July 2014 Archives - Common Ground

Artist, activist, catalyst

• To hear the gentle, but energetic, “Hi, this is Joan Baez” over the phone is to be jarred into the moment. “Sorry I’m late. I’m at home in California working on a painting,” she laughs, pausing, beginning our allotted 15 minutes, which stretches joyfully and generously until the conversation is completed, an hour or so later, my questions answered thoughtfully, truthfully, sometimes carefully, often spontaneously and humorously and always wisely. Well aware of Common Ground’s banner “Serving Peace and Justice for 32 Years,” she says she likes that David Suzuki and Eckhart Tolle are regular contributors.

Baez headlines the Vancouver Folk Music Festival (July 18-20) – and performs at a workshop tribute to Pete Seeger – closing the main stage show Saturday evening. “People ask me if music can change the world. And I say, ‘Yes, if musicians are willing to take risks.’ I think music has the power to transform people and in doing so has the power to transform situations, some large and some small.

“My job is to make it interesting; that’s the trick, especially with unfamiliar songs,” she adds. “In France, they know all the words to Diamonds and Rust but have never heard my biggest hit The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. All over Europe and Latin America, they sing along with Here’s to You, but it was met with silence in Brazil. Later, I learned it was used for army recruitment there.”

The song – she wrote the lyrics – is a tribute to two anarchists sentenced to death in the 1920s in the US for their beliefs, rather than because of any evidence that they committed the robbery and murder they were accused of. The case became known as the Sacco-Vanzetti Affair and the song has also been used in film soundtracks and, ironically, in the video games Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and 5: Ground Zeroes.

“I judge a performance by how fidgety the audience is. I no longer have the power all by myself, but my son Gabriel and Dirk Powell – my music machine with a big heart – are onstage with me,” Baez notes. “My voice is much lower these days and I prefer it. I’ve lost some of the high register needed for ballads. I’m much more comfortable, especially with new material and contemporary songs, where I’m in a different zone. There’s also a lot less vibrato. Some people my age shouldn’t still be singing, where the vibrato is very wide, out of control and not very attractive. I try to avoid that. And I can tell you that I’ve never enjoyed performing as much as I am right now!”

Curious about how she has sustained her intense passion, motivation and energy, I asked what many will want to know when they see her photo on the cover: “How does she look so good at age 73?”

“Thank you, that’s kind.” she answers. “My voice is a gift I was born with. So is my desire to share it, which has brought me the most satisfaction. And I guess you can now add: inheriting good bones. This may not be exciting, but I’ve led a disciplined life. I’ve taken care with my diet, exercise and meditation, etc. If you’re committed to singing meaningful songs, you also have to be committed to leading a life that backs that up. People tell me they haven’t got time. But we must make time. We don’t get to choose how we’re going to die, or when. But we can decide how we’re going to live. Now. And action is the antidote to despair.”

Joan Baez actively gives a damn. She cares passionately about the human condition. That’s obvious to anyone who’s listened to any of her 50+ albums or is aware that she marched arm-in-arm with Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Cesar Chavez, Vaclav Havel and other folks she’s befriended along her remarkable life’s journey. She’s performed at the 1963 March on Washington, Woodstock, Live Aid and Occupy Wall Street. She’s also had tumultuous, but lasting, relationships with the likes of Bob Dylan, Steve Jobs and married and amicably divorced jailed draft resister David Harris.

Recently she was widely quoted: “This world is f**king falling apart and I don’t think it even matters who’s quibbling with who. Global warming is going to get us and that’s going to be it. That’s something I don’t want to say around young people, but what I can say is, ‘Little victories and big defeats’ because if we recognize what it is we’re up against we can still function and be decent and compassionate. Maybe that’s the best that can happen right now.”

However, several weeks ago, she says she changed her mind, slightly. “My ex was speaking at our granddaughter’s class of 10-year-olds. He told them that unless they found new options and ways to live, the world may be uninhabitable by the time they are 40. And guess what. Knowing that didn’t kill them. No one died. And a few decided to fight climate change.”

Her own childhood was as distinctive and legendary as the rest of her life, defined by her illustrious career in front-line activism and her work as a catalyst and an eyewitness to history. Her grandfather was a co-inventor of the x-ray microscope and author of one of the most widely used physics textbooks. Her family converted to Quakerism. “As a child, I was given a ukulele and learned four chords to play rhythm and blues,” she recalls. “My parents worried that music would make me into a drug addict. Later when I drank a glass of wine in front of my father, he was convinced I was headed straight to Hell.” In April of 2013, her mother – a Scot, affectionately known as ‘’Big Joan’ – died, days after her 100th birthday.

“I had a very poor self-image growing up in California, close to the border, where Mexicans – which I am, half of me and named Baez – weren’t respected. I think that’s why I began siding with the underdog – because I felt like one myself. But my auntie and her boyfriend took me to hear Pete Seeger play when I was 13. I’m still trying to adjust to the fact he died in January [see Common Ground, March, 2014]. Most music seemed silly after that concert. It was the coming together of social awareness, of courage, of songwriting – that changed everything for ever.

“A few years later, in 1956, I first heard Dr. King speak about non-violence, civil rights and social change. That was ‘it’ for me. He brought tears to my eyes and we became close friends. My life doesn’t include violence. Non-violence is organized love. The longer you practise it and the meditative qualities you will need, the more likely you will do something intelligent in any situation.”

In 1958, at age 17, Joan committed her first act of civil disobedience as a conscientious objector by refusing to leave her Palo Alto High School classroom for an air-raid drill. “I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war,” she would say later. “You go into jail as a pacifist and come out a stronger pacifist.”

Six years later, she publicly endorsed resisting taxes, withholding 60% of her income tax and founding the Institute for the Study of Non-Violence (with her mentor Ira Sandperl). Singer David Crosby recalls her fight against the Vietnam draft: “She would stand there and say ‘you don’t have to do this.’ And they would spit at her and call her every name under the sun. And she would keep trying. And every once in a while she would manage to pull a guy out of the line. After going to jail, she’d get out, go home, take a shower, have a meal and go right back and start over. That’s the kind of courage you don’t often see.”

Her accompanist Dirk Powell – arguably the finest traditional multi-instrumentalist on the planet, says, “To make music with her is an amazing opportunity. We’ve been all over the world, walking on stage and looking out at people whose lives have been transformed by this person, their lives changed because she brings something spiritual and powerful. Her music has that power. She can be at home anywhere. She loves that spirit. She loves dancing, she loves music.”

