Page 199 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015
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Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - December, 2015 Issue #3 - EXTINCTION / DEVOTION
together. There is inequality on the planet on so many levels. Rich countries go and cut down the
forests, steal all the resources and leave chaos behind, people are uprooted, have lost their way of life
and are left with a mess.
LW:
That’s the foundation this continent is built on, it’s what we did to the indigenous people here. So the
way you see it is, the urgency of the situation could push people to see that there’s something
profoundly wrong with the way we’re living on this earth.
AS:
Yes, and speaking about it, even if we don’t know exactly what to do yet. Because here for example we
still have gas and electricity, we don’t even know when we can install solar, it’s not cheap. But it’s
important to be speaking about it and moving towards systems change. Here we are working together
to build Buddhist Climate Action Network (BCAN - http://globalbcan.org), together with a group of
people from the East- and West coast, a global network for Buddhists, it’s what came out of the climate
march. I am particularly involved with the Sacramento & Sierra Nevada BCAN.
http://sacsfbcan.globalbcan.org
LW:
Wonderful. I also want to ask you—you’re about to go on a silent retreat, you won’t be doing anything
activist at all for three months and I want to know—one of the questions this journal exists to ask is,
“how do we live in response to what’s happening?” In a moment-to-moment way, is there anything you
can say about how you see your life as a response?
AS:
I see it more as an offering now. I’m now 56, and in the younger years you have a very strong, concrete
vision of where and how to live your life. Now, since menopause, more and more I just let it unfold. I
have been trying for a very long time to create a certain thing, now I have run out of that kind of energy,
and I am where I am and I just work with whatever comes up. I don’t know where it’s going to lead.
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