Becoming a Blue Community!

The video we just posted on the homepage of  our website promotes becoming a Blue Community. Sisters of St. Joseph across Canada have recently signed on to becoming a “Blue Community”.  What does this mean?  We are joining with The Council of Canadians under the leadership of Maude Barlow, along with CUPE (Canadians Union of Public Employees) and the Blue Planet Project acknowledging that water is a human right for all. This may see obvious to some, but we want to make that statement as real and practical as possible.  It is a way of seeing that everything is interdependent. We call this integral ecology. Specifically, it means seeing water as a human right for all. 

Some practical ways this is applied means that we will not use bottled water in our communities and at our events. We will also work to ensure that water does not get sold to multinational corporations and remains a publicly owned commodity belonging to all citizens in our country. We also support all efforts to bring clean potable water to all indigenous communities across Canada.

Water is a right, a political issue, an economic issue, a spiritual issue. More and more we see that it is also a global issue affecting communities around the world. We join this movement because we want to say we stand with those who see that water, as a source of life, is interconnected and related to all life on our Blue Planet. We think we are in good company. 

Joan Atkinson, CSJ

The Thames River is a Person

On October 10, 2017, CBC radio host, Anna Marie Tremanti’s presented a segment entitled “Colorado River: Should the river have the same legal rights as a person”.  A lawyer, Jason Flores Williams, on behalf of an environmental group has asked a judge to grant to the Colorado River the same legal rights as a person.  Mr. Williams stated in the interview with Tremanti, that states and corporations are legal “persons”.  The Corporate “persons” use the finite resources for their own interests, these same resources upon which all of us depend. Existing laws to protect nature are inadequate to prevent degradation of the environment and loss of many species of plants and animals. If the Colorado River is deemed to be a legal person, entitled to be represented by a guardian, this ecosystem upon which the population depends can go to court to protect itself from injuries inflicted by all-powerful governments and corporations. Already, the overuse of the Colorado has been such that this former great river no longer reaches the Gulf of Mexico.  Corporations have sufficient wealth to influence governments into issuing permits for fifty-million-dollar water bottling plants. But new forces are instituting change.  Three dozen communities in the United States have statutes proclaiming the rights of natural entities. Similar laws in New Zealand, Equator, Bolivia, Columbia and India have been passed and upheld.  

David Boyd, and environmental lawyer from Pender Island, BC, is the author of The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution That Could Save the World.  Boyd notes that Indigenous peoples think of nature as having human qualities. In Manitoba, aboriginal people speak of Lake Winnipeg having a spirit which is crying for help.  Boyd comments that we treat nature as property which is either privately owned or the property of government.  Indigenous people speak of connections among all nature – "all our relations”.   We are facing the meltdown of our planet with massive decreases in animals and plants. We are on the verge of the 6^th mass extinction of earth in the four and a half billion years of our history.  Concerns of communities about fracking and bottling water abound. Countries, such as Equator, have established that nature has constitutional rights as a legal person.

David Boyd states that unless we develop a different perspective in our relationship with nature the degradation will continue rapidly. We need to transform our view: “Nature is a community to which we belong, not a commodity which we own.”

The radio program hosted by Anna Marie Tremanti The Colorado River, can be accessed at CBC, “The Current”, October 10, 2017.  The audio presentation is worth nineteen minutes of listening.

Pat McKeon, CSJ

‘BEE’ careful in being BEE friendly

Recently, on a car trip from Calgary to visit friends in Hay River and Yellowknife my travelling companion and I made a lunch stop in High Level, Alberta. While waiting for my soup and sandwich I picked up the local coffee news, the Muskeg Buzz. I came across an article in its Heard Around the World section titled, “Cheerios Will Send 500 Wildflower Seeds for Free to Save Bees." This piece encouraged readers to sign up for free wildflower seeds to plant to help save the honey bee. Maybe you have seen the TV commercial on the same topic. Currently, General Mills, maker of Honey Nut Cheerios, is focussing audience attention on the plight of honeybees through their corporate initiative, ‘Bring back the bees’. Their campaign, ‘Bring back the bees’ highlights the vital role bees and other pollinators play in food security, the economy and how bees and other pollinators face decline.

“Pollinators are critical to our ecosystems. Insect pollinators, both wild (e.g., many species of bees and moths) and domestic (honeybees), are in serious decline due to the combination of habitat loss, disease, pesticide exposure and climate change. These pollinators are responsible for an estimated one out of three bites of food that people eat, which is worth billions of dollars to the North American economy. Pollinators ensure the reproductive success of plants and the survival of the wildlife that depend on those plants for food and shelter.”*

A significant part of General Mills’ campaign is partnering with the Canadian, P.E.I. seed company, Veseys to offer free packages of wildflower seeds for planting. Last year, the 100,000 seed packages Veseys expected to give away went in a matter of days. The seed company scrambled to get another 100,000 packages to General Mills. This year’s projection is that General Mills is going to be giving away over 100 million seeds to Canadians.**

At first glance, this initiative seemed like a super-duper, winning idea to me. The intent to highlight the plight of the honeybee is wonderful and taking steps to address its dwindling habitat is to be applauded. With a little research I discovered, however, the method chosen to accomplish their goals has been called into question by Paul Zammit of the Toronto Botanical Gardens.***

Zammit bases his concern on the fact that all plants should not be planted in all locations. The free package contains a mixture of seeds some of which are non-native and perhaps even considered invasive in the location where they are being sent. The horticulturalist is quick to add that he likes that the campaign is getting folks like us talking about pollinators such as bees and supports the campaign efforts to urge us to take the opportunity to facilitate pollinators in our own backyards, balconies and outdoor spaces. However, his over-riding message is to take the ‘bee careful’ route to wildflower planting. Paul Zammit recommends first checking with our local flower societies or flower supply stores to select native flowers best suited to our locale in creating wildflower habitats for the bees in our neighbourhoods.

