How to Become a Witch, Amber K. [new books to read .txt] 📗

reduced—our numbers and poisons will severely cripple or kill our planetary organism, Gaea.”[3]

Scientists from global research programs meeting in Amsterdam in 2001 noticed the problem. They stated that

Human activities are significantly influencing Earth’s environment in many ways in addition to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Anthropogenic changes to Earth’s land surface, oceans, coasts and atmosphere and to biological diversity, the water cycle and biogeochemical cycles are…equal to some of the great forces of nature in their extent and impact. Many are accelerating…Human-driven changes cause multiple effects that cascade through the Earth System in complex ways…that are difficult to understand and…to predict…Human activities could inadvertently trigger [abrupt] changes with severe consequences for Earth’s environment and inhabitants…that may prove irreversible and less hospitable to humans and other life…The nature of changes now occurring simultaneously in the Earth System, their magnitudes and rates of change are unprecedented.[4]

According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year study of the world’s ecosystems by 1,360 scientists:

The Condition and Trends Working Group found that over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth. In addition, approximately 60 percent (15 out of 24) of the ecosystem services it examined are being degraded or used unsustainably, including fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water purification, and the regulation of regional and local climate, natural hazards, and pests.[5]

The Earth Policy Institute spotlights just one of the problem areas: “Three quarters of oceanic fisheries, a major source of protein in the human diet, are being fished at or beyond their limits, and many are headed toward collapse.”[6]

Fifteen of the earth’s twenty-four primary “ecosystem services” are being “degraded or used unsustainably.” Things like forests and fresh water. That’s no way to treat your mother.

If we are acting as a disease instead of an organ or a symbiotic species, the possible outcomes are pretty limited:

We may damage the earth to the point where it cannot sustain human life. In the process, we will kill many other innocent species, but Gaia will eventually rebalance and life will continue without us.

We may damage the earth to the point that climate change and other disasters take an enormous toll in human life, as well as on other creatures. The process may cull millions or billions of humans from the gene pool, but our species would survive and have another chance at learning to live sustainably on a changed planet.

We may change our ways and learn to live sustainably and responsibly on the earth before more irreversible damage is done. This would mean great changes in our way of life: food production, energy, manufacture, transportation, housing, more birth control, you name it.

The authors would prefer to see our species survive and grow up, but instant action is required. For most Witches, this is a sacred duty as well as a pragmatic strategy.

Green Consciousness And Hope

There is great cause for alarm, but there are also hopeful signs that people are waking up to the dangers. We have come a long way since the 1950s, when environmental concerns were on the fringe of public awareness. In 1962, Rachel Carson warned about pesticides and pollution in Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin). On April 22, 1970, Senator Gaylord Nelson organized the first Earth Day demonstrations. In 1990, Earth Day mobilized over 200 million people in 141 countries around the planet. By 1997, the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was first launched, and a total of 184 nations have now ratified it—the United States being one of the few holdouts. In 2009, the Climate Conference at Copenhagen passed resolutions that may lead to binding treaties and will certainly lead to increased cooperation between the developed and developing nations on green policy issues.

Today, people are mobilizing. Corporations are responding to public demand with hybrid cars, energy-efficient appliances, and household products free of toxins. The city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, has created more than four hundred miles of bike paths in the last few years. Texas now generates enough electricity from wind turbines to power about 1,760,000 homes. High-school students in Hingham, Massachusetts, built a greenhouse and learn about organic gardening, locally grown produce, composting, and endangered plant species. A man in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, is organizing his community to plant twenty thousand trees. The Brazilian government has set ambitious targets for reducing deforestation and carbon dioxide emissions, and four of the world’s largest meat producers have agreed not to buy cattle from newly deforested areas of the Amazon rainforest. Wildlife corridors are being organized: the Paséo del Jaguar in Central and South America, a wolf corridor in Alberta, eighty-eight identified elephant corridors in India, and many others.

We could fill a book with stories of individuals and organizations who are taking action for conservation, wildlife, alternative energy, green building, and other facets of environmental sustainability. Many Witches are on the front lines of ecoactivism, but more importantly, people of many faiths and cultures are acting together to protect our common home. Maybe you are one of them.

It’s a beautiful world out there. Experience it, savor it, appreciate it. Resolve to live in harmony with the earth and her living creatures. Become active in the quest to make our whole civilization and species more aware, more caring, and wiser in our relationship to Gaia. You don’t have to be a Witch to do all this; but if you don’t, you can hardly claim the title priestess, priest, or Witch.

Deepening Your Practice

Exercises in Nature

Find a secluded square foot of grass—on a lawn if you must, but wild is better. Take your Book of Shadows with you. Watch this area until you can describe the life within it. Describe it in your book—thoroughly. Offer your blessing, and leave without touching it.

Walk the land around your home until you