All Along the Watchtower All Over the World

All Along the Watchtower written by Bob Dylan, but made famous by Jimi Hendrix  is performed by musicians around the world in this youtube video from Playing for Change.  Music is the language that tells the story of our connections. So take a listen and feel the story.

Playing for Change founder Mark Johnson describes how he envisioned this project:

I remember having a daydream about the opening acoustic guitar part of 

“All Along The Watchtower” ending with a Native American scream and a big native drum on the downbeat. That was the spark to assemble one of our biggest and deepest Songs Around The World. From Beirut to New Orleans to the Lakota Nation musicians play and sing like a musical army determined to stop suffering and greed all over the world. As a society we need to get back to our roots and connect deeper with our ancestors and native people in general so we can find the wisdom we need to move forward as a human race. 

As Jimi Hendrix once said, “If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”

All Along the Watchtower is one of the 12 songs on the new album Listen to the Music that Playing for Change has just released.  You can learn more about the album here.

A Whale in the Door

I was recently travelling through the interior of British Columbia with two of my grown children.  I like to read local authors when I travel so I visited a few bookstores.  In Grizzly Book and Serendipity Shop in Revelstoke, my kids helped me search the shelves and one of them found Pauline Le Bel’s A Whale in the Door: A Community Unites to Protect BC’s Howe Sound.

Howe Sound is the body of water that connects Vancouver and communities all the way to Squamish and back again to Gibsons, to the Pacific Ocean.  Le Bel relates the history of mining, forestry, pulp and paper mills and how Howe Sound became “dead” due to pollution.  Her lovely book describes the countless community groups and First Nations who have worked together to bring life back to this amazing ecosystem.  She also describes how the recovery is still fragile and is now being threatened by a Liquid Natural Gas plant.

Her narrative at times includes the voice of Howe Sound or as it is known in the Squamish language Atl’Kitsem.  She weaves the history of colonialism and the impact it has had on the Indigenous people who have lived there for thousands of years as well as on the land and the sea.  She interviews scientists, Indigenous elders, social activists, citizen scientists and industrialists, weaving the voices of the people that are part of the community that is on the traditional territory of the Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish).

Le Bel has some interesting things to say about story, about narrative that shed light on this new story of ours.  “The way you name something, a person, a tree or a mountain, is how you start to tell a story about it, a story that has a deep connection to that place or person.  The name becomes a container for the stories, the things that happened.” (p 18) 

Dealing with another kind of narrative, Le Bel relates the idea of the hero’s journey in which “the hero/heroine is given a challenge, leaves on a quest, learns from mentors, vanquishes the monsters/bad guys, and returns to the community as a saviour.” (p 127)  This is the plot behind most popular movies and stories.

Le Bel quotes mythologist Joseph Campbell who  believed that the hero’s journey “served as a useful story to empower adolescents and to inspire them to take on their role in the community.  Le Bel suggests that “it’s time to move on, to grow up, to leave the hero myth behind as a quaint and perhaps useful artifact of the past. The tasks that are facing us now demand grown-up narratives – narratives that empower communities of people to come together and transform their world.  Communities are not out there to slay dragons; they’re there to build something new.  Together.  No single person can imagine what this will look like, but a community of dedicated people can dream together and design a desirable future.” (p 127)

Le Bel quotes “Margaret Wheatley, who has written many books on community and leadership, [and] believes the world doesn’t change one person at a time, in spite of the ads and slogans.  The world changes ‘as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible.  ‘Rather than worry about critical mass, she says, our work is to foster critical connections.’”

‘Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage and commitments that lead to broad-based change.’  She believes ‘determination, energy and courage appear spontaneously when we care deeply about something.  We take risks that are unimaginable in any other context.’” (p 153)

Howe Sound  photo: Stoic Meditation Vancouver Observer

A Whale in the Door tells the story of these relationships, the practices that are coming out of them and the passion of so many people who understand that humans are a part of the environment, not masters of it.  This story is as ancient as the land and has only been forgotten for four hundred years by the colonizers.  But it is emerging once again and those who never forgot are joining with the descendants of those who forgot who are now remembering.  They are nurturing critical connections.  This book is hopeful, thoughtful and balances our capacity for destruction with our capacity for healing.  

         

Pauline Le Bel (2017) Whale in the Door: A Community Unites to Protect BC’s Howe Sound. Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlin Press

The Pipeline Story is Changing

You may have heard about the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline extension in the news recently.  Although the federal government supports the extension of the pipeline and the Alberta provincial government wants it to proceed so that it can sell Alberta oil from the BC coastline, many people in British Columbia are opposed.

First Nations and environmentalists have been fighting against what they see as a potential environmental disaster and they have been joined by the new BC provincial government.

According to an email from RAVEN (Respecting Aboriginal Views and Environmental Needs) who fundraise for legal challenges to corporations who threaten the environment, “Grand Chief Stewart Philip blockaded Kinder Morgan’s tank farm Saturday April 9.  The company chose not to call the police.  On Sunday, executives in Houston announced they were halting spending on Kinder Morgan Canada’s pipeline and tanker project.”

In the past Philip has been arrested for such actions but this time a new story is being told.  You can hear Philip speaking about this here: 

On the Coast Protectors website which is hosted by the Union of BC Indian 

Chiefs, they call on their friends and allies to stand with them to defend their land, their water and their air from Kinder Morgan’s pipeline and tanker project.

The Coast Protectors cite the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).  After nearly thirty years of work, Indigenous peoples from around the world had this declaration presented to the member countries of the United Nations in 2007.  It was adopted by 144 countries.  Eleven countries abstained and four voted against it (United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).  However, in May, 2016 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent Minister Carolyn Bennett to remove Canada’s objector status from this declaration.  If you haven’t read this important document you can get the pdf version here. 

UNDRIP secures Indigenous peoples’ rights to self determination. Here are two quotes from the declaration:

Recognizing the urgent need to respect and promote the inherent rights of indigenous peoples which derive from their political, economic and social structures and from their cultures, spiritual traditions, histories and philosophies, especially their rights to their lands, territories and resources.

Article 29 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands or territories and resources. States shall establish and implement assistance programmes for indigenous peoples for such conservation and protection, without discrimination. 2. States shall take effective measures to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in the lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.

Now that Canada has signed on to this declaration this international standard for the rights of Indigenous peoples has to be taken into account.  This will change the story.  But as we know, it takes work and political will to have these rights respected.

Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything, social activist and filmmaker  was present for this blockade.  You can see her views on how this new story is unfolding here.

  

 “Now is the time to stand beside Indigenous people in support of our timeless struggle to defend Mother Earth.  There is a battle being waged across the globe by Indigenous peoples and their allies demanding a safe, healthy world for future generations.  This is about water versus oil an life versus death, and ultimately, survival versus extinction.”    Grand Chief Stewart Philip

Girl Rising: Where They Are Now

In March 2013 the film Girl Rising was released. It is about the power of educating girls around the world to not only make their lives better but also to change the societies that they live in and indeed the world.  I wrote about this in May 2016 which you can see here. 

To celebrate the film’s fifth anniversary, a new film called Girl Rising: The Fifth Anniversary Edition follows the girls progress and tells the stories of where they are now.

Here are two of the girls stories.  First, Sokha from Cambodia and then Senna from Peru:

These young women will inspire you and give you hope.  If you want to watch the entire film you can purchase it to view on-line here.  You may find yourself agreeing with the slogan "One Girl with Courage IS a Revolution"!