Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
In ancient Roman religion, Ceres was a goddess of agriculture, grain crops, fertility and motherly relationships. The following myth tells how her daughter Proserpina was abducted by the ruler of the underworld, forced to become his wife, but with Ceres’ help, she watches over the springtime growth of crops and the cycle of life, death, and rebirth or renewal.
Marcus Lopez Senior, member of the Barbareno Chumash Nation in California, speaks with Jack Eidt from SoCal 350 on climate chaos and the impacts on the Chumash people from fires, mudslides, colonization, land theft, gentrification, and offshore drilling.
Southern California Gas Company was responsible for a recent chemical spill in the Rancho Park area of West Los Angeles that caused a strong gas-like odor to blanket surrounding neighborhoods. The Los Angeles City Council directed various agencies to investigate, with area residents and two councilmen voicing heavy criticism of SoCal Gas’s handling of post-spill communications.
Jack Eidt writes on the California wildfires and their dangerous connection with climate change, melting of Arctic sea ice, and the drying out of the US West Coast. We must reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, get cracking on a just transition to an economy based on clean, efficient, renewable energy, and start making our homes and lives more extreme-climate-resilient.
David Lamfrom, Director of the California Desert and Wildlife Programs from the National Parks Conservation Association, speaks on preserving the Mojave Desert and opposing the Cadiz Water Project aiming to mine and ship water through a pipeline and sell it to Southern California communities for more development.
An exhibition by artist Cristóbal Valecillos in Los Angeles invoked the Dancing Devils of Yare, a 400-year old Venezuelan tradition celebrating life, the triumph of good over evil, and renewal. His provocative interpretation of the diablo masks, hand-sculpted from repurposed waste materials, takes aim at culture and consumption in the US, a plea for overcoming.
We feature the popularized story version of the French fairy tale ‘La Belle et La Bête’ (Beauty and the Beast), which became a classic 1946 Jean Cocteau film accompanied by composer Philip Glass’s mesmerizing 1994 score.