by Eva van Loon
So you think you can predict...the content of this article. You think I’ll tell you that by December, 2012, we will, willynilly, transform ourselves into a new kind of being—a better kind of human. That the planet will be suddenly overrun by enthused breathatarians, vegans, yogis, vegetarians, lightworkers, indigos, all of us surrounded by laughing rainbow and diamond children. That we will all attend conferences of prophets and miracle-workers, and suddenly annoyances like cancer and special education shall be no more. That we will lift our eyes to the hills, to be struck by the light of understanding and wisdom: the Shift cometh. The Shift cometh, and comforteth, and taketh away the sins of humanity from the pained Earth. Read more »
by Corey Matsumoto
We’ve gone through a lot of changes since our very first issue back in June 2007. Over the years, Immanence Magazine has evolved into a cherished beacon of independent media in Powell River—offering a wide range of locally-written articles and unafraid to be wonderfully different from the established mainstream media.
Immanence was created to inform and inspire our readers with ideas outside of the mainstream box. We believe that many changes are coming to our society, and the sharing of ideas and knowledge is a great way to stir up new ways of interpreting our world in preparation for an uncertain future. Read more »
The first 1,200 copies of this issue were released with B&W covers to enable us to maintain our current distribution of 1800 copies. As part of the Bring Back the Colour Cover challenge, we promised to bring back the colour cover if 200 people signed up for the Powell River Sustainability Stakeholders rewards program (PRSS) by Friday December 17, 2010.
Although we were short of our ideal goal, we did get another 3 Business Members and enough Individual Members to surpass our sustaining goal of 85 members (and we couldn’t bare to leave our readers with a lump of coal for Christmas!). We’re printing the final 600 copies of this issue with colour covers to complete our standard circulation of 1800, and welcome Behr’s Massage, John’s Bee Goods, and Eternal Seed Garden Center to the PRSS program (that makes 65 participating businesses!).
We will continue publishing the first 3/4 of each print run with black and white covers until we start reaching our GOALS (highlighted in bold black). The ultimate goal is 500 PRSS members per year, which equates to only about 3% of the local Powell River population.
Spread the word about how participation in the PRSS program will save more than the cost of the membership card during the course of the year.
“Don’t you have a pressure-cooker?” asked my mother on a visit to my marriage during the early Eighties.
I just looked at her, and then began to laugh. Laughed until tears wet my knees. Then I beckoned her down the rickety stairs of our rented East-End Vancouver house, and pointed.
Magnificent amid the detritus of recently evicted basement tenants stood a contraption festooned with no fewer than—count ‘em—nine pressure cookers, each marked with a different bright swipe of paint, each connected by an umbilicus to a large rectangle of similarly brightly colored sponges, the reverse of which instrument sported two capable handles.
“You see before you,” I reached over to close my mother’s jaw, “one thousand dollars of anti-graffiti machine.”
A grand was a small fortune then, roughly equivalent to a decent used car. But graffiti, according to the BS (Beloved Spouse), was one of civilisation’s greatest problems. He spent months convincing local merchants of this, and eventually entertained a small group of youth by conducting a trial paint job on the rear of an Italian grocery. For years one could drive through the lane, and, sure enough, graffiti could not succeed on his wall. Unfortunately for the BS, few people, Italian or otherwise, wanted a wall covered in four-inch squares of bright color—and someone invented super-slippery anti-graffiti paint a year or two later.
I was sorry. Vancouver boasted magnificent graffiti artists, not least a dark knight who played with beautiful letters, not quite Persian, not quite Hindi, not quite European, whose fluid swirls tantalised the viewer just outside the range of comprehension while somehow suggesting that the city harbored people of vision. As an aging hippy, I had to believe, not just in the power of populist music, but in the magic of the populist Word. Wasn’t this an appropriate age for the Handwriting on the Wall? Read more »
by Eva van Loon
Our theme this issue is harmony, and gods know I wanted to write to you just about that.
But, like many people in my generation, college students and those of us fresh upon the working world, I find I am full of rage these days at the discord in our country.
In June, the G20 summit in Toronto was protested peacefully by people not just from Canada, but from around the world. The few protesters who did commit violent acts were a tiny minority, though it seems they’re the only ones who get any press. Instead of arresting those that did burn the cop car, the Toronto police performed a mass arrest of over a thousand people—many of whom were just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time–and held them for just under 24 hours, the barely legal limit, until after the G20 was over. They threatened and beat people, telling several protesters that further acts of dissent would result in greater punishment. One woman from the States was nearly killed by the police as they strangled and punched her in a black, unmarked van, directing horrible misogynistic slurs at her. An amputee was kicked down, his prosthetic leg ripped off, as he was dragged across the ground in zip-tie handcuffs, to be held for 24 hours in a wire cage with no water and no chair.
Iran has condemned Canada’s actions towards the protesters, calling them human-rights violations. Leaving aside Iran’s own troubles, is that not fair comment? Instead of listening to dissenting voices, as one would expect in a democracy, our government chose to silence all opposition with violence.
Like a piece of music, a country needs many different notes–some opposite one another–to make a harmonious concert of life. If you don’t have dissent, all you get is a collection of tones that lack substance, or breath. Read more »
Friedrich Koenig’s steam-powered press (circa 1810) was the first non-manpowered printing press, quadrupling efficiency to 1100 prints per hour. This began the long process of making newspapers available to a mass audience, which in turn helped spread literacy.
by Corey Matsumoto
This month is dedicated to the written word. Poetry, fiction, song lyrics, letters (and yes, even opinion letters and informative articles) are all forms of self-expression that help define our culture. The inaugural Youth Peace-Poetry contest, affiliated with the International Peace Poem Project based in Hawai’i and hosted by the Powell River Live Poets’ Guild, was held last month at local schools, encouraging our youth to express their thoughts on peace in wonderfully abstract ways. You’ll find winning entries featured in this issue, along with winning pieces from the fifth annual Powell River Festival of Writers.