After hundreds of appearances with Baez, he still gets chills when she shares stories, including one about a civil rights march. “During one hotel stop, staff were unable to awaken Dr. King from the exhaustion of his grinding schedule. Someone asked Baez to sing him a song. So she went into his hotel room, leaned down by his ear and sang Swing Low, Sweet Chariot to wake him up. He said, ‘I think I hear the voice of an angel. Sing me another one, Joan.’”

Baez recalls, “The March on Washington was massive. I remember looking out to a sea of people, which grew and grew and grew to as far as you could see. I also recall 25,000 people doing “The Wave” during a concert in Turkey and performing at Woodstock, pregnant with Gabriel. We went back to a reunion concert and both of us were celebrities.”

She also remembers first being aware of her own mortality when she travelled to Vietnam to see firsthand the effects of the war and to deliver mail to US prisoners being held in Hanoi. She hunkered down in a bunker during the US bombardment that lasted 11 days over Christmas in 1972.

“Making mischief” with Vaclav Havel is a fond memory; she wrote a poignant poem at his death in late 2011. When she first met the future Czechoslovakian president, he carried her guitar through the airport, pretending to be her road manager to prevent his arrest by government agents. During her concert, her microphone was shut off, prompting her to sing a cappella to the illegal protest gathering of 4,000. Havel cited her as a great inspiration and influence in that country’s “Velvet Revolution,” which overthrew the Soviet-dominated government. She would also play a key role in bringing Amnesty International to the US.

Barack Obama is the only politician she’s ever endorsed. “I was moved by his speeches; I thought he was like Martin Luther King. I’m happy to have felt that wonderful feeling of community we hadn’t had for 40 years. I think if he had stayed outside of office and led a movement, we could have made a lot of changes. But that didn’t happen. I’m surprised he strayed so far from the dream. He has a photo of Gandhi in his office. I don’t understand the man.

“But the glow was gone when he entered the Oval Office. We expected too much and couldn’t have imagined the rise of the right wing agenda with all its meanness, selfishness and ignorance of poverty. In the early days, there was a focal point – civil rights, the Vietnam War. Today, there are a million issues and causes. There isn’t a concentrated topical atmosphere today that approaches the 60’s.

“Still, young people are doing wonderful things. I’m touched by the music of a new generation although I don’t always understand what the songs mean right away. My job is to find what reflects today, and, of course, choose music that I can sing.’’

During our interview, there was ample evidence of a trait the New York Times observed: “Ms. Baez’ sense of humour has always been her saving grace. Just when she has begun to seem intimidatingly high and mighty, her jokes, delivered with a sweet, goofy smile, bring her back to earth, where she is needed as much as ever.”

When I told her I was going to my 50th high school reunion after the interview, she advised, “Be brave. I saw a button that read ‘It’s OK. I don’t recognize you either.’ There’s lots that people do between reunions that they could wear on their chests.

“If people have to put labels on me, I’d prefer the first to be a human being, the second, a pacifist and the third a folk singer. For much of my life, I was in therapy to handle my intense stage fright, neurosis and all that shouting. I was 48 before I began to get the demons out and my therapy included painting. I am not the person I was then. I didn’t have much fun. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad for everything I did. I haven’t sacrificed anything. Not being able to do the things that I wanted to do, that would have been a sacrifice. Now I should get back to my brushes and paint.

“I needed to get past the myth of being Joan Baez and learn to enjoy my life. I don’t need to talk about politics and be at benefits all the time. Thirty or 40 years of history walks out onstage with me. That in itself is a statement, a living reminder that the struggle goes on. I still haven’t reached where I want to be. My voice will tell me when it’s time to stop. Until then, I will keep on singing. Save me a copy of Common Ground. See you in Vancouver.”

Honouring Joan

Joan Baez is one of the most highly recognized figures of the 20th and 21st centuries. Such a long list of awards and titles has been bestowed upon her that at www.joanbaez.com, you’ll find the proviso: “If you know of anything we may have left off this list, please let us know!”

She received the Ordre national de la Legion d’honneur (National Order of the Legion of Honour) in 1983 – the medal was presented to her in 2011 – with the status of Chevalier (Knight), the highest decoration in France. In 2010, she was given the Orden de las Artes y las Letras de España (Order of Arts and Letters), the most prestigious award for foreign artists in Spain, in recognition of “transcending music for a generation of Spanish defenders of political freedom and peaceful coexistence.”

Other awards include: Thomas Merton Award, 1976; Earl Warren Civil Liberties Award, 1979; Jefferson Award, 1980; Lennon Peace Tribute Award, 1982; John Steinbeck Award, 1983; Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, 2007. Atlanta and Santa Cruz have held Joan Baez Days and she has received Honorary Doctorate Degrees from Antioch and Rutgers Universities.

Literary recognition includes best-seller status for her early biography Daybreak (1986), followed by And A Voice to Sing With: A Memoir in 2009. Those works, for the record, were her side of the stories. Of her records, her first three went gold and stayed on hit charts for several years, followed by five more gold records and a gold single The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.

“The Grammys are more about entertainment than music,” Baez says. “And the awards and recognition I cherish are the small ones for work I have done directly with people.” However, the Joan Baez Award from Amnesty is a major exception. In 2011, in a tribute at the 50th Anniversary Amnesty International AGM, she was presented with the first one. It recognized her work with the organization, including her key role in bringing Amnesty to the US and beyond, as well as serving on boards, fund-raising and envelope-stuffing. The award honours “Outstanding Inspirational Service in the Global Fight for Human Rights.”

Joan Baez is also an accomplished artist. Three of her most recent paintings were recently exhibited and sold at the Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco. And as a guitar player, she is both accomplished and influential, something acknowledged by Bob Dylan, early on. With no back-up band, she developed techniques and creative picking patterns to fill up the sound, now recognized and imitated as the Joan Baez style, which is consistently evolving.

The original old Martin 0-45 parlour guitar she purchased in 1959 and played at Newport, Washington in 1963 and throughout her career is now on display at the civil rights exhibit at the Smithsonian (American History).

Martin Guitars decided to reissue an exact model in 1998 as a special edition, building only 59, to commemorate the year Baez bought hers. When Martin employees took measurements, they spotted a comment written by someone who had once repaired it: “Too bad you are a communist.” Martin duplicated the note in all 59 models, which immediately sold out.

That, along with cartoonist Al Capp’s 1960’s ‘celeb-activist’ caricature “Joanie Phonie” in his Lil Abner comic strip (which also appeared in Time Magazine) are the most amusing recognitions. “A stupid, vulgar satire of the anti-war movement,” said Baez at the time, demanding a retraction. “I wish I had the sense of humour then that I have now,” she says. “It really makes me laugh today.”

