Voodoo for Climate Change Justice at the CBA8 Kathmandu Conference

The mid-1990’s found me involved with a group of Haitian grassroots activists, largely a part of the Liberation Theology Lavalas (or the “great flood”) movement, and their supporting Haitian-American counterparts.  With the return from exile of the first democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the air was electric with expectation, “Espwa”- or hope, that finally a change for the better was possible.  Words like “Democracy,” “Dignity,” and most commonly, “Solidarity” were bandied about in the air like new-found treasures.  Supporters of Aristide ported t-shirts and banners quoting the then-President, “Randevou bo tab la,” or “Let’s meet together at the table.” Aristide’s invitation was clear: everyone needs to come to the table to meet, plan, and contribute, and everyone, simply everyone has something valuable to give to the movement for positive social change.  Not only was this recognition of everyone’s value and capacities, rich poor and in-between, it was also a call to action: this movement couldn’t be carried by just one person.  In order to have a chance at manifesting a new vision of a democratic Haiti, moving out of misery (if only into the next level of poverty), everyone needed to step up and give what she or he had to give, and to do it for the long haul.

Working alongside farmers and villagers across Haiti, I came to learn a bit about Vodun, what is commonly (and incorrectly) termed “Voodoo” in English-speaking cultures.   I learned how many Vodun spiritual practices were masked behind Catholic practices, the Haitian Lwa syncretized against Catholic saints, in order to protect and continue the spiritual practices carried over from the Yoruba, ancient Dahomey, Ibo Landing.  Haitian social structure in village life was built around the structure of the crossroads in Vodun, the crossroads where the worlds of the ancestors and their living descendants met, and where everyone brought their own particular skills and resources to contribute to village well-being, all unique but equally valued.   Aristide’s call for solidarity in action, “Randevou bo tab la,” gains deeper resonance, power and meaning.

Today a local-to-local climate change Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) and Climate Justice movement is emerging across regions, across the globe, with potential to lead the way for the world’s coping (adaptation) with the impacts and threats of climatic change.  This last April 24-30, the 8th CBAconference facilitated by iied took place in Nepal(with many global and local partners).  At the beginning of the conference, I had an opportunity to sit and speak with Dr. Saleemul Huq, senior fellow in iied’s Climate Group and Director of ICCCAD, and chief organizer for the CBA8.  From Saleemul, I heard words that stirred memories of my early days in Haiti, “Dignity,” “Respect,” and most powerfully, the need for global “Solidarity.” 

Saleem’s words struck a powerful chord with me, as I see the current emerging local-to-local climate justice movement, and the efforts of CBA networks, as another stage along the continuum of global movements for social change and justice.  This recent CBA8 saw local practitioners, community partners, UN representatives, large donors, NGO workers, heads-of-state and governmental representatives from 62 different countries, 6 different continents, all together at the CBA table. Here we were all equal, each person’s role and experience a necessary piece of the climate justice puzzle. The challenges that climate change poses for us are truly existential, and require all of us, no matter what role or label, community or culture, alliance or affiliation, to step up and contribute the skills and the resources we have in order to tackle and cope with the vast, and at times overwhelming, complex difficulties which climate change brings to our doorsteps. 

“Randevou bo tab la!”  Come together to the table, everyone has a seat at the table, and everyone’s contributions are needed and important. This is not a pat on the back, recognition simply of human capabilities in corners great and small. This is a call to action! A call to come together in solidarity, to care for, protect, and work together for the sake of dignity and respect of all life, all beings. 

Will you come to table? And what will you bring?

To Begin Anew

January 2, 2014

To Begin Anew


A spiral twists upward like smoke clinging to the cord, rising, swaying, drawing air, building force--
It tells me what I know.


Broken desire mends into new shapes- it is softer, threatens less. Calm replaces turmoil.
We kill it so we may love. We tame it so it will not be our end.

In the frozen flooded winter blue meadow, the animal labors against the night. 
Veins bulge, surge and strain under the yoke.
The blade of the slitter cuts the Earth, the rotors turn the packed plain exposed, clumped and broken.

Mist rises and floats from his flanks into the bitter, biting air.  A sheen crystallizes in perfect symmetrical glittering ice, rising over musculature, sinews and bone.

In theYear of the Horse, shall it be to run free, unbridled, fire streaming into the tailwind--
Or, domesticated, will we keep ours a beast of burden, a worker of the fields?

