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Sustainable Community Developement 

Mentored by Terrill Shorb 

 

I learned to better understand, plan for, and practice a more sustainable life through, the study guided by the Butterfly Curriculum, whose four realms offer a balanced perspective on the specific elements necessary to creation of more sustainable human communities that respect the sanctity of all life. I created a small project to plan and initiated practice of sustainability in my community. The course Sustainable Community Development, taught me a deep and meaningful understanding of the key teachings of the four major categorical realms within the sustainable community development program and how they may be integrated in perspective and practice. I learned from my interest in bats how to create a design for a small-scale project to be implemented in my community. I created Moodle postings of case studies offering illumination of each of the four realms of the Butterfly Curriculum. I completed a brief study of my community's local ecosystems in a PowerPoint presentation which briefly explained their the geology, hydrology, flora and human history of my bio-region.I learned though conducting an analysis of my ecological footprint and how I could take steps to lower it. Wrote a 10 page plan for my community service project.In short, I had fun and learned a LOT.

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How I met my educational goals

* Studied the Butterfly Curriculum and related to developed a working understanding of the elements within each realm and how they interrelate.

 

 * I created a PowerPoint illuminating the four-realms of the Butterfly Curriculum and quotes from various sources on points relevant to the course work.

 

* I completed a brief study of my community’s local ecosystems and characteristics, I displayed my gained knowledge in a PowerPoint presentation briefly describing the geology, hydrology, flora and fauna and human history of the Colorado Plateau.

 

* I conducted an ecological footprint of myself and my household, then identified two things that I was willing to change to bring forth a healthier planet, Earth. Those things begin eating a vegetarian diet and moving to a new household where I made more of the choices.

 

 

* I identified one aspect of my community that I felt needed service and education. I developed a community service and education project revolving around bats and bat education. The multi-faceted plan is attached below as my artifact.

 

 *  I gained and appreciation and understanding for the key teachings of the four categorical realms within the sustainable community development program and how they can be practiced within my individual life and within my community.

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Artifacts

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Below is a PowerPoint Presentation converted to a format that woks within this platform on the subject of the Ecological History of the Flagstaff area.

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A Journey into the Ecological Health  of Northern Arizona

 

 

 



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What is health ?

 

The Eco-Health Professional begins with a clear but flexible definition of what health is, to many times in our society we begin with a definition of illness. It is perhaps, wiser to begin with a foundation of defining health.

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 Prescott College Defines Ecological Health

 

In a general sense, we can describe sustainability as the capacity of an entity (organism, building, organization, population, community, ecosystem, society, etc.) to self-organize and maintain stability over time. Sustainability is achieved through the strength of diversely interconnected relationships that improve the resilient capacity to withstand disturbances and regenerative capacity to create new structure and value through self-organization. Beyond basic sustainability, we have opportunities to create ways of life that preserve and restore the home habitats of all beings in the Earth community.

At Prescott College, we seek to go beyond sustainability by providing education to help people understand, preserve and restore the home habitats of all beings in the Earth community. This begins with demonstrating accountability for the impacts that our programs and operations have on society, the economy and ecosystems. We actively work on continual performance improvements in our management of energy, water, food, materials and people. We also invest value and energy in ways that strengthen ecological, social and economic relationships; we manage and maintain financial and built capital assets with attention and responsibility to ethics, efficiency and effectiveness.

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Listen to the Patient

 

I am lucky enough in my area to have an amazing collection of ecological oral histories of the Flagstaff area. Therefore as an ecological health care provider. I first listened to the story of the patient through the following ecological oral histories.

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Ecological Oral Histories

 

http://www.landsward.nau.edu/additionalinformation.html

The Landsward Institute has since collected several other ecological oral histories and a total of 18 interviews have been conducted to date. These interviews, with ranchers, farmers, biologists, and Native Americans, allow a better understanding of human-culture interaction in the West. The interviews are insightful and generate rich content. A personal land ethic—articulated or implied—is a theme shared in common by the narrators. The interviews have yielded an abundance of first-person information about ecological change in northern Arizona. The topics covered are diverse and include discussions of the following issues:

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Topics covered in Ecological Oral Histories

 

Changes in wildlife populations

Alterations in weather patterns

The spread of invasive species

Changes in the availability of surface and ground water

Changes in native vegetation

Changes in ranching, hunting, and forestry practices

Increases in recreational pressure on national forests
and other public lands

The role of the Museum of Northern Arizona in fostering
regional research

The restoration of traditional farming areas on Hopi lands

The history of a proposed land trade on the Tusayan District
of the Kaibab National Forest

Changes in the darkness of Flagstaff’s night sky

Historic effects of air pollution in the Verde Valley

Changes in land managers’ understanding of ecological processes

And others.

