2010-06-15 - Anthony Marr's CARE-7 tour blog #21 - Florida

2010-06-15

Anthony Marr's CARE-7 tour blog #21

Florida



(What I encountered on the road: Georgia Outlaw biker wearing Nazi helmet.)

It is now past mid-night. After a full day's drive starting from Orlando, Florida, at 9 am, with a lunch stop at Jungle Friends in Gainesville FL around noon, I finally arrived at Pisgah, Alabama, around 11 pm.


(From concentration camp...


... to the slaughter house.)

I'm sitting alone at the kitchen table of an uninhabited farm house over a century old, in the middle of nowhere. It is totally silent, without even the sighing of a breeze or the rustling of leaves. The back of my mind half expected to hear a "bump in the night", or to see an apparition in a dark corner of the hallway.


(In day light the next morning: A barn twice as old as me.)

In the last two weeks I've endured severe attacks from whom I used to consider friends, with twisted truths and outright lies, one saying that I issued death threats against them and their families, when it was a mere expletive uttered by a justly angry woman in Australia, while another sent emails to my tour hosts titled "Beware of Anthony Marr", the objective of which being not only to destroy my tour, but my reputation. And though many of these hosts have written me expressing their indignation and sympathy, saying how unethical the sender of the email was, I had adequate cause to lose much faith in friendship and humanity. But in the still of the night, with the stars glistening above, I feel personally insignificant, reducing these slanders of the slanderers to less than the mere bites of mosquitoes.


(The 19th century farm house where I spend the night.)

I reread the cosmically inspired poem titled "Worldly Crimes Amidst Celestial Glory", which I wrote and published in June 10, and was elevated by it to the cosmic plane.



In the eyes of the godly from afar
our Earth shines like a bright blue star
whose celestial light masks the pain
suffusing her days and nights and rain
beneath the perpetual coagulating scar
of the abused, the maimed, and the slain.



But these eyes do water as they behold
in the deep darkness of the human fold
the struggle of the evil versus the good
where compassion meets the heart of wood
and cruelty faces the kind and the bold
while the universe unfolds as it should.



But for those who live upon the earth
it is a matter of deep personal worth.
As she wounds or heals or kills or saves,
whether he liberates or if he enslaves,
it's meaning and purpose of their birth
and fate and destiny unto their graves.



This is my CARE-7 tour blog #21. It reminds me of the turning of the centuries from the 20th to the 21st. When Y2K was happening, we had so much hope for our future. The new century held so much promise - the dawning of a new age, the attainment of Utopia, the realization of Nirvana on Earth, the final elevation of humanity and its ascension to the stars.

The reality is of course far different. We are wandering blindly into the greatest peril a million-fold worse than anything mankind has ever faced, with our children following trustingly in our footsteps. Even Mother Earth herself has not known what is to come, save but one shattering calamity 251 million years ago - the End Permian Mass Extinction, caused indeed by global warming, which terminated 75% of all land species, and 95% of all marine species - the 3rd and most calamitous mass extinct in the history of life on Earth, which made the 5th, the one that eliminated the dinosaurs 64 million years ago, look like a minor cull. And the current 6th mass extinction threatens to equal or exceed this 3rd. Yes, it could be that severe, with up to 17 million of the current estimated 20 million species at serious risk, all due to the irresponsible, foolish, and often evil actions of one species - our own - which could easily join the ranks of the forever extinct.

In the scheme of things, all the anti-cruelty laws and ethical standards won't amount to a list of files on a shattered CD if there were no animals left to protect and no humans left to civilize.

Our Mother Earth is still a beautiful sentient being, but she is critically afflicted with the Six Planetary Diseases (see www.HOPE-CARE.org) and declining fast. Unless she be healed immediately or sooner, she could lose within decades millions of species of beauty evolved by nature through the eons. She could lose her biomass, her biodiversity, her life force and even her life. To say the least, she could lose all the cultures and civilizations, and all their arts, sciences and philosophies, created by her species Homo Sapiens - "Man the Wise". And her species Homo Sapiens, the cause of her six planetary diseases, could lose itself.

