• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

NOEL BROWN JAY HAIR WANGARI MAATHAI Earth Day 1990 marked the twentieth anniversary result of the blueprint process is our announce• of the first Earth Day. We have entered what is ment of an exciting partnership between the being called the "decade of the environment." The National Wildlife Federation and the Windstar world is listening—paying attention to the earth's Foundation—a partnership for the decade of the vital signs. environment and beyond that is designed to com• The first Earth Day was important and compelling. bine vision with effectiveness in service for a It was a time to raise people's consciousness. sustainable future. People became aware that there was a problem— You will see changes in the Windstar Foundation and the problem was the quality of the environ• in the next few months—and much will remain the ment. In 1990, we are already aware. We are same. One change will be reflected in the Windstar moving from awareness to responsible action. Foundation Board of Directors. Having helped to This issue of the Windstar Journal is dedicated guide Windstar through this blueprint process, this to responsible action. Our theme is "a promise to is the last issue of the Windstar Journal in which earth." We believe that the impetus to responsible Steve Conger, Dan McCormick, Marty Leaf, Bob action within individuals is personal and ecological Samples, and Hal Thau will be listed as members in itself. Responsible action does come from of the Board of Directors. On behalf of all those awareness—but awareness combined with knowl• who believe in Windstar's vision, we thank these edge, attitudes of caring and belief that it is pos• inspired and dedicated leaders for their commit• sible to make a difference, and experiences that ments and many accomplishments on Windstar's foster self confidence and develop skills. Out of this behalf. combination of interrelated parts comes a form of This is also the last issue of the Windstar Journal commitment—commitment to try, and to keep that we personally will edit and design. During the trying, even in the face of challenging odds. two years that we have had the privilege of taking You will find a variety of approaches to commit• responsibility for the Journal, we have been graced ment in this issue of the Journal, including the fact and nourished by the generosity of many. It is that the Journal itself is printed on recycled paper. impossible to thank and honor all who have assisted In every case, the goal is responsible action for a us. We would, however, like to take this opportunity healthy world. That is our promise to earth. to acknowledge the generous support, personal The Windstar Foundation itself has taken the encouragements, integrity, and vision contributed past few months to re-examine its own commit• by Beth and Charles Miller and the Sol y Sombra ment to the health of the planet. We have visited Foundation. We extend to them our heartfelt thanks. our past and our present. We have asked for and Throughout the continuing process of developing received guidance from some of the clearest our blueprint for Windstar's future, we will welcome thinkers, dreamers, and doers on the planet. All of hearing from each of you and working with you. this has been part of a process to create a "blue• Thank you for what you are already doing—and print" for Windstar's future. Many of you have what you will do—for a healthy world and a sus• assisted us by actively participating in the process. tainable future. We thank you for your contributions, co-thinking, support, and encouragement. Cheryl Charles and Bob Samples, Editors. You will find a preliminary report of the results of that process included in this issue. One early Contents 5 A PROMISE TO EARTH John Denver 6 THE WINDSTAR NEWS 8 PEDALING FORWARD TO THE FUTURE Frosty Wooldridge 10 YELLOW EARTH, GOOD EARTH Chungliang Al Huang 12 LETTING GO Thomas Crum 15 CHALLENGE OF THE FUTURE Noel Brown 20 SONGS OF FOREVER Bob Samples 22 DAWN OF THE DECADE OF THE ENVIRONMENT Jay D. Hair 28 A STRONG VOICE Wangari Maathai 30 PRACTICAL WAYS YOU CAN CREATE Susan Hassol A HEALTHIER WORLD 34 A WINDSTAR PROFILE 36 ENVIRONMENTAL LAUNDRY LISTS Clifford Knapp 40 DIALING LOCALLY/ACTING GLOBALLY W.J. Rocky Rohwedder 43 THE WINDSTAR/ECONET Jay A. Leibovitz CONNECTION 44 THE WAKE-UP CALL Hal Bidlack 48 WE LIVE IN WHAT WE LOVE Michael Hartoonian 52 TOO BEAUTIFUL TO RESIST Rio de la Vista 56 GOOD NEWS Carrie Click Cover Photo, NASA Page 24, Cheryl Charles Page 17, Cheryl Charles Page 10, Ko Sichi 'CWU Bob Samples Walt Whitman