View https://youtu.be/JgZ-DLesdAU for other ways to help pollinators in your community.

Adding to your bee trivia ... did you know?

• Bees have terrific colour vision, that’s why they love showy flowers. They especially like blue, purple, violet, white & yellow.

• There are over 20,000 species of bees around the world!

• Bee species all have different tongue lengths that adapt to different flowers.

• The honeybee’s wings stroke incredibly fast, about 200 beats per second thus making their distinctive buzzing sound.

• A honeybee can fly for up to 9 kilometers and as fast as 25 kilometers an hour.

• 1 in 3 bites of food we eat is made possible by bees and other pollinators who spread the pollen that crops need to grow. That includes many of our favourite foods like apples, almonds, coffee and of course, honey.

Nancy Wales, CSJ

*Ontario Nature
**Seeds Given away in Cheerios promotion may be problematic, horticulturalist says – CBC NEWS posted March 26, 2017
***Seeds Given away in Cheerios promotion may be problematic, horticulturalist says – CBC NEWS posted March 26, 2017

Waking Up from a Millennia-Long Sleep

The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world---we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves, and to each other. (Joanna Macy—activist, environmentalist, Buddhist practicioner Italics are mine)

In a nutshell, Joanna Macy shines a clear light on what integral ecology means. The word ecology in the phrase gives the limited view that integral ecology is about environmental issues. Not so. In its root meaning integral ecology is about the interdependent relationships in the household that we call earth…and beyond.

What is amazing is how our consciousness has evolved over the last 50 years. It would never have occurred to most of us 50 years ago to call earth our common home. The boundaries of what we would have called the “neighbourhood” would have been confined to about two blocks from where we lived. In this present chaotic era, we know viscerally and with some anxiety that climate agreements must be global; we know as we have never known before that poverty and images of scarcity set the groundwork for war; we sense in our bones that our images of God, of the Sacred radically influence how we live together; we experience that acts of generosity and courage add to the field of wisdom in which we can all share.

We need to give our attention and our intention to this: seeing what is wrong, what are the distortions that are damaging the earth and each other AND being tenacious about holding the primal truth about the goodness, empathy and innate desire for connection at the heart of who we are. If we only focus on what is wrong, cynicism and arrogance will eventually prevail. If we only see the beauty of the possible, we may become detached from the real and present suffering in our world. Holding both together gives momentum to what can change.

And so, together, let us keep waking up to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves, and to each other. And in the process, we just might be discovering a whole new relationship with and within God.

Margo Ritchie, CSJ

When we take the time to look, the more we see

First the crocuses peeked through the bare earth, then the daffodils began to toss their yellow manes joyfully in the warm breezes. Spring has been arriving in these last weeks at Villa St. Joseph with a determined yet gentle presence telling the good news of the resurrection upon all the earth. Last week we had Dana, a freelance journalist from NCR’s Global Sisters Report, come to visit. She was eager to hear how this integrated vision of ecology and spirituality had come to be one of the key and vital ministries of a Sister of St. Joseph in the world today. After chatting with her for a time we led her on a tour of our land, first through St. Joseph’s Community Gardens where she chatted with and videoed some of the gardeners. Although the gardens were just coming to life, she was surprised to find how much was already beginning to flourish, little onions, tiny lettuce, and early peas poking their way through the crusts of earth.

As often happens when you are touring someone around on our land here, an unexpected lesson presented itself to me. As we walked over the front lawn leading down to the lake, I spied a few of the tiny wild violets that were blooming in their small but largely unnoticed way. I had missed seeing them this spring, had been too busy. As I crouched down Dana followed with her camera. When I was kneeling admiring the few wonderful, intricate wild violets I had chanced to notice, my gaze looked up a touch and there I saw more and more of the precious violets revealing their tiny but wondrous unfolding of God’s beauty. I said to Dana, “When we take the time to look, the more we see.”

As we had shared with her our project to grow milkweed for the Monarchs, she mentioned to me again how she’d like to see a milkweed growing, she’d never seen one before. Well, really it was too early. But as we walked through the east field, sure enough there were a few milkweed seedlings just coming up. She crouched down in wonder with her camera, then I could see the camera lifting up a little across the field. I followed her gaze and then she turned to me smiling and said, “the more you look the more you see- amazing to see how many more little milkweeds there are!”

That simple lesson has stayed with me all week, there is so much beauty and hope just nearby, if only we look and see.

Linda Gregg, CSJ