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The vaule of local ecological histories to local ecological health-care professionals

 

The information collected in these oral histories can assist land managers and owners in the region to make appropriate land-use decisions, and helps researchers determine baseline conditions of the Colorado Plateau. The oral histories can be used to help regional land managers determine appropriate land uses and guide decisions regarding the reintroduction of fire and the restoration of forests and grasslands.

http://archive.library.nau.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=all&CISOBOX1=ecological+oral+histories&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=all

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A Walk Through the Medical History

 

After listening to the stories of the patients life-time health and the changes that the patient had experienced over the ecological history of Northern Arizona. I delved into the patients medical records. By taking a trip to the Museum of Northern Arizona.

Where I was lucky enough to tag along with a group of Elder Hostel tourists as they received interesting information about the ecological history or medical records of the patient.

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At the Museum of Northern Arizona I joined a tour given by Ken Kae Docent.

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Geological History: Diggin Up Bones

I joined the tour group during a discussion of the Mesozoic Age, an age when Northern Arizona was populated by large reptiles and crocodiles. Moving into the Jurassic Age dinosaurs appeared as part of the Northern Arizona ecological community. The bones of a Dilophosaurus Wetherilli Kayenta were found not far from my home of Flagstaff.

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Dilophosaurus Wetherilli Kayenta

 

 

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The life story of the patient named 'The Colorado Plateau' Begins.....

 

During the Ice Age the dinosaurs died and the ecosystem that they inhabitant changed greatly. Only a few species such as rats survived to populate the new ecosystem. After the Cretaceous Age when the icebergs began to melt, the Colorado Plateau lifted due to a merging of tectonic plates. Mountains as high as the Andes mountain range. The melting of the ice bergs and the rise and fall of great mountain ranges form the spectacular geological formations that adorn the Northern Arizona landscape.

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Photos of Local Geological formation
located behind the Museum of Northern Arizona.

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The contrast of the local Ponderosa Pines and the Ancient Geological forms, living in harmony.

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Humans arrive to share the Ecological Environment of Northern Arizona.

 

 

11, 500 years ago the body of the environment of Northern Arizona was forever changed by the arrival of human-beings to the Northern Arizona area. The first humans to inhabit the area were hunter-gather tribes who lived in tune with the local environment leaving little trace of there lives, struggles, loves and stories. These tribes of hunter-gathers learned how to plant, grow and farm maze. At this time they became more settled agricultural societies which we know as the Pueblo Native American tribes, such as the Hopi, Zuni and Pai tribes.

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An artistic interpretation of a Hopi Pueblo housed at the Museum of Northern Arizona.

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     Ecological Health-Care Professional  consults with Local Naturalist.

 

Before a long and contemplative walk on the Rio De Flag Nature Trail. Which was like discovering a well kept local secret as it was a beautiful walk through unkempt trails. I stopped by the museum bookstore. Where I found the book, A Natural History of the Intermountain West: Its Ecological and Evolutionary Story by well-known and respected local naturalist Gwendolyn L. Waring.

http://www.amazon.com/Natural-History-Intermountain-West-Evolutionary/dp/160781028X

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A Natural History of the Intermountain West

 

 

A Natural History of the Intermountain West was written to inform people about the wild world around us, with the idea that we all crave a connection to the natural world to ground us and give us a sense of place. It is also a book about change. While species are described throughout the chapters, the text is focused more on the profound processes that have shaped western ecosystems, based on a belief that understanding those processes is more meaningful than a list of names. The ways and the rapidity with which enormous ecosystems replace one another and sometimes even return as climates change are a magnificent testament to the tenacity of life.

The first book of its kind for this region, Evolution and Ecology takes a fresh look at the natural history of the southern Rockies and the Intermountain Region based on cutting-edge research, interviews with numerous scientists, and the author’s personal experience. Drawing together many disparate fields, the book integrates the evolution of western ecosystems with the geological and climatic history of the region. It is a passionate, humanistic, and scientific treatment of this area’s ecosystems, how they function, and how they came to be through time; it is a wonderful guide for the general public and scientists alike.

About the Author

Gwendolyn L. Waring is a scientist and artist based in Flagstaff, Arizona. She has a PhD in biology with an emphasis on plant-animal interactions and approaches her research as an evolutionary ecologist.

