1991- It’s No Time for Scapegoats - Windstar Note

I have often found myself deeply immersed in trying to understand what it is about Windstar that makes it different. I know from my own work that I am deeply committed to the Earth and its mysterious bonding with the human spirit. I can see that many traditions and ways of knowing held by other cultures are often closer to what seems to be a healthy relationship with the Earth than is exhibited in today’s industrialized nations. Yet none of these other cultures, as I understand them, has all the answers either. If Windstar is to help save the planet, it is destined to fall upon each of us to participate in creating a new set of ways of being with the Earth. I think this is part of Windstar’s special responsibility and role – helping to define new relationships among people and the living systems of the Earth on which we depend.

You probably know that Windstar grew out of a childhood dream of mine to create a place in the mountains where my friends could come and talk. In the beginning, that is what it became, with remarkable people from all over the world coming together to share ideas and plans for creating healthy environments of all kinds. We laughed, anguished, worked and sang of the possibilities that can create a future of peace and fulfillment for all of lifekind. We pledged ourselves to be for things that work, rather than against those that do not.

We taught each other to look at the concept of “you and me”. It’s not the choice between you or me that will create a healthy future. It’s learning to choose ways of living that make it possible for you and me to live together on a peaceful planet.

Bucky Fuller with John at Windstar

Bucky Fuller was a mentor throughout this process. He kept urging us toward joy and possibility whenever doubt and despair crowded into our thoughts. When I reflect on those beginnings, it is clear that Windstar has always been committed to service an environmentally sustainable future through a broad vision of peace and health. We are concerned about the inner environments of humanity as well as the ecological environments of our common home, Earth. The way we are with ourselves in our relationships, businesses, and communities is as important as the way we treat the physical environment that sustains us. We have a responsibility to create healthy environments in all dimensions of our lives.

We are emerging from an era during which we have spent a lot of time pointing fingers and venting accusations. The reality is that neither blame nor guilt offers promise for a peaceful and environmentally sustainable future. What we can and must do, I believe, is to look for viable opportunities to create new options for the future. Integrity charts a more authentic course for human nature than does aggression or deceit. The path of wholeness is becoming more clear and is being chosen by increasing numbers of people, although Rambo still seems easier for many people to understand than Gandhi.

Gandhi

I do not believe it is an illusion to think that we can achieve peace within our human families on the Earth, or that we can achieve peace with the Earth itself. The crisis in the Middle East, deforestation of so many acres of the Earth, the continuing plague of devastating hunger and disease, and the seeming erosion of conscience are all problems created by the ways in which we think.

·        It used to be customary and reflexive to think that the world’s problems were somehow outside of each of us. It was someone else’s fault and someone else would solve it. Now I know that there is no one else to do the job.  Just as there is no “away” in ecological systems, there is no scapegoat for the problems of the world. The problems are not outside us. They begin inside us.

Each one of us is responsible for the ways we think and behave. We can have our Earth Days, rallies and attempts at election reform- but if we are not whole within ourselves, and whole within our vision, these events will be ineffective in the long run.  I will continue to search for wholeness through my songs, and will work to assure that it will live as the spirit of Windstar. I invite all of you to work with me to make the world whole, beginning with each of us in our own lives.

John Denver

Windstar Vision - March-April 1991