Research on Fukushima worth sharing

As I write, there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of children who have been robbed of their innocence and right to a full, healthy life. Neither they nor their parents have committed a crime, yet they are punished for simply being alive in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This is the raw truth, the stripped down reality of Fukushima.

We owe it to these children to inform ourselves to the best of our ability so that if our paths ever cross with theirs we are, at least, able to offer the compassion they, and those who love them, will need to face their futures.

Global Research is a Montreal based independent research and media organization which provides simple, scientific and informative material on many important issues affecting us today. GR has released an ebook, a compilation of data on Fukushima and its impact, not just on the Japanese, but on the world as a whole, wherever the trade winds blow and the oceans flow.

The ebook is called Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation.

I strongly suggest that this be read and kept as reference.

The authors invite sharing.

The sacred dance of the fields

She was old now, bent and heart-bruised. It took her longer to dance the fields.

As a girl only her village danced by the light of the moon. But the slowing of age had made her aware of the others.

Some danced. Some stood or sat in meditation as the monks at the monastery. Some walked with paddles and strings beside her, unaware.

These others were like the morning mist, gossamer shapes so differently clothed as if each came from their own time and place, as if gathered together by the dance of the fields – and the pattern of the steps.

The pattern always returned to the spiral, to the memory with which she was born but could not grasp like a butterfly just out of reach.

She danced to capture the butterfly.

First published in RedBubble and in answer to the question, "What is a crop circle?"

Benefactors of the Fukushima legacy

It is easy to ignore the invisible. As humans, we do it all the time.

Radiation is invisible and, so, we choose to forget the Fukushima fallout in our rain and the creeping sickness spreading into our seas.

Ignoring between 5 and 20 tonnes of debris, some of which is likely to contain Fukushima contaminants, is not easy.

That debris is heading toward North American shores like a slow, lumbering monster - the stuff of nightmares, except, this time, we do not get to wake up.

 The water in the wake of the debris is radioactive.

While the Japanese government and TEPCO assure us that the ocean will dilute the contamination, early research results indicate that this is not true.

There could have been a reprieve if the contamination was related only to the March explosions at the nuclear plant, and the initial emergency dumping of tonnes of radioactive water off the Fukushima coastline. Could have been.

The contamination continues - 7 months after the explosions.

In a few years from now, children will be splashing in radioactive waves off the west coasts of Canada and the United States.

Long before then, these children will eat fish caught in contaminated waters, and sample rice which Japan continues to export despite the fact that exporters and government officials know the rice is toxic.

I would like to believe that Japanese authorities are suffering from a case of uncontrollable self-denial. That would lend a sense of human frailty to their decision-making.

But the decisions are cold, calculated economic ones.

Exporters need a market to survive even when that market is threatened by the toxicity of the exports.

This is no different to a parasite which survives only because it has a host - even when its dependence kills the host.

Perhaps, even more pathetic, is the realization that Japan as exporter is also taking the lives of its own children.

Fukushima released a monster, and we are all in its way.

***

This post is based on a personal summary of articles found on Enenews and Fairewinds websites.

The rescue cat

I stretch because I can,

because I have no fear of falling.

When I over-reach the chair
you’ll be there,
to catch and to cuddle,
you’ll be there.

In different lives,
my first and second,
stretching was an angst
punctuated by terror
and more meaningless error.

My third life was a cage,
an endless line of faces
which passed me by
for others, as yet more
took their places.

My fourth life began with a scratch,
with a click of the latch,
with fresh air.

A caring embrace and a collar,
a food bowl, all mine
with a friend to the end,
to the very end.

Now, I stretch because I can,
because I have no fear of falling.

Those who speak to Gnomes

The Arboretum, Burlington, Ontario.

According to Maria Thun, Gnomes believe that the shell is the best part of an egg. They are utterly baffled by the human habit of eating the flesh and throwing away the shell.

Pavement plodders never meet Gnomes, gardeners do. Gnomes are no more or no less than the personification of the earthly wisdom that comes to those who spend hours running their fingers through the soil.

One of the eternal secrets which gardeners learn is the art of composting, and the very wisest among them knows that eggshell is royalty in the mix because of its high calcium content.

Calcium is the fifth most common element in the earth’s crust, present in all living matter, and alkaline which helps restore the soil’s pH balance.

Calcium is the dominant component in limestone, and limestone, in paranormal circles, is said to channel psychic energies.

Gnomes are psychic energies which manifest themselves to gardeners and, I am tempted to believe, specifically to those who have perfected the art of composting with eggshell.

So, next time someone claims to speak to Gnomes ask to share their garden. It will be peaceful there.

What our eyes cannot see

The video below is intriguing because it raises the question, "Do we see everything there is to see in the world about us?"

We know that human hearing is limited to a particular range of sounds, so why not our vision?

We know that animals see differently from us, but is it possible that we are actually unable to see coexistent species - species which are beyond our visual capacity to comprehend?

In the face of so little research into the human ability to perceive its entire environment I have to ask, "Why not?"

http://youtu.be/mSwbmPM8D40

Winter

Copyright Heather Vallance 2011

Winter is an old woman huddled by the fireside.

