week four

catalyst of the week: 

me! well, actually, you, too if you are engaged in the field of healing. i have always considered myself as a catalyst for healing. energy thrown into another person's system to activate latent and/or undirected innate healing capacities and inspire them (bodymindspirit) to heal themselves. i like this write up from wikipedia: "unlike other reagents in the [chemical] reaction, a catalyst is not consumed. thus, the catalyst may participate in multiple [chemical] transformations...."

that said, another type of catalyst we all have intimate relationships with are enzymes. (you could say that we are enzymes, at least partially, and that's pretty intimate.) primarily proteins, these little motivators lower the activation energy needed for reactions to occur and greatly speed many processes. which is pretty useful if  you plan on digesting food in this lifetime.  or if you want to move, breathe, think, grow, reproduce (yourself and others).  they occur everywhere from our digestive tract to our muscles to our dna. the digestive kind also come in convenient little petroleum-based plastic bottles in the vitamin section of your local health food store, greatly disturbing the balance of humans and nature. just one more thing our enzymes are going to have to help us take action on.

just how close are we to a green economy?:

it's up to us. really,  it's a choice. we can choose to continue living in this numbing insanity, or we can pressure our governments, especially big, tough, bullies like our own here in the u.s., to make real and lasting change for toward the survival of our own and all species. if governments legislate green economic guidelines, incentives, and penalties, a green global economy could be created extremely rapidly. yes, we have to deal with what we've created up to now, but ceasing to create more toxic waste and living system destruction, combined with creative and positive means of transformation and sustainable (on multiple levels) new products and services, could reactivate the lifeforce of this planet. in individuals, communities (human, plant, animal, etc...), internationally, and deep in the heart of gaia herself.

atom economy: 

so atom economy is all about reducing waste and "using every part of the deer." uh, i mean atom.  uh, i mean chemical process. or at least as many parts as possible. i don't know if we'll ever find a real use for the atom's bladder, but even if it ends up as a fun toy for children, we can say we're moving in the right direction. then someday they might speak in awed tones about our people - "and after centuries of way too much messing around, they finally remembered to respect the earth through which they lived and they (almost) never threw anything away."