Episode 6: Re-Membering We’re Connected (with Skye and Miraz)
Have you ever glimpsed your interconnection with the rest of the living world? Felt it in your own body?
Maybe breathed in that knowing for a moment, or a few, but then slipped back into our dominant culture’s habitual perspective of separateness?
I adored this conversation with Skye and Miraz, who are devoted to re-membering our interconnection, as many times as it takes. They have walked through many doorways into this mode of perception, and they help guide others through these various doorways, too. Though they actively support “holding actions” to slow damage to the Earth and all of us living here, they are most passionate about addressing the “crisis of perception” that has led us to our current ecological and social situation.
I can’t wait to share this conversation with you. Click Play above to hear us talk about all of the above, plus:
- the practice of dieta, which Skye and Miraz learned from their years with Shipibo teachers in Peru, and the relationships they cultivate with the more-than-human world
- fulfillment through primary satisfactions, vs. trying to fill our voids with secondary satisfactions (as taught by Francis Weller)
- experiencing The Work that Reconnects (aka Deep Ecology), as taught by Joanna Macy and John Seed
- how Skye and Miraz relate to “the three stories of our time,” and to the three dimensions of The Great Turning (holding actions, structural alternatives, and shifts in consciousness)
- how essential it is to feel and tend to our grief in community – both the grief we’ve carried, and the grief we will feel as we continue to open
- the hugely important legal case going on in Ecuador, around protecting the rainforest in the Los Cedros Reserve from copper mining, and supporting the local communities there who have become dependent on that mining
- urgency, and slow, imaginal time, and the ecstasy of eating an avocado with presence
- and a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh, read by Miraz, that I long for you to hear
This conversation nourished me deeply. May it feed you, too.
To connect with Skye and Miraz, find them here: deepearthdreaming.world, and here: cicadiadepthperception.org
To learn more about the teachers they mentioned, click on a name below.
Here’s the direct link to the poem Miraz reads, and a recording of Thich Nhat Hanh reading it: Please Call Me By My True Names (click “Transcript” to read it)
From the Rainforest Information Centre and Melbourne Rainforest Action Group:
Report on Ecuador Campaign – November 2021
The Rainforest Information Centre and Melbourne Rainforest Action Group have been driving a campaign since 2017 to save over 2 million hectares of protected forests in Ecuador from mining.
Thousands of mining companies have bought up land across Ecuador, which is part of the so called Andean Copper Belt. The companies are moving in and exploring in Indigenous lands and protected zones as part of a huge “Copper Rush” which is now being propelled by the global need for copper, a major resource for green renewable technologies. Unfortunately these companies are being motivated more by greed than a genuine desire to combat climate change.
What’s the campaign about?
Ecuador has a massive anti-mining movement from the grassroots and indigenous nationalities, which we are supporting. At the moment we are focused on the northwest of Ecuador where mainly Australian companies are trying to explore. We’ve got 2 campaign websites which you can check out:
RIC: https://www.rainforestinformationcentre.org/ecuador_endangered
MRAG: https://rainforestactiongroup.org/
We also have a crowdfund for one region to support local people to develop sustainable economies that are not dependent on mining: https://www.rainforestinformationcentre.org/intag_sanctuary_of_life
Los Cedros
The most exciting part of our campaign has been Save Los Cedros Forest. This is a mega-biodiverse cloud-forest in northwest Ecuador, home to hundreds of endangered species. John Seed and the Rainforest Information Centre founded the reserve in 1989. Mining is the latest threat to Los Cedros. So for four years RIC and MRAG have been campaigning along with an Ecuadorian and international team to save the forest.
Last year Los Cedros became the subject of a landmark legal case at the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court based on the Rights of Nature. If won, the case could become a global precedent for the use of Rights of Nature laws to stop mining in the world’s most biodiverse regions.
We’d love any kind of contribution to our crowdfund!
Link: https://www.fundmyplanet.org/campaign/11/save-ecuadors-forests-from-mining
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