Four Meditations on a Changing Climate
The first image is a portrait of 2 shrubs that were scorched recently in a brush fire near my home. Scientific models project more fires nationwide (worldwide actually), as temperatures increase creating more kindling for big fires.
Wildlife biologists predict that at the current rate of temperature rise, 1/3 of all animal species are at risk of extinction by 2050 unless CO2 emissions are reduced by 30%. For this reason, stark imagery from the Salton Sea was used to dramatize the urgency with which we need to act to limit CO2 emissions and subsequent temperature and ocean level increases.
The 3rd image comes from a show I did last spring with Lakota artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. He created costumes (for which his mom, Kathy Whitman, did the beadwork on the masks), representing warrior twins in the Lakota tradition. They are called “The One Who Checks” + “The One Who Balances.” In this image, appalled by the havoc we’re wreaking upon the planet they’ve returned to earth. However, their return isn’t to save us from ourselves but to tell us we have it within ourselves to do the right thing for the planet and future generations. However, the time to act is now.
Image 4 is a close up of desiccated earth.
“Power is not brute force and money.
Power is in your spirit. Power is in your soul.
It is what your ancestors, your old people gave you.
Power is in the earth; it is in your relationship to the earth.”
– winona laduke
