A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 8

A female demonstrator offers a flower to military police, October 21, 1967.
This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with Do the Right Thing.

Hello,

I think that the Chernobyl incident might have been a very loud kind of alarm clock for many in my age. The “green movement,” a.k.a. “progs” (you might call them a Swedish version of hippies with a strong eco-/political agenda), had more or less gone silent, and then BOOM--suddenly the eco-questions were a hot item again, something everybody had an opinion about.

Around here we have to relate to these questions--it is really a matter of everything we do, every day. For example, do we live in a radon-radiating house or not?! If we do, we have to act, or we will get low radiation illness. That is a fact of life for us. The radon really was a very small issue earlier, but now we have to count every bit of radiation very carefully, making both radon and background radiation into very big and important issues.

This has made me think, of course. I made very careful choices when we started looking for where to live our life. I looked for an old-fashioned house with only old-fashioned materials in it--materials that have been thoroughly researched for centuries, materials we are accustomed to and know how to handle safely. I had Gandhi’s theories in the back of my mind. “Choose local materials, they fit the local weather and the local way of life.”

So we chose a very old house, and we have made very few changes to it and only with “safe” traditional materials. And it seems Mr. Gandhi was right in this issue, too. So far we have had very low figures on every radon measuring!

Since there are so few ways we are able to avoid or reduce radiation, I think it is important for us to do everything we are able to do. Reduce what we can, so our bodies have a chance to help us stand up against that which we cannot avoid.

- Absinthia

This is the end of "A Conversation with Absinthia." In future posts, Absinthia and I will discuss ways to live a simpler, more traditional life, now posted starting here.

A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 6

photo by Gnangarra
This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with Do the Right Thing.

Hello,

Well, as I told you, we got pretty shocked by Chernobyl. It made a lot of us get to thinking, deeply thinking, about where the food came from and how it got there. The slow food movement is very strong here in Europe and in Sweden. We have authorized slow cities here and authorized slow food farmers and gardeners.

I buy very few of our food items in regular stores--I have this motto: if I can make it myself, then why should I not?!

If I can´t make it, I do my best to find a neighbour, or almost neighbour who can. If that is not possible, I go to a store. But only if there is no other choice. This is the reason why it took so long for me to get a spinning wheel. I had to find a real carpenter to make it for me, since I refuse to give my hard-earned money to a regular store.

I might sound a bit fanatic, but that is my way to make the best I can of the world. By really, truly choosing where I put my money.

-Absinthia



Dear Absinthia,

You go, girl! I do that too, but probably not as well as you. We have simplified our diet, and I bake our bread and cook from scratch as much as possible. It has been a long time since packaged food has been our mainstay.

I’ve been reading up on permaculture, and those folks have it all figured out, with energy and nature and sustaining ourselves on the Earth. But we just have to be sure the Earth doesn’t become toxic from those people who are using and abusing the Earth for their own gain, because then it will be impossible to survive.

It’s the “fanatics” like us, who can take care of the Earth. Those who are just doing what the established money-making society tells them they want to do, don’t understand what’s at stake and how to turn it around. Buying “green” bathroom cleaners made by a bleach company and driving cars that run on half gas and half biofuel won’t solve any problems.

Sometimes I wish I could live in an isolated self-sustaining community, but my family wouldn’t go for that at all.

-amanda

This conversation is continued here:
A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 7.

A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 5

The Fredrikstrands garden in Ekerö, Sweden
photo by Per Ola Wiberg
This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with Do the Right Thing.

Hello,

I am dealing with my fears for all the dangers with radiation by being very very careful with the food. I am very careful with what food I buy, checking its origin carefully, and never buying anything ready made, I make it myself as much as possible. I am very much into “slow food,” “local food,” and “real food.” We buy a lot of veggies from a local gardener, and grow some ourselves. This might sound strange, but it is grown in greenhouses. That is standard here today. You just don´t want to grow things in the actual ground if it is possible to grow it in a greenhouse, in a pot, or in a raised bed.

