One of the gifts that I get when I stretch my energy sometimes is the spiritual lift that comes from being with good people at dawn in nature in a place of power, together in local peace. After a long week of working late, stress and struggle, we got up before 4am and drove to the top of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County to join 91 year old Anna Halprin and a band of intrepid folks on a trek from the parking lot to the summit to see the dawn over San Pablo Bay and San Francisco. Looking toward Mt. Diablo, we hunkered down in awe as the sun rose over the fog covered north bay on one of the longest days of the year.
This Cherokee morning song reminds us of the simple truth, of our connection to the web of life. Later, I'll post more of the sharing from Planetary Dance 2011. Enjoy: Cherokee Morning Song.
As the American Indian elders say: "All life is sacred".
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Sunday, July 03, 2011
One of the things that I enjoy on Sunday morning is to go to the farmers market at the Marin Civic Center to browse for veggies, herbs and fruit that form the basis for our dinners next week. We are blessed with two viable farmers markets each week, though our Thursday evening market is maybe half the size it was two years ago. Sunday's event is still vibrant, a place to not only buy food, but to encounter other community members, to learn and to enjoy a bit of music with breakfast. Simple pleasures, money that stays within the community, contact with the growers, and a place for kids and families to wander in a safe place. Thanks for the opportunity to be in a community that has a farmers market, a community that cooks with local produce and meat, a community where healthy eating is a community value.
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Marinations 22
An interview with master choreographer and teacher Anna Halprin following a screening of the documentary "Breath Made Visible" at the Smith Film Center in San Rafael conducted by host Sharon Skolnick-Bagnoli is the first segment.
Later a Multimedia piece featuring ; poetry and Marin images by Sharon Skolnick-Bagnoli with music by Jerry Green will delight your senses and lift your mind.
Later a Multimedia piece featuring ; poetry and Marin images by Sharon Skolnick-Bagnoli with music by Jerry Green will delight your senses and lift your mind.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Marinations 20 Jerry Green Aikido and Mediation
Sharon Skolnick-Bagnoli explores with Jerry Green how his study of Aikido informs his practice of mediation, bringing the wisdom of the body to find peaceful resolution to conflicts in the home and business worlds. ;
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
When I read that Plutonium has been found in Japanese soil near the Fukishima Nuclear Power Station, it tells me that the disaster has entered a new, vastly more serious stage. This material is very toxic if it gets into the body, micrograms are enough to cause cancer. In a power station, it is normally locked up in the fuel rods, both fresh and spent-and separated from the environment by the zirconium cladding and several layers of containment. That the power company admits that it was found outside and in dirt is very scary, even if the level of radiation is presently limited.
What I think about is that this indicates that the basic containment systems are breaking down, and as the radiation level in the plant and surrounding area rises, it gets harder to work there, harder to take measures to stabilize the situation, and the poisons will spread. Certainly the water poured on the core, the water pumped into the waste storage ponds is an important mitigating action, but the fact that sea water must be used instead of the very pure water normally recycled means that there is a major leak in the systems, and that implies that the now radioactive water carrying stuff from the reactor and the fuel pools is leaking into the environment, possibly into the sea.
Combined with the fact that the electric power company doesn't want others to monitor the radiation at the plant independently, I believe that we should be worried that the story we are being told is incomplete and possibly misleading. We deserve to know more, indeed the event is going to be affecting the environment for centuries if not longer and it will become intuitively obvious to the most casual observer what is going on as time marches on. So candor now would enable folks to learn, to apply the considerable intellegence of the collective mind--and the fear of panic should not be an excuse to hide the truth--the Tsunami cleared that hurdle and a lot of land as well.
What we need to do now is manage this situation as best we can, and the sooner that Tokyo nationalizes the utility and brings in the best experts from around the world, the sooner that we can bring the resources that we have to protect the Japanese people and the Japanese economy from the vast store of radioactive poison that could be unleashed if this thing gets much worse. It could get much worse, or it could be that folks will continue with the courageous actions, the intelligent responses snd the collaborative work that has limited the damage so far. If this situation isn't stabilized, the world will suffer, and if we can effectively manage this Power Station's crises, the world will benefit. We need to learn the lessons since there are hundreds of other similar power stations around the world, and we need to learn how to manage the spreading contamination, the impacts to the food and water supplies, the impacts to the ecology together.
We haven't seen the last earthquake and tsunami that will impact a nuclear power station, so learning now is an opportunity, and we must apply the lessons immediately.
One thing that we know is that the secondary cooling systems could be made much more robust by adding a few simple elements:
Where battery backup power is now only adequate for 8 hours ( which is the case at several power stations in the U.S.) we should stress test those systems now since many backup battery systems fail under real loads if they are more than a decade old and have any latent defects. We can augment these systems so that they can continue to function for say, 24 hours--and we can install a way to connect banks of generators imported from off site.
