Editorial on the Gulf of Mexico Oil Leak by Ingrid Naiman

Dear Subscribers,

This is an editorial. I am not going to try to explain anything esoteric or health-related nor urge you to buy anything. I am just going to sound off on the Gulf of Mexico oil situation and ask you to contribute your time and energy to solutions.

First, I would like you to consider joining a global meditation at noon tomorrow, noon Mountain Time (which for foreign readers means Rocky Mountains). So, June 6th at noon is 11:00 am my time and 8:00 pm in most EU countries, 11:30 pm in India, and Monday 3:00 am in Japan. If you are not sure, try the converter on this web page:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

The meditation has been called by the Little Grandmother Kiesha. If you search her, you will find a number of videos online. The prayer is for the healing of Mother Earth, called by the shamanic elders (although Keisha is young in chronological age) who is asking that we see ourselves as a global tribe of many colors and that we join together in prayer, meditation, and healing intent for our Planet. She says the time has been prophesied and our star brothers and sisters are ready to join us. I would ask you to do this in a manner that is consistent with your own beliefs, but once again to try to put details aside so that rather than defining what healing means, we all simply ask for healing to occur.

People have sent me a lot of links and, if the truth be known, I have read or watched all of them. So, the temporary silence was actually due to a multitude of distractions. The reason for the editorial is that while I am personally praying for the highest good, I am concerned about the level of anger and how people who have been more or less disempowered by those who have seized the power can express themselves constructively and effectively. Please try to understand that I believe anger is legitimate. Anger arises as a reaction to something unacceptable. When it arises, it has immense potential for change. The energy is potent so if it is directed in a constructive way, positive changes are possible. If it is just vented, it pollutes like acid rain. We need to take responsibility for constructive use of our rage.

Here are some basic truths worth considering. We never needed oil. Humanity was able to build the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, and great civilizations without fossil fuels. The electric car was available in the 19th century, not even the late 19th century but starting from the 1830s. Thanks however to our exploitation of oil, we have a serious air quality problem and now an environmental hazard of incalculable proportions. I spent much of my childhood in Los Angeles at a time when smog could be so wretched that it burned my lungs and eyes. When I first joined the work force in my 20s, it was with the U.S. Trust Company on Wall Street, an investment bank for the rich. One day, the head of the research department called me into his office and said that someone else was taking over this and another person that. He went on for a while. I asked, "Am I fired?" He said, "No, we want you to go back to your desk and think." I said, "Did I do something wrong?" It was a highly unusual conversation. He kept saying he just wanted me to think. Finally, I asked, "About what?" He was vague, basically saying, "Anything." I was young and nervous and the input was not making any sense to me. He finally said, "Well, the Trust Company got where it is today by recognizing the Xeroxes and IBMs before others. We want you to discover the companies of the future." I said, "You mean like alternatives to fossil fuels and underwater exploration and so on and so forth." Finally, the energy shifted and he said, "I knew we picked the right person." We had a library and I could order anything I wanted and the travel budget was also pretty unlimited. From an investment perspective, the opportunities were however limited because an enormous company like Westinghouse might be the key player in some new endeavor but that involvement represented only 5% of the company's business. Another company where the commitment was 100% was so tiny that if the stock were publicly traded, the Trust Company would have bought every share in the first hour the buy policy went into effect, maybe in the first minute of trading. However, what became clear to me is that the only reason safer and more sustainable technologies were not being introduced at a much faster rate was that the investment in the status quo provided incentives to exploit the potential for wealth and power so long as their commodities were in demand.

Let's make this very practical. If a few centuries back you or I had been a horse rancher and someone came to talk to us about trains and the future of transportation, we would very likely have felt that our life styles and wealth were threatened by railroads. We would, of course, have been right unless we decided at that time to invest in railroads and turn our love of horses into a hobby. Likewise, when cars and planes were introduced, the rail companies would have felt threatened, but, as we know, cars and planes were introduced and this turned the railways and passenger liners into semi-obsolete industries, relying on transport of commercial goods and tourism. When I was a child flitting between continents, we often took ocean liners but the percent of transoceanic travel going to the luxury liners has decreased tremendously, the point being that wealth still exists, Wall Street continues to exist, and the older industries also still exist.

