which is the process of forcing, through a combination of drilling and compression, hundreds of chemicals through the ground, through a layer of shale, past our aquifers that actually feed our rivers and wells to the gas underneath. Unfortunately, the process breaks the shale of the earth. I always think of it as if we’re breaking her shoulders. We’re breaking her shoulder blades. We’re crushing and destroying that protective covering that protects all of these geological layers and the pure, pristine water underneath it that feeds so much of what we have here. So when this process poisons the water, it most likely cannot ever be purified again. This is a very grave situation because water is literally life on this planet.
It is a huge issue because water is fluid, and water is fluid in many ways. In winter, it turns to snow. The snow melts. It comes off the mountain. It goes to the land. It goes into the aquifers. I would say if you don’t know anything about fracking, watch Gasland part 1 & 2. Josh Fox has done a really good job exploring the whole issue visually, politically, environmentally, personally, globally and constitutionally. We need to make a switch to solar and other clean energy. We’re very fortunate here in New York. We have sunshine in the winter. We have wind. We have different ways that we can harness our natural environment, like they do in Sweden, like they do in Denmark. There are places in the world where people are doing this and have been doing this for quite some time because they haven’t had the luxury of being so wasteful and being so reckless. There are so many thing we can do. We really need to do something.
I think it’s pretty obvious to everyone right now that our society is crumbling. It was probably destined to all along because it was never based on the principles of Dharma. It was never based on mercy, truthfulness, compassion and austerity. It was never based on those things, and you can only run things for so long on bankrupt principles. People are living chaos right now. There's environmental disaster, societal breakdown, financial ruin, no clear map for the future, greed and avarice at the top, poverty, confusion at the bottom, lack of education, lack of purpose. All you have to do is pick up the newspaper every day and read it to see how bad it is.
One of the things that I've focused on the most is fracking, which is the process of forcing, through a combination of drilling and compression, hundreds of chemicals through the ground, through a layer of shale, past our aquifers that actually feed our rivers and wells to the gas underneath. Unfortunately, the process breaks the shale of the earth. I always think of it as if we’re breaking her shoulders. We’re breaking her shoulder blades. We’re crushing and destroying that protective covering that protects all of these geological layers and the pure, pristine water underneath it that feeds so much of what we have here. So when this process poisons the water, it most likely cannot ever be purified again. This is a very grave situation because water is literally life on this planet.
It is a huge issue because water is fluid, and water is fluid in many ways. In winter, it turns to snow. The snow melts. It comes off the mountain. It goes to the land. It goes into the aquifers. I would say if you don’t know anything about fracking, watch Gasland part 1 & 2. Josh Fox has done a really good job exploring the whole issue visually, politically, environmentally, personally, globally and constitutionally. We need to make a switch to solar and other clean energy. We’re very fortunate here in New York. We have sunshine in the winter. We have wind. We have different ways that we can harness our natural environment, like they do in Sweden, like they do in Denmark. There are places in the world where people are doing this and have been doing this for quite some time because they haven’t had the luxury of being so wasteful and being so reckless. There are so many thing we can do. We really need to do something.
I would like to see a more mindful , compassionate
world. Things really don’t have to be so
chaotic and crazy and reckless. In an ideal world, you
actually have enlightened individuals that have some modicum of self-control. They'd make practical changes in broad ways to improve the quality of life for
people, animals and the environment. I hope to shed some light on that in a
class I’ll be teaching about Varna Ashram Dharma. It is a cooperative model of progressive spiritual realization for the entire society where everyone and everything is taken into account toward that end. It requires a better
quality human being, and it requires that the ultimate values and goals of life are not about deprivation. This way of living leads to prosperity
and abundance because things are being managed the right way. If anyone
has worked in catering, they have a very clear idea of the amount of food that
is wasted every day in this city. In the same breath to hear that people don’t have
enough to eat and children are going hungry is absolutely ludicrous, and it’s
a case of mismanagement. There is a way to organize things in society where
there’s that respect and that care and that communication between all of the different social orders.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/