Joe Simpson’s documentary, The Beckoning Silence, is a well-done re-enactment of Tony Kurtz’s infamous climb on the Eiger. It’s part adventure, part history and part personal reflection. It shows the insight of wisdom that, in this case, comes with age. Having almost died more than once, the first time in Peru, Simpson has arrived at place in his life that is refreshingly thoughtful. Simpson is a climber who is growing older and facing his own mortality. Congrats to Simpson for making this “on the edge of your seat” film and letting us into his personal growth.
I reflect on Eckhart Tolle who writes in his first book The Power of Now about thrill seekers such as climbers who get addicted to the calm that comes with climbing, where past and future fade away and one must focus next move or ice axe placement, because “taking your attention away from the task at hand, even for a split second can mean death”. Tolle adds, “Fortunately you don’t have to climb the north face of the Eiger in order to feel the presence of the moment, you can do it, right here and now*.”
I just did a bit of leading on rock yesterday, for the first time in a while, getting out from behind the desk here in New Zealand. It was great to clear the head and be on the cliffs right outside our house here in Kingston on Shirttail Cliffs.
Top of Shirt-tail Cliffs, Kingston, NZ
Great quality climbs in a spectacular setting. Moving on the rock again felt great, and motivating, being on the sharp end. However, I’ve never had that wild-eyed look of adrenaline, pumped, on the sharp end, need of the thrill . I like to test myself, but my survivalist instinct is too strong to be too bold. There are old climbers, bold climbers but not a lot of old bold climbers. I know quite a few fellow climbers who I’ve lost to the mountains over the years, including one of my mentors, Alan Bard. I think of these things too, as does Simpson, as we have a baby boy expected to arrive in four weeks. It’s good to be in the mountains, but to those hardcore dudes, don’t be afraid to take the easy way up, it won’t kill you.
From: The Guardian
John Vidal reports from La Paz where Bolivians are living with the effects of climate change every day. Their president has called for an urgent 50% cut in emissions – action that is essential for the country’s survival. Click on the image to view video.
“The Dot Map” as it’s commonly referred to is a video that stuck with me. I vowed to track it down on the internet today after having seen it some twenty years ago on VHS.
The DVD version can be purchased here for $20.00 which goes to a good cause: www.populationeducation.org
Highly recommended if you want a look at our population growth. It’s hard to get our head around it, but this video helps with an indelible visual.
Ed Note: This online version doesn’t do the original justice. The dots are hard to make out, consequently the experience isn’t quite as impactful. Buy the video for best results.
The film This way of Life is as inspiring as it gets. Filmed in the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand’s North Island, this documentary is about a Maori family: a good and strong man and his wife who bring up their kids in the out-of-doors, raising wild horses. Peter, the father, is someone this writer admires for his steadfast adherance to what is right action in the midst of some people around him who act very badly. We happened to pick up the movie at the library the other day, and were wowed by it.
A lot of what we strive for here at Mountain Spirit Institute is encapsulated in the documentary, and how this family lives their lives. No nature deficit disorder here. But the hardships, and even the new house where the kids get their own rooms, don’t sugarcoat the difficulties faced by the family. We are about to bring a child into this world, and this film has added fuel to our fire to continue to head for the mountains. A cure for affluenza, for sure.
Director: Thomas Burstyn
New Zealand, 2010, 84 min.
Against the stunning beauty of New Zealand’s rugged Ruahine Mountains, Peter Karena and his wife Colleen instill in their children the values of independence, courage, and happiness. The family is poor in possessions but rich with a physicality and freedom within nature that most of us can only dream of. The children ride bareback, hunt, and play in the wild. Shot over four years, this film is an intimate portrait of a Maori family and their relationship with nature, adversity, horses, and society at large. Special mention at Berlin International Film Festival, 2010 Hotdocs, New Zealand’s Oscar shortlist.
“More ice is released into the global ocean, from this glacier*, than from any other glacier in the Northern Hemisphere. If sea level rises, this is where it all begins. This is it, ground zero.”
EIS's James Balog
From: NPR’sLiving on Earth
A photographer was one of this year’s Heinz environmental award winners. James Balog’s project — the Extreme Ice Survey — documents the rapid melting of glacial ice through time-lapse photographs from cameras in some of the world’s most remote areas. Host Bruce Gellerman talks with James Balog about the Extreme Ice Survey.
GELLERMAN: Winners of the prestigious Heinz environmental award have just been announced. This year the Heinz Foundation is honoring a wide variety of environmental innovators including a distinguished academic for his work in sustainable transportation, a pioneer in green chemistry, and a scientist who studies the suspected endocrine disrupting chemical BPA.
Awards and checks for a hundred thousand dollars will also be going to several winners who focus on climate change, among them James Balog. He’s director of Earthvision Trust and a one-time climate change skeptic. James Balog joins us from Boulder Colorado. Welcome to LOE…and congratulations.
BALOG: Well, thank you so much. It’s a wonderful week, and a wonderful honor and a privilege. I feel very blessed.
GELLERMAN: A climate change skeptic winning one of the premier environmental awards. Now, that’s an achievement.
