Today I was a part of a participatory art project at Golden Gate Park in San Fransisco called "From Global Mourning to Global Awakening." Allison Quaid, the director of Creative Community Catalysts, reserved a booth for the us at the Green Apple Festival, a music festival for Earth Day. It was her, myself, and another CCC volunteer named Shana that came up with the idea for this piece, then collected salvaged materials to build it (re-using is sustainable:).
The piece itself was addressing the issue of Global Warming, like most of the other organizations there, but before calling people to change their livestyles, we were asking people to express their emotions about Global Warming either by writing or drawing, or talking. Then after reflecting about those feelings,we encouraged people to write their hopes on a flag and tie it to our "tree" of hope. We made a website to go along with this projects so people can continue to express themselves, so please take a couple minutes to share your feelings too.
The main idea behind our piece stemmed from the belief that healing is a process. So in order to heal ourselves and the planet, we must tap into our emotions and take time to reflect and think about how Global Warming is affecting each of us in our lives. Then we can really make meaningful changes to stop it. The idea is that by meditating about how we feel and thinking about what we may lose, or already have lost because of Global Warming, we are able to open up to what really matters in life and enter a state of mind that helps us sincerely ponder what we will do to protect our planet and those we love.
Those emotions are what inspire and motivate us to change, but we have to take the time out to go through the process; it's like a rite of passage.
To represent this process, we set up two doors, an entrance and exit that people would walk through. The entrance is called Global Mourning, and the exit: Global Awakening. To draw people in at the entrance was an ice sculpture that was melting in the hot CA sun with a sign underneath it saying "As the glaciers melt, what melts in you?" In the center is a space for people to sit on cushions, read stories about people whose livlihoods have changed because of glacial melting, write thoughts in journals, and draw pictures about how they're feeling. Next to the exit door is a tree we made from trimmed tree branches and a salvaged CD case trunk that people tied flags to. On the flags, people wrote their hopes for the planet. After that people could choose a vegetable, flower, or herb seed from a bowl of seeds to take home with them. Then they exited though the "Global awakening" door, symbolizing a seed of change that each of us plant inside to begin growing a positive future.
Here are some pictures so you can visualize what the piece looked like:
Global Mourning Entrance, mourning space, and Global Awakening exit
From this angle you can see both the entrance and exit doors with people in the center drawing and writing. To close off this space we built screen walls where we hung pictures about the effects of Global Warming and where we hung drawings that people had created.
The Ice Sculpture in front of the entrance.
The piece itself was addressing the issue of Global Warming, like most of the other organizations there, but before calling people to change their livestyles, we were asking people to express their emotions about Global Warming either by writing or drawing, or talking. Then after reflecting about those feelings,we encouraged people to write their hopes on a flag and tie it to our "tree" of hope. We made a website to go along with this projects so people can continue to express themselves, so please take a couple minutes to share your feelings too.
The main idea behind our piece stemmed from the belief that healing is a process. So in order to heal ourselves and the planet, we must tap into our emotions and take time to reflect and think about how Global Warming is affecting each of us in our lives. Then we can really make meaningful changes to stop it. The idea is that by meditating about how we feel and thinking about what we may lose, or already have lost because of Global Warming, we are able to open up to what really matters in life and enter a state of mind that helps us sincerely ponder what we will do to protect our planet and those we love.
Those emotions are what inspire and motivate us to change, but we have to take the time out to go through the process; it's like a rite of passage.
To represent this process, we set up two doors, an entrance and exit that people would walk through. The entrance is called Global Mourning, and the exit: Global Awakening. To draw people in at the entrance was an ice sculpture that was melting in the hot CA sun with a sign underneath it saying "As the glaciers melt, what melts in you?" In the center is a space for people to sit on cushions, read stories about people whose livlihoods have changed because of glacial melting, write thoughts in journals, and draw pictures about how they're feeling. Next to the exit door is a tree we made from trimmed tree branches and a salvaged CD case trunk that people tied flags to. On the flags, people wrote their hopes for the planet. After that people could choose a vegetable, flower, or herb seed from a bowl of seeds to take home with them. Then they exited though the "Global awakening" door, symbolizing a seed of change that each of us plant inside to begin growing a positive future.
Here are some pictures so you can visualize what the piece looked like:
Global Mourning Entrance, mourning space, and Global Awakening exitFrom this angle you can see both the entrance and exit doors with people in the center drawing and writing. To close off this space we built screen walls where we hung pictures about the effects of Global Warming and where we hung drawings that people had created.
The Ice Sculpture in front of the entrance.
A bunch of kids making drawings about the planet:)
Me at the table where people could write their hopes, then take seeds of hope home to plant .
Some kids writing their hopes for the planet...
"I hope we can plant more trees."
"I hope for sustainability," etc.
