Some Announcements

Okay, now for some serious flogging - I have two announcements. First, I have finally started my bee information, education and action site Bees Alive!. Currently, there is a home page with a list of things to come. This will change rapidly as I am devoting much of my awake time to giving this dream wings.

Secondly, I am announcing my friend, Richard Roth's blog, I've Been Wrong Before. Richard is a long-time farmer and community rabble rouser, and I had the pleasure of working with him and his non-profit organization, cChaos, for several months setting up farmers' markets.

Enjoy!

Beyond Political Affiliation

You don’t have to belong to the Green Party to be a good citizen. Granted, one may find more “good, responsible citizens” in the way that I define them with Green affiliations, but it is certainly neither required nor even important. Responsible
citizenship is separate and different from politics and party platforms. Essentially, it is based on actions resulting from a personal belief system rather than words resulting from what one thinks people want to hear.

I, myself, belong to no party, and have beliefs that come from all political ideals. I don’t believe there is a list of things you must do to be a model ‘responsible citizen’, but I think there are some basic guidelines that can lead you to following a more responsible path. My list-in-progress, includes:

• Live free as long as your actions don’t take freedoms from or cause harm to another being
• Respect nature above all else
• Never doubt that the smallest of causes can lead to the greatest of effects
• Remember that ‘want’ and ‘need’ are two very different things – most people truly don’t understand what ‘need’ means

Just wait, I will become entertaining again ;) I just want to start with some basics.

Preamble: Citizenship

I will be blogging at length about what it means to be a good villager, a good citizen, and yes, for my purposes, I like to use the two terms to mean similar things. I wanted to begin with a few thoughts. First, what is a citizen?

Merriam-Webster defines a citizen as ‘a person owing allegiance to and entitled to the protection of a sovereign state’. It is implied that the citizen is a free one, and the power of the state is held by the people for the people.

So, a political term, and one that implies rights and freedoms. It is strictly a human-focused term, there is no concept of humans as part of a greater society or whole. There is also no concept of personal or community responsibility for other people, for the environment, and for the uncountable living beings that are not considered citizens, but who are as much affected by human action as we are.

As citizens, we elect representatives who act on our behalf and in our best interest. We have no responsibility other than to elect the representatives, pay taxes, and follow the rules set out for us. This is enough for many to grumble – the perceived lack of control in the affairs of state, that is - but essentially, the release from personal responsibility is, to most, well worth having to pay and obey.

I’d like to see citizenship in a different way. Aside from the forced participation in arbitrary political constructs, our first duties and affiliation should be with the greater environment in which we live – the one without artificial boundaries such as time and place and species. With this kind of affiliation, there are no elections – each citizen is captain of his or her own ship, and must make appropriate responsible decisions. There are no laws other than to do the right thing – meaning do no harm – to ensure the survival of the environment.

Stay tuned. There is much more to say. I am converting gradually over to my new blogspace:
http://thegoodvillager.wordpress.com

Where the bees are...

I was out walking today through downtown Oshawa. It is not the most encouraging of downtowns, but I will say that it is easy to nip off the down-and-out main streets onto lush pathways and follow the water. I was cutting through the library parking lot and over to one of these pathways and contemplating my not-employed state. I don't even have a volunteer project going on right now. Speaking to myself, I said, "I need to be spending more time with...," and before I could fill in the blank, my head turned to my left, and in the tiny purple flowers was a beautiful, solitary bumblebee. The pollen sacs on her legs were full to bursting with golden powder. I bent to admire and commune as she went about her important work of pollinating. We then went on our separate ways.

My camera was stolen a few months ago, and I miss being able to snap the wonders of the last two years of my nature adventure and learning experience. I have a camera coming to me soon thanks to some soon-to-expire Air Canada air miles, and I will be up and running again. The photo above is a memory from Chico, California. I'd visited the University of California farm and was helping out washing and sorting melons, and I took a few moments to try to capture the activities of a busy honeybee. I was rewarded with a bee bum.

City or country, our bees are still hard at work. Let's respect them by keeping their/our environment clean, and give them thanks and space when we see them.