Feminism and popular environmentalism

Feminism and environmentalism are more intertwined than they first appear. To me they are almost interchangeable terms. The feminism and environmentalism I speak of are not the ones that can be defined by our popular culture. Both can be associated with inexplicable beauty, emotion, and ability to nourish. The emotions of this earth expressed thru tidal waves and thunderstorms; it’s breathtaking beauty found in the mountains and the valleys; it nourishing us with berries and greens. Unfortunately the agenda's of these movements to preserve these things seem to be working against themselves. They seem to have been hijacked and manipulated by our capitalist system, by money. The modern feminist movement seems to be working towards molding itself to fit into our masculanized society. Popular environmentalism seems to be sucked into the same market that has enslaved the wilderness, selling it to us and seemingly capitalizing on it. That mainstream environmental movement seems to be more focused on sustaining its office than seeking real solutions for our open spaces. So I think that both environmentalism and feminism trying to work within the system, have become a part of the system that has enslaved them.

Feminism isn't about men and women. It's about sense and sensibility. "Sensory perception is the glue that binds our nervous system into the surrounding ecosystem" (David Abram). We need to have empathy and sensitivity in order to feel connected and to achieve harmony. Fallowing industrialization being a man has become almost a synonym for machines. This association has unfairly defined men as being aggressive, competitive, and without emotions. There duty in a relationally, to provide and protect. Which providing and protecting is now defined in financial terms, financial stability and security. This is how femininity, being nurturing, was ripped out of the hands of the male gender.

The women's version of feminism became hijacked at the point when money became the focal measurement of self worth, women wanted to be a part of this culture too, to feel more valuable. In the current feminist movement there seems to be a shortsighted fixation on workplace equality. I feel this is the anti-thesis of what I think feminism and liberation should be. That possibly the fight for control in the realms of gender equality are blind aspirations for masculine mimicry to fit into the society rigidly designed to function as a machine. That in accomplishing gender equality in this society as it stands would not be a forward step for feminism, but a concession for true liberation that would require us to work outside of the system at hand.

Popular environmentalism I feel has been reduced its focus to sustaining modern human culture rather than nature itself. Not to say we are separate from nature, but we certainly have separated ourselves. Sure we can reduce carbon output by mono-cropping windmills in Iowa or our great lakes. But where are THESE resources coming from to build these? Shouldn't environmentalism and holistic sustainability go hand and hand? New 'solutions' are being sold to us every day. All the while 200 species a day are dying and we are running around in PETA underwear, further encouraging and reinforcing idea of living things as commodities. Being an activist has become a joke these days. Under the capitalist agenda everything is a commodity, including nature. It is unsympathetic to nature, to sensitivity, to beauty. The only parts that we save are all partitioned off and designated for specific use. Everything seems to be of a service to man, even the 'uncivilized man,' who seems to lack the qualification of being a person at all to us. We abuse and exploit them just as we do to nature.

An assistant to the governor of Michigan responded to a letter I wrote regarding modern fracking techniques. He wanted me to know that:

Firstly... " The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is committed toenvironmental stewardship that protects Michigan residents and enhances the quality of life... (also)...

The Governor shares your commitment to Michigan’s environment, and he is working hard to ensure a sustainable future for everyone." I think this is only true to the extent that it fits into his corrupt agenda.

I really do feel that to be a feminist or to be an environmentalist at the true heart of what they are supposed to be and what I think they need to be are interchangeable terms. Being feminine is to have those unexplainable outpourings of feelings to be connected with the emotions of the world. The environment connects us to this as we walk through the woods and something is truly, purely, and simply beautiful. I think this is what we are made for; To see beauty as it is in nature. Not that which has been commercialized and sold to us, but beauty as created by nature. You cannot buy or barter for this. This is us and the trees. We need more empathy and understanding. I think this means to be nurturing, to be loving, to be caring, to express your emotions, to be conscious of your surroundings. This is the true meaning of feminism and to be an environmentalist.

outside the sphere

I had a short lived obsession in highschool of looking at the emaciated bodies of holocaust victims, of starving 3rd world people. I had very little and limited understanding of history or the way the world worked. But still there was something within me that demanded to see these images, I would look at them in secrecy with fascination. Reality echoed through an image on my computer. History didn't matter, but it stood as proof to my inherent feeling of responsibility. A by-product of imperialism; of our disconnection;of the siphoning, for us to live the lifestyle we do. We are all guilty.
I sit right now in a coffee shop, my paper cup was made by Solocup in Chicago, Il probably from some boreal forest, from god knows where and what kind and what age the tree was. The coffee imported from some poor farmer in South America, where he/she likely has never even tasted his or her own roasted coffee. Whom would probably much rather be independent and have a garden to feed the family. And these books, and this computer. The electricity. The cheap oil at the expense at others well being. This is what I think about sometimes, this is what I have a hard time wrapping my head around, that I have a hard time escaping. It's impossible to break down all the things I use on a daily basis that rely on the suffrage of other people, the desiccating our 'natural resources'. It's inescapable.

Derrick Jensen says that "anytime some community sits on a resource needed by those in power, and chooses not to sell this resource (at a price convenient for the powerful), the people are killed, the community destroyed, the resource stolen"

Wendell Berry refers to Industrial Technology as being analogous to war.
He also says that "people who are willing to follow technology wherever it leads are necessarily willing to fallow it away from home, off the Earth, and outside the sphere of human definition, meaning, and responsibility."
Spaceship Earth?
'Away' where is this? my teacher asked with out an answer.

The law of conservation says that matter cannot be created nor destroyed only changed.
We were not made out of the air, we must take to create (MORE PEOPLE!).
Daniel Quinn says that "we are literally turning 150 (now 200) species a day into human flesh"
200 species a day are going extinct, this is far more rapid than any of the mass extinctions according to one statistic. Yet the human race continues to go.
And it literally seems to be a race to the end of something.
For the beginning of something.

