What is Heart of the Earth

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What is Heart of the Earth?

By Barry Fraser

Heart of the Earth is a movement fostering practical action to live more sustainable lifestyles within the context of the Red Hills and Gulf Coast Lowlands Bioregion, motivated and sustained by our spiritual connection to the Earth. Uniting to take personal action to begin to stem the tide of global warming, over fifty of us have signed a pledge to reduce our fossil fuel use by 30 percent within the next 36 months.

Our movement weaves together three strands of thought and action into a unique whole.

Personal Responsibility/Sustainable Lifestyle Choices

Heart of the Earth provides information and support to make responsible lifestyle choices in the face of global warming, the collapse of ecosystems, and our rapid depletion of Earth's resources. The effects of global warming are not a distant threat, but are felt around us everyday, as floods, droughts, fires, tornadoes and hurricanes intensify in this country and around the globe. Half the Alpine glaciers have melted in the last century, the polar ice caps are melting, the decade of the nineties was the warmest decade in the century, and the 20th century was the warmest century in a thousand years. We know the changes are occurring-we don't know at what point they will be irreversible, and we don't choose to wait until then to act.

We as Americans have a special responsibility. Representing less than 4 percent of the world's population, we produce over 25 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions that fuel global warming, and consume over one-third of the world's resources. Despite gains in the efficiency of our industry, our lighting, and our appliances, our energy use has increased due to personal decisions of Americans-decisions to buy bigger cars, bigger homes, and more electronic gadgets. Just eliminating waste and increasing conservation and efficiency could achieve our goal, based on the international Kyoto Treaty, of a 30 percent reduction in fossil fuel use. Put in context, the choices are easy and the burden is light.

Bioregionalism

Our mobile society weakens our sense of connection to place, a vital link that we need to become effect stewards of the resources of our bioregion. We invite you to consider these questions: Where is home? What does this mean to us? Do we have any idea what bioregion we live in? Does it matter? As Sue Cerulean so beautifully wrote in one of our newsletters: "In the end, this particular place we live uniquely presents us with a set of constraints, opportunities, seasonal specificities, that we will find no where else at all on the planet. For our own survival, and that of the great abundance of life forms that live here too, we have to begin the long slow process of 'living in place,' of knowing home, of re-inhabiting. We must become native to this place by waking up to the particular ecological relationships that operate within and around it-to establish an ecological and socially sustainable pattern of existence within it. We can begin by asking ourselves the question: where is it that I live?"

Ecospirituality

What is needed is "a global awakening. An awakening that would let us rapidly and by consensus change the way we do things." We need a spiritual-environmental practice, "one that teaches us to think like the Earth, feel like the Earth. One that lets us feel as intimate with the Earth as we ever did with a lover, with our child, with our mother...." James Thornton

The average American spends less than one percent of their time in conscious connection with the natural world, while spending 95 percent of the time indoors. Is it any wonder that we feel so separate from our environment and nature? The environment is "out there" somewhere, separate from ourselves and our everyday lives. As a result, it is difficult to feel that we are intimately bound and inextricably a part of the whole of nature and one with all of creation. Future articles will offer insights into this sense of disconnection and offer ways to begin to deeply experience our connection with nature, not only in our minds, but in our hearts and in our bodies.

So welcome to Acting From the Heart of the Earth. We at Heart of the Earth are excited about the opportunity to share with you information and inspiration Barry Fraser

About Heart of the Earth

Heart of the Earth, is a small council of citizens committed to environmental stewardship in the Red Hills and Gulf Coastal Lowlands bioregions. Our bioregions are approximately bounded to the north by Thomasville, Georgia, to the south by the Gulf of Mexico, and east and west, by the watersheds of the Aucilla and Ocklochonee rivers.

The work of Heart of the Earth is focused on what we believe are the three major problems of our time: consumption of the Earth's resources without regard for the catastrophic impacts of our actions, a sense of separation from the Earth of which we are a part, and a weak sense of connection to the particular place where we live-and therefore effective stewardship--on the part of the people who live here.

We are interested in offering effective, science-based, doable solutions to these problems to individual citizens, through our web site, our workshops and this newsletter.

We believe that our work is spiritual and practical, political and scientific.

Founding Heart of the Earth council:

Norine Cardea
Sue Cerulean
Jeff Chanton
Barry Fraser
Dennis Hardin
L.A. Walker-Fraser

Published in Alternatives magazine, April, 2001.