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I used this book as a reference for this project and look forward to reading it through out the entire semester.

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Prognosis

 

Millennium Assessment Board of Directors Issued the following prognosis of the health of our patient, Planet Earth.

Living Beyond Our Means: Natural Assets and Human Well-being

This statement was developed by the Board governing the MA process, whose membership includes representatives from U.N. organizations, governments through a number of international conventions, nongovernmental organizations, academia, business, and indigenous peoples.

The statement from the Board identifies 10 key messages and conclusions that can be drawn from the assessment:

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•Everyone in the world depends on nature and ecosystem services to provide the conditions for a decent, healthy, and secure life.

 

•Humans have made unprecedented changes to ecosystems in recent decades to meet growing demands for food, fresh water, fiber, and energy.

 

•These changes have helped to improve the lives of billions, but at the same time they weakened nature’s ability to deliver other key services such as purification of air and water, protection from disasters, and the provision of medicines.

 

•Among the outstanding problems identified by this assessment are the dire state of many of the world’s fish stocks; the intense vulnerability of the 2 billion people living in dry regions to the loss of ecosystem services, including water supply; and the growing threat to ecosystems from climate change and nutrient pollution.

 

•Human activities have taken the planet to the edge of a massive wave of species extinctions, further threatening our own well-being.

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* The loss of services derived from ecosystems is a significant barrier to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty, hunger, and disease.

 

* The pressures on ecosystems will increase globally in coming decades unless human attitudes and actions change.

 

* Measures to conserve natural resources are more likely to succeed if local communities are given ownership of them, share the benefits, and are involved in decisions.

 

* Even today’s technology and knowledge can reduce considerably the human impact on ecosystems. They are unlikely to be deployed fully, however, until ecosystem services cease to be perceived as free and limitless, and their full value is taken into account.

 

* Better protection of natural assets will require coordinated efforts across all sections of governments, businesses, and international institutions. The productivity of ecosystems depends on policy choices on investment, trade, subsidy, taxation, and regulation, among others.

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Proposed treatment for the patient, The Colorado Plateau

 

 

While researching the proposed ‘solutions’ for maladies of the Ecology of Northern Arizona. I discovered the EPA plan of action in my area.

 Mapping Land Cover and Animal Species Distributions for Conservation Planning: An Overview of the Southwest Regional Gap Analysis Program in Arizona

 

 

http://www.epa.gov/esd/land-sci/pdf/swregap_overview.pdf

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EPA PLAN: Abstract

 

 

The Southwest Regional Gap Analysis Program will build upon previous gap analysis programs conducted in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah to provide products that are consistent among areas of this large geographic region. The program will develop new land cover, vertebrate species distributions, and land stewardship data layers using a cooperative approach and similar methods across the five states. The three data layers will be seamless across the five state region, and detailed in resolution and content. The data layers will be used in a gap analysis to evaluate the conservation status of natural habitats and vertebrate species within and among all five states, and point out biotic elements needing further protection or management attention. The program will also provide region-wide digital map and database products that allow land managers, planners, scientists, and policy makers to make better informed land use decisions.

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My Backyard

 

 

The leaves change colors

to gold and scarlet-

to remind us of the coming

white.

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Golden Tree
awaiting the
cover of Snow.

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Last Burst--
Autumn
Sun.

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In the court
yard,
the bike
waits
as I
scribble a
letter
to the
Autumn
Sun.

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Summers
late bit
Shines
through.

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Conclusion

 

 

The poet,  Victor Hugo was asked

“How shall we seduce the women without love-potions?”

The poet, Victor Hugo suggested, “Love”

(Liszt the composer, wrote a song about the poem)

As a Ecological Health Professional I suggest to same for the health and well-being of my local and global environment.

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The Earth…loves is all it needs.

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Below is another Power Point Presentation converted to a form that is viewable on this 'digitation' format. It is a collection of pieces of  brief pieces of prose that bring to mind a quality of the biophilia values that connect humans to nature.

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Biophilia: Values of the natural world

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Utilitarian: value includes the practical uses of nature for materials and food.

 

 

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John Muir was a lifelong pacifist who moved to Canada during the Civil War conscription. He was a mechanical wizard who refused to patent his inventions because “all improvements and inventions should be property of the human race.” When a factory accident temporarily blinded him, young Muir resolved to devote the rest of his life “to the study of the inventions of God.” Upon regaining his sight, he set off alone on a thousand-mile botanizing walk from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico.

