Sustainable World Radio: Friday mornings at 9:00-10:00 am PST on KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara, California and streaming live on www.kcsb.org. Also found on  www.sustainableworldradio.com, or www.radio4all.net later in the week.

        Join Jill Cloutier of Sustainable World Radio Fri. Mar 28, 9am , Interview Starhawk (www.starhawk.org ), Earth Activist and Permaculture Teacher goes to Marda Permaculture Farm in the Heart of the West Bank to teach a Permaculture Course. Starhawk of Jewish descent , with a deep commitment to healing both the People and Land found herself DEPORTED FROM ISRAEL ON MARCH 12. Hear Starhawk Words

Starhawk Bio
Permaculture Teacher  (Earth Activist Training www.EarthActivistTraining.org ), global justice activist and organizer  in challenging World Trade Organizations in Seattle (1999), Quebec Cancun) , helping in New Orleans after Katrina , one of the most respected voices in modern earth-based spirituality and Goddess religion and author of 10 books on earth-based spirituality including Web of Power :Notes from the Global Uprising and Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature (2004)
 
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STARHAWK words on her Deportation from Israel ( Quotes from Denied Entry  March /08 www.starhawk.org)

I have been denied entry March 13 ,2008 , even though my intentions this time were strictly to work
with permaculture and ecology groups, including the three Israeli groups that have sent me formal invitations, and even though Israel claims to be a refuge of last resort for everyone born Jewish, as I am.  The fact that
I’m here, not there, is a measure of how much the Israeli authorities fear a movement of nonviolent ( International Solidarity Movement www.palsolidarity.org )

 "The Israel/Palestine conflict enacts on a mass scale some of the same dynamics as family abuse.  Israel is like the abused child who grows up to be an abuser. Abusers generally feel like victims­and truly the Jewish people have been victimized, again and again in history, culminating in the still unhealed  wounds of the Holocaust.  Every rocket attack, every shooting spree in a Yeshivah, every suicide bomb in a bus reinforces that sense of fear and persecution that seems to cry out for violence in return."

WORDS FROM  Tami Brunk International Coordinator Marda Permaculture Farm, West Bank  on Permaculture Course Mar 28 - April 4 www.bustan.org/2007/02/permaculture_farm_in_the_occup.html

This past week has been deeply challenging for the Marda Permaculture Farm--a young project in the heart of the West Bank with a dream to promote self-sufficiency, dignity, and on-the-ground solutions
for the people of Palestine. The people in rural Palestine face massive unemployment, alarming rises in
cost of fuel and food, and dwindling water and land which are diverted for Israeli settlements.

A team of dedicated volunteers from Palestine, Israel, the U.S. and the UK has spent the last several monthsjoyfully planning the Farm's first intensive Permaculture Fundamentals workshop which would have brought as many as 50 farmers, NGO professionals, scientists and agricultural engineers from across Palestine as well as international permaculture students from New York, Oregon, Jordan and multiple other countries to attend.

MORE QUOTES STARHAWK    
The renowned peace activist and permaculturist Starhawk commented of the rural Palestinian villages that she visited in 2002:

"Now, looking at the land from the perspective of permaculture and ecological design, I find myself impressed by the elegance of Palestinian agriculture, so integrally suited to the land and climate, frugal in its use of water, making use of the plants native to or adapted to this region, somehow preserving enough fertility in this stony soil after ten millennia of cultivation to produce figs and grapes and oil and bread. The "scientific" agriculture practiced in some of the settlements, with profligate use of water, energy, and chemicals, seems to me another form of assault on the land. And the Israeli side of the border was green, I now know, because they'd taken all the water, as the Sharon government is now confiscating the aquifers."  www.olivecoop.com/info/permaculture.html

Towards an Activists Spirituality by Starhawk 2003

"No sane person with a life really wants to be a political activist. When activism is exciting, it tends to involve the risk of bodily harm or incarceration, and when it's safe, it is often tedious, dry, and boring. Activism tends to put one into contact with extremely unpleasant people, whether they are media interviewers, riot cops, or at times, your fellow activists. Not only that, it generates enormous feelings of frustration and rage, makes your throat sore from shouting, and hurts your feet.

Nonetheless, at this moment in history, we are called to act as if we truly believe that the Earth is a living, conscious being that we're part of, that human beings are interconnected and precious, and that liberty and justice for all is a desirable thing."

"...To equalize that power means changing an enormous system. And systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict.

To me, conflict is a deeply spiritual place. It's the high-energy place where power meets power, where change and transformation can occur.

Part of my own spirituality is the conscious practice of placing myself in places of conflict. As someone in the Pagan Cluster said after the February 15 antiwar rally in New York, which was seriously harrassed by the police, "When everyone else was running away from trouble, we were running toward it." I run toward it because I generally believe I can be useful there -- sometimes de-escalating potential violence, sometimes just holding a clear intention in the midst of chaos, sometimes just as a witness.

Our magical tools and insights, our awareness of energies and allies on many planes, can deepen and inform our activism. And our activism can deepen our magic, by encouraging us to create ritual that speaks to the real challenges we face in the world, offers the healing and renewal we need to continue working, and a community that understands that spirit and action are one".
This essay first appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of Reclaiming Quarterly, www.reclaiming.org.

Resources
Starhawk's Writings www.starhawk.org
Starhawk's Earth Activist Training www.EarthActivistTraining.org
Healing the earth: the Starhawk interview.
www.thefreelibrary.com/Healing+the+earth:+the+Starhawk+interview.-a0147467087
YouTube - Goddess in the Mud www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xPQkjwft0U
Pagan Video  Interview with Starhawk 2007 http://2witchesblog.wordpress.com/2007/05/22/pagan-video-tuesday-interview-with-starhawk/


Sustainable World Radio: Friday mornings at 9:00 am PST on KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara, California and streaming live on www.kcsb.org. Also found on  www.sustainableworldradio.com, or www.radio4all.net later in the week.
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