We should not fear her mortality or victimize her frailty.

We should celebrate her life as the sensual Spring virgin, the voluptuous Summer bride, and the buxom, fruitful Autumn matron.

Hidden within her is every woman, our eternal consciousness.

We should celebrate Winter and reflect upon her wisdom.

The battle of the alpha males

Baboons are intriguing neighbors. They entertain, they frustrate and they are downright thieving, not unlike a houseful of humans.

Alpha males differ little from one tribe of baboons to the next. They share

• a contempt for all things feminine
• an intense desire to be pandered to by females
• a need to dominate every aspect of their tribe
• an inevitable and vulnerable old age which leaves them open to 
• a beating from the new kid on the block
• banishment, and 
• a horrible death at the hands of strangers because they never learned to take care of themselves when alpha males.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Rupert Murdoch may have been forewarned of their destiny had they known anything about baboons. They did not and so they have become the two most recently dethroned human alpha males to hit the headlines.

Only once did I pity an alpha male. His name was Peter, at least in human speak. He played caregiver to the underage baboons in our garden while the rest of the troop went out to forage.

They would bring him back yummy tidbits which he’d munch through slowly, doing the chew it 22 times routine, while wearing the expression of a Greek philosopher. When the snack was finished he’d wipe his hands on the leaves of a tree with the same fastidious care a dairymaid applied to her hygiene.

He never stopped me from reprimanding his wards for romping through the house, and he never showed aggression toward me. We spent several years sharing this comfortable respect for boundaries until he was beaten and banished from the tribe by the new alpha male.

Peter left the safety of the range he had known and became a bandit who ambushed and stole along the highways and down hidden rural roads. A bounty was set and some foul soul shot him as he lay sleeping among the rocks, worn out and probably ready to die.

Peter’s loss left a space inside me for a while, but he was the exception.

All other alpha males deserve their fate.

Earthly retribution

The Rock Garden, RBG, 2011.
Copyright Heather Vallance

Yesterday’s storm bounced off the Escarpment and reached me at a speed I can only compare with that of a cheetah in full stride. I barely had time to hit the off button on the computer and retreat from my chair beside the window. Only weeks before, I had sat in that same chair during a dry windstorm which downed trees and stripped homes all the way to Fort Erie.

Yesterday’s news told of more wildfires and snow in Hawaii. Violent, unpredictable weather increases with each year, but we never fully accept why.

The Earth is angry, and who can blame her?

I often wonder if Earth showed up as a neighbor - a woman of a certain age named Gaia who entertained her biker friends to Sunday BBQs - if she would be as disrespected as she is as a concept.

Probably. In our world, women of a certain age are as disrespected as the Earth herself.

This is why Gaia has biker friends.

As her neighbor we would learn quickly. Throw garbage onto her front lawn and we’d get a visit, perhaps get roughed up a bit on Sunday as a distraction while the meat was cooking.

Drop an oil well in Gaia’s TV room or cut away a bit of her rockery for a better view of the city, and wham! The bikers would bring out the artillery, because they will do anything to protect the woman who feeds them, listens to their little ego stories, patches up their wounds. That’s what friendship is, and that is why you often see such mismatched people enjoying each other’s company.

If Gaia was a woman with biker friends we would understand the chain of consequences associated with bullying her because we feel superior.

In truth, Gaia is an insignificantly sized blue ball at the forgotten end of a galaxy arm which jostles for space among untold millions of other orbiting masses - putting a whole new meaning on the term cyber bullying.

And the Earth does have biker friends ...

LaSalle Park Burlington

Swans at LaSalle Marina.
Copyright Heather Vallance 2011.

LaSalle Park is about family. On a warm day the lawns are cluttered with tumbling children, wedding parties and dogs which make me think of Jacquie Lawson cards.

I dream of quietude, and for those like me there is a path which winds between the trees and down to the lake. There is a camaraderie among those who choose this path, who share the silent passing of strangers or the conversation of like minds.

A recent windstorm toppled several venerable guardians of the lake, creating new vantage points for the chipmunks who extract a levy in seeds from walkers. Not all trespassers pay the levy, leaving the chipmunks in a state of utter disbelief as they anxiously scurry to new positions on the trunks just in case they were unobserved.

The path curves down to the lake and follows the shoreline. This is the home of yet more chipmunks - and squirrels. The usually robust squirrels seem to be suffering from mange this year. Things breed in the excess damp, and we’ve had damp.

The shore is a combination of mottled green marsh and beach where waves lap against the shale on which ducks and gulls rest. The sound of the water is like enforced meditation. Walkers stop, not because they plan to, but because they have to.

The marina comes into view with its rows of boats and collection of people, but the path holds one final surprise. It does not stop at the marina. The path continues across the road, down an old pier line and into the bay. There is history here, and otters.

To go full circle and back to the car, walkers have to climb the hill to LaSalle Park, toward the wedding parties and splash pool, but even this journey holds one final secret - a memorial to an explorer who stood where once Lake Iroquois lapped, on land that was only a promise of the future.