  “Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of wilderness, “he wrote, “All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter”

 

 

*******

 

John Muir’s Thousand-Mile
Walk to the Gulf

 

In a rubberized bag

comb

brush

towel

soap

change of underclothing

copy of Burn’s poems

Milton’s Lost Paradise

Wood’s Botany

small New Testament

Journal

Map

A plant press

 

 

*******

 

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, at age sixty-two, on the eve of his 1932 fast to rid India of Untouchability, Gandhi joked that he possessed a few clothes and even fewer teeth.

 

The Mahatma’s Earthly Possessions

Two dinner bowls

A wooden fork and spoon

diary

prayer book

eyeglasses

Three porcelain monkeys

   speak no evil

    hear no evil

    see no evil

(gift from a Japanese Buddhist)

watch

Spittoon

letter openers

Two pairs of sandals.

 

*******

Frank O’ Malley was a university professor who” never earned a doctorate, taught a graduate seminar, or wrote a book.” He never married, after entering as a Notre Dame as a freshman, never again lived outside a campus dormitory.

Yet, O’ Malley is widely esteemed as one of the great educators of our time. By all accounts. His lectures where inspiring and his devotion to his students unwavering. He knew them each by name and never forgot one.

O’ Malley disliked grades and once gave out more A’s then he had students . Distribute the extras to the students who need them, he told the Dean.

 

Professor O’ Malley’s Dorm Room

 

All anyone could find in it:

a bed lumpy with books

old essays

by students

old books

By former students

Old checks from students

Repaying loans

never cashed.

 

 

*******

During summer these birds nest in Greenland, Alaska, Canada, and islands of the Arctic. In the autumn some migrate south along the Pacific coast of the Americas. Others fly east over the Atlantic, then south past Europe and Africa to the Antarctic Circle. In spring the retrace their route, for an annual round trip of 22, 000 miles.

  In the 1970 an Arctic tern trapped alive in Maine had a leg band showing it to be thirty-four years old. In its life-time it had probably flown some 750, 000 miles, much of that over open seas. It weighed 4 ½ ounces. It was rebanded and released.

 


Baggage for the Arctic Tern’s
 22,000-mile migration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the book  Journeys of Simplicity: Traveling Light

By Phillip Harnden

 

 

 

 

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Naturalistic: value includes our direct experience and exploration of nature.

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I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

 

Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:

 

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

 

 

William Wordsworth from

Book of Love  by

Andrew Greeley & Mary G. Durkin

 


Sacred

 

 

I was raised by the song

Of the murmuring grove

And loving I learned

Among flowers.

 

 

--Friedrich Holderlin

From  The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life

By Thomas Moore

 

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Scientific: value is related to a more systematic study of nature’s structure and function and relationships among organisms

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On Probability and Possibility

 

 

Statistically, the probability of anyone of us here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existing would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might except for luck, be in our place.

Even more astonishing is our statistical improbability in physical terms. The normal, predictable state of matter throughout the universe is randomness, a relaxed sort of equilibrium, with atoms and their particles scattered around in an amorphous muddle. We, in brilliant contrast, are completely organized structures, squirming with information at every covalent bond. We make our living by catching electrons at the moment  of their excitement by solar photons, swiping the energy released at the instant of each jump and storing it up in intricate loops for ourselves. We violate probability, by our nature.

To be able to do this systematically , and in wild varieties of form, from viruses to whales, is extremely unlikely; to have sustained the effort successfully for several billion years of our existence, without drifting back  into randomness, was nearly a nearly a mathematical impossibility.

……..There is, if it goes well, quite a lot to look forward to. Already, by luck, we have seen the assembly of particles of exchange thought into today’s structures of art and science. It is done by simple passing the bits around from mind to mind, until something like natural selection makes the final selection, all one grounds of fitness.

  The real surprises, which set us back on our heels when they occur, will always be the mutants. We have already had a few of these, sweeping across the field of human thought  periodically, like comets.

They have slightly different receptors for information cascading in from other minds, and slightly different machinery for processing it, so that what comes out to rejoin the flow is novel, and filled with new sorts of meaning. Bach was able to do this, and what emerged in the current were the primordia in music. In this sense, the Art of Fugue and the St. Matthew Passion were, for the evolving organism of human thought, feathered wings, apposing thumbs, new layers of frontal cortex.

