Photos!

Photos!

I found the following photos when I was searching my flickr photostream for nature photos for possible use in the Winter 2013 issue of South Sound Green Pages. Here's a wide-ranging assemblage of a bunch of photos, many from around the year 2010.

Gulls on Frozen McLane Pond

January 2013

Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary, August 2011

Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

I am in Minnesota visiting family. Today I went to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary in Wirth Park. There was some tornado damage in the Northwest part of the park, but the Garden was thankfully spared the worst of the damage. Other parts of North Minneapolis were not so lucky, a pretty powerful tornado earlier this year did a lot of damage. Here are some photos from the park, in slideshow format and video (with audio) format:

Slideshow:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwhitlock/sets/72157627227371923/

Video with some sounds from the park:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHtsaTWNr6I

"Let Nature Be Your Teacher"

Global Water Dances Olympia

I have a couple new posts about the Global Water Dances 2011, Olympia. A couple photos here and video here. It was an awesome event: wonderful, magical, divine. We were blessed with great weather for the ceremony. So check it out. We even had a blue heron fly over at the start of the Global Water Dance. It was flapping strangely! A good omen perhaps.

Be well!

Redwing Blackbird

more from McLane: Wetland Panoramas

Flower and Owl

I have been posting, and usually post more often on my blog at OlyBlog.net. For example please check out a link about redefining poverty, here: olyblog.net/challenging-traditional-ideas-about-wealth-and-poverty. Here are some flowers and an owl:

Friday 17 June 2011
Percival Landing, Olympia


Sunday 19 June 2011
Watershed Park, Olympia

more owl photos: olyblog.net/owls-watershed

Nature Scenes!

Slideshow

Update Sunday 12 June 2011, new posts on OlyBlog about Stonewall Youth Drag Show, the difficulty of practicing peace in daily life, peace vigil video, and information about my friend Scott's situation being charged with crimes by the City here...

Busy with other stuff. Kind of behind on email and some other stuff. Here's a slideshow of some recent photos. These are all from Thursday the Ninth of June, Two Thousand Eleven...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwhitlock/sets/72157626933777950/show/

Nisqually Panorama

Friday 3 June 2011, see more: http://olyblog.net/recent-photos-slideshow-20110604 slideshow

New Material on OlyBlog

I have a few new posts on OlyBlog, some about nature, some messages to The White House, some about the peace vigil: olyblog.net/blog/berd —Berd

Some Recent Photos

Here are some recent photos and images from the past week or two. More information is attached on the flickr photo pages.


Friday 19 March 2011
Olympia, Washington

There are a couple of events today and tomorrow happening at Heritage Park. One is the Pacific Northwest Medicine Wheel. Another is the Global Day of Listening project.

Here is a link to a 1min 40sec YouTube video focusing mostly on the GDL project:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsxItpDboJU

olyblog.net/events-heritage-park-weekend

more photos:

Four Photos from Grass Lake Refuge

From a visit to Grass Lake Refuge, where it was windy, with simultaneous bright sunshine and snow flurries!

May nature inspire humanity toward a world of ecological and economic sustainability and stability, mutual peace and happiness for all people regardless of age, gender, ability, rate of development, skin color, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, religion (or any other defining characteristic!)

Here are four photos (there are more posted on my Flickr site):

Primeival Rain Forest

Beautiful Nature

maybe life would be better if...

maybe life would be better if the world was set up differently—instead of a society that rewards people with, and that promotes, materialism, and the maintenance of hierarchical structures where some have power over others—maybe life would be better if the world was set up for mutual/interdependent empowerment of all people (and the rest of nature) toward mutual health/prosperity/well-being, and mutual/collective liberation from oppression for all people... maybe, just maybe.

Wilderness!

Wilderness on my mind!

End all oppression...toward a better world: toward a beautiful world.

Ship in Port, with Ideas about Success, Materialism, Society, and Health

July 10, 2010
view original size

A ship carrying logs is seen at the Port of Olympia, in the City of Olympia, Thurston County, Washington State. The ship is the STX Pioneer, of Panamanian registry.