Greenland ice sheet melting fast
BALOG: Well, I’m not a skeptic, and I haven’t been in a long time. Twenty years ago, I thought this whole science was based on computer modeling, and I’m a bit of a technological Luddite, and I thought that if it was all based on computer modeling, there could be something wrong with it. But then I took the time to learn about the evidence that was in the ice cores, and then I got out into the field and looked at what was happening to the glaciers, and I realized that this was not about models and projections and statistics. This was incredible concrete and real and immediate and happening really quickly.
GELLERMAN: In a sense, seeing is believing.
BALOG: Yeah, absolutely. As a photographer, my whole career and as a once-upon-a-time experiential educator for Outward Bound School, and as a mountaineer for forty years, I am quite keyed in to the feeling of experience. You know, seeing things, feeling things, touching things. Letting the vibrate in your chest, well when you are standing at the side of these glaciers and you’re watching huge masses of ice go away, you really get it. Read the rest of this interview….
The Story of Cosmetics, to be released on 21 July 2010, examines the pervasive use of toxic chemicals in everyday personal care products, from lipstick to baby shampoo. It explores the health implications for consumers, workers, and the environment, and shows how we can move the industry away from hazardous chemicals and toward safer alternatives.
Major loopholes in U.S. federal law allow the $50 billion beauty industry to put unlimited amounts of chemicals into personal care products with no required testing, no monitoring of health effects and inadequate labeling requirements—making cosmetics among the least-regulated consumer products on the market.
Skin Deep
The Story of Cosmetics is co-produced with the trailblazing environmental health activists at the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. The release will support the introduction of groundbreaking national legislation to regulate personal care product ingredients.
Snatam Kaur offers ‘Shanti the yogi’ – A yoga adventure for children in Lebanon, NH
Discover how much fun Yoga can be for your children with Snatam Kaur. Through imaginative stories, songs, mantras in motion and Yoga exercises especially for children, Snatam takes kids on a Yoga adventure. Magically woven into the adventure, Snatam conveys basic yogic principals to give kids the tools to be peaceful inside, and in their lives. Parents are welcome. Begin your child`s Yoga practice today.
Mantras for children
Wednesday, September 1st, 3:30 pm at the Carter Community Building, 1 Campbell Street, Lebanon, NH.
Cost is $10 per person. Parents, Kids’ Yoga teachers and children of all ages are welcome! Pre-registration is requested.
• Create a Fun Experience of Yoga for children
• Teach children mantras and songs for self esteem and happiness
• Teach basic yogic principals for a peaceful child and future leader of tomorrow.
A yoga adventure
The workshop is modeled after Snatam’s children’s yoga DVD “Shanti the Yogi – Mountain Adventure” and features music from Snatam’s newly released children’s album “Feeling Good Today!” Snatam Kaur takes you on an adventure of Yoga, singing, and play with Shanti the Yogi. Snatam Kaur’s story-telling is woven through with beautiful illustrations, a Yoga and movement class and her joy-filled music. This is a children’s yoga adventure that parents are sure to love too! This is the first time that Snatam Kaur’s children’s Yoga workshop is held in New Hampshire.
Space is limited so pre-registration is requested.
To find out more or register, please contact us at Mountain Spirit Institute
Tel: 603-763-2668 or Email: Amanda@mtnspirit.org
Dr. Andrea Heckman an expert on Quechua weavings, will show a documentary film at the South American Explorers Club in Cusco, Peru on Thursday June 10th at 7 p.m. The film tells the story of Quechua villagers near the sacred peak of Ausangate.
Set against a backdrop of high Andean lakes and mountains, it shows a harsh existence but also a deep interconnectedness with the natural forces and their ritual relationships to the mountain, revealed in various festivals, weaving and other traditions.
If you’re in Cusco, and want see the film, contact the SAE in Cusco.
Imagine A World Without Fish
Ocean acidification threatens over one million species with extinction–and with them, our entire way of life.
Time for Course Corrections
DVD: Directed by Barbara Ettinger Recipient of the NOAA 2010 Environmental Hero Award
A Sea Change documents how the pH balance of the oceans has changed dramatically since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution: a 30% increase in acidification. With near unanimity, scientists now agree that the burning of fossil fuels is fundamentally reshaping ocean chemistry. Experts predict that over the next century, steady increases in carbon dioxide emissions and the continued rise in the acidity of the oceans will cause most of the world’s fisheries to experience a total bottom-up collapse–a state that could last for millions of years. Read more..
Directed by Barbara Ettinger
Produced by Barbara Ettinger, Sven Huseby, Susan Cohn Rockefeller
Music by Joel Goodman
An Open Letter from a “Former Economic Hit Man” By John Perkins
Former "E.H.M.", John Perkins
[Editor’s Note: I have long been a fan of New York Times Bestselling author John Perkins, after reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which should be read by every citizen of the world – by Americans to see how our lifestyle impacts “third world” countries, and by those citizens in countries that have been taken advantage of by the “corporatracy”. Please Read on….]
“Many of you have asked how I feel about the Obama administration . . .
In short: the fact that we moved from a conservative Republican oilman from Texas to a liberal Democratic African American from Illinois, and yet change plods along at a snail’s pace – if at all – is a confirmation of what I discuss in detail in my “HOODWINKED.”
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