 

 

From The Lives of a Cell

by Lewis Thomas

Pages 141 & 144

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The Dry Salvages: In Four Quarters

I.

The  rivers  is within us, the sea is all about us;

The sea is the land’s edge also, the granite

Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses

Its hints of earlier and other creation;

The starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale’s backbone;

The pool where it offers to our curiosity

The more delicate algae and the sea anemone.

 

 

 

 

II.

The sea has many voices………….

 

 

 

 

III.

The distant rote in the granite teeth……..

 

 

 

 

 

IV.

And under the oppression of the silent fog

The tolling bell

Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried

Ground swell………

 

 

 

V.

When time stops and time is never ending;

And the ground swell, that is and was from the beginning,

Clangs

The bell

 

 

 

 

T.S. Elliot, from  The Dry Salvages

Pg 109  Critical Reading and Writing in the University Community: The Environment

By Geoffrey Chase

 

 

 

 

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Aesthetic: value includes the appeal of the physical environment, its beauty, such as presence of green and water

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Who will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his armor off and gazes at his wife and son….still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of isolation and the waste of ages ? Who will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the world ?

 

 

 

-Virginia Woolf

To the Lighthouse

As quoted by “A Passion for this Earth” by Valerie Andrews

 

 

********

 

 

One cannot build life from refrigerators, politics,  credit statements and crossword puzzles. That is impossible. Nor can one exist for any length of time without poetry, without color, without love. 

-Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change

By Victor Papanek

Page 179

 

 

*******

 

 

 

Sonora Desert Poem
for Lois and Richard Shelton

 

1.

the ones who live in the desert,

if you knew them

you would understand everything.

they see it all and

never judge any

just drink the water when

they get the chance.

If I could learn

The patience they know

I wouldn't apologize for my thorns either

just stand in the desert

and witness.

 

2.

directions for watching the sun set in the desert

come to the landscape that was hidden under the sea.

look in the opposite direction.

reach for the mountain.

the mountain will ignore your hand.

the sun will fall on your back.

the landscape will face away.

you will think you’re alone until a flash

of green incredible light.

 

 

Lucille Clifton

Sonora Desert Poem  from ‘Literature and the Environment’

Anderson, Slovic, O’Grady

Page 177-178

 

 

 

 

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Symbolic: value relates to our use of the natural world for language and thought.

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She sweeps with many-many colored Brooms—

And leaves the Shreds behind—

Oh Housewife in the Evening West ---

Come Back, and dust the Pond !

 

 

Emily Dickenson

Poem 219

Critical Reading and Writing in the University Community: The Environment

By Geoffrey Chase

Pg 148

 

*******

 

 

The wheel outside the door is just the moon.

Those objects hanging from the eaves,

Just autumn clouds.

 

 

Liang Li (A.D. 850)

From  The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life

By Thomas Moore

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Humanistic: value includes our emotional connections with and affection for aspects of nature.

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Eskimo song of the Sea


The great sea,

Has sent me adrift

 It moves me

As the weed in a great river

Earth and the great weather

move me

Have carried me away

And move my inward parts with joy.

 

When an Eskimo women shaman, Uvavnuk, sings this song, the intuition of Deep Ecology of connectedness move through it.

 

_Deep Ecology pg 96; Devall & Sessions

 

 

*******

Who Has Seen the Wind ?

 

Who has seen the wind ?

       Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hand trembling,

         The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind ?

        Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

         The wind is passing by.

 

 

Christina Rossetti

From  Treasured Poems that Touch the Heart

Page 165


 

 

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Moralistic:value includes ethical concern for nature and also spiritual reverence.

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The Answer

 

 

Then what is the answer ?---Not to be deluded by

dreams,

To know that great civilizations have broken down

into

Violence, and their tyrants come, many times

Before.

When open violence appears, to avoid it with

honor or choose.

 

The least ugly faction; the evil are essential.

To keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and

Uncorrupted

And not wish for evil ; and not be duped

By dreams of universal  justice or happiness. These

dreams will

Not be fulfilled.

 

 

To know this, and know that however ugly the

parts appear

the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand

Is an ugly thing, and man disserved from the

earth and stars

and his history …for contemplation or in

fact……

 

 

Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is

wholeness,

the great beauty is

Organic wholeness the wholeness of life and

things, the divine

beauty of the universe. Love that, not man

Apart from that, or else you will share man’s

pitiful

Confusions, or drown in despair when his days

darken.