I crumple the cup in my hand and toss it in the trash.
so it can be taken AWAY and forgotten about like
the thousands of people we displaced for military bases
hidden behind the veil of "National Security"

Bill McKibben says we need more community, conversation and connection.

What do I say? I just keep nodding my head. mmhmm mmhmmm mmhmmm

2011

The year I learned how to love. One year ago today I was on my way down to North Carolina. To the edge of the world. To revisit. The previous 2 years had been miserable. One year ago today I finally had some resolution. I had control again. I let go. Forgiveness. I was free again. Not to say that I wasn't still tormented by the usual winter blues.

I worked for MOKA for a while. I learned about life without words. I saw joy and rage in its most pure forms. I loved the people I worked with but hated the organization. I felt I was expected to improve someones quality of life, all the while mine was being degraded.

But the work experience eventually landed me a Job with Creston Community Gardens (thanks largely to my cousin). Where I got to teach people about stuff I cared about. Where I met Mac and Deborah. I was at first intimidated by office work. But after getting to know them, sometimes I would rather be in the office than at home or at a party.

I was finally in one place long enough to start a garden and to stay and watch it grow. Shane was cool enough, or didn't care enough to let me tare up his yard as I pleased. I planted Jerusalem Artichoke I had gotten from Jeff Smith. And neighbor Sarah brought me nasturtium seeds and other seeds. Me and her see swapped. She later brought me this beautiful heirloom tomato plant from Jeff, the seeds coming from his Italian great grandmother that produced some of the meatiest best sauce tomatoes I've seen (I have a pasta sauce in my freezer to prove this!) I planted sunflower seeds all over the yard from seeds I had saved from last year. Shane and I planted corn together. Josie brought me a tomato plant from seeds we had saved from a trillium haven tomato. I am still eating broccoli greens, Swiss chard, Arugula, Kale, and daikon radish from this garden into the New Year. Case made me a window box to have some food inside. I have some kale and stray dandelion greens growing in here.

Josie and I conquered another leg of the Smoky Mountains. Both of us in the '100 mile club' now. Since this year we had walked over 100 miles total in the smoky mountains. This year was the year of struggle. Each year focuses on something different. In the previous year we were deathly scared of bears and the year before was our first year and it was just magical and trying. This year was wet and I spent hours trying to make fires in the dark, we were low on fuel. The water pump didn't work so we ditched it.

I rescued a couple of starling chicks and raised them for a month.
How fast they grow. I brought them outside to stretch there wings

and they just flew away. That was it. I wonder if that was how it was for my mom...

the next minute they are gone.

I became vegan.

I adopted a cat, and called her Walter, after Walt Whitman.

I started the Wild Michigan Blog.

I made a good dog friend named Island.

I've held my friend crying. I've held my friends laughing.

I rolled around in the dust at dune grass with my new old friend Bob. I poured myself into Jen and ran away.

Remember the night it was storming, the hawkman climbed us up that dune and the storm blew all around us. Lizards and Crops circles and bagels for breakfast. We were the only ones who ever existed for just a little bit.

At Neverland, I fantasized staying forever. Of moving far away with all of my friends and people I've become acquainted with over the years. Hammock times were special. Barefoot in the woods. Friends. Family. Couchswing fantasy land.

Neighbor Sarah visited me one day with a seven-eleven cup of ice water with Bubby S Thompson. Both of whom I would come to love. Both would teach me more. She introduced me to Putt Putt's where I thought I had found my long last family. I just couldn't keep up with their drinking. As much as I wanted their love, and as much as I love the tall beers there. Sarah also introduced me to Wendell Berry. And helped me feel less like a crazy person, possibly because she's a little crazy to. But that's why I like her. She empowers me and encourages me. She makes me embrace my woman. She is woman.

Book Club times. Naked on beach at daylight. Embracing ourselves, embracing the world.

Mac's Cottage. We realized Island doesn't like boats. Beautiful singing angels of the night. Magik chocolate balls. Water color on the water.

And Case. I don't know if I will ever be able to explain this fully because my explanation keeps expanding. I never thought I would know something so gentle and understanding, yet fierce, passionate, and untamed. That time when we were walking through the woods at Nordhouse holding hands, there was some sort of electricity. Something that made the yellows in the leaves, and the greens of the lichen so bright.
Then there was this time more recently walking, home from the ducks and those oil horses. Beyond the mystical sea buoy. When your head was yours and mine was mine yet you and yours were also in mine and I think as you said mine may have been in yours.

And many many times in between.

Occupy Grand Rapids. Sweet painful democracy. I was a part of a major social movement. Those nights in ah-nab-awen, dreaming with the indian spirits. IT was so raw and alive and real.

it still is. I have retreated from the physical camp, but forever in my heart I hope the message of the movement manifests itself in whatever I do.

Shane and I played a show together this summer. IT was like a dream come true.
Brandon snuck into my bedroom the first night I moved back in with Brandon and
Shane. These guys are my family. The way I can get so mad at them and love them

twice as hard.

Erick moved back home. It's been decided that he is a genius.

Nick is one of my favorite song writers. Also one of my favorite people. I don't know if he knows this, even after I've told him a bajillion times. One of the humblest people I know.

Now it is late, and into the second day of the New Year.

I've spent hours going through photos of the past couple of years.

Our first significant snow of the year. Island and curled up at my feet
and Walter is resting on my left arm. I am laying my bed that sits upon
a door on top of a couple banana boxes.
I have only barely begun to explain the events of the past year and this one

has already begun.

I'm happy to be alive.