Ladling altruistic ingenuity out of the cauldron of conflagration…
Caroline hosts Steven Givot, encouraging us to “open our hearts,” recently returned from volunteering with World Central Kitchen on the Polish-Ukranian border….
https://www.facebook.com/steven.givot
https://donate.wck.org/give/394390#!/donation/checkout
refugees…
These crises now – only bigger…long-term vision all inclusive altrustic ingenuity required….
The Guardian “By 2050, 1.2 billion Climate Refugees May Have Fled Their Homes”
Countries unable to withstand ecological threats among world’s least peaceful, analysis finds
The Guardian (2020) “Climate crisis could displace 1.2bn people by 2050, report warns”
Steven :
“April 17th posting:
Today is a difficult day for me.
I keep seeing sights on TV that are places I spent time in Poland with WCK. Train station, Tesco Center,…super market… Medyka border crossing. Each time I see them, I get a mental instant replay of my experiences there and I stop and cry.
Different faces, same shell shock, same stoic faces, same relief at finding temporary safety.
I hear that recently more have been returning to Ukraine (Lviv in particular) than arriving in Przemyśl. Then, after Putin attacks deeper into Ukraine, the flow reverses.
The disruption to life — for women, children, and the elderly — is surely devastating after more than 50 days with no clear end in sight. I am safe in suburban Houston, but my soul is somewhere between Przemsyl and the border crossing at Medyka, stuck in limbo until the fighting is done. Only then can Ukranians (or we) understand what the long term looks like.
To all who have followed my journey, I urge you to fight allowing time to distance you from what is going on there. Humanity needs to remain fully focused on the genocide and the people trying to avoid it without abandoning their homeland. It’s an impossible choice for them to have to make.
The needs are great. WCK has opened up volunteer slots through the end of May. One week commitment — start Monday and end at the close of work Sunday. No time off. Eating is required daily, so cooking and distributing food is required daily.
If you cannot go, perhaps you can donate.
If you cannot donate, pick up a pen and write to your members of Congress and the President. His announcement that the US will accept 100,000 Ukranian refugees is misleading. We are allowing relatives of those legally in the US to come. The application process is horribly slow. We offer no safe haven for others.
Countries like Ireland and Estonia — 5 million and 1.3 million population — already have tens of thousands of Ukranian refugee in country, many working already. Most of the rest of Europe is welcoming these refugees. Canada is aggressively trying to attract them. I remain embarrassed at the response of the US.
The Statue of Liberty and Emma Lazarus’ poem should be crated and sent to Medyka. That is where those words have true meaning. They are meaningless in NY Harbor today.
To all reading this: Happy Passover, Happy Easter, Happy Ramadan, or just Happy Sunday. Count your blessings. Remember that giving someone else what you have can be a blessing and bring joy. Try it.
April 8th:
It’s been almost two weeks since I my last day volunteering and World Central Kitchen in Przemsyl. Poland.
It has been difficult leaving such satisfying work and the wonderful people I met there — both at WCK and the Polish people I encountered.
I hope to return in late summer if this inexcusable, tragic war continues.
I am attaching a video of the work being done each day.
The current volunteer team is incredible.
Slava Ukrayini!”
reflections from colleague Sean Padraic O”Donoghue:
“Stream of consciousness thoughts and themes:
Hospitality as one of the oldest and most universal virtues, too often left aside in this culture. Countries with cultures that have recent traditions of hospitality are welcoming more refugees than our nation. How do we remember and breathe life into hospitality? How does hospitality relate to the generosity of other-than-human life?
What is Vesta doing right now? Thinking of hearths.
historic resonance with the Spanish Civil War — successors to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade coming with pots and pans rather than guns
soup pot as cauldron
Spirit who animates the Statue of Liberty and speaks through the Emma Lazarus poem — how do we nourish and revive that spirit?
This passage from early in his time there: “I fell safer here than in any American city. This entire town is focused on people helping people in need. There is little sense of risk on this side of the border as far as I can detect. “
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So, yes, where is Vesta? at 18+ Aquarius: “weary fire responders finally succeed in taming a dangerous, volatile force…”
Vesta quintiles the Sun, whose image is “Electrical storm illumines the skies and forests below.”
Yes, let the community of creation call upon Nature, not weapons, to create a safe “no fly zone.”
Rumors of Dr John Dee, calling up the weather to sink the Spanish Armada….(the Armada did sink in rough seas…)
and speaking of dangerous, volatile force…
Highly recommned the HBO serties “Chernobyl.” dedicated powerful pertinent, resonant…
Remember twas on February 24th, Putin’s invasion began at Chernobyl….1000’s of tanks and troops drove into the hot “exclusion zone,”churning up radioactive soil, where the 20 year old soldiers bunked for a month…and now they are all dying… after setting up mines,, soime exploded…soldiers dismantled monitoring systems…
Now Russian troops occupying largest nuclear power plant in Europe,
Zapoizhgzhia
Watching “Chernobyl” will provide an enhanced informed concern for precarious now…
requires active cooling
reliable energy grid
back-up generators..
Let’s see all as stable
Rachel Maddow / MSNBC “Russian recklessness raises alarm on nuclear power plants”
Rachel Maddow / MSNBC “Heedless Russian military risks catastrophe with Ukraine nuclear plants”
Finland and Sweden debating whether to join NATO (one of Putin’s stated provocations for nuclear weapons…)
(or him losing power….)
(just now) test of new type of Russian icbm missile capable of delivering anything 4000 miles…
So… I guess we see ourselves as Saturn in Aquarius exactly trining his Mercury… to just cool him out…contain him, like a nuclear reactor….
and there was the huge joke meme in Russia a few years back, that “Putin is a mushroom…”
that’s a pre-animated vision, for us to entertain as as well…better a mushroom than a mushroom cloud….
and I just gotta include this chart…that we will work with in future unfurling…
So much speaking to us…Buddha’s Full Moon – meant to be sacred
(Chernobyl means “mugwort “ the sacred dream plant)…
Sun is “woman weeping at an open grave…”
Opposite Moon 9+ Scorpio (America’s secret rising sign)…
Sun trine Neptune “Ten logs lie in front of an archway leading to darker woods…need to be ritually prepared.”
Now
Mars at the degree of dedication..
You will see how many great, brave people were dedicated to something larger than themselves – the truth,
as is bequeathed to us now…
Uranus, kaboom on Ascendant…illusion of sudden… much expedient authoritarian corruption leading up to this cataclysmic conflagration…
Image “Crown and torch of statue of Liberty – necessity to defend democracy from tyranny…”
Now