—

Bruce Mason is a Vancouver and Gabriola-Island based five-string banjo player, gardener, freelance writer and author of Our Clinic. brucemason@shaw.ca

Vision and NPA more of the same

01/07/201423/12/2016

• Politics in the City of Vancouver is branded as a battle between Vision Vancouver on the “left” and the Non-Partisan Association (NPA) on the “right.” However, their policies have turned out to be virtually the same regarding development when each had the majority on council over the last three terms.

In 2007, then NPA Mayor Sam Sullivan created EcoDensity, which promoted increased density as the answer to the challenge of climate change. It effectively took the position that density is good and more is better.

The facts do not support this. Towers are the least energy efficient form of development because of their glass-wall, concrete construction and elevators. High density development inflates land values; this in turn increases redevelopment pressure on the more affordable older building stock. Only about 10% of the city’s cost of infrastructure and services for each tower is covered by development fees; the balance is subsidized by everyone’s property taxes. Increases in property taxes make home ownership more expensive.

As it became obvious that the supported community plans were under threat by EcoDensity, 23 neighbourhood associations from across the city banded together under an umbrella group called Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (NSV). This led to a city-wide movement against the ill-conceived policy.

EcoDensity was first to be implemented by the city in the rezoning of an invented neighbourhood called Norquay that covered a vast part of Kensington-Cedar Cottage centred along a strip of Kingsway. Norquay happened to be where a number of large tower developments were being considered even though they were inconsistent with CityPlan. So EcoDensity was a new, city-wide policy layer that conveniently endorsed these towers and the additional zoning the city was promoting for the area.

It was no accident that Norquay was the first neighbourhood targeted for EcoDensity. A large percentage of the community have English as a second language and are low income. They were an easy target.

However, the city did not count on the pushback they received. It became a long drawn-out battle that helped to galvanize the city-wide movement and contributed to the almost entire wipe-out of the NPA in the November 2008 civic election when Vision Vancouver swept into power. The NSV movement supported Vision based on their declarations of how they were going to do things differently at City Hall. They promised to involve the community in neighbourhood-based decision making and to reconsider EcoDensity.

Once Vision Vancouver and Mayor Gregor Robertson were the majority on council, rather than reconsider EcoDensity as they said they would, they rebranded EcoDensity under the Greenest City initiative to implement EcoDensity policy, which has proven to be just as problematic under Vision as it was with the NPA.

Vision pushed through approval of the rezoning of Norquay over the strong opposition of the community. They have also continued to “spot rezone” numerous lots to be grossly out-of-scale towers that are vastly larger than the surrounding area in many neighbourhoods, such as the Rize in Mount Pleasant at Broadway and Main and the Comox Street tower in the West End, among many others.

Vision has also re-planned whole neighbourhoods without community support in West End, Marpole, the Downtown Eastside, Strathcona, Chinatown and Gastown. The Grandview community formed a huge backlash when the city last year came to them with a plan that included a large number of towers up to 35 storeys and various other up-zoning around the area to which the community had no input.

Grandview is now being subjected to a new community top-down planning process called a Citizens’ Assembly. This is where the community residents have to apply to the city to be on the committee. Based on their personal data, they are allegedly categorized by a computer that randomly picks them through a lottery process, selecting 48 people to represent their community. If they win the lottery, they then have to go to “planning school” for nine sessions over eight months to learn the city’s spin. This marginalizes grassroots involvement.

Vision also implemented EcoDensity actions in 2009 that rezoned all the RS single family zones across the city, affecting about 70,000 properties, to allow larger and higher monster houses. NSV warned at the time that this would lead to increases in demolition of the older, more affordable housing stock. Demolitions have since escalated to over 1,000 demolitions last year at about 100 tons of waste in the landfill per each 2,200 square foot building. Not very green at all.

So both Vision Vancouver and the NPA are the two developers’ parties supporting EcoDensity while they marginalize communities. Keep that in mind as the election machines ramp up and the two parties try to differentiate themselves.

—

Elizabeth Murphy is a private sector project manager and formerly a Property Development Officer for the City of Vancouver’s Housing & Properties Department and for BC Housing.

info@elizabethmurphy.ca

www.elizabethmurphy.ca

The $1,000-pill heist

01/07/201423/12/2016

You’ve got hepatitis C, now you’re my hostage

DRUG BUST by Alan Cassels

• The people’s briefing note on prescription drugs
Portrait of columnist Alan Cassels

A friend of mine who works in the Canadian insurance industry told me they’ve seen their first claim for the new drug called Sovaldi.

New drugs come along all the time, but not drugs like this one, which claims to eradicate a disease suffered by thousands of Canadians. Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), approved just this year, is used to treat chronic hepatitis C infection. It arrived on the market in the US with incredible hype and an astonishing promise you don’t hear very often: cure. Very few drugs can guarantee they’ll take a life-long, and sometimes life-threatening, condition and wipe it out. Cures are so rare I can’t remember the last time we heard of one in relation to a drug.

As for the impact on society, Sovaldi may soon be a word synonymous with unaffordability in drug insurance. While my friend was sanguine about the prospects of a cure arriving at the door of insurers, she said this new drug has the potential to “make group insurance plans unaffordable for many employers, particularly small ones.”

That’s a pretty bold statement, but at about $84,000 (US) for a course of treatment that lasts about three months, the $1,000 pill has the potential to break the bank for many of those who pay for drugs.

Of course, how much this new drug will hit our public and private drug insurance plans really comes down to deciding how big the patient population is. Determining how many patients ‘need’ this drug is going to be extremely controversial, especially given there are an estimated 300,000 Canadians said to be infected with the hepatitis C virus. If we treated them all with Sovaldi, at that price, we’d spend almost the entire amount Canadians spend on prescription drugs in an entire year (about $30 billion).

In the US, UnitedHealth Group Inc, the largest US health insurer, spent more than $100 million in the first three months Sovaldi was available, much, much more than anyone expected. This, however, is just the start because Sovaldi is the first of four or five “Direct Acting Antiviral Agents” (DAA) drugs for hepatitis C coming to market over the next few years. The private insurers, who provide extended health insurance many Canadians get through their employers, will be hardest hit and they’ll end up doing what insurers always do when facing this kind of financial tsunami: increase premiums. Or the employer just decides insurance is too expensive and stops covering its employees.