Around here now, we grow things first and foremost in greenhouses, but sometimes you can´t afford a greenhouse, or the things you want to grow are too big for your greenhouse, then you grow it in raised beds or pots. If you grow in a greenhouse you still make raised beds or use pots. You buy all the soil in sacks from the national gardening firms. You don't want to grow something that you are going to eat in the ground. We still have problems with polluted earth and polluted growth.

Then there’s the risk for radioactivity in the moose meat and the reindeer meat--it is not about whether the meat is radioactive or not, is is about how high the level of radioactivity is. Is it an acceptable level of radioactivity, or not? If it is not, it has to be destroyed.

And I am very much an activist. I do what I can to leave this place in a better shape than it was when I got here. That is much better than to just accept that the politicians are turning it into a heap of junk, I think. That way I can look myself in the mirror, without bad conscience for not doing my best.

My husband is reading this blog, and he said he was proud of me, for daring to tell our experience to the world.
-Absinthia

For more on post-Chernobyl food production, see "Life After Chernobyl," in Mother Earth News, May/June 1987.


Dear Absinthia,

I’m proud of you, too, for speaking out. Thank you for sharing it with me!

Wow, I had no idea that there was a danger of ground contamination in parts of Europe after all this time, or even right after the Chernobyl meltdown. This just hasn’t been in the US news or anything. I wonder why??

Humanity really has been busy destroying the Earth that sustains us. This makes me so mad. A few opportunists cut corners, hide the truth, make a toxic mess, and the rest of us have to grow our food in greenhouses and deal with cancer for years and years and years.

Somehow, some way, I know this will get resolved. I don’t know how, and it might not be in my lifetime. But I know the Earth can make it through, and we… well, we make our choices and do the best we can. Hold good thoughts for the Earth and this crazy race of humans, and maybe we’ll make it too.

-amanda

This conversation is continued here:
A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 6.

A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 4

(map from "Radiation from Chernobyl," (2007). In UNEP/GRID-Arendal Maps and Graphics Library.)
This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with Do the Right Thing.

Hi,

I saw posters today about a memorial, it is now 25 years since the Chernobyl acid rain. That poster and this conversation with you has activated a lot of memories I had totally forgotten, or maybe repressed, who knows really?

I remember now that for many years after Chernobyl, the news was full of information about how the native sami reindeer keepers had to slaughter their reindeer because of the acute radioactivity levels in the reindeer meat. They were unable to sell the meat and had to destroy it by digging it down in special pits. I thought so much about that. Their prime source of money is to sell the reindeer meat. Without that, where on earth would they get the money for everyday life? If they could not sell the meat, they would not get any money to buy any food, so... maybe they had to choose between starvation or eating that meat themsleves!? If the meat was too radioactive to eat, what happened when it was dug down, with the earth and the animals in the earth? I have no idea how many years that handling with the reindeer meat went on, maybe it still is going on.

I remember that for some years after the acid rain there was information in newspapers and other media about special places where you should go and have fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, and other food items that had been hunted/harvested in our area examined about whether it had too high levels of radioactivity to be allowed as food. This scared me so much! It was for a long while that I almost got eating disorders because I was afraid of possible radioactivity in the food.

After some years you learn to live with that low murmer of fear, but it never really dies down completely, at least it hasn't for me. I have learned to live with it, but that is not the same thing as accepting it, I think.

- Absinthia

You can find more details on the Sami people and their experience with Chernobyl here:
"Effects of the Chernobyl Disaster on Sami Life," by Melanie Blackwell


Dear Absinthia,

Living in fear is not a way to live. I think most of the politicians and the corporate powers in this world don’t care if we live in fear. Maybe they use it to manipulate us.

Either way, we have to do what we can to solve the problems that give us a fearful existence, and when we have done our best, then LIVE FEARLESSLY.

Who knows what tomorrow holds? We must find a way to be happy, moment-to-moment. That comes from doing our best to make things right, and appreciating this life for all the wonderful things it gives us. Appreciation is the antidote to fear, I believe.

