A Psalm for the People of the Earth - Alan Wight

Praise the Gods and the Universes,

            Technological curiosity of radio signals 100,000,000 light years away,

Praise the stars and sun so near,

            Praise the galaxies and in-between interstellar spaces,

                        Praise the atoms, atums, and adams,

Praise it all with voices and violins,

                        With flutes, bongo beat-drums, and aboriginal didgeridoos,

Praise it with jazz, blues, symphonic orchestras, and hymnal moves,

           

Agape, Eros, and Amorous inclinations...

Astound us into thanks, prayer, homage, and humble movements.

Help us see, help us believe, help us weave healing ribbons of hope.

Wrap us in love so tight it hurts,

            Fill us with piety, and experiences of poverty so potent,

                        So purposeful and pointed that we give ourselves away.....

Help us listen to others to help them help themselves.

Help us tread lightly and think forward 7 generations to world to be.

Ernesto Cardenal’s Palsm 150: The Universe is his Sanctuary, have inspired these words.   May these thoughts echo my AR comrades’ call for our professional actions be in the service of others.

Blue-Green-Ball of Creation

One of my favorite characteristics of Action Researchers is that we consider different ways of knowing. As P. Reasons states so well, “research practitioners to take into account many different forms of knowing— knowledge of our purposes as well of our ideas, knowledge that is based in intuition as well as the senses, knowledge expressed in aesthetic form such as story, poetry and visual arts as well as propositional language, and practical knowledge expressed in skill and competence (2001)*.

It is with love for the spoken word and performance based poetry that I lauch into this entry on Action Research and the Environment.  Today, I will weave words and pay homage to those scholars and activist who have paved the way.  I dedicate this creation to them.

Blue-Green-Ball of Creation

Vandana Shiva explains, “The web of food, is the web of life.”  William J. Brown  paraphrases William S. Burroughs, “People don’t realize the planet is our life boat.”  Given the works of Rachel Carson, E.O. Wilson, Barry Commoner, and Jane Goodall why do we persist and push this Promethean promise of progress?  Stand on the shoulders of Buckminster Fuller and wrap your head around:

                                       

                                                        Our Spaceship Earth

This is a dream for the day we grasp the interconnectivity of the biosphere and realize that it is our ecosphere*

This is a shout-out to my culture: stop planet plundering for profit!

          This is a prayer for people subjected to our modernized poverty,

                      To the social majorities of India, China, and Africa…

          To the World Bank, WTO, and IMF,

                      To the Monsantos, Cargills, and Con-Agra’s,

          To the individuals of the corporations who “dump” grain and rice,

                      To the Dow Jones, S&P, and members of NYSE,

          To automobile users and deep-sea drillers,

                      To the believers in the green revolutions,

                                     And the bio-technology solutions...

      This is a plead to terminate the terminator seed,

           Stop the ready round-ups and petrochemical inputs,

                  Lets refrain from further proliferating pesticides in the chains of life,

Can we please cease this crazy toxification?

      Meditate for a moment on a systems paradigm revelation,

             We need a humble realization,

                     We are all here together on this blue-green-ball of creation.

  

Notes:

1. Reason, P. (2001). Learning and Change through action research. In J. Henry (Ed.), Creative Management.  

    London: Sage.

2. bio (life) = eco (home)

3. As a member of our culture I am an automobile user, an eater of industrial foods, and a product of our promethean way of thinking.  I am not exempt from these words.  It is from this point that I seek alternatives.