The $1,000 pill has generated no end of consternation amongst pundits in my field – wondering who will pay for it – but I think ridiculously overpriced drugs are interesting in the same way outlandishly bombastic people are: they tend to challenge our beliefs and force us to closely examine what it is we really value. A $1,000 pill, I believe, vaults us into a new kind of conversation and demands that we think very carefully about economic value, tradeoffs and whether or not we are being held ransom by a company promising cures for thousands of people. Incidentally, these are the same questions we need to ask about every new drug, not just the hyper expensive ones.

Much of the critical commentary portrays the company as holding people hostage with the $1,000 pill. I don’t think that way at all. Patients are only hostages if the pill represents freedom. But maybe it doesn’t. Maybe we need to ask, “compared to what?”

Hepatitis C is a viral infection usually acquired through injection drug use or tainted blood and it can destroy your liver. It’s probably one of the most common blood-borne viral infections in the world and likely more than 75% who carry the virus aren’t even aware they are carriers.

You might carry the virus and have no symptoms even as it slowly eats your liver. Because there’s no viable vaccine for it – and there’s a huge pool of potential patients (read: large, potentially lucrative market) – finding better treatments for hepatitis C has long been in the industry’s sights.

As to how well the drug performs, I turned to the Oregon Health and Science University, which issued an assessment on Sovaldi this past May. Visit www.ohsu.edu/xd/ Search for sofosbuvir and then Click on Medical Evidence Based Decisions and scroll down to Sofosbuvir for the Treatment of Hepatitis C.

This report reminds us that only about five to 20% of the people infected by hepatitis C will ever go on to develop liver disease. About 1-5% of those will die of cirrhosis or liver cancer. It’s a slow growing disease and up to 25% of those infected will clear it spontaneously.

When the Oregon folks looked for all available research on Sovaldi, they found 10 studies, all of which were considered to have “a high risk of bias.” In fact, none of the studies could really apply to the real world and only one compared Sovaldi to a comparative drug currently used. Nor were the patients in the studies really representative of ‘real world’ patients – healthier, mostly white, etc. – who would likely use the drug and because Sovaldi wasn’t compared against the standard triple therapy used now, we can’t really say for sure if it’s any better than what is currently used.

As for long-term effects or harms involved in the new treatment, the reviewers noted the Sovaldi studies weren’t big enough or long enough to see if it made much of a difference. The worst part is many of the studies were designed in a way that left the manufacturer, Gilead, in charge of monitoring adverse effects. We know this leads to under-reporting and as one commentator noted, “Reporting of adverse events is often incomplete.”

One of the most prominent studies of Sovaldi found that about 3% of patients experienced severe adverse effects, compared to 1% of comparable patients taking peg-interferon. The group Adverse Events, which tracks side effects of drugs, said, “There really was no clear evidence that Sovaldi was really a miracle drug.” In other words, it couldn’t cure most people with fewer side effects compared to what is currently used.

But what to do about the thousands of hepatitis C patients clamouring for the new drug because the hype around the $1,000 pill has been so extraordinary? While threatening to make many capitalists rich – including the CEO of Gilead who will be a billionaire according to Bloomberg. Visit www.bloomberg.com and search for Gilead CEO becomes billionaire – it will make the rest of us a little poorer.

Do we need to be treating people who carry the hepatitis C virus? Some, absolutely. Do we need to be bankrupting our health care system to do so? Absolutely not.

The drug has been approved in Canada and so far only Quebec has agreed to pay for it. The other provinces are still trying to figure out what to do. If you have private insurance through your employer, get ready to pay a whopping big increase in your premiums next time you renew the policy. Here at home in BC, our provincial Drug Benefits Council, whose job is to advise the government on funding decisions, is hearing from physicians, patients, caregivers, patient groups and, of course, the manufacturers. If you have an opinion, maybe you’d like to weigh in (Google: Pharmacare, Your Voice) and you can join the likes of HepC BC, the local hepatitis C advocacy group supported by at least six drug companies, including Gilead, the maker of Sovaldi. We should never be so naïve as to think this is an unbiased process.

What should insurers do in the face of such potential calamity? Not an easy answer, but the best place to start is by doing what any good drug plan in the world does: play hardball with the manufacturers on price and limit coverage to only those very few patients for whom there is evidence of effectiveness and for whom it is working. And refuse to see yourself as a hostage.

Will we let a single drug destroy Canada’s drug insurance system? We could or we could act rationally and make the tough decisions we need to ensure we all have the insurance we need to keep us healthy.

—

Alan Cassels a pharmaceutical policy researcher at the University of Victoria and consults with employers and employees on drug benefit issues. www.alancassels.com

Eco friendly homes

01/07/201423/12/2016

Healthy and Earth-conscious

• With so much focus on creating a more eco-friendly living environment, more and more homeowners building a new home are considering green house design for a healthier lifestyle and to protect Earlth’s precious natural resources. There has been a dramatic increase in new materials and products available for green building: natural, specialized building materials for a healthier indoor environment, in-step with Environmental Protection Agency EPA rating and guidelines, with the added bonus of helping homeowners save a considerable amount of money in energy costs.

Building a green house

A green house is sustainable, durable, environmentally friendly and built with non-toxic materials that reduce indoor air pollution. Designed to create an effective building envelope, it is a tightly sealed structure with controlled ventilation and cost effective heating and cooling.

A green house helps conserve energy and has high levels of RRD: renew-ability, reusability and durability with less negative indoor and outdoor environment impact, using the following five basic principles:

Optimized use of the sun – whether active or passive solar energy.
Improvement of indoor air quality.
Responsible use of land.
High performance, moisture-resistant housing.
Wise natural resource management of the Earth’s offerings.

Other aspects of a green, energy efficient home include:

Minimal construction waste.
Design and orientation to minimize solar loss in winter; solar gain in the summer.
Sloped roof for solar energy panel installation creating natural light and heat.
Eco-friendly building materials such as a structural insulated panel system that is resistant to mold and borate pressure-treated wood, resistant to fungal decay and termite damage.
Floors such as a bamboo wood floor – bamboo is 27% harder than northern red oak, durable and fast growing. Bamboo floors are naturally mildew, insect and water resistant. Cork – a surprising but excellent choice – is hypo-allergenic and fire resistant providing thermal and acoustic insulation, durability and comfort.

There are hundreds of different types of wood floor choices that uphold environmental ethics, such as those from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified forests.

