major alterations

This is an International Moment, the world is watching and we, the people of the world, have an opportunity to change the course of history.

Clean energy, damming of rivers and indigenous violations all came together a few days ago as people freed the Xingu River to resume it's natural flow.

"Three hundred indigenous people, small farmers, fisherfolk, and local residents occupied the Belo Monte Dam project" (Amazon Watch).....using their bodies in formation spelling, they became the message "Pare Bele Monte " (stop Belo Monte) This press worthy aerial view notice was followed by a dig out that opened the river.

In The Leaderless Revolution, Carne Ross writes how Ghandi's Salt March was an action that was direct and remedial. A partial transcript from the Bill Moyers show reiterates the story:

"BILL MOYERS: You were quite impressed with Gandhi's salt march.

CARNE ROSS: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

CARNE ROSS: Well, he in protest of British colonialism, he organized a 200-mile march, of lots of people, to go to a coastal city in India to make salt. And the reason he did that was because the British charged poor people, ordinary Indians a tax on salt, as a way of keeping them down. And Gandhi felt the salt belongs to all of us, and ordinary people were forbidden from making salt.

So he went and made salt. And this was the perfect political protest, because not only did it draw attention to this great injustice, but it actually physically embodied the change that needed to happen, which was ordinary people making salt. And it was immensely powerful."

The Salt March was a trek to the ocean where they could then distill their own salt from the sea water. This was a do-able practical solution though many were injured and over 200 hundred dians unrmed Indians died.

The injured were countless. Think not only of  the Indians,  but of the British soldiers. Young men following orders they had to have questioned . Bludgeoning unarmed people with steel tipped clubs had to have been horrifying to all who were involved. PTSDs were not part of the cultural discourse at the time, however we now know that the truama they suffered was allowed to lay fallow and corrupt the next generation in ways we are only beginning to understand. This is part of the next paradigm, healing at all levels is necessary if we are to transform our solutions to fit the problems we have created.

The Pare Monte Belo protest is similar in its scope. Please, this time let us all put  our thoughts out there  for healtheir, positive outcomes.

I see arguments for all sides and yet this is how we will further our action , policy and design for sustainable life embracing; it is these hard questions that we must learn to answer together. It is only by trying to understand from all options, all representatives and all people affected, that will grow our abilities to see the world with clarity. We are capable of this.

Clothing - the  transnational language  - speaks as much as the letters formed.  This is full of nuances to explore...good, heartwarming stuff as well as the WTO sweatshop stuff.

"Nobody Said it Was Easy" (Coldplay)