*

It will scatter in the old tea leaves, the splayed intestines and bones will resonate this truth.  The smoke it forms a twisted, curling mouth, "let go."

Let go, let go, let go.  So to begin anew.



e.parry, 2nd Jan. 2014

Repost of movie review: "Backwoods Hobbit Love (and You)"

Laughter and (acidic!) humor can be healing...so here's something for fun as 2013 winds down, a hilarious review of the latest Hobbit flick:

http://writingexpedition.com/2013/12/26/backwoods-hobbit-love-and-you/

Michael Davis' fiction and blog, "The Writing Expedition"

http://writingexpedition.com//

We Are the Dog with Two Lost Eyes

We are the Dog with Two Lost Eyes
Where necklaces are burning tires
Strung to a Village End.

We are the Dog with Two Lost Eyes
A Crumpled Bicycle, shoeless feet,
The old man's head split like a coconut,
Offering to the street gods,
Clumped and bloodied.

Pan the temple elephant
From a Three-wheeler speeding by
Morning light shines through the animal's bath
Blessing the temple,
Say a prayer for us all.

An explosion of pain
births spirit wrapped
in blood and feces
fluids the smell
of the swamps of first life
Primordial.

Full of hope and trouble.



-

By Emilie Parry,  2003

*necklacing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing 

**When my nephew Aaron was 4 years old, he described an old blind dog he saw as "the dog with two lost eyes."

Press Briefing of CIDSE/WCC/LWF and INEB/ICE Network (International Network of Engaged Buddhists/Inter-Religious Climate and Ecology Network)

       VIDEO LINK to PRESS CONFERENCE ** VIDEO LINK TO PRESS CONFERENCE

Warsaw Climate Change Conference - November 2013

Press Briefing

Warsaw, Poland

22 November 2013

CIDSE and Lutheran World Federation:
Global Call for Fasting for Climate

http://unfccc4.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/cop19/templ/play.php?id_kongresssession=7073&theme=unfccc

In the press conference, I was honored to be asked to speak on behalf of INEB (the International Network of Engaged Buddhists) and ICE Network (Inter-Religious Network for Climate and Ecology) at the UNFCCC. COP 19 Warsaw.

Spirit and Climate: Change asks us to define ourselves through action, through intentions

Between Spirituality and Climate Change

By Emilie C. Parry

I believe that Climate Change is pressing upon us some great existential questions.  We are in the midst of great upheaval, multiple and mass species extinctions, rising sea levels swallowing countries whole, large swaths of formerly inhabitable land left abandoned to the sun, tumultuous and unpredictable weather patterns tossing us in its throws with intensity and frequency beyond previously known scopes. People are dying, displaced and shattered, because climate change is impacting us now.  

I don’t believe this is a doomsday scenario, I don’t believe the Gods and Goddesses must be angry and are reigning down their punishment upon us. I do know that we humans have had a hand in making our planet sick, tossing it out of balance. We have not lived in balance with the Earth and now the Earth is rapidly changing because of us.   Already this change is affecting us, and the science of probabilities and cause and effect tell us it is going to get worse before it gets better. We will be changed with the earth.  So the existential questions asks us, “Who are we as humans on this planet? Who do we wish to be?  What values do we wish to carry with us to shape and form our experiences as we walk through this change together?” Loss, death, sweeping change is inevitable.   How we guide this process and who we become through it, that is up to us.

Without spirit, without meaning, why would it matter if humanity and many species who share this planet us die out?  To most of the world’s people, it does matter. We do matter.  This life matters, as do all beings within it.  This is the realm of spirituality, of religion, of faith and meaning. Across the world’s religions large and small, from Buddhism to Christianity, Judaism to Hinduism, Islam and the many Shamanic and animist peoples around the globe, we share scriptures, we share teachings and we share a search for meaning.  We collectively share faith-based and spiritual values that honor our living planet and all beings upon.  Commitment is renewed to protect and care for our planet, and nature is symbolized across faith scripture, the Buddhavacana, the Torah, the Koran, Shamanic oral storytelling, the Vedas and Upanishads: from the Tree of Life to the Bodhi tree, cleansing waters, Jubilee, the dove with the olive branch, the rhythms of the sun rising and setting, the first rains and the bounties of harvest.   We as humanity honor our natural world, and we are committed to care and protect it as we are a part of it and it is a part of us.   Similarly, the basis of compassion, a sense of social justice (liberation theology), and a span of faith practices, ask us to care for and protect each other.  As many populations grow increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of changing and extreme climates, the onus is upon us to act to protect others from harm, and to walk together through suffering with our fellow living beings.  As faith leaders and spiritual practitioners, we must engage in education and outreach to our communities around climate change, we must commit to activities to mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and climate change adaptation. This responsibility is rooted in who we are and who we claim we wish to be in the world. We cannot do other than engage.