Carpets and rugs

Research by the EPA reveals that levels of indoor pollution can be two to five times greater than they are outside. One major source of indoor pollution is carpeting and rugs. Many conventional carpet and carpet padding options contain plastics made from petroleum. Toxic materials and chemicals – such as mothproofing and products to repel or retard soil and moisture – pose an additional health risk. And new carpet and rug installation can fill the air with volatile organic compounds such as formaldehyde and benzene.

Carpets and rugs are also notorious for trapping toxic lawn chemicals, allergens and other contaminations tracked in from outside, including dust, dirt, pollen and bacteria.

Preserve indoor environmental health and safety by using carpeting made only from recycled and eco-friendly materials. Durable and often less expensive than more conventional choices, these options are a more responsible, healthy way to enhance room decor.

Other eco-friendly, energy efficient choices

Better flooring choices include the aforementioned cork or bamboo, hardwood from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified forests, recycled glass tiles and natural, hypo-allergenic, biodegradable linoleum. There are other interior product options that qualify as green material too; they’re better for the occupants’ health and their pocketbooks while enhancing the home’s eco-friendly design and positively impacting the environment. They include:

Energy smart appliances such as an energy efficient water heater or refrigerator.
Lightweight concrete countertops, made from recycled newspaper and fly ash.
Walls finished with non-toxic, eco-friendly paint.
Energy efficient lighting and the use of solar energy. In some provinces, a solar energy rebate or solar energy grant might be available.
Kitchen cabinets and furnishings free of formaldehyde that causes off-gassing, widely used to manufacture building materials and various household products.
Exhaust fans over the stove to remove carbon monoxide and other gases.
Bathroom fans and ventilation, reducing the risk of mold and mildew.
The installation of properly filtered ventilation systems to remove dirt, dust, pollen and other pollutants.

It might also be well worth the expense to hire a building envelope consultant or indoor air quality consultant to assess your home and help find ways to conserve energy and make your home more eco-friendly.

—

Source: TrustedPros – Helping you find trusted home improvement contractors. www.trustedpros.ca

photo © Fottoo

Some BC stores say “No” to GM apples

01/07/201423/12/2016

GMO Bites

GM apple in the hot seat

Health Action Network (HANS), in cooperation with GE Free BC and Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN), wish to thank the following stores and distributors for saying “No” to the GM apple. The stores below have committed to not sell the “Arctic Apple” and we acknowledge their support in this public health and economic issue. If your store is not on the list, download a copy of HANS’ retail letter, found at gefreebc.wordpress.com/apple, take it to your local store’s managers, ask them to sign to commit to not selling the GM apple and mail the letter to HANS.

No GM apples at these stores:

Vancouver: Choices Markets (Delta & six other locations), East End Food Co-op, Eternal Abundance, Famous Foods, Greens Organic & Natural Market, Jim M Koo Produce, Sweet Cherubim

North Vancouver: Sprout Organic Market

Castlegar: The Biggest Little Fruit Stand

Courtenay: Edible Island Whole Foods Market

Duncan: The Community Farm Store

Ladysmith & 3 other locations: 49th Parallel Grocery

Nelson: Kootenay Co-op, Ellisons Market Cafe

Port Coquitlam: Pomme Natural Market

Rock Creek: Rock Creek General Store

Sicamous: Fruit World

Vernon & 6 other locations: Nature’s Fare

Victoria & 2 other locations: Lifestyle Markets

Whistler: Olives Community Market

108 Mile Ranch: 108 Mile Supermarket

BC government refuses to conduct promised review

The BC government is refusing to carry out a review of the genetically engineered (GE) apple it promised in 2012. The GE apple, developed by Okanagan Specialty Fruits in Summerland BC, is genetically engineered to not turn brown for about 15 days after it is cut and is under assessment for approval in Canada and the US.

“Unless the BC government acts now, the GE apple could be approved before the promised review takes place,” said Tony Beck of the Society for a GE Free BC. “The government needs to carry out a review which is fair, transparent and receives adequate input from consumers, farmers and scientific experts.”

In 2012, the Union of BC Municipalities voted for a moratorium on the GE apple and the promise of a review was part of the government’s response. The Society for a GE Free BC, a grassroots community coalition working for sustainable agriculture and against genetic engineering of crops and animals, has made several requests for this review and meetings with the Ministry of Agriculture – with no response.

“Our government must consult British Columbians, retailers and both organic and conventional apple growers on this urgent GE apple problem,” said Teresa Lynne of GE Free BC. The BC Fruit Growers’ Association has also requested a moratorium on approving the GE apple.

In 2012, the Liberal government noted its concern about negative impacts of the GE apple and promised a review: “The Province recognizes that production of Genetically Engineered (GE) fruit trees and their products, including tree fruit and pollen, raises human and environmental health concerns in export markets. These concerns can negatively impact access to those export and some domestic markets for both conventional and organic products.

“If the Federal Government were to allow unconfined production of GE trees and other fruits in Canada, the fruit production and sales could be significantly impacted. The Province will explore the complex GE fruit issue and the UBCM resolution. Upon completion of this review, the Province will provide UBCM with its findings.”

Take action in BC

write to the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Norm Letnick, demanding the promised review. Many BC retailers are committing to not sell the GM apple if it is approved. Talk to your grocery store manager today.

More info at www.cban.ca, www.hans.org and http://gefreebc.wordpress.com

Call GE Free BC at 604-475-4457 or HANS at 855-787-1891.

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Society for a GE Free BC

The off-key song of creation

01/07/201423/12/2016

by Geoff Olson

• In a scene from the 1999 film, The Matrix, a mysterious figure in shades confronts the main character, Neo.

“You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad,” Morpheus quietly says to Neo.

Anyone who’s gone through personal loss, poor health or grief is not unfamiliar with this sense of dislocation. And we all get an inkling of Neo’s existential nausea while browsing the media’s daily disaster feed. At times, it seems this whole show has been poorly scripted, miscast, weirdly directed and badly produced.

Suffering is inseparable from existence – that’s the first “No Bull Truth.” But why so much of it? Even Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins expressed puzzlement over this in a recent Guardian Weekly interview:

“From a Darwinian perspective, it is clear what pain is doing. It’s a warning: ‘Don’t do that again.’ If you burn yourself, you’re never going to pick up a live coal again. But you might think a little red flag in the brain would be enough to do that. Why does pain have to be so damned painful?”

For centuries, scientists, philosophers, artists, musicians and writers have expended a supertanker’s worth of ink and art materials to examine the mystery of life’s joys and sufferings – or at least supply us with enough beauty to make the crib-to-coffin effort seem worthwhile.

