I am extremely grateful to all of you who have decided to be a part of Collective Creativity at LinkedIn, and for all your generous and valuable contributions so far.
There is a Cree proverb that says, "Only when the last tree has died, the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money." The toxic oil spewing into the Gulf is so heartbreaking and massive that the warning of this proverb as it relates to the spill cannot possibly be missed by any one of us. This catastrophe is bringing each of us to our own personal crossroads about environmental stewardship.
Let's all heed the foretelling of the Cree and become part of the solution. Show that we are aware that organisms and the environment are one process, trees are our lungs, rivers and waters and oceans are our circulation, the earth recycles as our physical body, and the atmosphere is our breath. Let us show in action that we know we are one ecosystem. Let us not let the Earth become uninhabitable.
Many of us, overwhelmed by bad news on the ecological front for more than a decade, may almost by default find ourselves going down the road that allows shutting down and tuning out, passively letting bad go to worse. But let's change now to a way that leads to personal fulfillment and empowerment. Let's go down the road of action, following the invigorating, energizing, call to action that this current catastrophe has inspired.
Most of us have a little of both scenarios going on in ourselves. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the grief and complexity. This is why I invite you to continue to contribute to Collective Creativity, our LinkedIn group, to work together to create more proactive solutions and innovations to prevent problems like the Gulf from happening again.
The following eight steps are things that we can all do to become involved, compiled from feedback from my questions posted here at Collective Creativity on LinkedIn. Please continue your valuable contributions to this conversation and add your own!
1. Give direct financial aid through reliable agencies such as the United Way.
2. Support organizations such as Ocean Conservation Society, The Nature Conservancy, and others that are engaged in healing our ecosystem. Follow their recommendations for ways to help.
3. Volunteer and help organizations recruit others for habitat restoration activities and more. For example, gather hair from salons, groomers, llamas, sheep fleece farmers, feather donors, and others, for making oil-soaking boom via mattersoftrust.org.
4. Engage in global conversation and harness collective creativity with social networks such as our Collective Creativity group at LinkedIn.
5. Make conscious choices that are "green." For example, go through your cleaning supplies and stop using anything that has a Signal Word label with anything stronger than "Caution."
6. Support investments in technologies that are looking at sustainably and reversal of global warming such as Fuelcor Global
7. Educate yourself on very successful approaches to restoring the ecosystem such as of Allan Savory, who is the winner of 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge
8. Support spiritual education that teaches people, especially the youth, the relationship between all life. Much of all that has happened to damage the world is a result of a dualistic approach in science where we created a distinction between biological organisms and the environment.
A new global movement of planetary healing needs both a short-term approach addressing the urgent need to act swiftly, but at the same time, a long term approach with action steps people can take in their everyday life. Healing this planet will be empowering for all of us. Planetary wellness needs to become a global movement, yet it begins with you and me, and the time to act is now.
Deepak Chopra
www.saveriomanzo.com