We saw linemen in radiation protection suits installing new electrical power feeders at the Fukishima plant recently in an attempt to restart the control systems and the cooling pumps-- not easy in any case, but impossible if this was occuring in the summer in a desert station.... so we can install alternate feeders now, and assemble a bank of power generators that could be deployed to provide alternate power in the event that a power outage lasts longer than 8 hours. I know that the stations have onsite generators, and I know that these systems are also vulnerable to a variety of failure modes. These systems should also be stress tested and upgraded as necessary--
This incident also highlights the need to improve the back up systems that both contain the spent fuel storage and that provide the vital cooling for these "axillary" systems.
Our politicians who have prevented the development of secure spent fuel storage repositories must either face the scientific facts or be changed out for politicians who will enable the nation to do what we must do to make the storage safe for our society and economy. Perhaps the Fukishima events will put in motion the steps that we can take to ensure that natural events that are inevitably going to occur don't cause avoidable disasters that ruin public health and national economies.
What I think about is that this indicates that the basic containment systems are breaking down, and as the radiation level in the plant and surrounding area rises, it gets harder to work there, harder to take measures to stabilize the situation, and the poisons will spread. Certainly the water poured on the core, the water pumped into the waste storage ponds is an important mitigating action, but the fact that sea water must be used instead of the very pure water normally recycled means that there is a major leak in the systems, and that implies that the now radioactive water carrying stuff from the reactor and the fuel pools is leaking into the environment, possibly into the sea.
Combined with the fact that the electric power company doesn't want others to monitor the radiation at the plant independently, I believe that we should be worried that the story we are being told is incomplete and possibly misleading. We deserve to know more, indeed the event is going to be affecting the environment for centuries if not longer and it will become intuitively obvious to the most casual observer what is going on as time marches on. So candor now would enable folks to learn, to apply the considerable intellegence of the collective mind--and the fear of panic should not be an excuse to hide the truth--the Tsunami cleared that hurdle and a lot of land as well.
What we need to do now is manage this situation as best we can, and the sooner that Tokyo nationalizes the utility and brings in the best experts from around the world, the sooner that we can bring the resources that we have to protect the Japanese people and the Japanese economy from the vast store of radioactive poison that could be unleashed if this thing gets much worse. It could get much worse, or it could be that folks will continue with the courageous actions, the intelligent responses snd the collaborative work that has limited the damage so far. If this situation isn't stabilized, the world will suffer, and if we can effectively manage this Power Station's crises, the world will benefit. We need to learn the lessons since there are hundreds of other similar power stations around the world, and we need to learn how to manage the spreading contamination, the impacts to the food and water supplies, the impacts to the ecology together.
We haven't seen the last earthquake and tsunami that will impact a nuclear power station, so learning now is an opportunity, and we must apply the lessons immediately.
One thing that we know is that the secondary cooling systems could be made much more robust by adding a few simple elements:
Where battery backup power is now only adequate for 8 hours ( which is the case at several power stations in the U.S.) we should stress test those systems now since many backup battery systems fail under real loads if they are more than a decade old and have any latent defects. We can augment these systems so that they can continue to function for say, 24 hours--and we can install a way to connect banks of generators imported from off site.
We saw linemen in radiation protection suits installing new electrical power feeders at the Fukishima plant recently in an attempt to restart the control systems and the cooling pumps-- not easy in any case, but impossible if this was occuring in the summer in a desert station.... so we can install alternate feeders now, and assemble a bank of power generators that could be deployed to provide alternate power in the event that a power outage lasts longer than 8 hours. I know that the stations have onsite generators, and I know that these systems are also vulnerable to a variety of failure modes. These systems should also be stress tested and upgraded as necessary--
This incident also highlights the need to improve the back up systems that both contain the spent fuel storage and that provide the vital cooling for these "axillary" systems.
Our politicians who have prevented the development of secure spent fuel storage repositories must either face the scientific facts or be changed out for politicians who will enable the nation to do what we must do to make the storage safe for our society and economy. Perhaps the Fukishima events will put in motion the steps that we can take to ensure that natural events that are inevitably going to occur don't cause avoidable disasters that ruin public health and national economies.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Marinations 20 Dineh Elder Len Foster and Tony Gonzales
Sharon Skolnick-Bagnoli interviews Native American Elder Len Foster and AIM-West Director Antonio Gonzales, discussing the Prison Native American Spiritual outreach program. ; Len Foster tells how the Native American relationship to nature could help us with our environmental challenges.
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