LightBears

“OLD ROOTS, NEW SHOOTS PROJECT“

Are you one of the people who want to help change the World by making it a better place, not just for human beings, but for all of Nature?

If so, this is for you, and anyone else you might know!!

In contemplating the human aging process within the context of the rhythms of Nature, where aging plants and trees develop and spread their seeds to ensure future life, I’ve been mulling over an idea.  

I’m sharing this with you, and hope you will think about others who might find it of interest.  I wonder what thoughts may come to your mind as you read this.  And I’m writing this in the hope that even a wisp of this thought may become the seed of a new reality.

Suggestion:  invite graphic artists, textile artists (knit/ crochet/embroidery/quilters/ weavers/spinners /fiber artists/ pulped paper artists), artists who use light, energy,  neon,  wire, creators of transient art, or who create art from recycled or repurposed items, art forms that are audio, tonal, rhythmic, dance, mime, sculpture, potters, earth work, wood/branch/leaf/stick art, art from bones, writers, poets, spontaneous ephemeral art, art using cursive writing, hieroglyphics, Cyrillic, Sanskrit, ideographs, Chinese/Japanese characters, math, computer language, text speak, symbols both ancient and just conceived, art using so many ways and means to communicate, ASL, more…. films… whale songs, animal sounds, languages incorporating clicks and glottal stops, all possible media….  Art that speaks of how, in different cultures, color has different meanings, as do body language and gestures….

Goal: Bring into being a self-renewing, self-updating, permanent and yet transient communication bridge/network, a repository, that would function like the microfiber/fungal micro-connections that enable tree roots and even more yet undiscovered organisms to pass along knowledge…  Exploring how the vibrations in the air currents inform birds, butterflies, and more as they fly; the magnetic currents, the sound vibrations that inform the undersea communities…

Old people have unshared stories of how they are making it, or HAVE MADE IT, through life challenges, changes, and have a perspective gained by living through different experiences (in the Western world, the “Great Depression”) or, in other countries, having survived the Holocaust, other encampments or imprisonments, and diseases or disasters such as cholera or ebola, water shortage, lack of electricity, etc. Without machinery, how they were able to move huge things, or how they cooked without stoves or obvious fuel, how they managed food shortages, drought, floods, winds, volcanoes, tsunamis, times when there was no meat, or no medical help or doctors. They can tell stories of love that endures tragedies, hope that persists in the face of hopelessness, death, grief, sharing, isolation, parenting without community, living through or with emotional and physical abuse, and surviving despite the odds.

These are the old roots. 

To the new growth in the forest, the old trees’ foliage blocks the light, and their deep, established roots use the water that the new shoots need. 

But without the new shoots, there would be no future forest.

Old fallen trees become the nurse logs for new seeds to take root:

Over time, the nurse log decays and the new tree stands on roots like stilts when the old support is gone:

There are secret codes among each age group — cursive writing, archaic words or references to old ditties (“when Hector was a pup” or “doesn’t amount to a hill of beans“, etc.) among the olders — and text speak, phrases/codes developed to evade social media censorship, implemented through AI, as well as new words or gestures, a sort of “shorthand” that helps speed communication among the youngers.  

Can we come together to develop and share a decoder ring, make a new updated Rosetta Stone, to facilitate communication among ages and cultures?

Is there in fact a willingness, or a perceived need or potential benefit, among the youngers (8 year olds, 15 year olds, 20+, 30+ etc. year olds) to share with and communicate with the olders about the way they, the youngers, see, feel, fear, cope, create, organize,  strategize, etc.?

It is in the youngers that the hope of the Future lies, for they are not limited by the same teachings/ admonitions/ warnings passed down to the olders!

And it is the flexible thinking of the youngers that leaves their imaginations open to really, truly “thinking outside the box”!!!

Can a weaving take place so each extreme of the bell curve of life can learn/borrow/change/ evolve from the other extreme?

Can the olders find a way to be open to and hear, bear, and accept *with compassion* the anger and blame that may be felt by the youngers about world changes, depredation, pollution, extinction, caused over many many years, as a result of choices made by the olders and those generations who went before them? 

Can the youngers take HOPE from, trust, learn new ideas, develop new perspectives, and build on the olders’ ways of getting through their various hardships?

Can the gender-fluids accept the gender-statics,

and is the same possible in reverse? 

Can labels based on color, spiritual beliefs, practices, political alliance, gender, historical decisions, geographic origins or locations, values like good/bad, us/them, better/poorer,

and all other means

of separation

from

one

another

BE NULLIFIED,

erased,

AND ACTUALLY

*COMPOSTED*

so that

*****NEW *****

ways to relate

can evolve?  

Is it hard-wired in human beings to compare/contrast, include/exclude, judge, control, compete?  Is it necessary to own, to take, rather than share/give?

How can we come

*******TOGETHER*******

to build

HOPE

connections

communication

and

COLLABORATION?

Can art

in all its forms

and media

bring together what may

at the moment

APPEAR

to be polar

opposites? 

Can we make a weaving

of new/different methods

and

materials

to create a patch

or series of patches

to join the different pieces and shapes of the ages and cultures in order to begin to create TOGETHER

a viable bridge to the future?

Can any of this be accomplished without it falling prey to politics, religion, entitlement, or being coopted by any individual group to serve as a slogan or banner/ideological platform for the sole purpose of such a group??

Is ego-free generosity and non-profit collaboration even possible in the current culture??

WHAT IS POSSIBLE??!!!

I choose to believe that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!!!

There’s an old song with differing accounts as to its origin. Some say the lyrics are from Ruthie Gorton, from the preamble to the constitution of the United Mineworkers of America, but that there was no tune to accompany the lyrics.

Others say that its origin was with the American Mineworkers Association (1863).

I have, in my lifetime, actually heard the song being sung in groups. The music is said to have been arranged and adapted by Waldemar Hills and Pete Seeger (1948) from the traditional Irish song “The Praties They Grow Small.”

Regardless of the true source, for me, this song says it all:

“Step by step the longest march
Can be won, can be won.

Many stones

can form an arch,

Singly none,

singly none.

And by union

what we WILL

Can be

accomplished still!

Drops of water turn a mill,

Singly none, SINGLY NONE”

Just to emphasize, I repeat:

“AND by UNION,

WHAT WE

*Will*

can be accomplished still!!”

SO, DEAR READERS, WHO AMONG YOU IS WILLING

AND CURIOUS ENOUGH,

INNOVATIVE ENOUGH, TO TAKE THE FIRST STEP,

TO BE THAT FIRST DROP OF WATER???

I ASSURE YOU: THERE IS

AN UNTAPPED WATERFALL

OF POTENTIAL POSITIVE CHANGE,

AND IT IS JUST WAITING, JUST WAITING, POISED TO HAPPEN…..

WILL YOU BE THE BRAVE ONE, THE FIRST ONE, WHO WILL TAKE UP THE CHALLENGE????

who will start this conversation? who will undertake to make a beginning?

who will mention this idea to a friend, who then will tell another friend, and then find yet another friend to join the conversation? SOMEONE must start!!!