Endings and Beginnings

Closing Circle, ClimateFast

It was a beautiful evening in Ottawa for our closing circle.  We were blessed to have the presence of Anishnawbeg Spiritkeeper Barbara Hill and two of her fellow drummers, Judith Fransom and Nellie Corbiere, to welcome new arrivals and share the smudge to bless our circle.  

People arrived from many directions to join in our circle.  Some came from our partner organizations.  Many Unitarians showed up.  Some came from our facebook event page.  We even had tourists from parliament hill join in.  After an opening prayer and song from the First Nation Singers, Rev. Frances Deverell dedicated the service to endings and beginnings.  She talked about the importance of marking the end of the fast, but also of taking the energy from the fast out into the world to make people in all walks of life aware of the importance of taking action on climate change.  We then lit our candles and sang together – This Little Light of Mine.

Rita Bijons gave the opening words:  We Belong to the Earth By Salish Chief Seattle.

We were blessed to have about 15 singers from Just Voices sing our Song For The Climate:

We need to wake up 

We need to wise up 

We need to open our eyes 

And do it now now now 

We need to build a better future 

And we need to start right now

Margaret Rao read an ode to correct our relationship with the earth before we all go into the sea of non-being – Beginners, by Denise Levertov.

Rev. Frances Deverell gave a short homily on the reasons why we are there.  We already have five times the carbon resources available to us than we can actually afford to use.  If we want to avert a greater than 2 degree average warming, we must make the shift to renewable energy in the next twenty years.  She spoke on the importance of hope, and the belief that our actions will make a difference.  The actions we take to stop the pipelines attempt to preserve our waterways and acquifers across Canada from the very toxic diluted bitumen they plan to carry.  In addition, they attempt to wake us up – that we cannot triple the production of the tar sands.  We have to leave that oil in the ground for future generations.

Then Vela sang the campaign song for the Ottawa East Transcanada pipeline protest – Tar Free 613.  We all joined in as best we could in the chorus.

We closed with a rousing reprise of our own Song for the Climate, and thanked everyone for coming.  Then we all moved on to break our food fast at the Golden India – a Bangladeshi restaurant near the ClimateFast central hub.  Bangladesh will be one of the countries most affected by rising sea levels and is always close to our hearts because it is the homeland of one of our founding elders, Dewan Afzal.  He was with us in spirit this year if not in person.

We came away from the event this year that ClimateFast must continue to work until we see the world begin to take serious action to address this great challenge – the challenge of a generation – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero and make the transition to renewable energy.  But we also came away knowing that we needed some time to savour this beautiful life on our only home – planet earth, and to nurture our bodies.  The road will require our dedication and effort for some time to come.