As the hippies insisted, there are both good and bad vibes. Some vibes can irritate or hurt, like the sound of a jet engine at close range or fingernails against a blackboard. Others can kill, like gamma rays and earthquakes. Some vibes thrill, like the rhythmic excitation of nerves at the skin’s surface during sex or a passage of beautiful music that raises goosebumps.

Like all multicellular organisms, humans are comprised of sets of vibrations, nested like Russian dolls. At the bottom level are the particle/waves of the subatomic world, which weave together the atoms of carbon, oxygen and other elements in our bodies. These elements, the dust of long-dead stars, are joined up by electrochemical bonds into long-chain molecules that compose the mitochondria and other organelles inside cells that chime like tiny clocks to circadian rhythms.

People age and die, hemlines rise and fall, empires emerge and vanish, all according to the constructive/destructive interference patterns of psyche, soma and society, which interact with the cycles of the planet itself: oceanic decadal periods, ice ages and the precession of the equinoxes. The whole biospheric/civilizational shebang, from anaerobic bacteria to antiballistic missiles, is vibrating in a profoundly complicated way, like the strangest music you’ve never heard.

Who can possibly make complete sense of this ancient song of creation, occasionally harmonic but often dissonant? There are plenty of authors on my bookshelves with answers. Needless to say, they aren’t in total agreement on the score or how to rework the arrangements.

Some of the authors blame today’s global disharmony on the fossil fuel economy, which threatens the environment and generates endless resource wars. Others connect this with the attacks of 9/11, arguing they were state-inflicted wounds meant to accelerate the military-industrial-security complex and prosecute a war on terror that “may not end in our lifetime,” in the perverse words of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Some authors go back to the Reagan/Thatcher/Mulroney revolution, with its enthusiastic savaging of the public sector and the alphabet soup of trade agreements – NAFTA, FTAA, FIPPA, etc. – that have allowed transnational monopolies to dominate global markets and governments through predatory capitalism. For others, the 1963 assassination of JFK was the true moment when the empire crossed the Rubicon. For his part, novelist Gore Vidal traced the rot back to the signing of the National Security Act in 1947. Or was it the classified and compartmentalized Manhattan Project, which successfully married covert spookery to publicly-funded scientific research so Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be lit up with an atomic torch in 1945?

For Albert Einstein, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe,” words that have taken on even greater power in the age of Fukushima.

Author William G. Griffith insists the American fall from grace began with the founding of the Federal Reserve in 1913 and its funny-money fiat currency. Some thinkers extend this argument, insisting the world has been dominated for centuries by bankers who profit from the debt generated by endless wars and conflicts.

Or is it capitalism itself that’s the problem? “Everything solid melts into air,” wrote German economic historian Karl Marx of capitalism’s immense power to transform, which modern economists now happily describe as “creative destruction.”

The late historian and urbanist Lewis Mumford targeted civilization itself, especially the institution of divine kingship and the introduction of holy war. And according to eco-primitivist activist Derrick Jensen, civilization is not only inseparable from war, it is war. Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas and writer Riane Eisler see it somewhat differently: the 5,000 year-old dominator culture of patriarchal societies conquered and erased the supposedly peaceful, matriarchal cultures of the Mediterranean.

US policy analyst and radio host Andrew Bard Shmookler offers a sobering rejoinder, insisting tribal animosities and violence go beyond gender. The heavily barricaded, heavily armed city-states of the ancient Near East may have arisen under the banner of patriarchal invaders, but they were driven by necessity by that Malthusian curse: the conflicting trends of growing population and fixed resources.

Anthropologist David Graeber insists debt, war and slavery have been inextricably bound together since the beginning of civilization. In fact, minted currency had its origins in war-making and the slave trade, he argues. Going even further back, anthropologist Jared Diamond describes the invention of agriculture as the “worst mistake of all human history” because it meant the stockpiling of food resources, leading to all of the above.

“Recent discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered,” Diamond wrote in Discover magazine.

If that’s not sobering enough, a Homo sapiens is a “biological freak, the result of some remarkable mistake in the evolutionary process,” according to the late novelist and thinker Arthur Koestler, who drew on the work of Canadian neuroscientist Paul MacLean. In this theory, the last ice age shaped our species’ cerebral cortex into a maladaptive monster. Our thoughts and feelings are perpetually out of synch in this quickly evolved kludge, leading to religious mania, brutality, perversion and all manner of collective delusions, Koestler insisted.

So let’s sum things up here. Hairless primates expand their territories, leading to conflict with others of their own kind and an escalating arms race in stone, bronze, iron and steel – along with the closely aligned forces of debt, slavery and war. They smash open the atomic nucleus like a clamshell and fashion nuclear weapons out of the pieces while consuming what remains of the Earth’s resources like there’s no tomorrow. Good times.

If you prefer, there are alternative explanations offered by the Bible, the Koran, the Torah and other holy books. I understand the appeal of believing all life’s answers can be found in one volume; it sure cuts down on shelf space. But if you’re not big on answers from organized religion, how far back would you like to go to figure out where things went wrong – back to the origin of life, perhaps?

“Life is, in its very essence and character, a terrible mystery – this whole business of living by killing and eating,” mythologist Joseph Campbell told journalist Bill Moyers in a 1988 interview. “But it is a childish attitude to say no to life with all its pain, to say that this is something that should not have been.”

Zorba the Greek put it more succinctly in a novel of the same name: “Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and look for trouble.”

And if Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis has not given you a satisfactory answer, you can always blame the quantum-scale hiccup that supposedly created the whole damn cosmos. Billions of years ago, a perfectly symmetrical state collapsed into the “broken symmetry” of the Big Bang, say cosmologists. The operative world here is “broken.” Duality itself was birthed in the fires of creation and the phenomenal could not exist without imperfection.

Yet the “candle must be worth the flame,” as philosopher Alan Watts once observed. To believe otherwise – that the universe should never have bothered to exist – seems a cosmically perverse position to hold. It’s certainly a bad idea to share on a date. (Much better to quote Canadian poet Leonard Cohen’s line about there being “a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”)

Life’s little pleasures, passing ecstasies and rewarding challenges somehow trump all the chaos and pain written into the cosmic charter. With that in mind, a number of authors on my shelves endorse the idea of looking within as much as looking without. “If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself; if you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have is that of your own self-transformation,” said Taoist thinker Lao Tzu in 6th century, BC.

But as Vancouver-based author Stephen Gray observed in a public talk, “No matter how much inner work we do ourselves, if we don’t speak up about the egregious behaviour that’s dominating the planet on the external level, then it won’t matter what we do on the inner level.