“Asssuredly the creation of the heavens and the earth is greater than the creation of humankind: Yet most people understand not.” –Holy Qur’an 40:57

“As we live in the forest, we are respectful of the environment. When we farm, we don’t disturb the trees.  We maintain the watersheds around springs. When we hunt, we never kill females.  When we need timber, we cut the branch, not the tree.  We are rooted in these values, and we instill them in our children. We live with the environment, not in competition with it.”  -- Veddha chief Uruwarige Wannila Aththo (Sri Lanka)

Buddhism: In the Agamas Sutras, the Buddha said that the planting of trees create shade for others and merit for oneself.  In Section Five of the Vinyay-matkra-satra, it reads, “A bhiksu who plants three kinds of trees in honor of the Triple Gem – a fruit, a flowering tree, and a leafy tree—cultivates blessings and is not committing wrong.”  Planting trees not only beautifies the environment, it is also a form of practice. Throughout history, Buddhist temples and monasteries have followed the Buddha’s teachings by planting trees, growing flowers and caring for the great earth.

www.blia.org/english/publications/booklet/pages/33.htm

Participants work on a Buddhist Mandala during the INEB, or International Network of Engaged Buddhists, 2012 conference: Inter-Religious Dialogue to Address the  Human Drivers of Climate Change, and Biodiversity Conservation

Climate Change: Forcing a Re-frame on "Development" and "Emergencies"

These notes below come from a conversation with a new friend I met at the COP 19 in Warsaw. I thought it might be interesting to share more widely:

Re-thinking Development and Emergencies in the Context of Climate Change: 

A New Era for Community-Centered Resilience

By Emilie Parry

The challenges we are facing with climate change are forcing us, as a global humanitarian community, to shift away from externally applied “silo” thinking which segregates approaches of development from disaster response, a disaster recovery “phase,” and a rehabilitation “phase,” rolling in again to another cycle of development until the next emergency arises.  This current strategy does not view the experiences through the lens of most climate-vulnerable communities with whom/for whom these separated “specialists” purport to work, a lens that necessitates a long view, with tools and capacities people must possess to not only survive, but continue to work towards their own dreams, hopes, and needs in the present and for their futures. 

Climate resilience must rest within the resources, knowledge and toolkits at the (most vulnerable) community and local civil society level.  People at the “front line” of climate change impacts, and their living environments, must take center stage.

It is our job as international humanitarians to identify spaces for exchanged learning, support and co-facilitated planning and trainings of local civil society and climate-vulnerable communities.  We are tasked to support and facilitate local “know-how” and access to the panoply of resources which climate-vulnerable folks must be able to navigate and utilize in order to cope with all that has and will come their way.

If people are to be agents of their own destinies, and if as a planet we truly hold up and wish to perpetuate our values of human and environment rights, equity, dignity and respect, then we must evolve in our attitudes, our systems and our collective approach to our broadening experiences with climate change. 

In my experiences working in development and humanitarian response and recovery NGOs, it became clear to me that we were moving into a perpetual crisis mode, forced to react constantly, without much time allowed for thinking, processing, planning or collaborating with those people who knew the most about their own environment and the capabilities, socio-political and economic dynamics, and opportunities. It felt deeply wrong to me, and I have been striving for truly sustainable strategies and relationships within these reactionary times.  We in the humanitarian response community know that that there is much that is not working in the way we operate. We also know that as climate change impact increases, so will be amplified these gaps and failings in our systems and strategies.  It is time to step out of the structures we inherited from the original extractive and hierarchical masters. We must step away and walk towards new relationships and new ways of listening and problem-solving together with each other.  To form new systems and ways of working,  we must genuinely approach this challenge and opportunity with true respect, sitting down together with those people we call our partners, and become true collaborators for resilience and the creation of many and varied new paths.

                        Ban Ki Moon at the Warsaw 2013 COP 19 which I attended this November.