We live in the campo now, and I have been adjusting to the non-center of the city life. Our house is on a little hill overlooking canyons and volcanoes and terraced fields in the distance. Crazy plants envelop our little hobbit hole of a dwelling and sweet, unknown bird calls greet us first thing in the morning.
This charming little life contrasts sharply with what I expect to find in Lago Agrio, where we will travel tomorrow to learn the ins and outs of our mycoremediation work. As far as we know, the oyster mushies are growing like mad and eating up oil. We have high hopes for their mushie-miracles but know their task is a vast one....The biggest oil spill in history extends throughout much of the petroleum-rich Oriente (Eastern Ecuador), covering formerly lush Amazonian jungle, suffocating plants, poisoning animals and causing cancer in humans.
Although mycoremediation can slowly go about eating away petroleum, breaking its toxicity down into environmentally friendly molecules, the road ahead is a long one. In the meantime, we will seek out innovative ways to transform and heal the situation which our own society´s energy addictions caused, such as:
Help affected community members grow mushrooms and thus generate the income they need to get the hell away from there, restore the fields from which they eat through mycoremediation, and avoid exposure to the swimming pool-sized open, unlined waste pits which contain raw petroleum. Black toxic sludge creeps from the underground into drinking, washing and bathing water - all this, so that Americans could drive across exburbs in the desert more cheaply. Lack of safety precuations means drastic profit increases for petroleum companies.
Tomorrow we will go, meet people, see the situation, and have a clearer idea of how to best serve and defend this land of incredible cultural and biotic diversity. I will be wearing a respirator and tall boots to keep toxins off my skin. This is my privilege, to be able to protect my health, and I know that the people I will meet tomorrow will not enjoy these defenses. I hope we can make friends even if I look like an alien in my respirator contraption.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Volcano-land!
I am packing up my Portland life and moving to the equator. Intriguingly, this is the fulfillment of a prophecy issued when I was 11 and my parents brought my sister and I to consult with a shaman in the Amazonian forests of Ecuador. I was to return someday, and here I go.
There is another prophecy worth noting, which a friend recently recounted: the story of the Eagle (N. America) and the Condor (S. America) told by many First Nations people. When the se two unite, the Earth will awaken. Eagle and Condor messengers are called upon to *become the bridge* in order for this union to occur. And so I go. I will aim to manifest the promise of the Eagle and the Condor in my own tiny ways.
My days and nights have been filled with dreams about my life's newest chapter. Brian and I will be leading study tours for learners to witness different ecological and cultural features of Ecuador as well as the political and economic injustices that threaten them. And we will be helping coordinate the Amazon Mycorenewal Project, an exciting attempt to call upon native oyster mushrooms to break down the oil pollution carelessly and shamelessly allowed to happen by sloppy oil companies over the past 25 years. By fighting the pollution, mycorenewal fights the destruction of arable land, devastating prevalence of cancer, and economic and cultural despair which the petroleum industry leaves in its wake.
I plan to dedicate myself to these wonderful projects but I also have other dreams for my time in Ecuador. I want to become familiar, even intimate, with the dazzling array of people, plants, fungi and waters that make the Amazon what it is. I dream of learning how to call upon the plants to heal, and unit this insight with my friends' knowledge of herbal medicine in the North. I want to witness the shamanic lineage that has granted these types of insight, and be overwhelmed by the glorious diversity that makes life worth living.
There is another prophecy worth noting, which a friend recently recounted: the story of the Eagle (N. America) and the Condor (S. America) told by many First Nations people. When the se two unite, the Earth will awaken. Eagle and Condor messengers are called upon to *become the bridge* in order for this union to occur. And so I go. I will aim to manifest the promise of the Eagle and the Condor in my own tiny ways.
My days and nights have been filled with dreams about my life's newest chapter. Brian and I will be leading study tours for learners to witness different ecological and cultural features of Ecuador as well as the political and economic injustices that threaten them. And we will be helping coordinate the Amazon Mycorenewal Project, an exciting attempt to call upon native oyster mushrooms to break down the oil pollution carelessly and shamelessly allowed to happen by sloppy oil companies over the past 25 years. By fighting the pollution, mycorenewal fights the destruction of arable land, devastating prevalence of cancer, and economic and cultural despair which the petroleum industry leaves in its wake.
I plan to dedicate myself to these wonderful projects but I also have other dreams for my time in Ecuador. I want to become familiar, even intimate, with the dazzling array of people, plants, fungi and waters that make the Amazon what it is. I dream of learning how to call upon the plants to heal, and unit this insight with my friends' knowledge of herbal medicine in the North. I want to witness the shamanic lineage that has granted these types of insight, and be overwhelmed by the glorious diversity that makes life worth living.
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