Despite the many faceted objections of environmentalists, the Weyerhauser company has teamed up with the public sector and is operating a log export operation at the Port of Olympia.

Many people who understand and care about the environment object to the activities of the Weyerhauser company. The lists of reasons is long. The objections stem at least in part because of the fact that the logging operation is harmful to ecosystems. The logging and shipping imperil the delicate biodiversity that is at the heart of ecosystem health. This goes along with a number of other reasons to object to the log export operations, including but not limited to the environmental effects from the transport of such a heavy commodity over long distances.

Should companies be allowed to engage in activities that harm the environment?

Who does the environment belong to? Or rather, who ought the environment belong to? (To some and not others? To all? To none?)

When there are harmful industrial activities, does it make more sense that some few should benefit disproportionately more than others, or does it make more sense to distribute the wealth in a way so that everyone would benefit equally?

Does the focus on a definition of success that leans on the metrics of materialism (v. spirit, or community, for example) promote a fundamentally harmful, abusive, violent relationship with the material of existence, the substance of the planet?

Is it possible that there other ways of defining success that would be more favorable toward a vision of economic stability and justice, and toward an end to what many believe is the criminal behavior of big companies?

In of the current system societies are engaged in competition to exert control over resources. Instead of this scenario, think about societies moving toward a culture of cooperation and stewardship and mutual prosperity. Think about society moving away from a culture of war, conquest and dominance.

Instead of measuring success based solely on personal material riches, perhaps success could be defined along the lines of a healthy community, on the ability to take care of each other, and to be truly aware and awake, conscious (and conscientious) in our daily lives, so that we are careful to the greatest extent possible to NOT do harm...

Perhaps success could be defined along the lines of efforts to strengthen the fabric of society, to work toward an end to all violence, and an end to all unnecessary suffering - an end to poverty, starvation, illiteracy, homophobia, sexism, ageism, racism, nationalism.

Perhaps success could be defined along the lines of contribution to the mutual health and well-being—the mutual happiness and prosperity—of all people.

Berd

Bees on Tree

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Olympia—A bunch of bees were hanging from a tree limb.

Lone Tree in Yellowstone National Park, June 2010

Beautiful nature in Yosemite!

Day Four CFC from PNW to Detroit

On day three of the Cascadia Freedom Caravan from the PNW (Pacific Northwest {Oregon and Washington}) we traveled from South central Montana to Fargo North Dakota, and Moorehead Minnesota.

It was a sunny and warm day of travel through a beautiful landscape.

Today, day four, we are driving for Milwaukee Wisconsin.

As I write this we are approaching St. Cloud, MN and about 80 miles from the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The clouds are accumulating, and the agricultural fields are very green. It smells wet, and it seems like there is a possibility for rain.

People are tired, right now most of the people on the bus are asleep, I think there are only about 7 of us still awake.

Last night as we drove through the darkness on our way to Fargo, I could hear 7 different conversations taking place simultaneously amongst the 25 passengers on the bus. It was pretty amazing. There have been some amazing, interesting and important conversations that have occurred on the trip.

So far, I have had a lot of conversations about culture, society, economics, politics, the environment, spirituality, values, and other topics that are of interest to me.

Right now we are listening to Amy Goodman speak on Democracy Now! The segment is an interview about BP's human-made undersea petroleum volcano in the Gulf of Mexico.

I am learning a lot about 'merica (i.e. America.) And so far, I still believe that another world is possible. A world of altruism, where success is based on the common welfare of all people. A world where people demonstrate caring attitudes and behaviors for each other, for all people, realizing that we are all part of one interconnected web of life. A world where people do not hurt each other, and earnestly seek to gain understanding and awareness of how our system is harmful... A world of respect, of love and truth, of peace and harmony.

Joy in the struggle!

And Peace.

Cheers,
Berd