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We need more magic
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Posted on Jan 31 2005
Awareness is like light, and light is magic. Greed and exploitation rely on darkness and illusion to succeed.
One such illusion is that strip mining Pagan is “good” for the people and the island. The problem is that many of us will never have the opportunity to embrace the paradise that is Pagan Island firsthand, and therefore it is easy to pay more attention to getting the kids off to school and paying the mortgage.
In a world where the whims of a pop star are media-worthy and where death and destruction are overwhelming on a global scale, the cry of one small culture is only a whisper.
I would hope that the sacredness of Pagan Island is powerful enough to protect her and her people, but this was not true 150 years ago in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and things have not changed in most people’s approach to the Earth since.
This issue of strip mining Pagan is a serious struggle, and though I may never walk on Pagan’s shores, or hike her hills, it is enough for me to know she exists, without the desolation of a strip mine.
The fact that the material they wish to remove is a component in concrete cement gives new meaning to the Joni Mitchell lyrics, “They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot…” and drives home the refrain, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what ya got ’till it’s gone…”
William F. Cruz
Shorewood, WI