We’re proud to announce this 10th issue of Immanence, marking a full year of publication. It’s also the first issue off our new printer, thus heralding the return of locally produced and printed independent media to Powell River. Owning our own printer reduces our printing costs to the cost of paper and consumables only. This allows us to reduce further the cost of the ads that keep Immanence going. Providing affordable advertising for local business has been an underlying goal since the magazine’s inception a year ago, and now month-long exposure can be had for as little as $40. That is indeed something to celebrate.
Look for exciting changes in the design of our June, 2008, issue as we usher in a second year of publication with a brand new look incorporating my new-found knowledge of eco-design. Designing to reducing our consumption of consumables (ie. toner) will not only save us money, but will reduce our carbon footprint. Read more »
April 22 is Earth Day. Billions of dollars have been spent by the corporate world over the decades to program us to believe that living in a disposable world is convenient. If you think about the purchases you have made over the years, you might realize that you’ve made many companies rich by purchasing trash over, and over, and over again without a second thought. It’s time to rethink for ourselves.
by Eva van Loon
Spring’s a season of thanks as well as getting down in the dirt for the biz of
growing fresh crops. At Immanence we want to thank our enthusiastic readers, downloaders and contributors for helping us through the magazine’s first winter. It isn’t easy for small mags to stay in the black dirt of solvency, but with community response and a lot of volunteerism, we made it, and are happy to announce that not only has Immanence recently given birth to a litter of fresh ideas but it is now very close to owning its own printer to act as nanny for those frisky new notions. If all goes well, our May issue will announce the return of locally printed independent media to Powell River.
It has come to our attention (again) that some of our fellow citizens believe Immanence takes positions. Some folks believe the magazine is anti-mill, or anti-this-or-that.
The idea of Immanence in our community might be, as people used to say, as clear as mud.
Let’s get a grip: if our mill quit operating, it would be a disaster for everyone in Powell River, not to mention the end of a happy era. Who wants that? Nobody. Read more »
by Eva van Loon
...are we doing?
BC Liberals just flew 5 planeloads of humans to Hudson’s Hope to deliver a news release.
Wouldn’t TV, Youtube, Facebook, or even old–fashioned newspapers or the steps of the Legislature have served? A single plane flight uses 3.5 years of an individual’s carbon emissions—who initialed this cost on poor old Earth’s carbon-balance sheet?
Must be some event, you’re thinking. Some earth-shaking, mind-bogglingly new approach to sustainability. A harbinger of a healthier long–term way to save our province from becoming industrial wasteland. Wow! Wish I were in Hudson. Hope for this!
Hearing the announcement on beleaguered CBC, I thought I’d been taking crazy pills. Gone partly deaf or missed April Fool’s. Or I’d slipped over into Alzheimer’s and was reliving the Seventies. Site C? They’re going ahead with that damned dam in the north? Again? Didn’t my generation win that battle 40 years ago?
Another battle ahead. Last year, 700 rivers proposed for exploitation. This year, Site C. The same tired justifications: “good” short-term jobs, steady resource base, future need—as if we can increase population without end. However, the PIPs (People in Power) are not so naive as in our longhaired days—every proposal is first greenwashed, so that it’s easier to make prudent questioners look like idiots. Read more »
We are welcoming the year 2010 with a fiery issue—just in time for Valentine’s Day. Our burning desire for love and acceptance is largely what drives us to do the things we do (and us humans do some pretty strange things). However, this issue is not about love, chocolates or frivolous cardboard cutout hearts—and the title on this cover page has nothing to do with sex.
Fire carries with it strong (often polar) emotional connotations. We humans have a delicate affinity for the element that can bring warmth and comfort to our homes just as easily as it can destroy them. Read more »
by Eva van Loon
“Water is best,” goes the ancient Greek proverb. As a teen, I thought it a dumb saying. The best as compared to what?
It stuck in memory as I learned that water covers 71% of the planet, that 97% of the water is ocean (not counting polar ice!) and people consist mostly of water, 55% to 78%.
An alarming discovery was the short time it takes for a human being to die of thirst as opposed to hunger: only three or four increasingly painful days, while we can last for weeks without food. Drinking seawater or urine only makes things worse. Where drought is marching across the land, as in Somalia, people are already dying of thirst every day, while on the Sunshine Coast we go about our lives, swilling down coffee, soda and juices as if there’s no tomorrow, forgetful that each human life depends utterly on ingesting two to three litres of water every single day.
Put so starkly, that fact sends me straight to the cold-water tap with a “Thank you, Dr. Suzuki,” for pointing out recently that our tap water is a wonderful healthy blessing and that, while we can still call this treasure our own, we neither need nor want bottled water trucked in.
ClimateWizard is a new online toy that will predict changes in temperature and precipitation—precious water—in a given area for 2050 and 2100. For now, it’s mostly good for the US, but even so, the expected desertification is mind-boggling. Not that I didn’t know that places like Australia, Maui, and California are already burning up, or that there are predictions out there that the West Coast will lose 30% of its annual precipitation, but it was a shock to see that big red knob of heat and dryness on the map, right up to the Canadian border. We’re fools if we think nobody’s going to be panting after our water. Read more »