OMG. A few weeks ago, I was asked to speak at TEDx Asheville. I nominated myself months ago, hoping and also frightened to be chosen. I’m going to speak about The Earth Pledge of Allegiance. Honored doesn’t truly describe the feeling I have. It is more than that. It is a dream showing itself in a different manner than I had expected and planned for. To make God laugh, tell him or her your plans. It’s funny when things start happening that you’ve dreamed about. For instance, my son now lives in my town. I didn’t dare think it was really going to happen and now it has, along with his little family. But you read about that in a prior post. Speaking to a crowd of people with the intention of inspiring them. That is a big piece of my dream. Another little fear I have about it is that it won’t happen again. Funny, right? Scared to do it. Scared not to. Scared it is a flash in the pan. A blip in my life. Perhaps I should change the name of my design studio. http://blipstudio.com A blip in time. blip is the first letters of my name…Breah Livolsi Parker. Or Barbra Livolsy Parker. I changed my name. I started out in this world as Barbara Jean Livolsy. I become Barbara Jean Livolsy Parker at 18. Became Barbra Parker at age 22. Finally Breah Livolsi Parker in 1999. Change the name. Change the way of being. Change how others view you.

I’ve always been a very nice person and I was also quite bitchy. I looked at the world with a negative eye. I complained or criticized more than I allow myself to remember. At one point I realized it and decided to practice positive. Flip the coin. Turn left instead of right. My family laughed at me and still I know they learned from me. When I divorced their father, they rejected the changes I began making. Where was their mother? I was told more than once “We just want our mother back.”

That was a tough one to swallow. I was their mother, couldn’t they see that? It was really that I couldn’t see that. I was wrapped up in finding myself. I wish I had done that before I had children. Would’ve saved everyone a lot of pain. But I didn’t. And so they witnessed their mother scrapping for her life, being attracted to all the “wrong” men, being fearful of my ability to pay my rent, losing my business over and over again. They also saw me do things like become an actor on the stage. Take up a new absolutely perfectly fitting business by saying yes to something I had never done before. Being a vegetarian. Not being a vegetarian. Smoking. Not smoking. And they have watched me age. I have watched me age. They have watched me come back to earth after flying every which way.

“When you come to the edge of all you know, you’re either given legs to stand on or wings to fly.”

And now I know how to use my wings to lift off in a purposeful direction. Along the way I have been given gifts. One of which is the Earth Pledge of Allegiance. I did not write it. I borrowed it from an anonymous source, given to me by Terry Deal, the environmental ed director for Evergreen Elementary School here in Asheville. I added “with Peace and LOVE for all” when I illustrated it for the second time. That time we launched a program called Peace and Love for All. Dot com. We set up a website, with curriculum and sales of the poster, bookmark and peace & love sticker. We were gifted a banner by a company whose name escapes me right now and I’ll find out and let you know later. We were gifted the printing of rain forest certified printed Earth Pledge posters. Personally I was gifted with a few people who were willing to trot off on this path with me. Michael Ashmore, Anna Booraem and Amy Ellisor. And of course Terry Deal.

So where is the program? Well, it is here today as I write. We are on the road to bringing awareness to children all over the world, as well as their parents and teachers, that we are stewards of this world, this planet, this Big Mama Earth. It is our job to bring peace to her. We have tapped into her soul. And we have violated it. Can we give back the lives of millions of beings, be they flora, fauna or the human version in the Gulf? We cannot and we CAN turn the ship around. It is turning. It is turning because of each one of us.

In making this Earth Pledge of Allegiance, we are saying we promise and keep that promise to be kind, be loving, be fair, be generous, be of service to all creatures…with the intent of PEACE and LOVE for ALL. No matter what. Trusting that from that place we change the world. We do it anyway. We change the world just by our very existence. Why not make it a positive one?

I pledge allegiance to the Earth

and the Flora…

the fauna…

and the Human Life

that it supports…

One Planet

indivisible, with

safe air, water and soil,

economic justice, equal rights, and

PEACE and LOVE FOR ALL.

