Cap & Skirt -Will Thomas photo
A WORD TO MY SISTERS
from
Will Thomas
Yesterday’s 4-hour CRHI war council is still resonating throughout my body and soul. Let me explain why…
Thea helming off Fiji for the joy of it -Randy (Will) Thomas photo
During an eight-year Pacific circumnavigation with my “first mate” Thea aboard our Gabriola-built trimaran, Celerity, I was privileged to witness at close hand a woman’s exceptional bravery when confronted by a smorgasbord of mortal dangers — a rogue breaking sea a hundred miles off the Oregon Coast, two hurricanes far out in the trackless blue, and that pirate attack in the South China Sea.
Thea reefing the mainsail in a hard blow 100 miles off Oregon coast -Randy (Will) Thomas photo
Though terrified to her toes (like me!) Thea carried out the captains’ orders without question, took her own initiative to save the ship, never wavered or complained, and taught this tough guy that when all hell is coming down from on high — a good woman is even stronger.
And not just women. During the Gulf Eco War, I was blessed by joining three consciousness-stricken men who independently decided to rescue some of the thousands of seabirds migrating up from Africa through the oil-soaked, burning hell of Kuwait. Or die trying.
Every time I entered those creosoted minefields with my danger-bonded buddies, carefully stepping around the sand-drifted mines we could see, I affirmed that a seabird’s right to live and flourish counted as much as my own.
Because with every step that could be my last, I realized that in life’s divine unity there is no separation, no weighing one life against another. Every time we ventured out under that flickering petroleum rain, I knew that if my intentions remained pure, the spirit of Gaia would protect me. If not, if my commitment faltered, I would never re-board Celerity, patiently awaiting her master’s return to Ganges Harbour.
And I accepted that. As you already know or are now re-discovering, once you completely commit to something bigger than yourself that you know is right, the guides and tools you require show up right on time. Every time. And everything becomes a whole lot easier.
Just look around you.
* * *
A good thing I’d made that post-voyage solo vision quest into the Coast Mountains to receive my orders! That eagle’s low swooping benediction, followed by all those gnats and mosquitoes swarming my sweat-soaked skin without landing prepared me for the voice that rang as clear and clean as the wind sighing through the close surrounding peaks:
“You will speak for the voiceless ones. From here to the end of your days, you will protect the forests and waters and the lives therein.”
Having accepted my mission, I’ve never looked back. From Mt. Bruce, where our newly formed Green Islands Society led Salt Spring residents into BC’s first clear-cut logging blockade… to Crofton, where Green Islands organized the first community march on a coastal pulp mill… that wild, glorious early morning amphibious assault in wide-open Greenpeace Zodiacs to block the day’s chlorine barge delivery to the cancer-spewing Squamish pulp mill… the grueling summer-long Clayoquot campaign that saw over 800 arrests… and that long wet cold bitter fight to defend the Tsitika’s killer whales and grandfather cedars in the face of vicious police dogs and angry, armed loggers — I know courage when it’s in my face.
To CRHI’s leading women, I salute your mother bear’s protective rage. I am inspired by your individual and collective wisdom, plainspoken honesty, perseverance in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, and joint acknowledgment that the war we are fighting against one of this country’s most powerful and uncaring corporations goes far beyond Hornby Island. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, we know we are defending so many more lives than our own.
Though we may not be able to take down Schwab, Soros, Fauci, Gates, or the WEF — never doubt that every act of community celebration and resistance confronts the atheistic, life-crushing nihilism of those stone-eyed globalist technocrats with a force they cannot counter.
Ritual Space -Will Thomas photo
I’m talking about the Spirit that empowers and assists us. Our love for and trust in each other. And a weapon far more powerful than mere money, jail cells or futile bombs — the unflinching truth of freedom’s insistent solidarity with all creatures, great and small.
When you fear that we cannot possibly prevail against the forces arrayed against us, know that by standing together and holding firm we’ve already won.
When you’re exhausted from a fight that goes on and on and on — when you long to return to the life you spent a lifetime creating — know that you came to this planet and this place to stand arm-in-arm with your sisters and a few very good men.
Your heart and guts and womb can no more refuse the call to safeguard this community of interwoven lives whose every exhalation fills your veins than you can turn your back on the birth that brought you to this island and this time.
Do not fear defeat. Never become attached to winning. Give this fight everything you’ve got, knowing that through the alchemy of joyful defiance, you are being transformed in ways offered only to those who stand with us. Wherever they are.
Know, too, that ill-intentioned plotters and soulless evildoers are always brought down by their own contradictions and the blind ignorance of their conceits. As compassionate jujitsu practitioners it is our duty to help them fall.
Regardless of self-doubts, bone-weariness, or daily infirmities, a leader leads fearlessly from in front with humility, gratitude and respect toward everyone willing to lend a hand. Without exception, every women on this council has demonstrated these traits — the warrior’s first requisite.
I have laid my activist credentials before you and shared some of the most extraordinary gifts of my life so that you will understand in your deepest being precisely what I mean when I say to you — the women leaders of CRHI — I am honoured to serve with you.
We are right where we belong.
William Thomas
Hornby Island
This letter may be freely distributed with these additional notes:
CRHI = Concerned Residents of Hornby Island; “consciousness-stricken” is not a typo.
willthomsonline.net