 

 

Robinson Jeffers

"The Answer” from

 Selected Poems (1938)

Deep Ecology---Deval/Sessions

Pg 63-64

 

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Dominionistic :value relates to a sense of mastery, control, and dominance of the natural world.

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The fear of women and the mystery of motherhood have been for the male no less impressive imprinting forces then the fears and the mysteries of the world itself.

 

--Joseph Campbell

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

As quoted by “A Passion for this Earth” by Valerie Andrews

 

 

 

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The problem with the hero going to meet the father is to open his soul beyond terror (and) understand how the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are completely validated in the majesty of Being. The hero transcends life and for a moment rises to glimpse the source. He beholds the face of the father----and the two are atoned.

 

 

--Joseph Campbell

The Hero with a Thousand Faces

As quoted by “A Passion for this Earth” by Valerie Andrews

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Paul Shepard saw quite early in his work that the opposite of wilderness in NOT civilization; the opposite of wildernesses id DOMESTICATION, the process by which gene combinations in living organisms have been interrupted and redesigned for cultural processes. Civilization, on the other hand, is a condition of society including arts, sciences and the accouterments of culture.

 

 

Florence Shaw

Wild Duck Review

 

 

 

 

 

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The following are out-takes from my notes from

“Nature and Society”

 cira 2000

 

 

Reason is the slave of passion, as it should be

-Hume

 

 

After all, the highest form of injustice is to appear just without being so…..

-Plato,  The Republic

 

Master

Yes

Pay attention

Yes

Do not be deceived

No No No

---Professor Don Snow suggested we say this to ourselves every morning

 

 

 

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Negativistic: value includes fears, aversions, or alienation from nature, often connected to trying to keep the self safe from dangers in the world.

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Pain

 

Pain in the present is experienced as hurt

Pain in the past is remembered as anger

Pain in the future is perceived as anxiety

Unexpressed, anger, redirected against yourself and held within, is called guilt.

The depletion of energy that occurs when anger is redirected inward creates depression.

 

 

From  Ageless Body, Timeless Mind

By Deepak Chopra, M.D.

Page 186

 

 

 

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Natural Born Killers

 

 

This is my remembrance of a scene in the movie, Natural Born Killers:

A Native American man tells this story:

There was once a women who found a wounded copperhead along the side of the road, the women took the copperhead  home and lovingly nursed it back to health.

When the copperhead recovered it bite the women, filling her with its poison.

The women said to the copperhead, “After I saved you and nursed you back to health…why did you do this ?”

The copperhead replied, “Because I am a copperhead you stupid women…..”

 

-Oliver Stone

 

 

 

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Always do what you are afraid to do

 

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Pg 49

“The Art of Non-Conformity” by Chris Guillebeau

 

 

 

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Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

 

 

Dale Carnegie

“The Art of Non-Conformity” by Chris Guillebeau

Page 60

 

 

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Community Service Project Plan: Beautiful Bats

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Community Project Plan: The Beautiful Bat

There are 28 species of bats living in Arizona. Bats may roost in groups or alone, they may live in tree foliage or under the bark of Ponderosa and other local trees. All of the species common to Yavapai and Coconino County are insect-eaters.  Species common to my community are Myotis, Volans, American free-tailed bat, the big brown bat, and the Big-eared bats.  The Arizona Fish and Game Department states on their web-site:

By far the largest challenge to bat conservation is our lack of knowledge about most species. For many species, even the most basic natural history data is lacking. Consequently, developing management and conservation plans is very difficult. Although Arizona is working hard to gather information on bats, we still do not have accurate population estimates for many species, much less information on population trends. Research and surveys that focus on gaining this basic information are sorely needed and will help direct future management activities. However, the information we do have indicates that conservation actions should be of primary importance.

 

 

Colossal Cave Mountain Park’s site says of our friends the bat:

These shy, gentle, intelligent creatures comprise almost one quarter of all mammal species. Among the least appreciated but most beneficial of mammals, they are a vital part of entire ecosystems—and worth literally billions of dollars to the world economy. For example, approximately 70% of bat species are insectivores (insect eaters). A single colony of bats, numbering from thousands to even millions of individuals, can devour hundreds of tons of insects every night—thus controlling serious crop pests without poison! 

               

Our friends that bats are one of the least studied and understood species on the planet today. But what we do know about these tiny, flying mammals is that they perform many invaluable eco-system services including seed dispersal, pollination, guano and insect control. Bats are threatened by the present state of Arizona eco-systems. No confirmed cases of White-Nose Disease, a disease that has killed over a million bats have been confirmed within the borders of Arizona. Yet, several species of bats that live and fly in Arizona have been decimated in other states. Most bat experts believe that it is only a matter of time before the Arizona bats are infected with the horror of White-Nose Disease. We as environmentalist have a responsibility to our gentle, friends the bats to protect and preserve them.

