Group:
I woke up this morning and saw the light: I missed sharing my mammoth mytho-eco fear in each and every California Dream day - the California Drought. It seems that our endless Beach Boy sunshine and tech toys are now sequestered with deep fears of water shortages, water wars and dislocations.
Perhaps we could design a seminar, team paper or conference to address the web of fear in our fracked waters?
To illustrate, I will share a recent piece with you: daddy's dry lightning saloon
Replies
Love the idea of addressing the drought on the Alliance, maybe through a web panel or group discussion? A paper could then emerge out of the event from the hosts about the experience of the discussion. This is definitely one way to bring some much needed depth attention to the issue and engage those (especially who live in CA and have a passion for the ecological issues at hand).
I know the most recent issue of the Jung Journal focused on the theme of water. I set mine aside to read a month or two ago and can't find it now. Has anyone read it?
My vision for the group is to reach-out to more folks - esp. who do not have the Depth training. Let's activize / popularize Depth? To offer practical tools and build resilience. To actually support Nature in crisis - not just babble about her.
California, the producer of nearly half of the nation's fruits, veggies, and nuts, plus export crops—four-fifths of the world's almonds, for example—is entering its (FORTH) driest year on record. Nearly 80 percent of the state is experiencing "extreme" or "exceptional" drought. In addition to affecting agricultural production the drought will cost the state billions of dollars, thousands of jobs, and a whole lot of groundwater, according to a new report prepared for the California Department of Food and Agriculture by scientists at UC-Davis. The authors used current water data, agricultural models, satellite data, and other methods to predict the economic and environmental toll of the drought through 2016.
Here are four key takeaways:
The drought will cost the state $2.2 billion this year: Of these losses, $810 million will come from lower crop revenues, $203 million will come from livestock and dairy losses, and $454 million will come from the cost of pumping additional groundwater. Up to 17,100 seasonal and part-time jobs will be lost.
California is experiencing the "greatest absolute reduction in water availability" ever seen: In a normal year, about one-third of California's irrigation water is drawn from wells that tap into the groundwater supply. The rest is "surface water" from streams, rivers, and reservoirs. This year, the state is losing about one-third of its surface water supply. The hardest hit area is the Central Valley, a normally fertile inland region. Because groundwater isn't as easily pumped in the Valley as it is on the coasts, and the Colorado River supplies aren't as accessible as they are in the south, the Valley has lost 410,000 acres to fallowing, an area about 10 times the size of Washington, DC.
Farmers are pumping enough groundwater to immerse Rhode Island in 17 feet of it: To make up for the loss of surface water, farmers are pumping 62 percent more groundwater than usual. They are projected to pump 13 million acre-feet this year, enough to put Rhode Island 17 feet under.
"We're acting like the super-rich:" California is technically in its third year of drought, and regardless of the effects of El Niño, 2015 is likely to be a dry year too. As the dry years accumulate, it becomes harder and harder to pump water from the ground, adding to the crop and revenue losses. California is the only western state without groundwater regulation or measurement of major groundwater use. If you can drill down to water, it's all yours. (Journalist McKenzie Funk describes this arcane system in an excerpt from his fascinating recent book, Windfall.) "A well-managed basin is used like a reserve bank account," said Richard Howitt, a UC-Davis water scientist and co-author of the report. "We're acting like the super-rich, who have so much money they don't need to balance their checkbook."
California Farms Are Sucking Up Enough Groundwater to Put Rhode Isl...
Stories are a way to connect one with another, to create empathy and desire to help, to support. I am reminded of when naturalist and writer TerryTempest Williams described how/what had happened for then President Clinton to sign off and create a national monument in Utah. She and others gathered stories of people's experience of being on the land in that area. Writers volunteered stories and then they were bound together and a copy was sent to each congress person. Many said they were wasting their time; however, one of the senator's was Hillary Clinton, who took her copy of the stories to hubby. The stories moved him to action.
I know the above story is a bit different, that the stories were about place; however, water is important to life. Our dreams, metaphors and myths flow with water. Perhaps we need to be telling and creating stories (not just facts) that will make us feel the parchment of the land, the devastation of the forests, the impending devastation.
This resonates strongly with me. I live north of you Willi, in Siskiyou County. We had very little snow this year, water rationing has begun for the farmers and ranchers and all of us. Struggles for water rights on high pitch. As someone said last night on our call (I am pretty sure it was James), sometimes fear is wisdom, come to teach and protect us. It is for us to learn to feel the fear and discern its messages.
Paraphrasing here the James Hillman quote: "To know when fear is telling me something..." - and what that is. Perhaps the fears around lack of water are nudging us toward a new myth, a new story, about how we relate to Earth and Her elements.
Wow WIlli, This is a fantastic idea!
What a powerful insight.Loss of emotion, fear of the unconscious, and all linked with the feminine. How do we clean up the waters? Bring back the juiciness of soul? Replenish what has been depleted?
I was working on my dissertation when your email came through. I posted my reply (above) and then went back to my dissertation, to read what I had just wrote in my dissertation. It was about the baptism of Jesus. When he was baptized, the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended, the dove (goddess/Sophia) alighted on his shoulder and remained there. He was immersed in the water when the divine feminine returned to him. He became conscious of Her presence, with/within him. Interesting coincidence....
Beautiful imagery & story Pamela. I look forward to reading your work on the return of Sophia to the God/dess Head.