“The inner work is a kind of a grounding, otherwise we just recreate the same cycles again… but then it has to step beyond that, particularly right now… without creating enemies or the Other,” said the author of Returning to Sacred World.

As conscious beings, are we able to awaken in time to which vibrations/cycles serve the greatest number for the greatest good? Or are “good” and “bad” forever stuck together like back to front or light and dark? All the wise words I’ve come across in my brief existence seem to offer a patchwork of clues, but no master key. If there is one it’s probably found elsewhere: in the stars, down the rabbit hole or as near as my next breath.

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This article represents part four of the “Vibes” series.

www.geoffolson.com

Ben West

01/07/201423/12/2016

Every Time the Wind Blows…

READ IT by Bruce Mason

• “Now what?” That’s the question people have been asking since the Harper government’s decision on Enbridge. “How can we stop this?’ is another, along with the hopeful thought, “Surely we can do better!”

Ben West – Tar Sands Campaign Director for ForestEthics Advocacy – has a big idea and an opportunity to contribute to a positive outcome. He’s asking us for our help in publishing an important book on moving beyond fossil fuels by providing a road map to where we need to go to save the planet. You may have heard West speak and know of his tireless work, including being the go-to-guy for media.

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org says, “He knows more – and has done more – to slow the spread of pipelines and keep Tar Sands in the ground than just about anyone I can think of. He’s a real visionary!”

West reports, “This book project will be the culmination of over a decade of my work, dreams and experiences trying to answer the question of how can we stop these pipelines and other projects like them – that cause global warming – and to get serious about making better alternatives a reality.

“My working title is Every Time the Wind Blows… The idea is to get folks asking the question, ‘Isn’t it wasteful not to capture the energy and wealth that is blowing away in the wind every minute and shining down on us every day?’”

We all know – or should know – the biggest threat to humanity is an environmental issue. But global warming is, fundamentally, a human rights issue, as well. We have a moral responsibility to act, to empower people to get involved.

Ben says, “The climate challenge is daunting, but a different world is within our reach.” His book will explore framing, strategy, tactics and action, using real world examples and outlining a game plan for tackling the power and influence of big oil by focusing on specific alternatives. It will also share lessons learned in this epic life and death struggle in a moment of profound change and opportunity.

At Common Ground we’re excited about sharing examples of taking back the Commons (see Common Ground, May 2014). One of the hottest trends in the global phenomena is “Crowdfunding.” Websites raised US$89 million in 2010, $1.47 billion the following year and $2.66 billion in 2012, when more than one million individual campaigns were established globally. A May, 2014 report – “The State of the Crowdfunding Nation” – by UK-based The Crowdfunding Centre shows that in March 2014, more than US$60,000 were raised on an hourly basis and 442 campaigns were launched globally, every day.

Neil Young – remember him? – created a crowdfunding campaign to finance his revolutionary Pono Music system. The goal of $800,000 was reached in less than 24 hours after it launched in March and is now closed, having raised more than $6.2 million.

Young writes, “It’s been a long time coming. It was not easy getting this far, but you made it happen by supporting Pono’s vision for better listening. Pono wants to preserve the history of music, in all of its beauty and expression, for all time. Forever.”

West wants to help save the planet, forever. His bottom line is a modest $20,000.

He promises, “By supporting the creation of this book, you will also be helping me to work with First Nations communities, farmers, labour unions, business leaders and many others as we attempt to make better alternative projects a reality along the proposed pipeline and tanker routes in BC. I will document case studies and share an honest, open dialogue about the challenges, opportunities and lessons we are learning.”

We’re preaching to the choir here, but folks in the choir are doing the singing. Join the rapidly growing number of people seeking answers to the biggest question of them all: “What did you do?”

Supporting West’s book is just one opportunity to walk the global warming talk. Putting our money where our mouths are will make a real difference. Carpe diem. Please consider supporting Ben’s book and sharing this opportunity to make a wise investment in our future.

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Contribute to Ben West’s crowdfunding campaign for his imperative book about moving beyond fossil fuels at https://dana.io/BenWest

Pipeline approval defies democracy

01/07/201423/12/2016

Portrait of David Suzuki

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki

• There was little doubt the federal government would approve the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project, regardless of public opposition or evidence presented against it. The prime minister indicated he wanted the pipeline built before the Joint Review Panel hearings even began. Ad campaigns, opponents demonized as foreign-funded radicals, gutted environmental laws and new pipeline and tanker regulations designed in part to mollify the BC government made the federal position even more clear.

Canadian resource policy is becoming increasingly divorced from democracy. Two infamous omnibus bills eviscerated hard-won legislation protecting Canada’s water and waterways and eased obstacles for the joint review process, which recommended approval of the $7.9-billion project, subject to 209 conditions. The government has now agreed to that recommendation. The time consuming hearings and numerous stipulations surely influenced the government’s decision to restrict public participation in future reviews, making it difficult for people to voice concerns about projects such as Kinder Morgan’s plan to twin and increase capacity of its Trans Mountain heavy oil pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby from 300,000 to 900,000 barrels a day, with a corresponding increase in tanker traffic in and out of Vancouver.

And to keep democracy out of fossil fuel industry expansion, the government switched decision-making from the independent National Energy Board to the prime minister’s cabinet.

Probably the most egregious omission from the review process is the dismissal of impacts such as climate change and rapid tar sands expansion. Here’s how the panel justified not taking these into account: “We did not consider that there was a sufficiently direct connection between the project and any particular existing or proposed oil sands development or other oil production activities to warrant consideration of the effects of these activities.”A pipeline to carry diluent from the coast to the tar sands to dilute bitumen that would then be carried back to the coast in another pipeline for export to world markets in supertankers does not have a “sufficiently direct connection” to the tar sands?… What the hell?

This project should never go ahead. And not just because no amount of money will undo damage from pipeline or tanker spills and accidents along the route, the BC coast or the ocean or that it is opposed by First Nations and other affected communities and lacks social licence – although those are strong enough reasons to stop it. The main reasons it and other pipeline projects shouldn’t be built are the very same ones the government and joint review panel refused to consider.

Rapid tar sands expansion, increasing reliance on dirty fossil fuels and more infrastructure that ties us to them for decades contravene the need to protect the environment, human health, global climate systems and even economic resilience.

Our choice is… about whether to join the green economy or pin our economic hopes on an increasingly risky industry. It’s about the kind of country – and planet – we want to leave to our children and grandchildren.

