We, Carmel Bracken, Kathleen Glennon and Marcella O’Connell are part of a worldwide group of Mercy Sisters and Associates (Mercy Global Action Network-MGAN ) which offers support to Aine O’Connor, MIA’s (Mercy International Association) representative at the UN, in the area of Cosmology/Eco-justice.
Carmel Bracken rsm
Conscious that we cannot fix our failed institutions – economic, political, and religious – with the same consciousness that created these institutions in the first place we are struggling to move into a new awareness, a new paradigm. We are inspired by our Congregational Ecology Policy.
As a Congregation we foster among us a contemplative stance toward the mystery of God as revealed in the on-going story of the universe. A spirituality rooted in this contemplative stance influences our way of being in the world and informs all our actions and choices.
Marcella O’Connell rsm
Centred in the unfolding story of the universe we envision and work toward creating the conditions where all species can thrive and flourish. We feel part of a growing movement working towards a global shift in consciousness away from a patriarchal, hierarchical model to one that is based on respect and care for Earth and all her beings.
It is out of this consciousness that MGAN is currently focusing on fracking which causes enormous damage to Earth’s ecosystems.
Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing. It is a water-intensive process where millions of gallons of fluid – typically water, sand, and chemicals, including ones known to cause cancer – are injected underground at high pressure to fracture the rock surrounding an oil or gas well. This releases extra oil and gas from the rock, so it can flow into the well.
Kathleen Glennon rsm
Some environmental concerns are:
– Fracking uses huge amounts of water that must be transported to the fracking site, at significant environmental cost.
– Potentially carcinogenic chemicals used may escape and contaminate groundwater round the fracking site.
– Potential earthquake/earth tremors. Earthquakes of 1.5 and 2.2 magnitude hit the Blackpool area in 2011 following fracking.
– Clearing land to build well sites and access roads, trucking in heavy equipment and materials and trucking out vast amounts of toxic waste all contribute to air and water pollution and devaluation of land.
– Fracking threatens the air we breathe, the water we drink, the communities we love and the climate on which we all depend.
Mercy Sisters are involved in a number of different ways to try to prevent fracking, the keys ones being:
– Education
– Alliances with other groups involved in working on the issue.
– Lobbying
One of the alliances formed through MIA is with Food and Water Watch, a worldwide organisation that initiated Global Frackdown Day in September 2012, which brought together 200 community actions from over 20 countries to challenge hydraulic fracturing.
This year Global Frackdown Day will unite concerned citizens everywhere for a day of action on October 19th, 2013 to send a message to elected officials in our communities and across the globe that we want a future lit by clean, renewable energy, not dirty, polluting fossil fuels..
Participants in Global Frackdown Day are asked to organise events in their communities to challenge decision makers to invest in a clean energy future.
All Sisters of Mercy were invited through Mercy E-News to take an active role in raising awareness about fracking on Global Frackdown Day.
Through the provincial offices, we will be forwarding to you, in early October, a prayer /ritual which can be used by you and your associates as one way of participating in Global Frackdown Day. This prayer will be accompanied by some guidelines and a reflection on Subtle Activism. (to read the article Subtle Activism, please scroll down).
Blessings and good wishes to everyone.
Marcella O’Connell rsm, Kathleen Glennon rsm, Carmel Bracken rsm
Interconnectedness and Subtle Activism
In the heart of the Civic Centre of San Francisco there is a beautiful fountain which has two quotations etched on it. One quote by Franklin D. Roosevelt is written in a very prominent position and states that ‘The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one nation….it must be a peace which rests on the cooperative efforts of the whole world.” The second quote by John Muir reads ‘If you try to pick out anything at all in the universe you will find it hitched to everything else.’ This is written on a slab of stone that is underneath the water and easy to miss. For me this is very symbolic, that of the two quotations this was the one placed in a deeper, underwater place. It reminds us that we need to do deep soul work to uncover the hidden wholeness of all of life and that only by living from an awareness of unity consciousness, will we truly know how to co-operate with each other and all of life.
Science is now offering us proof of what John Muir intuitively understood and what the mystics knew for generations, that “at our essence we exist as a unity, a relationship utterly interdependent, the parts affecting the whole at every moment…”
How do we embody this wisdom? What are its implications? We have asked ourselves this in our Chapter question “In what ways will we allow our place in the interdependent and interconnected community of all of life to influence us?
In trying to live into this question, I found myself exploring the path and potential of subtle activism, which is based on an awareness that “every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large for everyone” Subtle activism is any “activity of consciousness or spirit, such as prayer, meditation …. intended to support collective healing and social change. “ Subtle activism influences social change through the inner or subtle plane, rather than through conventional exterior means like marches, demonstrations, lobbying etc.
The potential for subtle activism is only beginning to be tapped. As breakthroughs in quantum physics began to reveal “the unified field of universal intelligence at the basis of mind and matter” a number of scientific projects began to explore the effects of intention and meditation. A study in Washington DC showed there was a decrease in crime for a two month period in which 4,000 people gathered to meditate. Intention experiments , “a series of scientifically controlled, web-based experiments testing the power of intention to change the physical world”, have produced extraordinary results. Findhorn experiments showed how “positive thoughts improved the growth of plants and Masaru Emoto experiments showed how human emotions effect the nature and composition of water.”
Subtle activism does not replace action in the world, it just extends the range of options open to an activist who is awake to a holistic and integral vision of reality where “the subtler, inner dimension of human experience is being reclaimed” It can be a means of making a contribution to social change for those who no longer have the physical stamina for action in the outer world and for “people of a certain temperament, or who possess certain spiritual gifts”
Subtle activism is deeply challenging for it calls us live from a place of awareness, knowing that “Every thought, action, decision or feeling creates an eddy in the interlocking, inter-balancing, ever-moving energy fields of life, leaving a permanent record for all of time…..” Subtle activism is not about telling others what to do but a call to embody whatever quality we wish to see in the world, to “be whatever it is we ‘send’ out.” This is implicit in Ghandi’s call to “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Carmel Bracken rsm
Congregation
1. Lynn Mc Taggart, The Bond.
2. David Hawkins, Power Versus Force.
3. Gaiafield project
4. John Hagelin
5. Robert Moss
6. David Nicol
7. David Spangler
8. David Hawkins, Power Versus Force.
9. David Spangler
