I am heart-broken to find that my Beloved Nature Center is using RoundUp, a potent herbicide, to kill weeds. Can Mother Earth forgive us? Can we forgive ourselves?

Date:   10/7/2005 10:46:19 PM ( 19 y ago)

Got back from a walk to the local elementary school around 6:30 this evening. I went there to do my sungazing practice. The school was alive with kids playing baseball, riding bikes, laughing. The sunset through the trees was spectacular. Only one thing to mar the experience. One minor, inconsequential thing. A man, someone's Daddy, was putting the lines down on the field of grass for tomorrow's soccer game. He was using paint from an aerosol can. White aerosol paint, loaded into a small line-painting machine that he rolled along the grass. I could see the aerosol spray mist, and smell it in the air. Someone's Daddy kept wheeling the little dispenser machine along, someone's well-intentioned Daddy that didn't know he was poisoning the air that his own child needs to breath. I moved away from the field. I tried to concentrate on my sungazing. I gave up, put my shoes back on, and walked home.

"Sorry, so sorry, so very sorry Mother. So sorry. We don't know what we are doing." I repeated this to myself, like a mantra, as tears came down my face.

Maybe I could have tolerated this if it wasn't for the Roundup at the Nature Center this morning. The Nature Center where I practice my barefoot walking, with lovely dirt trails covered with Fall leaves, winding among trees and shrubs and ponds. Yesterday a coyote ran right past me, couldn't have been more than 20 feet away. He stopped and looked at me for a moment, then loped off. Today, at the same part of the trail where I encountered the coyote, a park employee carried a large plastic container on her back. She bent slightly as she sprayed a fine mist of liquid poison on the ground along the trail edge. "What are you spraying?" I asked her warily. "Oh, just a little Roundup to get rid of things we don't want growing here," she replied, as she continued to spray.

Roundup? Monsanto Roundup? Death-in-a-Can Roundup? I quickly walked away from her, continued my barefoot walking on the trail, but the enjoyment was gone, replaced by anxiety. How could they be using an herbicide at the Nature Center?!? There are little kids here, little kids who bend down and pick up leaves and put things in their mouths. School-aged kids who come to the Center from the inner city of Long Beach, to learn about "nature", where this is as close to "wilderness" as they'll ever get. And the birds, waterfowl who come from all over the region to nest here, birds who fish in the pond waters that receive the groundwaters that flow whenever there is a rain, or whenever the Nature Center "helps out" nature by turning on the sprinklers. And what of the coyote? I have the option of putting my shoes back on; the coyote doesn't. And what of the rodents and rabbits he eats, those whose bellies rub against the ground in the "spray zone"? Not to mention the "creepy crawlies", Mother's bugs and insects who are at "ground zero"? I cut my walk short and left the Center. On my way out, I saw a woman and her very little girl, newly walking, heading into the park. I thought of warning her of the danger; I didn't, and have regretted it all day.

"Sorry, Mother, so sorry, so very very sorry," I said to myself, like a mantra, as I drove away, tears running down my face. "So sorry. We don't know what we are doing."

My Heart is Broken

So so sorry, Mother
So very sorry!
So sorry we are hurting you.
So sorry we are hurting the air and the water and our animal and plant brethren.
So so so very very sorry!
I'm sorry.
The violence we commit against You is so very endemic.
We know not what we do.
Herbicides. Pesticides. Aerosol cans of white mist.
White. The color of Spiritual purity?
White. The color of Death.
Ever see a dead body?
I have.
The color drains out of the face,
Leaving the color of ashes behind.
Not "asleep" looking, as Hollywood would have it, but "dead" looking.
Just dead.
What does the Mother look like when part of Her dies?
Brown skies.
Darkened waters.
Bare stumps of trees where ancient forests once grew.
Frogs that float belly up.
Birds who sit on broken eggs.
Children who gasp for breath through the tube of an asthma remedy that itself is toxic.
Ever read the ingredients list for an inhaler?
I have.
CFC's, ozone-depleting aerosol, right in the child's medication,
inhaled into the lungs, and exhaled into the air.
What are we DOING?
Mother, please forgive us.
We know not what we do.

Liora Leah
10/7/05


Herbicide: Drink Up! http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=181
The Superintendent of Maintenance at the Nature Center told me that the herbicide they use to kill weeds, Monsanto's Roundup, is "safe enough to drink"!

Nature Center Illusion Shattered, or was that Delusion? http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=182

Well, looky here! http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=183
I've been writing about what action I'm going to take to try and get Roundup banned from use at the Nature Center. Think I just found myself some Nature Center allies!

This writing from my other blog, Spirit Speaks, addresses my thoughts about what positive action I might take to remedy the situation at the Nature Center, where I go to re-connect with Great Mother Earth. I asked my Guides and Great Mother for some input: They told me to come from a place of Love & Integrity: http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=356&i=54

Herbicide, Round 6!  http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=188
Since I wrote the original blog about the El Dorado Nature Center and the use of the herbicide Roundup, I've found out some new information:  The herbicide used at the Nature Center does not contain surfactant, the inert "detergent" additive that is known to cause environmental devastation.

Volunteers Needed!  http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=190   I sent an e-mail out to my physician-friend regarding the use of herbicide at the El Dorado Nature Center. I have posted her response below. She believes that the Center's use of herbicide, without the detergent additive that causes so much environmental devastation, is a step in the right direction, but more community volunteers are needed.

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