The curious part of "modern" life is that while televisions dinged the market share of radios and computers are taking over some of the turf previously dominated by television, the petrochemical industry has been so big and powerful that it has managed to bury most competition and the track record is pretty ugly. Yesterday, I watched a video on Shell Oil's sociopathic conduct in Nigeria:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/857.html

I also watched the dive by the grandson of Jacques Cousteau:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/diving-gulfs-toxic-soup-10735329

I didn't need to see it to know how bad this situation is. Mobilizing people to clean up beaches does not address the problem at the core of the issue which is that fouling our oceans in order to delay the introduction of new technologies is not a sustainable approach to the future. It's really that simple.

About a month ago, I watched a video on Conscious Media Network in which Brian O'Leary discussed how people with innovative ideas can get away with discussions of the new technologies until they have a practical working model and then they are assassinated. Honestly, I don't want to go there right now, but unless we totally understand that the only obstacle standing between a safe and sustainable world and the havoc we have now is abuse of power by a handful of obscenely rich elitists, we will not see our way through the changes that are mandatory.

To understand the issues, one does not have to go into conspiracy theories, power struggles, secret agendas, or even to take a position on the left or right. It is really much simpler than this: you just have to take a position in favor of aligning our lives with Nature. Regardless of whether we came here from another planet, regardless of our religious and social beliefs, and regardless of our economic status, the reality is that we are on Earth, a really tiny and extraordinarily interesting and beautiful planet. To survive here, we need to treat our planet with the same loving respect we show our friends, pets, and perhaps assets. In the broadest sense of the word, the Earth is our asset. We depend on air and water and are therefore bloody fools to pollute them. Moreover, we cannot protect our water from what others are doing with their water and this is part of the mystery of Oneness. The playing field for two of the most fundamental necessities in life is curiously level, if not in the short run, surely in the long-term.

When I went to Bioneers Conference more than a decade ago, I was a speaker, but I always take advantage of the opportunity to discover what others are doing so I attended a lot of lectures and visited the exhibits. It was so obvious that everything we need for a sustainable future already exists. I gave up the word "integrative" at that time because I am tired of trying to make peace with the devil. I chose "alternative" because we do, in fact, need change that is not more of the same but rather significantly innovative.

Lots of you jumped on me for not supporting Obama's bid for the White House. I couldn't get on board for a variety of reasons. He was heavily funded by George Soros, spoke about the war on terrorism and promised to extend aggression in Afghanistan and expand it into Pakistan. He wasn't my guy. As you know, I voted for Cynthia McKinney because she spoke to the heart of the issues of Earth, passionately, convincingly, and perhaps not practically enough for some. We can reform, à la Nader or take back freedom à la Ron Paul but unless we do this in a green way, we will eventually have variations of the same sorts of problems we have now. I was ready to be inspired, not governed by new rules and regulations. Power is often used to skirt the intent of the law. It has hit the abyss in the United States at this time and to the extent that U.S. power is used to undermine societies elsewhere in the world, everyone is in crisis. I am not saying that individual Americans are responsible or even that our government is independent of influences from abroad but if we don't make significant changes, we are in for a truly bumpy ride.

The relevance of these remarks in the present context is that one way or another, the clean up bill will be passed onto consumers. It doesn't really matter if there is a cap on what BP has to pay because they will end up recovering their costs by higher prices so we pay more for gas or the cost in buried in some new tax burden. This loop will not be easily broken. The loop that has to break is the one preventing alternatives from receiving proper funding so clever investors need to appeal to environmentally conscious investors with green possibilities.

Lots of people are afraid of change. I think the reason is that they are not sufficiently visionary. If someone had told you years ago that your horse ranch would have a railroad going through it, you would have had the opportunity at that time to shift some of your investments into rail transport. You might not have liked the idea but it did not have to cause you any real suffering. Giving up oil for alternatives will not cause suffering. It will, in fact, improve the quality of life for millions and millions of people on the planet. This said, we do have to clean up our oceans and our air and our shorelines and if BP et al, the EPA, and FEMA are inept, leadership has to change hands and go to those who are competent to lead.

Meanwhile, the Native American community has been telling us for ages that extraplanetary helpers are standing by. I have actually seen the preparations in my inner vision and I am urging you to give up some of your time tomorrow to join in a global effort to get this planet on the right trajectory. Pray for healing of Lady Gaia and all her citizens, especially the aquatic species. Pray for peace and fairness. Pray for whatever help we need to get this right.

Many blessings,

Ingrid