A kea in New Zealand, getting ready to take off
What if we lived every day experiencing the journey of our lives? What if we always were, and it was just a matter of reframing our daily routines and challenges into a story of epic proportions, and at the same time, accepting how our lives are just an infinitesimally small contribution to the whole? That is the spiritual challenge – to know that what we do matters, and yet it doesn’t. That we are stars and heroes, and yet are at best, very small actors on this planet and in the universe?
We at One Earth Conservation are musing a lot about journeys (Nicaragua Parrot Pilgrimage and Suriname Parrot Pilgrimage) and undertaking them because we feel the pull of important urgency to what we do, and yet also tugging at us is the sense of sometimes both helplessness and hopelessness in what befalls our beloved life on this planet. But still, we take one more step, perhaps in a different direction so that we can shake up our own outlook and offer what we can, knowing it could both make all the difference in the world, and yet none at all. How Zen is this?
A book about parrots and people in Australasia
Our latest different direction is to head halfway around the world and into the southern hemisphere to both Australia and New Zealand. These are the current names of these two land masses but they were known by many names by the original peoples who came here. We go to learn these names, these people, these ecosystems, and the wildlife, especially the parrots, and in turn offer our experiences of parrot conservation and nurturing nature from the Americas.
Representing One Earth Conservation in person will be Rev. Dr. LoraKim Joyner, Board President, and Rev. Dr. Meredith Garmon, spouse, and member of the Board. For them this is the trip of a lifetime. For not only is there parrot knowing and healing experiences to exchange, there is the Women’s World Soccer Cup during July and August of 2023! In between any gigs they can get to promote transformative parrot conservation, they will be cheering on the athletes who exhibit the power and beauty of the human form, which was largely hidden away until the evolving liberation of women.
So too we will be celebrating the beauty of avian form and contribute to the evolving liberation of birds from cages, from the wildlife trade, and from the demand of consumers that reduce the well-being of all. We each are trapped in a market economy under which we all live and suffer. As birds are freed, so will we be, for none are free until all are free. In short, this is what we are striving to do, or, said another way by Megan Rapinoe, USA soccer star:
We wing our way to Australasia aiming to listen and love. If you have any ideas or contacts that might like to engage with One Earth Conservation next summer, please contact us, and even better, if you can arrange some activities (see below for ideas), that would be most appreciated.
What We Can Offer:
1. Services or discussions at your spiritual or religious community
2. Book signings/readings (such as from the book Prion that is about Australia, New
Zealand, and parrots, as well as other books)
3. Workshops/lectures/courses on topics such as:
Transformative Conservation (inner and outer change to cherish and promote the well-being of life on this planet)
Non-Violent Communication
Human Dimensions of Conservation
Parrot Conservation Methodology, including Parrot Conservation Medicine
Nurturing Nature with the Five Intelligences
Parrots as a Gateway Species
4. Motivational speeches such as Parrot Conservation in the Americas; Nurturing Nature – Yours, Theirs, Ours, the Earths; Reducing the Demand/Stopping the Trade/No Birds in Cages; and Birding for Life
5. Fundraising opportunities for your group, your cause, and One Earth Conservation
6. Birding for Life Walks and Workshops
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