reached into the soul of America. The poet urges us to feel the eternal insecurity He lifted its spirit from within the seas, mountains, of that moment when all that has been tentative forests, and prairies and lofted it to the very face in our lives coalesces into the illusion of certainty. of God. When it was returned to Earth we, as a We sense, we feel, and we snatch the promise of people, were woven into the fabric of his dream. security from the vast workings of time and space. Whitman wrote, "I hear America singing." Were We let the being we are form fully for that moment. Whitman alive today, I am sure that he would A mote, a shard, a fragment of meaning, and then expand his vision to embrace the entire span of it is gone. Gone, unless there is the memory of the planet, rather than stopping at the boundaries the poet. The poet within us provides our kinship of a single nation. with destiny and the mindscapes of the future. It is the poet who breathes life into the planetary Suppose I suggest that it was Homer and not dream. It is the poet who charts the course of the Odysseus (Ulysses) who gave us the lasting gifts dream while others haggle over details. The dream of grace, decency, and morality that were chroni• is the voice of the Earth. Those who hear its voice cled in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Clearly Odysseus will guide the Earth's destiny. We must sing its was the hero—he pointed the way, slew the adver• songs in the fabric of each living day. Having a saries, and drove himself bravely and headlong dream is not enough—the dream must be sung. into danger after danger. Did he do this in the Like it or not, mediocrity and the pedestrian name of the future? Not at all. These were adven• characterize life's chores. Carrying out the garbage, tures in history—the personal history of Odysseus. biting off split ends, and sorting out facts in Adventure after adventure was encountered—not checkbooks fall into those gray wastelands of as a personal journey into the future, but as an boredom that spread like crabgrass in our con• affirmation of the past. It was Homer the poet who sciousness. Even Thomas Jefferson must have saw the future and wove the hero's new experi• experienced tedium in his life. Imagine him tend• ences into the fabric of history to come. Odysseus ing the daily maintenance of Monticello—caring the adventurer could not have stood aside from for the gardens and cleaning out the stables. the passion and sensed possibility nor could he Picture Einstein morbidly shuffling useless equa• have heard the singing. The poet is the keeper of tions as he worked for endless hours to prepare the songs. The poet sees the possibilities beyond his theory of relativity. In recent times, Astronaut the fury of passion—and looks full into the eyes Edgar Mitchell has told us of being so busily of spirit. engaged in reflexive servitude to technical routines Spirit is the mindscape that lies beyond the that he almost missed the holiness of the vision passion of the moment. Spirit, the vision of the of Earth hanging in space. poet, is larger than the vision of the warrior—and It is not these gray experiences in the lives of so it was beyond Odysseus. His violence, battles, Jefferson, Einstein, or Mitchell that draw us into adultery, and murders established his status as their being. It is those moments in which mainte• hero. As hard as Homer tried, he could not turn nance was transformed intotranscendencebythe Odysseus into what he was not. singing poet in their souls. When Jefferson wrote, What is missing in the thousand faces of the "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; hero—from Odysseus to John Wayne and Batman that all men are created equal and independent..." —is a sense of the future. The hero operates in he loosed the poet's song. When Einstein said, the present—a present defined by and in service "The most beautiful and profound emotion we can to the past. experience is the presence of the mystical it In contrast, the poet sees the future—and casts is the dower of all true science," we were given us headlong into it. freedom to slip the bonds of measurement. Ed The hero lives from passion. The poet sings of Mitchell stepped boldly past routine and asked us spirit. Passion is a short-term phenomenon—while all to know the triumph and terror of seeing the spirit is forever. We need both in our lives—but Earth whole. passion alone is no longer enough. Passion and a hero's courage help us to face The prison that encapsulates our soul and our the challenges of the present.

Load more

  5

Copy Link