Glenn and his mom both came to participate:)
This is our tree of hope that people tied their hope flags to.After doing all the brainstorming for this project; searching salvage yards for materials, building screen walls that were structurally sound, printing jarring pictures about the effects of Global warming that were hung up on them, and then standing in the sun all day at the festival encouraging folks to express themselves, I feel like I haven't taken the change to really stop and think for myself:
How do I feel about global warming? How is it affecting my life?
So here goes: I feel surprised that we have come to a point where the impacts of the human race are being seen world wide. I feel angry that the American culture values money, consumption, competition and limitless growth over human relationships, conservation, cooperation and "smart growth". I feel guilty when I fly and want to travel far places... I feel frustrated that I have to fight against the grain by saying let's try and consume less, not more...that bigger is not always better and is usually much worse!....
Like most of us, I feel overwelmed by global warming. The Human species is changing the climate patterns of our planet, affecting not only our own well-being, but that of every other living thing that shares the planet with us. That's scary. disturbing. discouraging. depressing!...
Somehow I still have hope for us though. I have hope that we can change. I have hope that we, especially as citizens of the U.S., are entering a time of awakening and connectedness that will help us recognize that relationships are more important than material wealth, that there is enough for everyone if we share, that we don't need to rapidly deplete the world's resources to live a happy and fulfilling life...
So I don't think we are doomed. I won't give up. I won't say that it's too big and I refuse to believe that we can't work together to turn it around. But I do believe that each of us has the power and responsibility to stop climate change; to care about those around us more... To think about the consequences of our actions more... To make efforts to change more... To try more... To believe more... To love more... To care more... The keys are: individual action, faith, and hope.
"Four Elements" Mandala by Glenn and Krystal, 8/18/06. Trinidad Beach, Trinidad, CASo where does my hope come from? I'm forcing myself to think about this. Am I a hopeless idealist? Maybe. Maybe not. I feel like I'm pretty eductated in this area, and yes I tend to always look on the bright side....Am I just naive? I hope not. No, I don't think so. I have hope because I have a deep respect and love for nature and I'll never stop doing what I can to protect it. I have hope because I honestly do believe that human nature is inherently good and I believe that we all have all the tools we need within ourselves to transform the way we live and think about the world we live in. I have hope because I have faith in creativity, love, compassion, and cooperation, all of which all happen to be renewable just like the sun, the wind and the waves. ... So now I've got to turn this hope into change.
What does this change look like? To me, in order to stop global warming and create a positive future, we must re-think how we live our lives; stop to contemplate what is really important to us, and identify what sacrifices we are willing to make for the benefit of our planet, ourselves, and each other. Then we are ready to make different decisions in our daily lives that accumulate with others' to create big change.
So I've mentioned some feelings and thoughts.
Being who I am, I've got to talk about some solutions too,
so here are some ideas:
let's try and reach out more and build more positive relationships instead of isolating ourselves behind our laptops and iPods..I'm just as guilty as the next person, but I'm trying to break out of my shell. And I think this is a big piece in the puzzle to fill. Wanna try with me? Let's try. It starts with smiling. Then opening your mouth.
I believe that each of us can choose to do something differently every day even if it seems that others aren't. We have the power to encourage others around us even if we don't feel encouraged. We have the ability to commit to doing something different every day that is positive: whether it's changing light bulbs to energy effecient ones, taking the bus instead of driving one day a week, talking to a stranger in line at the store, buying fruit a local farmer, offsetting travel with carbon credits... (I'm still learning about this great one, check out what one of my heros David Suzuki says about it.) The point is, there are small things we can do to create a more positive place to live and that add up to make a difference. Let's strive to live a carbon-neutral life. Let's strive.
So for me, I think the first step to making these solutions real is as simple as having faith, believing that our actions make a difference. Let's work on that one.
The next step would be trusting ourselves and each other, then reaching out to more people. I was talking to someone recently, or maybe it was a lecture I heard sometime, that we must think about what we want the future to look like, then in order to create that positive future, we must sharing that vision with others to help it grow.
It's kind of like Peter Pan: "Think happy thoughts and you can fly"...right? You get my point.
The last step would be to commit and choose to do what it takes to make that vision real. Every day. And when we forget, re-commit and keep on going.
One of my favoirite images that helps me keep my focus is what I learned growing up in the Mormon church: life is a journey. Every day we can be better than we were the day before. When things get hard, the challenge helps us grow stronger. And by enduring to the end- keeping faith alive and hoping for a better future-we can partake of the fruit of the tree of life and be happy.
The trick is you gotta keep on walking.
And f you take a wrong turn, you've got to make your way back to the path.
"Tree of Life," Cynthia Fisher. 2002Big Bang Mosaics
So...Let's reach out to others, encourage each other, have faith, live with hope instead of fear, and partake of the fruit of the tree of life.
I revel in the awe and beauty of nature and give thanks for all that our Mother Earth continually provides!
Let's protect and honor this precious gift.
Alhumdulilaay!
