I’m stealing a moment
in a borrowed house to try and write this while Annie, one of our greywater
crew, takes a shower.
Yes, we have a rural convergence center for the actions. Finally, after all
the setbacks and last-minute disappointments. It’s in a bend of
the Forth River, with views of Stirling Castle, the Wallace Monument, and the
Achill hills. We’re camping onsite, setting up. I got there
Monday, after a weekend of travel so insane I won’t even describe it or
you will be calling the trauma team to do an intervention. Monday was
one of those horrible days when everything falls apart. Sunday night a
visitor in some altered state of consciousness tried to swim in the treacherous
river and nearly drowned. The Rescue Squad and police had to come out—fortunately,
he was saved. Monday morning, the metal tracking for the road didn’t come.
The big tents, marquees in the language they speak over here, fell through
due to storm damage at last weekend’s festival in Glastonbury. The
biodiesel generators, big water tanks, and compost toilet barrels fell through.
We lost about a third of the camping area to methane emissions from the
former dump. Basically just about everything that could go wrong did.
A whole lot of people were standing around eager to do jobs that couldn’t
be done. Nonetheless, people mostly remained civil to each other, and
tried to solve the problems.
Emma Magenta, a magical forester woman from the Highlands, came up with the
idea of using scrap wood, the half-rounds and shaved-off pieces from milling,
to lay a track. Other people with road and truck experience contributed
ideas and everyone pitched in to carry wood and lay the track, about two hundred
meters of it, lovingly and carefully placed, and eventually covered with chicken
wire. It was exhausting carrying heavy batches of wood, but satisfying, and
nice to do something that required no thought or analysis. We had
a meeting, got organized, and Tuesday was much better. We now have two
compost toilets almost built, plus the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency
gave us permission to also do pit toilets. We have chemical toilets required
by the Council as well, giving us a true diversity of toilets. In a day
or two, perhaps I can stop obsessing about toilets and start thinking about
something else. As important as toilets are, there is more to life, I
vaguely recall.
At the end of the night, one of the young women activists from Edinburgh briefed
those of us who were interested on the plans for the Faery Army, which is gathering
energy and sparking many creative ideas. After a late, late night meeting,
some of us sat around the faery hawthorne tree in the field and held an impromptu
circle, grounding and listening and singing. Red-haired Rooh has a magic
way with songs, and has a beautiful chant to mother thorn that we sang. John,
from Ireland, plays a magic fiddle—I met him a year ago at Tara on Beltane
when we were dancing around a faery thorn there, and he sang an Irish tune about
a Faery Army. There’s magic working and energies moving—and
we’re not moving them, they are moving us. It’s going to be
an interesting week.
And there’s lots more to write but Annie is out of the shower now and
I’m going to send this out while I have internet access. More later.
-- 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
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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.