The government has irresponsibly weakened democracy in its willful blindness to the most pressing economic and environmental issue of our time. The spectre of climate change means all humanity has a stake in the future of coal and oil. To avoid the worst impacts, we must shift to a zero-carbon-emissions energy system within the next few decades. Yet Canada doesn’t even have a national energy strategy! As Canadians witness how vulnerable our communities are to climate change impacts… demand will grow for solutions such as clean energy.

Northern Gateway has received qualified government approval. The decision will now face First Nations court challenges and backlash from the majority of British Columbians and Canadians whose voices have so far been ignored. For the sake of our communities and the future of our children, let’s hope democracy prevails.

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Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation senior editor Ian Hanington. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org

Rites of passage

01/07/201423/12/2016

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead

Ellar Coltrane as Mason in Boyhood. Courtesy of IFC Films.

• Last month, Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave his approval for Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline. After years of government hard-sell and a blitz of pro-pipeline advertising in BC, the PM’s last-minute, tepid approval of the 1,200km pipeline from the tar sands came as some surprise. As crowds roared defiantly in downtown Vancouver against the pipeline, such has been the strength of opposition that the government didn’t even field spokespeople to defend its decision.

There have been a number of documentaries that look at the environmental dangers posed by the proposed pipeline through some of BC’s most splendid and remote landscapes. One I came across lately on Vimeo was the 35-minute Casting a Voice: Pipelines, Bitumen & Wild Fish, free to view at https://vimeo.com/78876102 It provides an intimate perspective from Northern BCers who fish the giant, wild steelhead salmon of the Skeena River. Dimitri Gammer’s lovingly made film captures the rugged beauty of the area, but also highlights the dangers the terrain poses for the local ecology and businesses that depend on it. “In this country, the tops of mountains can break off and roll down into the valleys,” says author Rob Brown. “It’s the worst location.”

Free, open-air screenings are back at Stanley Park this month, beginning with the recently released, fun, family film The Lego Movie (Tuesday 8th), along with a series of older classics such as Footloose, Pretty in Pink and Dumb & Dumber. The open-air series runs Tuesdays from July 8 to September 2 at Second Beach. Shows start “at dusk” so pull up a blanket in front of the inflatable screen. The films are put on by a company called FreshAirCinema although, ironically, the main sponsor is still a major oil company. More info at www.freshaircinema.ca/summercinema/movies.html

Making the aging process authentic on screen can be tricky given it is usually accomplished by having different actors play the same character. So in 2002, pioneering director Richard Linklater cast a six-year-old boy for a drama about growing up called Boyhood and then went back for a few days each year until 2013 to continue the story. Here, the boy, Mason (Ellar Coltrane), his older sister (the director’s daughter Lorelei Linklater) and divorced parents (Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette) age before your eyes.

With his celebrated The Up Series, Michael Apted has documented the lives of the same kids every seven years, starting when they were seven-years-old in 1964 up to the most recent 56 Up. But that was documentary and the 164-minute Boyhood weaves a story of Mason’s growth from first grade to leaving for college.

Along the way, we see Mason dealing with the turmoil of parental discord, family moves, new schools, first loves, lost loves, and so on. The film includes a soundtrack spanning the years from Coldplay’s Yellow to Arcade Fire’s Deep Blue, years in which Harry Potter, Obama and Tropic Thunder become part of the vernacular. “In a way, the film became a collaboration with time itself,” says Linklater.

The film, which is set mostly in Houston, Texas, won the Silver Berlin Bear for best director at Berlin and the Louis Black “Lone Star” Award at SXSW in Linklater’s home city Austin, Texas. It’s out on July 25.

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Robert Alstead is making the documentary Running on Climate. Crowd-funding campaign donations are welcome at www.fund.runningonclimate.com

After infidelity

01/07/201423/12/2016

UNIVERSE WITHIN by Gwen Randall-Young

Portrait of Gwen Randall-Young

• Only those who trust can find love and happiness. And only those who love, can be betrayed. – Unknown

When you find out a partner has cheated, it can be devastating. So many emotions immediately arise: shock, disbelief, anger, hurt, sadness and anxiety about the future. Perhaps you have been cheating and your partner has found out. Whatever the case, the relationship is now in jeopardy.

Every situation is different. For some, the relationship is automatically over. Cheating is a deal breaker and there is no going back. The trust is broken and the relationship can never be the same. Sometimes, the relationship has been over for a long time and the affair becomes the catalyst for both to move on.

But often there is love between the couple; perhaps there are children and a life they have made together. They see it is all about to crumble and neither really wants that to happen. Can there be healing and the ability to move on together?

The answer is yes, this is possible. When there has been an affair, something has been missing in the relationship. Seeking that missing piece elsewhere is not the answer. If the problems in the relationship had been addressed all along, perhaps with professional help, things could have been different. Now the couple has to deal not only with what was not right about their relationship, but they also must deal with the hurt and trust issues.

It is important to acknowledge that whatever happens in a relationship, it has been co-created. It is rarely just one person who brought it to the point where it starts to fall apart. Often, the communication was poor or non-existent or there was a lack of connection and emotional intimacy and perhaps a lack of mutual appreciation.

When the relationship breaks down, it also breaks open. Frequently, a couple will have more real communication during the crisis that follows an affair than they have had in a long time – or maybe ever. With the help of a good therapist, they can figure out how things went wrong and build a foundation that is stronger than they ever could have created without the crisis.

Polish psychiatrist and psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski developed the theory of Positive Disintegration. He says that while we may think a breakdown is a negative thing, he sees that what breaks down is an old structure that no longer serves the individual and does not allow for growth.

Somewhat like demolishing an old house to build a home better suited to its occupants, so the breakdown of a relationship can allow the couple to build one that allows both to grow and thrive in a way they previously could not.

I also believe we draw ourselves into relationships with people with whom we have some learning to do. Crisis can lead not only to a healing of the relationship but also to the healing of the individual who has carried old wounds that were broken open by the crisis.

Sometimes, the lesson is to have the strength to walk away. How can we tell what it is? If both people still love each other in spite of the hurt, there is still learning to do together. That love is keeping them together because there is still more to do. It may be they do the work but still end up apart. This may help them avoid repeating similar patterns in a new relationship.

It has been said the Chinese symbol for crisis is a combination of danger and opportunity. It may not be a direct translation, but certainly in every crisis, opportunity for growth and healing exists.

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Gwen Randall-Young is an author and psychotherapist in private practice. For articles and information about her books, Deep Powerful Change hypnosis CDs and new Creating Healthy Relationships series, visit www.gwen.ca. See display ad this issue.