Thinking ethically (about the environment)

A good outline from a course at SCU: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/environmental_ethics/short-course.html

Winter Reminder

***

Reminder to Myself

Say, where would you be, if only you could?

On a winding footpath, going into a wood.

But choose wisely, know that your days can fly by.

Don't wish away jeweled hours, longing for a different sky.

Be present, know that now is the the time that you're living.

Don't lose touch with this moment, it is the one that you're given.

"value" in nature

Holmes Rolston III, one of the fathers of environmental ethics, explains his system of "valuing" in "non-anthropocentric" terms. Read about this: http://www.carroll.edu/msmillie/envethics/naturalizingvalues.htm

"According to Rolston, the "classical value theory" is anthopocentric or at least anthropogenic. Rolston describes this as "value apartheid"—the unjustifiable axiological separation of humans from nature. This is inconsistent, when we affirm that humans are not metaphysically different from nature, but axiologically different. There is a second inconsistency when we argue that we cannot know enough about the natural world to know if it is valuable, when we claim on the other hand to know that the values arise."

Read more about Rolston here:  http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rolston/Preston.htm

Internal Lighting

Internal Lighting

Only now and then is the mind clear
Opening to real internal lighting
Most of the time I miss the truth that is
Right here, right now
in all of the now, every moment.

Does this mean that most of it is
failure to see?
Or that I only see dimly, and incompletely.
Keep looking.

Lake Seven

Rowing slowly, no destination
Circling the lake margin
Cattails, white water lilies, spatterdock
Garter snake swimming by
Yellowthroats, tanager, vireos singing
Light breeze, cloud reflections lead us
To meditative quiet and absorbing beauty.
There are surely other tasks trying to
Call us away.
But we were "here", for a while.
Now and then, when I am open,
I am brought to the right place.

walked here

Visited the dark water

and the place where lowland dwellers live
at the edge of the forest,

where wetland touches it,

broad-winged hawk sailed over

ignoring what humans have to say.

But I will not ignore the broad-wing
she is my teacher.

She and her forest/wetland mosaic

are teaching me that I lose/my understanding is insufficient

if I do not INCLUDE ALL AS EQUALS.

deeply troubled by overt cruelty

Reminded about the callous treatment of wild creatures for profit (http://futureofbirds.blogspot.com/2014/02/illegal-trade-in-wildlife.html  -- very similar to human trafficking) has left me deeply troubled.