Everything Has Limits

Hanh mitakuyapi.
I was reading a back issue of National Geographic this morning as I ate breakfast and there were several articles on decimation of species, both land and sea.
It occurs to me that the tone of National Geographic's articles has changed in the past roughly 10 years, from reporting on how marvelous various places and/or species are to how endangered. Have you noticed this, or are you just a passive watcher, but not a wonderer?
There are only 3 kinds of people, after all.. those who watch what happens, those who make things happen, and those who wonder "what happened?!?!". With luck, I'm generally in the first 2 categories, and I strive to stay out of the 3rd one. Still, when I find myself in that 3rd category, I use failure analysis to try to determine what went wrong, why it went wrong, and with luck, how I can prevent recurrences in the future. I learned it long ago from an article on a major glass maker; I figure if it was good enough for them, it's certainly good enough for me.
Throughout history, and until recently, everything I've read about the oceans and the "New" world (i.e., Turtle Island, my Peoples' home) stated how "limitless" they are. The prairies, the buffalo, the passenger pigeons, the virgin forests, the fish, the water, the air, the sky. What a gigantic lie!
Just as there ain't no free ride, there ain't no such thing as "limitless", at least within the bubble we live in - the biosphere surrounding and including our Holy Mother the Earth. And if you notice, every entity I listed above as considered "limitless" is now either extinct or in danger of extinction.
The only tall grass prairie left is the Flint Hills in Kansas. The buffalo have been brought back from near extinction - there were fewer than 500 left when someone decided to save them.. The passenger pigeon is gone. Saving virgin forests from loggers is a constant battle, and there aren't many patches of them left - certainly nothing like the thousands of square miles that were here when the enviornmental rapists began invading from Europe. Fish? Over 90% of the oceans' fish stocks are gone due to over-fishing. Over-fishing, of course, is due to 2 things - gross human over-population and waste of caught species not intended to be caught. Water pollution is an ongoing battle; and recently there was a spate of articles on contaminants found in every water sample tested, from every part of the land. Air pollution is rampant - witnessed by smog, often called 'the price of progress' by enviro-rapists.. If that's progress, I'll take regress gladly, although the fact is, much 'progress' can be had without pollution - it is simple greed that makes the enviro-rapists fight so hard against doing things in a responsible fashion, and showing respect for our Holy Mother the earth and our place in the web of life. But then, such people don't respect anything - including themselves - thus they fight having to show that they don't know what respect is, and that they don't know how to show it.. As for the skies - satellites, airplanes, rockets crowd the skies. It's nearly impossible to go anywhere on earth - no matter how isolated, and not see one of more of them, or evidence thereof..
Once again, we has met the enemy, and he is us, takoszja. Humans. Not the "mightiest" species on earth save in one way - the potential to cause utter devastation by means of irresponsible treatment of the many resources available to us from Her bounty. Humans made the problem, other humans can turn the mess around - provided enough of us 'other' humans get busy and act.. The time is now. Actually, it was decades ago. Catch-up is never a fun game. Pity we 'other' humans have allowed this mess to develop.. My prayer is that it's not too late. The spiritual responsibility for the devastation that has occurred rides in varying degree on every one who has treated the biosphere with disrespect.
So what have you done today to help heal the Sacred Hoop of the world, of which you, too, are a part?

China, Quakes, Population Problem

Hanh mitakuyapi. We've been reading about the death count after the earthquakes in China since May 12, and the number appears pretty hefty.
To those who have lost loved ones, the immediate impact and loss are tragedies, of course.
But in the face of human over-population of our Holy Mother the Earth - most of it in China - is 68,000 really all that many? I can hear the flack already from the "humans are sacred" camp, but the answer really is, "No. It's such a tiny drop in the bucket, that compared to the burden humans have become on the earth, it is negligible. Let's run the numbers and get a new - more realistic - perspective.

The current estimate of human population on our Holy Mother the Earth is 6 billion 500 million. That's 6,500,000,000. The death count in China is about 68,000. If you divide 68,000 by 6,500,000,000 - breaking it down in easy steps - you get 68 / 6,500,000; or about 1/ 1,000,000. If you want to express this number as a percentage, it is 1/10,000 of 1 %, or 0.0001 %.
In terms anyone can relate to, if you have 1,000,000 $1 bills in a room and you lose one of them, can you tell at a glance? No. Is there 'noticeably' more air, water, food, or space in the room? No.

Our Holy Mother the Earth is our "room". We humans all share her bounty for our entire lives. We ITI refer to the earth as our Mother because She provides us with every physical thing we need to survive during our lives. The passing of 68,000 humans from this life is not a tragedy for them. They have no cares now.
Unfortunately, the loss of 0.0001% of the current human population is not a real big stress-reliever relative to the needs of the rest of us who share the room on this planet - the Standing Nation (plants; rain forest, for example); the water people (fish, many species in danger of extinction from over-fishing to feed humans); the four-leggeds (too many to mention, especially those in danger of extinction due to human over-population); and concerning all.. global warming, which is caused by human activities - and there are too many humans. The ongoing mass die-offs of bees is a warning sign no one should ignore - most of our food crops require bees to pollinate them or we get no crops!

The most responsible thing humans can do these days is not reproduce themselves. We should be rewarding women who refuse to have babies and men who refuse to sire them. This doesn't mean living without bed-sports; it means dedicated use of contraceptives, including tying tubes and vasectomies. It also means ceasing to caterwaul about human deaths as 'tragedies' when in reality, they contribute to saving the rest of the world from mass extinctions. Every 'drop' counts, in this bucket..

So - what have you done today to help heal the Sacred Hoop of the world, of which you, too, are a part?