 

The United Nations has declared 2012 to be ‘The Year of the Bat’ and is hosting a variety of world-wide events to bring attention to bat conservation. I would like to bring these events to my community and bring my community to ‘Year of the Bat.’ Year of the Bat activities include; planting bat-gardens, building bat-houses, encouraging bat poems from Flagstaff be submitted to the international bat poem web-site, bat education programs for local schools and bat-watching and appreciation events. Each person or event listed below could assist in one or many ways with the aspects of The Year of the Bat events as is workable within their lives or organization.

 

2012 Beautiful Bat Events in Flagstaff, Arizona already completed:

 

  • Contact teacher at local schools and alert them to the year of the bat events and the free bat study plans and activities online. Ask them how their class or school would like to participate.
  • Contact local newspapers and ‘zines letting them know it is ‘the year of the bat’ and ask if they would like to run a story on bats. Advertise events at free of discounted NPO cost.
  • Contact local senior citizens center and see if they would like to build some bat houses and plant some bat –gardens.
  • Contact AmeriCorps and organize an event of Bat-house building and bat education

I have already contacted a few of these organizations asking how I can be of service to their mission by bringing attention to Bat Conservation. These organizations have been receptive to Bat Conservation and to the UN declared Year of the Bat, and winter will be a great time to plan for spring and summer bat-tivities.  These events will happen at several locations across Flagstaff area throughout the summer and into the fall.  . I believe that the organizations in my town would be interested in partnering with my effort s and with each other to bring bat education to Flagstaff.

 

Though introducing my community members young and young at heart to bats and their benefits to the eco-system, I hope to bring an enthusiasm to the preservation and protection of bats and their habitat

Through sharing songs, poems and stories, I hope that my community will begin to notice, see and love bats as much as I do. The following is a Native telling of the creation story of bats that an Ojibwa friend, Nick Hockings used to tell over the campfire in Lac-Du-Flambeau, Wisconsin. Perhaps it was that heart of this story that drew me to the plight of the loveable little bat. I hope in the spirit of sharing diversity though stories to share it with my community. One of the variety of bat-tivities that I will be hosting this summer as an ambassador of the United Nations, 2012 theYear of the Bat.

 

 

 

Early one morning while he was on his way to his home in the sky, Father Sun got caught in the branches of a tall tree. He tried and tried to free himself, but only managed to entangle himself more firmly. Soon Father Sun could not move at all.

That morning all the animals waited in vain for Father Sun. When he did not appear, they went quietly back to their beds. They thought that they had not slept long enough and it was still night.

The bear went back to his cave. The rabbit returned to his nest under a bush at the edge of a field of sweet clover.

The chipmunk went into his hole in the roots of an oak tree. Only the owl, the wolf, and the fox were happy, for they could hunt a little longer than usual in the dark. When Father Sun did not appear the next day, the animals began to suspect that he had gotten lost on the way home. They searched through most of the forest, but they could not find him.

One little squirrel always looked at the treetops because he liked to jump from branch to branch. He discovered Father Sun stuck in the topmost branches of a tall tree. By this time Father Sun was very pale and weak.

"Little squirrel, little squirrel," he rasped in a low voice, "little squirrel, set me free." "Certainly, Father Sun," replied the little squirrel, and he ran up the trunk of the tree towards the topmost branches, but Father Sun's heat drove him back to the ground at once.

 

Again Father Sun called out, "Little squirrel, little squirrel, set me free, set me free."

"Oh, Father Sun, you are too hot," said the little squirrel sadly. "You have already burnt my fine long tail." He had always considered his tail very handsome and was sorry that it was gone.

"Try again," pleaded Father Sun. "I am so tired that my light will soon go out."

The little squirrel ran up the trunk of the tree a second time. He almost reached Father Sun before the fierce heat drove him back.

As the squirrel reached the ground once more, Father Sun groaned, "Little squirrel, little squirrel, please try on more time."

 

"Father Sun," cried the squirrel, "your heat has burnt off my fine long tail. My fur is black. What is more, I can't see. Your light has made me blind.

Please, little squirrel, try again," whispered Father Sun. "My light will soon go out."

