Mother Nature called.
She said to stop whining and face the music: The planet Earth needs solutions.
Find out what can be done at the conveniently located Whidbey Island Beaming Bioneers Conference, where solutions are born.
The Whidbey Institute will host the conference for its second year, along with an inspirational and transformative weekend filled with energizing speakers, workshops, delicious local food, community building and networking. Organizers have called the local gathering around the Bioneers Conference “Revolution from the Heart of Nature” and it all happens from Friday, Oct. 14 through Sunday, Oct. 16 in and around the institute campus at Chinook in Clinton.
The Bioneers are a group of solutions-based social and scientific innovators who inspire a shift to live on Earth in ways that honor the web of life, each other and future generations.
But these folks are less about talk and more about action.
Activist photographer and filmmaker Chris Jordan will be the Whidbey Island keynote speaker on Friday evening.
As an artist, Jordan has been urging people to understand the impact of their current
lifestyles through his internationally acclaimed work, including a new documentary titled “Midway, Heart of the Pacific” (www.midwayfilm.com). The film captures the devastating impact of plastics on albatross living 2,000 miles away from the nearest continent.
After watching the trailer for the film in which Jordan is pictured photographing the plastic garbage-infested stomachs of various dead albatross on Midway Atoll, a remote cluster of islands in the Pacific, he was asked why not just throw in the towel; give it all up to despair, knowing the Earth’s problems extend far beyond those of the dying albatross.
Indeed, Jordan titled his opening address for the conference “Grief, Hopelessness, Despair, and Joy — Walking the Tightrope of Our Times.”
“The question is,” Jordan said, “how do we acknowledge that openly and feel the feelings that come with openly owning and facing the realities of the times we live in, and our complicity in the destruction of our world? There are no simple answers. I think the first step is to accept that.”
Even the word “hope” sends one down an endless and futile rabbit trail, Jordan said.
“Hope is all about the future, looking somewhere outside of our own hearts for answers,” Jordan said.
“It smacks of a passive optimism that somehow, someday, things will get better. I think talking about hope can be disempowering. The only source of legitimate hope I can find is right here inside my own heart.”
Jordan’s heart and head are those of a truly environmentally conscious artist. A visit to his
website will reveal an impressive body of photographic work that lets no viewer off the hook for any of the pervasive mass consumption of which everyone in this country, and elsewhere, is guilty.
One of his books, “Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption,” compiles a series of large format photographs depicting the magnitude of America’s waste and consumption. It features gorgeous pools of cell phones by the thousands, lines of circuit boards extending to the horizon, or gleaming mountains of spent shell casings.
To feel such despair, Jordan says, means nothing unless there is courage enough to face it. He mentioned a book that gave him a good perspective. It’s by Joanna Macy and titled, “World As Lover, World As Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal.”
Macy is an eco-philosopher who weaves together the principles of Buddhism with ecology. Her ideas offer a guide for positive social change and for reversing the destructive attitudes, just as Jordan and the mission of the Bioneers suggest.
Macy writes: “In the face of what is happening, how do we avoid feeling overwhelmed and just giving up, turning to the many diversions and demands of our consumer societies? It is essential that we develop our inner resources. We have to learn to look at things as they are, painful and overwhelming as that may be, for no healing can begin until we are fully present to our world, until we learn to sustain the gaze.”
The Bioneers are here to help sustain that gaze.
In its 21 years, the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, Calif. has brought together leading innovators to speak and present their unique stories and solutions. The plenary lectures from the national conference are “beamed” to more than 20 sites around the country, including the Whidbey Institute.
This year some of the plenary speakers beaming in from California are writer Gloria Steinem, mycologist Paul Stamets, experimental physicist Amory Lovins and Philippe Cousteau of EarthEcho International.
But as excited as she is by the plenary superstars, program director and conference organizer Heather Johnson said it’s the local line-up that’s got her heart.
“Personally, while the Bioneers plenary content is powerful and thought-provoking, I’m most excited about our local content and the community building that happens for the people participating,” Johnson said.
The Saturday afternoon workshops will include “Entrepreneuring in the New Economy,” “Ecological Economics,” “Growing Groceries” and a tour of the Greenbank Farm Training Center.
Another local hero featured during the weekend will be singer-songwriter Theo Simms.
“He’s a young musician who has brought me to tears with beauty of the message and delivery of his music,” Johnson said.
Simms said he writes songs that are meant to remind him and others of truth, possibility, inspiration and hope.
“The quality of his performances remind me of the extraordinary performers who arose in the ’60s, with a message that is particularly pertinent to today,” Johnson added.
All in all, the weekend will include a variety of activities that are designed to plant more seeds, present more tools and form more bonds in order to help society grow another step closer to a healthier planet.
To register visit the website at www.whidbeyinstitute.org or call 341-1884.
Visit the Bioneers website at www.bioneers.org to learn more.
