313 june 2019 £2 network news a guide to inspiring events in north wales earth protectors ~ mythology is still important ~ xr pen llŷn ~ nonviolence groove dancing ~ three years and counting ~ council of all beings ~ unruly? exhibitions ~ workshops ~ festivals ~ groups Network News 27 Penlan Street PWLLHELI June 2019 LL53 5DE www.network-news.org Articles An Invitation To A Council Of All Beings 4 07777 688440 Dearbhaile Bradley (phone during office hours or text anytime) Becoming An Earth Protector 5 Jojo Mehta [email protected] A Guide to Inspiring Events Mythology Is Still Important 6 in North Wales Michael Harvey Founded 1992 Unruly? 8 Ianthe Pickles Subscriptions £20 for 12 issues XR Pen Llŷn 33 Lucy Wright £12 for 6 issues Three Years & Counting 34 Advertisements Adam May Eighth Page: £10 Using Nonviolent Communication 36 Quarter Page: £15 Rik Midgley Half Page: £30 Dance For You 37 Full Page: £60 Liz Lane Back Cover: £100 Regular Features Payments Noticeboard 9 Cheques to: June Calendar 10 “Network News cic” Workshops In July & August 27 Bank Transfers to: Network News cic Exhibitions 30 Sort Code: 08-92-99 Full Moon Meditation Network 37 Account No: 65260034 By PayPal Advertisers Index 38 Network News Outlets Inside Back Cover www.facebook.com Network Of Goodwill Back Cover North Wales Network News Network News is a Community Interest Company Front Cover Illustration by Femke van Gent (cic); Registered in England and www.femkevangent.nl Wales, Company No: 06264367; Registered Office: Printed on 100% post consumer waste paper by 20 Penlan Street Network News cic, Pwllheli PWLLHELI, LL53 5DE Welcome to the June Network News. As a 16 year-old, Polly Higgins witnessed a teacher discipline a young boy by forcing him to stand on one leg on his desk - threatening that if the boy put his leg down, he would punch him. Polly saw the boy was wetting himself with fear in front of the class. She ran up and hit the teacher with enough force to require hospital treatment. Polly was expelled, shamed by her parents and rejected by her friends. Polly was not proud of injuring the teacher, but in the moment it seemed the only way to protect the innocent. Within a few years, she was studying law, and in the 1990s was a barrister in London. Several cases involved corporate environmental abuses, and one day she found herself musing: “The Earth needs a good lawyer!”. Her life’s work became a global campaign to have “ecocide” - the damage and destruction of ecosystems - proscribed in International Law. As with “crimes against humanity”, individuals could be held accountable for crimes against the Earth. CEOs, billionaires and politicians had cause to worry about this “troublesome lawyer”. In March, her many friends were truly shell-shocked to hear that Polly - a radiant 50 year old - had developed an aggressive cancer with a prognosis of just 6 weeks. Polly died on Easter Sunday. In the same moment, the movement she had done so much to empower reached a new level of public attention. Extinction Rebellion (XR) filled the streets and the news, Greta was in London, and the CCC19 Conference at which Polly would have spoken was filled with her spirit. In her place, Jojo Mehta and Gail Bradbrooke (co-founder of XR), gave a profound tribute and a commitment to take Polly’s work forward. It is simply true that Polly’s life brought... ...blessings to all beings www.stopecocide.earth An Invitation To A Council Of All Beings Dearbhaile Bradley With each day that passes, with each preparatory exercises and sharing circles, new report that confronts us with the we go into silence and offer another Being myriad different ways life on Earth is that is sharing this planetary crisis, our threatened, our sense of urgency, the voice. We invite them to speak through us, feeling that we must somehow change to give voice to their experiences, to offer grows more intense. But at the same time, us their wisdom. We ask them what to do we fear what will happen and amazingly they tell if we let in our true us. The ever-patient feelings. We don’t want allies come when we to be negative, invite them. They speak scaremongering, morbid. with us and through us We feel guilty and at the Council of All helpless, caught up in a Beings. We thank them system beyond our and then ritually burn control. As Joanna Macy the masks we made to said, as far back as 1983, represent them and ‘We maintain a more or return to our human less up-beat capacity to consciousness. carry on as usual… and Refreshed and renewed, all the while underneath, there is this we plant seeds for the future, commit inchoate knowledge that our world is on ourselves to realistic and realisable steps the verge of destruction. Awesome and towards a more sustainable way of living unprecedented in the history of humanity, and support each other to achieve them. it lurks there, with an anguish beyond Every Council has the potential to become naming.’ a community of people forging the path to But as we open up to the pain we are our only possible future – the return to our holding inside us, the most extraordinary rightful place in the circle of All Beings, transformation occurs. By being willing to living in harmony with ourselves and the acknowledge our grief, our anger, by world. processing our feelings together we free You are invited to participate in this ourselves from the crippling sense of powerful ritual on Sunday 9th June, powerlessness and overwhelm. We 10am - 6pm at Moelyci Farm in reconnect with our true selves and the Tregarth. Booking is essential. energy that was tied up in holding difficult What brings us together is our love of feelings out of awareness is released. We the planet we live on, our desire to explore become empowered to act, to find more how to become effective agents of change ways to move towards sustainable and in this time of crisis. harmonious ways of living. Dearbhaile Bradley trained with Joanna A Council of All Beings is a powerful Macy in the early 90s and has run Councils ritual, developed by John Seed and Joanna throughout Europe. Heather Bolton is a Macy, that facilitates this emotional mindfulness teacher and psychotherapist. process. Following a morning of [email protected] 07912 877 836 4 Becoming An Earth Protector Jojo Mehta Maybe something like this: “There is no more powerful tool to protect the Earth, because when ecocide becomes a crime, corporate behaviour is forced to change. Not because CEOs become liable to prosecution Polly Higgins Friday 3rd May was the most wonderful Earth Warrior funeral Polly Higgins could have wished (although that’s an 1968 ~ 2019 for: full of tears, inspiration, laughter, exciting prospect) but music, organic whisky and taking over the because ecocidal practices become illegal. public highway… They can’t be permitted by governments, Looking back at the colourful procession underwritten by insurers or backed by wending its way along the valley, I couldn’t investors… and so they have to stop. stop smiling at how delighted she’d be. For 2 minutes and a fiver to become an Now all we need to do is sign up those Earth Protector, I’d say it’s worth a punt.” million Earth Protectors that Polly wanted Polly certainly thought so - she bet her to see… whole life on it. Just imagine: Watch “Honouring Polly Higgins” on YouTube With a million Earth Protectors standing Jojo Mehta is a Stroud-based campaigner with them, the climate-vulnerable states against dangerous industrial activities such brave enough to take forward ecocide law as fracking and incineration. She is a writer, will feel safe, and visible, and supported. States like Vanuatu. Their Ambassador - in public speaker and motivator. a deeply moving gesture - presented a www.stopecocide.earth traditional burial mat upon which Polly’s “Earth Is Our Business” & “Eradicating Ecocide” by willow casket was ceremonially laid in the Polly Higgins are available through your local Earth overlooking the beautiful Slad valley. bookshop or shepheard-walwyn.co.uk This visibility and support is crucially important to prevent intervention by From Polly’s husband’s eulogy: vested interests. “Please, please do not forget what my And it will mean our legal team will be darling Polly has fought for and started. resourced to provide the expert assistance Honour her memory and honour her spirit and honour her efforts to make the Earth a Polly spent her last years laying the better place for all of you and future essential groundwork for. generations. Become Earth Protectors and, So here’s the challenge - how will you you too, dare to be great. Please encourage sign up your first five, twenty, one hundred those who are marching after Polly to Earth Protectors? make ecocide a legal reality.” What do you say to your friends? Ian Lawrie 5 Mythology Is Still Important Michael Harvey Why should we be interested in the myths scripture. One of the greatest mythological of long ago? cycles is the Hindu epic the Mahabarata Mythology is still important because, from India. The hero Arjuna is about to although we talk about theses stories as face an army made up of his close ‘ancient’, we have not changed much over relatives. His charioteer is the god Krishna the millennia. The supernatural beings of (aka Vishnu, Rama etc) and Arjuna tells him the mythic world are that he cannot and larger than life. Their will not fight. Krishna’s passions, desires and reply has come down anger are much to us as the scripture bigger than our ‘The Bhagavad Gita’ everyday lives, and and is summed up in that is the point.