-amanda

This conversation is continued here:
A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 5.

A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 3

Three Mile Island Protest
This is part of a continuing series of email letters exchanged with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the whole series, start with Do the Right Thing.

Dear Absinthia,

Thank you for what you have written about the cold war and nuclear accidents. The Three Mile Island meltdown was a big deal here in the US, but Americans are so influenced by the media, that the corporate powers and politicians can usually get public opinion turned back around to their way of thinking after something like that. At the time I was very concerned, but I was in my early 20s, and I had grown up from my radical, activist days. My focus then was on graduating and getting married.

Sometimes I think that the life of an activist is very upsetting all the time. You have to be negative, loud, and very out-there with your emotions. I just couldn’t keep it up and still have a decent personal life.

I like to comfort myself with the thought that karma brings us the life lessons we need, and that means if I’m supposed to be safe, I’ll be safe. And if I’m supposed to get radiation sickness, I will. But either way, the best lessons that I need are presented in life. Same with everyone else.

However, there is a very important element missing in that attitude: compassion. If we, as humans, take care of our fellow humans and the Earth, we will grow as a sentient species. And that’s a pretty important thing to try to help along.

So finally, I have come to the point where I don’t worry about things very much, and if my intuition tells me to speak out or take action, I do. That’s the only way I can keep living this life and still be happy.

-amanda

This conversation is continued with Absinthia's reply:
A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 4.

Chernobyl Monument

Conversation with Absinthia, Part 2

Three Mile Island: Before

Here is the second part of a continuing email conversation with my Swedish friend, Absinthia. To see the earlier posts, start with Do the Right Thing.


Hi, Absinthia,

When I was a kid in the US in the 1960s, I had weeks and weeks of lying in bed awake, terrified of nuclear war. After it went away, months would go by, and something would remind me of it, and the fear would return. This went on for years. Now that I’m older, I’m not afraid of death, so it’s not as bad, but I still think about the possibility of nuclear detonation.

I didn’t know anything about nuclear power plants back then. Actually there probably weren’t any that long ago.

- amanda

Hello :-)

Now I started to think again, about the fears of my childhood. The cold war was a reality when I was a child. I am now past 40 and I remember the iron curtain and the low murmur of the east and west leaders threatening each other as a continous background. I also remember the very first time a nuclear plant broke down, the Harrisburg incident [Three Mile Island]. Do you remember when and how that happened? I was a young girl child and the USA was very far away from where I lived then…across the ocean… All I remember then was my mother crying and very stern voices and faces on the adults.

Don´t you worry, lots of people agree with you, at least here in Europe. In a very recent election in Germany, not a national but a big local/semi national, the green party won very big! That means in reality that a big majority of the political power, in one of the most powerful countries in Europe is with the anti-nukes group. This had led to a national discussion about a moratorium, temporary closing, on the nuclear plants in Germany, which hopefully might lead to a permanent closure.

Here in Sweden, political parties with a pro-nukes agenda have run the country for more than 5 years now. But the Fukushima incident has shaken the political leaders quite a bit. The Green Party, which is one of the biggest right now and therefore having a lot of people listening to them, has started a very heated discussion about why the pro-nukes attitudes is treated like some kind of religious truth. The Green Party’s spokesperson pointed to the fact that Sweden makes much more energy than we need oursleves via water, air, and sun power, but still everyone says we need more more, more, and that fact is never doubted! And the nuclear plants are run for double the effect than they were originally designed just because of the “we need more-more-more” cult’s shouting!! “Why is that,” the Green Party’s spokesperson asked?

And I agree, that is a very good question, indeed. Why has no one doubted this, even though we have so many rivers with water power plants? And there are so many wind turbines built, almost no house is built today without sun power roofs, and everywhere we are working to reduce the need for energy and fossile fuel! Why is the idea that we need more energy just as strong and established as if it were a scientific fact?

So, you are not alone!

Even the politicians have started to realise things! …;-)

-Absinthia

(This conversation is continued here: A Conversation with Absinthia, Part 3.)

Three Mile Island: After