I spent most of today in
Stirling talking to Council members about greywater and compost toilets. We’re
coming down the home stretch—tomorrow is the final licensing meeting,
and overall it’s looking good. I have to say the Council has been
very supportive and are quite genuinely interested in some of the alternatives.
But I didn’t get much sleep the night before. For some reason,
dealing with all the physical realities and the details of these projects throws
me into a kind of flashback to high school—staying up late trying to finish
a term project—that awful feeling when you don’t have enough time
to finish and you have to finish anyway, and you can’t find the fact or
the reference you need and the library is closed. (Okay, I guess that dates
me all right!) And while I can stand quite calmly in front of a line of
riot cops I have to fight not to panic about exactly how many tank adaptors
we need for greywater tanks—challenging to figure out when we don’t
know how many kitchens there will be or how many people are coming altogether.
The Council has a composting and recycling officer who had actually read my
books and seemed a little surprised at my role in this.
“I can understand how you’d be drawn to the politics and the activism,”
he said.
“But how did I become the Queen of Compost Toilets? I wonder that
myself,” I admitted.
At Findhorn, I found myself thinking how easy it would be to spend my whole
life at beautiful places like that, giving workshops, actually getting paid
for giving workshops! And being treated in the way people do when they see you
as an important person coming to teach them something. Instead of
grappling with the problems of what to do with the shit. of ten thousand people.
And the answer that came to me is either:
1. I am deeply and nobly dedicated to the cause.
Or
2. I’m not very smart. But seriously, compost toilets are as holy and
beautiful as anything else. What could be more magical than the transformation
of something hated, feared, and considered a disgusting waste into a valuable
resource, a source of fertility? When does it get better than that?
So my Summer Solstice began, appropriately enough, with a tour of the sewage
treatment plant at Findhorn, which is actually a beautiful, lush greenhouse
filled with tanks holding plants and organisms that treat the blackwater biologically.
I was given the full tour by Michael Shaw, the engineer who designed the
system and who worked for many years with John and Nancy Todd, the originators
of the method they call a Living Machine. Michael also gave me invaluable
advice and help on our greywater and compost toilet plans, and was extremely
kind and supportive.
Then I got a lift down to Roslin Glen, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. About
thirty of us met outside Roslin Chapel—a small, fifteenth century chapel
with many esoteric associations, made famous in the Da Vinci Code novel. It’s
set on a hill above a steep valley, and we hiked down through the trees to the
river below. There some of us plunged into the water, to cleanse and release.
It was cold and rejuvenating and wonderful to lie in the clear stream
and let go of some of the tension I’ve been carrying.
Then we hiked uphill to a grove of ancient yew trees. Some of the people
from the encampment at Bilston Glen had come to join us. Bilston is one
of the long-term camps that activists have set up to block construction of a
roadway that would destroy the integrity of the forest that still rings Edinburgh’s
urban spread. There’s a long tradition of these camps in England
and Scotland, and the land laws still retain some ancient features that allow
camping on the commons and prevent them from being quickly removed, as they
would be back in the US. In fact, they can last for years. The Faslane
peace camp has been holding opposition to nuclear weapons in Scotland for many,
many years. Back in the eighties, women opposed to US nuclear weapons
in Britain camped at Greenham Common outside the missile base, and remained
for over two decades. There’s also a centuries-old tradition of the outlaws
in the forest, those who can’t or won’t concede to the demands and
oppression of society simply moving out and living in the woods. Robin
Hood’s Merry Men were the forerunners of the Bilston posse.
Some of us wanted to do some focused, somewhat formal magic for the solstice—at
least, I did. Others wanted to hang around the fire, kick back, and celebrate
in a much looser way. There was a certain disparity of energies that was
resolved when one of the women present suggested we circle around a nearby tree,
a giant chestnut that was full of eyes and faces. We did, and wove a web
of connection to link with some of our Pagan Cluster friends in Philadelphia
who were protesting against the biotech industry’s annual conference.
At the end of the ritual, we did a Tarot reading for the action, and I wish
I could tell you what it said but I didn’t write it down and don’t
remember it all. Then we visited more of the ancient trees, huge chestnuts
and oaks with trunks as thick as a house. The whole glen does truly have
an ancient and magical feel to it.
The next morning I came back and visited the chapel. If Pagans, instead
of Christians, had built cathedrals they would have built them like Roslin.
Every surface is carved with images of nature, leaves, flowers, roots, branches,
animals and birds. It’s full of the Green Man—the mysterious
face with foliage and leaves coming out of it that is, oddly enough, found in
churches all over Europe. Roslin has over a hundred of them. I sat
in the South doorway, where there are two faces, one upside down and one right
side up, and meditated on the turning of the wheel and the shifting of powers.
-- Starhawk
Donations to help support Starhawk’s trainings and work can be sent to:
ACT
1405 Hillmount St.
Austin, Texas
78704
U.S.A.
The G8, the annual agenda setting meeting of the heads of state of the eight
most powerful countries in the world, will meet in Gleneagles, Scotland,
July 6-8. For more information on the mobilizations, or to donate directly to
the action, see: www.dissent.org.uk
Indymedia Scotland page scotland.indymedia.org
Feel free to post, forward,
and reprint this article for non-commercial purposes. All other rights
reserved.
Starhawk is an activist, organizer, and author of The Earth
Path, Webs of Power: Notes from the Global Uprising, The Fifth
Sacred Thing and other books on feminism, politics and earth-based spirituality.
She teaches Earth
Activist Trainings that combine permaculture design and activist skills,
and works with the RANT
trainer’s collective, that offers training and support for mobilizations
around global justice and peace issues.