A Green Dream on 4/25/02
by starlene rankin

how sweet it is to be loved by you...
the song plays behind me,
dear brother james taylor
hits it on the mark!

it's all about love right?
it's all about being loving,
about doing the loving thing,
it's about loving yourself
and about loving our beautiful planet

scientists say people come from sponges
that's pretty cool!
what nice life,
sitting around in the water
being totally beautiful
and swaying back and forth
and watchin' all the fish.

shower the people you love with love,
show them the way that you feel
harmony is in the song
but where is harmony out there
out the window,
in my american culture?

what can we do?
how can we get our spongeness back?
how can we connect with our organic-ness?

i appreciate what's on this planet
delicious oranges
incredible trees
freakin' groovy flowers
amazing creatures
then, there's us, humans
funny, intelligent, creative
there are so many things to appreciate

when i was a young mother in the seventies, i banded together with other folks
to run a natural foods cooperative because we didn't want to feed our children the processed food that was available to us in the regular grocery stores. we organized a way to make good and healthy food available to us and others in our neighborhood.

i love the way coops work: sharing responsibility and sharing benefits and making organizational decisions in a democratic and fair way. cooperatives are a great way to get business done because we can get our basic needs, like food, housing, education, utilities, transportation, clothing and other stuff, met cooperatively and democratically and in a way that respects and loves the earth. it's the Green thing! it's the Loving thing!

how sweet it is to be loved by you
how sweet it is to love you

watch for future editions of
a green dream
*more coming about other kinds of coops

om nama shivaya
starlene rankin
chicago, illinois