Since I visited the Wildlife Care Center in Fort Lauderdale, I've been city hopping almost daily:

- June 4 Friday, back to Sara Acord's and Mitch Day's place in Largo FL for another intended event,
- June 7 Monday, talk in Miami hosted by Laura Reskin
- June 9 Wednesday, talk at the Hippocrates Center in West Palm Beach FL, organized by Katharine Clark,
- June 10 Thursday, talk at the Soma Center in West Palm Beach FL, organized by Katharine Clark,
- June 11 Friday, talk at the Soma Center in Lake Worth FL, organized by Katharine Clark,
- June 12 Saturday, video interview by Jo Maldonado in Orlando FL,
- June 12 Saturday, visit to Christin Burford's Creating Animal Respect Education (CARE) in Orlando,
- June 12 Saturday, talk in Mirium Barnes' place in Windermere FL, organized by Carla Wilson,
- June 13 Sunday, visit to and talk in the Jungle Friends Primate Sanctuary, Executive Director Kari Bagnall,
- June 14 Monday, talk in William C. Weinaug's Wekova Island Resort in Longwood FL, organized by Jo Maldonado.
- June 15 Tuesday, drive to Pisgah AL.

Can't say I didn't make maximum use of my time in Florida, nor that Catherine Garneau did not do a fantastic job organizing it.

Through all this lecturing, I have brought my speech [Homo Sapiens! SAVE YOUR EARTH!] to maturity at last, ending in the way to the optimal human destiny, by which my audiences were "blown away", "awed", "enchanted", and "enlightened" - INTEGRATIVE TRANSCENDENCE.

And by Integrative Transcendence, I have maintained my faith in spite of all.

Following are pictures that will tell the story:

Largo FL:


(2 of Sara's and Mitch's 3 ferrets.)

On the way to Miami via the Everglades:


(Into the Everglades.)






(Dark side of Everglades National Park.)






(The Green Hornet in "Alligator Alley".)














(The Green Hornet blocking boat ramp to protect the manatees :)

The gorgeous flame and banyan trees in Miami:







- June 9 Wednesday, talk at the Hippocrates Center in West Palm Beach FL, organized by Katharine Clark.


(Katharine Clark in her office in the Hippocrates Center in West Palm Beach.)


(Luncheon talk at the Hippocrates Center in West Palm Beach.)

- June 10 Thursday, talk at the Soma Center in West Palm Beach FL, organized by Katharine Clark
- June 11 Friday, talk at the Soma Center in Lake Worth FL, organized by Katharine Clark


(Soma Center proprietor Michael Coupland introducing my talk.)


(The audience in the West Palm Beach Soma Center talk.)





- June 12 Saturday, video interview by Jo Maldonado in Orlando FL,
- June 12 Saturday, visit to Christin Burford's Creating Animal Respect Education (CARE) in Orlando


See www.TheCAREFoundation.org


(Christin Burford, Director, with one of her feathered children.)


(Eat those who slander, panther. Oops! Another "death threat"!)


(Before stick, first try carrot, says parrot.)


(Rarer than going to the moon - petting a racoon.)


(Holding a creature of the wild, a tender nature's child.)


(Tummy scratch for a spider monkey, rewarding yet funky.)


("See ya later, alligator.")


("Back in a while, crocodile." - considered more aggressive than alligators.)

- June 12 Saturday, talk in Mirium Barnes' place in Windermere FL, organized by Carla Wilson







- June 13 Sunday, visit to and talk in the Jungle Friends Primate Sanctuary, Executive Director Kari Bagnall


(Kari Bagnall showing Anthony Marr the jungle friends.)


(Sandy, who once used her sex appeal to disarm a hunter.)




























(Kari Bagnall introducing my talk.)




(The intern Jadie, in black, from the UK, has donated her salary back to Jungle Friends for the monkeys.)



- June 14 Monday, talk in William C. Weinaug's Wekova Island Resort in Longwood FL, near Orlando, organized by Jo Maldonado.




(Jo Maldonado and William C. Weinaug. William tells us that his resort, Wekiva Island, is near-carbon-neutral)





In my path ahead are many more speeches to make, many more hearts and minds to win, and a whole planet to save. I have never felt so fulfilled, never so very much alive.


Anthony Marr, Founder and President
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
Global Anti-Hunting Coalition (GAHC)
Anthony-Marr@HOPE-CARE.org
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.MySpace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.YouTube.com/AnthonyMarr
www.myspace.com/Anti-Hunting_Coalition
www.facebook.com/Anthony.Marr.001
www.facebook.com/Global_Anti-Hunting_Coalition
www.HomoSapiensSaveYourEarth.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com (search for “Anthony Marr Heal Our Planet Earth”)
www.ARConference.org