Tonight when I go home from work, or early tomorrow morning, I begin drilling the holes for our garden. And tomorrow, I go to pick up the soil for our garden! And then planting begins….
We have kale, beets, sunflowers, echinecea, peppermint & spinach to be planted. I’m really excited to start the seedlings & to pick up more seeds. I hope to grab some lavendar, rosemary, spearmint, eucalyptus, mullein, calendula, cucumbers, squash, pumpkin, berries, collards & roses. We already have some tomato & basil, thinking about grabbing more basil. We’ll see what happens!
Hopefully by the end of the summer, we won’t need to buy produce:-)
Well, my brain finally kicked in. No more animal products.
I feel like I’ve been in a weird haze since Vermont. NYC is great, but it’s also hectic, fast paced & unsettling. Between police harassment & violence, running around to avoid the police, navigating weird politics with police & protestors, doing medical work, interpersonal issues with other activists & trying to sustain myself, I left very little room to analyze what I was doing & how I felt about it. Now that I have, I’m very excited to possibly start a project with DC Housing Authority & get the dreams that I’ve had laying in dormant ready to burst out into society.
I got a bunch of seeds today. Hopefully going to start sprouts tomorrow after I get out of work. I’m dog sitting in the morning & evening, nannying in the afternoon & evening as well. DC is a difficult city to navigate & I’m hoping to eventually get a car or a scooter, something that will make transportation faster…
Till later…
Today marks the 7th month that I’ve been involved in Occupy Wall Street. I’m feeling very unsettled about both how long it’s been & what’s next. This morning I woke up & was still very paralyzed by what I had seen in my nightmares. And maybe that’s where I’m at with Occupy Wall Street; paralyzed, frozen.
There’s an interesting cycle that I’ve found emerging in Occupy. People on the front lines getting back to society & people in society getting up on the front lines. I think it’s my turn to be an arm chair activist & support others through resources. It makes me really sad but I’m recognizing the importance of those who have jobs & interact with society. This is going to be long and without those places to sleep, cook food, rest & relax, there are so many who wouldn’t get through as much as they do.
Well, DC, soon you’ll have another occu-partment. Just got to get through the next few weeks.
This is Brian Eister from Occupy DC, writing to tell you about a tremendously important story unrelated to Occupy. A uniquely devoted long time environmental activist, understanding as we all do that the seemingly intractable energy policies of the industrialized and developing worlds are going to lead to more destruction and misery than any of us can imagine, has taken a page from the history of the Indian revolution and made the choice to give his life in order to stand against the terrible injustice of climate change. He has undertaken a terminal hunger strike in an attempt to awaken the world to the coming catastrophe.
While one might at first want to write this off reflexively, the nature of the situation clearly calls for drastic measures. Barring a transformation of policy far more radical than what seems possible at present, we are condemning all of the people of future generations to a world where coasts everywhere are inundated and food and water tremendously scarce. Every new piece of research paints a bleaker picture than before. The man undertaking this fast is quite sane, perfectly lucid, and certainly does not labor under delusions of any kind. This sotry is tremendously important; in dealing with climate change, nothing less is at stake than the future of humanity. You may contact me anytime, though I will be unavailable by phone on Monday.
If you would like concise background about the likely outcomes of our fossil-fuel use, send me an e-mail.
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Contact:
Brian Eister
planetaryspring@gmail.com
Thursday April 30, 2012
For immediate release: Long-time Environmental Activist Begins Day 6 of Indefinite Hunger Strike Outside of Canadian Embassy
Washington D.C. - Long time environmental activist Start Loving begins day 6 of a hunger strike and 24-hour vigil outside of the Canadian embassy today, calling upon people everywhere to change global energy policy to reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2020, as many prominent scientists have suggested is necessary to avoid rising seas, reduced crop yields across the globe, and the melting of glaciers which provide drinking water for hundreds of millions of people.
“We must reduce Carbon 80% in eight years, or the next fifty generations, the ones who survive, will wonder if they are the lucky ones.” Loving said. “There’s not a leading climate scientist or leading economist who doesn’t see it the same way. They may not be speaking as honestly as I am, but they all have exactly the same nightmare.”
Loving was unambiguous about the length of time for which he intended to continue this hunger strike.“I am on, as I think of it, a CO2 death vigil. Until enough people are seen dying for it, climate change is not going to be stopped. We’ve had dozens of years of trying everything else. We’ve had dozens of years of proof of what does not work. In history, the two things that have reliably broken this insanity [the insantiy of greed] are the attitudes ‘I am going to kill you unless you stop’, or ‘I am willing to die unless you stop.’ We don’t have another fifteen years to try safer tactics. We don’t have fifteen months.”
Asked for a concise summation of his message to the world, Loving replied “The current global energy plan is condemning the next fifty generations to hell on Earth. Are you going to let that stand? If not, you have to change global energy policy in 2012.”
Start Loving can be found at on the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the Canadian embassy, sitting next to a six-foot-tall sign which reads “CO2 death fast” at the top and says “‘Till enough are seen dying for it, CO2 won’t stop.” He will be at this location 24 hours a day for the indefinite future. He has not taken food, vitamins, or supplements since 8:00 PM on Tuesday, April 24th.
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Oscar is asleep, his head laying over my stomach, body stretched out over the adjacent seat. My layers strewn everywhere, hair a mess, as the sun’s orange rays hit my face, blinding me as I look out at the sparse trees. No one on this bus knows what will unfold tonight. The man across the aisle & I had a normal conversation, but does he know I will be arrested tonight? Does he know why I will be arrested tonight? Does he understand what goes on in this city?
I’m very unsure of what’s next. After applying to several jobs today, I feel as though things are headed in the right direction in my own life. As far as Occupy is concerned, I’m nervous. Occupy has accomplished all that it set out to do, people are talking, we’ve met & are organizing. Right now, my involvement in Occupy only infuriates; I’m finding that leaders are emerging & a hierarchical structure has formed. That’s not what we intended to end up with, maybe it’s necessary to create the world we want, but for me it’s not what I want to see in my world.
If you didn’t already know, I’m not a huge fan of the NYPD. In recent that distaste has grown immensely. The violence faced by those at OWS here in NYC is intolerable & unacceptable. The public needs to wake up & recognize the injustices faced by those all over the city, not just OWS protestors…
It’s been about two weeks since I got up here. I’m pretty sad it’s my last day… Emma came up to interview for the summer position on the farm. I’ve started packing.
I fell pretty hard last night and screwed up my leg. It’s been driving me nuts all morning so I tightly bound it and hopefully that’ll keep the other pain at bay, hah. I was going down to take care of the chickens after dinner and was really freaked out by the dark, slipped on a huge patch of ice and went tumbling down the hill into the dog house. Oscar came quickly after and hopped into my lap as if to say, LOOK ELI I FELL TOO!! Then ran off into the house, not that I noticed as I was still trying to get off my ass. I spent about 20 minutes looking for him after, terrified he had run off into the darkness and gotten eaten. Went into the house discouraged & found him sitting by the door… Damn dog…
Dragged brush all morning with Emma. It was nice to have someone there but at the same time I also like my peace and quiet when doing menial tasks like dragging brush.
We had a great tomato soup for lunch with rice pilaf & greek yogurt. I never knew greek yogurt & tomato soup could go together, but they’re a great combination.
Next blog post might be from the bus home…….