One little thing changes everything. I’ve been feeling scattered, having shifted my own life around to accommodate their needs. It’s what a mama does. Instead of teaching yoga in my home studio, that studio is now my graphic studio space and I teach my students in a yoga studio downtown. I struggled with this change internally. It felt like I was losing some part of me. Yet after making the change I feel fresh and ready to let my life unfold from here. Change, though sometimes pretty uncomfortable and hard to see the benefit of an unknown outcome, is a catalyst for growth and if we aren’t growing we aren’t living…and vice versa.

Yep, I might have been committed. Perhaps it is this town in particular but I believe that it is happening everywhere. People are waking up to what has happened to our world under our watch. We are leaving a legacy of crooked politicians, corporations, wars fought for fabricated reasons to achieve a goal of ultimate power. People who have behaved badly. We let them, if we were not one of them.

So now what to do? Do we stand by and shake our heads as oil spews into the Gulf. It is too sad to go into all the ramifications. Who are we to mess with another beings habitat? To not ensure the greatest safeguards to keep their home safe. I read an article that said that during the Bush administration a decision was made not to enforce that upon our offshore oil rigs. It saved the companies several million dollars, and this disaster will cost them many billion, along with the deep guilt and despair. I hope the people of those oil companies and those who enabled them, oh which might include us who fill up our cars with $3 a gallon gasoline and enjoy the freedom that provides.

Where have our voices been? Why have we been so silent to let it get so out of hand? Please wake up. Please. Those of us who have been need you to come along too. We need greater numbers of people who are willing to be considered crazy to go against the norm. The norm is ridding our planet of one species at a time, one ecosystem at a time.

Are you thinking “what can I do about it”? It seems an awesome task to turn this ship around. The Renaissance was only 1000 people. We turned the world around then. We can turn it around now. Please join me and, I’m hoping, millions of others around the planet. Wake up and smell the smothering, burning oil in the Gulf, the blood on the battlefields in cities, towns , villages and neighborhoods all over the world. We are killing each other and those that get in the way of that intention.

So what can we do as individuals? We can speak out. Talk about this with your friends and your neighbors. Start a conversation. What you bought at the mall conversation can wait another day. It’s time to ensure there will be another day for someone somewhere. People are starving and we go to McDonalds and eat food kills our bodies[1].

What stops you? I think about what has stopped me and that is fear of rejection. Fear that my children will think I am insane. Fear that others will consider me someone to fear. A general nature of fear, which I have been shedding over this lifetime. I have held a fear of being found out to be the person I have been trying to hide. No one hides for real, only creates a feeling of distrust for a person who doesn’t seem congruent. Something is off. We are the last ones to see ourselves, which is a pity. Enjoy who you are. Be who you are. It is oh so much more than enough.

Chirping birds are beckoning us to the outdoors and that is where I hope you will spend your day, soaking up the first day of spring. It’s finally here! And with it new starts. Things that look like the past are just a memory. Things that you don’t recognize but notice are the present building upon the future. Pay attention to things you don’t recognize… (The image above is from my book “Dare to Dream“.)

I’ve been listening to Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader on Democracy Now. The interview by Amy Goodman started with Dennis Kucinich apparently is the deciding vote on the healthcare bill as it stands. What I understood from the interview is that Rep. Kucinich had little choice as there is no consensus in the congress to provide a public option within the bill, which I still don’t understand what that means. Kucinich has compromised his desire for a fair healthcare system in order to get the bill passed. Rather this bill than none, is his position.  The conversation went into the war in Afghanistan and how we have become a society that accepts war as a natural course. Ralph Nader contends that we are being yet pushed aside for the bigger interest of corporations. He wants the American people to get angry and demand a system that provides healthcare for all. He wants us to take to the streets as the people in France do. Civil demonstration, peaceful demonstration, letting our voices be heard that we are not a society that wants war. We are a society that wants peace. We want love to be the dominant force in the world. I am in agreement that we must all take a stand personally. Begin with self. Let your desire for a peaceful and loving existence begin in your heart, your soul, your entire being. Be peaceful and loving. Peace and love starts right here.