Once more the little squirrel ran up the trunk, this time as fast as he could go. When he reached the branches at the top of the tree, he gave Father Sun a tremendous push. At that moment Father Sun broke free and sailed up towards his home in the heavens.

The squirrel held on to the branches with all his might. The intense heat had made his arms grow longer and his skin stretch out. Now it seemed that he was caught at the top of the tree forever. There was no one that could rescue him. His scorched skin hurt and his eyes were so sore that he could not see at all.

Father Sun paused and looked back. He was distressed to see how much he had harmed the kind squirrel and knew that somehow he must help the little creature.

"Poor little squirrel," he said, "in helping me you have been hurt. Now I shall repay your kindness. What is your dearest wish?"

"I have always wanted to fly," the squirrel answered, "but no it is too late. I am blind and my skin hurts so much that I must surely die."

Father Sun nodded and suddenly the pain left the squirrel, but he still could not see and his skin and arms were still stretched.

"From now on," said father Sun, "you will be able to fly into the heavens just as you have always wanted to do. Since my light hurts your eyes, you will fly at night. Although your eyes are blind, your ears are still very sharp.

When you call out, the trees and rocks will send back echoes to you. Then you will know that there is something in your way and you will be able to dive and swoop to avoid hurting yourself. I shall see you in the morning and in the evening on my journey back and forth."

The squirrel dropped his arms from the branched and flew away. He had become a little brown bat. Ever afterwards he would hang upside down when he slept in the daytime. Then everyone would remember the day a squirrel saved Father Sun so that the world could have light and warmth.

And that is how a squirrel became a little brown bat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what Rudolf Steiner has to say about bats ~

"The bird is the flying thought. But the bat is the flying dream; the flying dream picture of the cosmos. So we can say: The earth is surrounded by fluttering butterflies - they are cosmic memory; by the kingdom of the birds - this is cosmic thinking; and by the bats - they are cosmic dream, cosmic dreaming. The flying dreams of the cosmos actually rush through space as bats. And as dreams love the twilight, so, too, does the cosmos love the twilight and send the bat through space. The enduring thoughts of memory, these we see embodied in the girdle of butterflies encircling the earth; thoughts of the moment we see in the birds encircling the earth; and dreams in the environment of the earth fly about embodied as bats. And you will surely feel, if you enter deeply enough into their form, how much affinity there is between looking at a bat in this way and having a dream! One simply cannot look at a bat without the thought arising: I must be dreaming; that is really something which should not be there, something which is as much outside the other creations of nature as dreams are outside ordinary physical reality."

 

 

 

Who are the participants?

  • Friends for Flagstaff Future
  • Dark Skies
  • Willow Bend
  • Prescott College
  • Museum of Northern Arizona
  • AmeriCorps/ Ace and Crec
  • Flagstaff Parks and Rec departments
  • Local schools
  • The local senior center
  • NAU Environmental Studies Department
  • Coconino Community College
  • Arizona Fish & Game
  • Live Magazine
  • Arizona Daily Sun
  • Bat Conservation International
  • Angie McIntire, AF&G: Bat Management Coordinator (623) 236-7574
  • Colossal Cave and Mountain Park
  • Gwen Warring

 

Skills Needed?

The clothes on your back and a willingness to work, a work ethic, honesty and a positive attitude are all that is required of volunteers. The Beautiful Bat Project can be and all day project or a long-term project, it can be for an individual or a group of volunteers. The skills needed can be adapted for the elderly and disabled on an as needed basis. All volunteers are welcome to share in the Beautiful Bat Project.

 

Appreciation:

Appreciation will be shown in a variety of ways depending on the needs and comfort of the volunteers. At the end of the summer we will be having an evening of watching bats at the Rio Del Flag Trail behind the Museum of Northern Arizona. The evening will include songs, poems and tales of the beauty of bats and snacks. Many local NPO’s will be invited to the ‘Beautiful Evening of Bats’ plan on inviting  including, Dark Skies, Members of the Museum of Northern Arizona, AmeriCorps, Gwen Warring. It would also be nice to let children stay up late and enjoy ‘The Beauty of Bats”

There would also be a road-trip for Bat-lovers to Colossal Cave Mountain Park and snacks.

 

Colossal Cave Mountain Park
16721 E. Old Spanish Trail
Vail, AZ 85641 - 520.647.PARK (7275)
info@colossalcave.com


In the words of Colossal Cave Mountain Park

These gentle mammals deserve our protection—and we, in turn, benefit greatly from their presence.

 

 

 

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