The role of poetry and images in creating recycling and resources saving awareness

The role of poetry and images in creating recycling and resources saving awareness
Enrique Posada Restrepo
INDISA S.A.
eposadar@indisa.com.co
Medellín, Colombia
September 2009

A NEW APPROACH (1)
New methods are required to create a more conscientious attitude towards recycling and resource savings, which can be used in education and in motivational activities.
This talk suggests a new approach based on the idea that the mind works in two levels of awareness and that the individuals and the human groups will act according to their belief systems, created in these two levels.

A NEW APPROACH (2)
The current educational framework is too much based on the logical mind and on the experiential basis for reasoning and arguing.
The new method proposes a more poetic, artistic, imaginary approach, so that the analogical mind will clearly be part of the learning and training process

A NEW APPROACH (3)
With this, it is expected that two major belief systems will support committed action in the environmental front from the individuals and the groups:

The logical, experimentally supported system.
The idealistic, poetic, visionary, creative, belief system.

POETRY AND IMAGES (1)
There was a great North American poet who gave rise to a literature current that opens consciousness towards nature: Henry David Thoreau.
He was inspired to write its classical poetic work, Walden, in 1854, which has also inspired many people.

As Edward Wilson said
“Henry David Thoreau was thought by many in his own time, and many in our own, to be an eccentric who escaped from the mainstream of real life in order to dream. He was the opposite of that. He understood intuitively what we now know in more concrete and objective terms, that humanity is a biological species and thus exquisitely adapted to the natural world that cradled us. Thoreau was the scientific observer and lyrical expositor who hit upon the power of this conjunction between science and the humanities”

Nature writing is one of the major innovations of American literature, which also includes Rachel Carson, the initiator of modern environmental awareness.
She wrote Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an large portion of the American public and spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy—leading to a ban on DDT and other pesticides—and to the environmental movement. It eventually led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in USA.

Other significant figure is Ansel Adams, the American photographer and environmentalist, well known for his beautiful photographs of the American West and Yosemite National Park.
When first visiting Yosemite he wrote “the splendor of Yosemite burst upon us and it was glorious... One wonder after another descended upon us... There was light everywhere... A new era began for me."

Ansel Adams: Teton Mountain and Snake River

Those people´s work offers three powerful insights:

People are able to connect and to experience new and profound realities when allowed to feel and see themselves as poets and image makers.
This opens new spaces for changing view points and for expressing new belief systems.
These experiences are more relevant when shared in human groups, with the learning process and the view point changes being highly exponential in this group environment.

TWO LEVELS OF ONSCIOUSNESS (1)

The two aspects
With the eyes, with the hands, by smelling, I carefully observe
and with the soul I fall in love and let feelings overflow.
Thus I go through the world, fearless,
with my desires surely fulfilled,
so that my enormous presence does not destroy
the earth that sustains it.

View of proposed recycling centre in Medellín, Colombia and current ways of working

Mysteries
What hides in the fathomless minds of the intelligent ones?
Will it be that deep connections wait to be shaken, illuminated,
or will it be that they remain hidden for ever,
awaiting for a call that does not arrive,
or for a bold confidence that animates and wakes them up?
Dr. by Andrés Felipe Palacio

Listening: the hidden side of language
No matter what kind of job we have, in listening resides hidden potentialities.
If we are recyclers attending a training course, or their trainers, or common people being motivated to participate in a recycling scheme, listening will be crucial.
The author has found that poetry opens people to listening, that making drawings and pothooks are valuable venues to creativity listening, the kind of listening that opens people to new viewpoints.
Dr. by Sandra Aristizábal y Manuela López

Dr. by Fernando Arboleda
The mind in love with the body does not destroy the environment

She, the body, observes his deep ideas;
He, the mind, contemplates the curves in her tights.
She provokes curiosity, he responds to intuition;
She says : I feel you, he responds: I think of you.
Juan Camilo Restrepo
Dr. by Juan Camilo Restrepo

The deceit of information transmission
It could be that we only see what our sensorial and nervous systems allow us to see.
Seeing and understanding and accepting could be vastly related to our belief systems, that act as information filters.
The author has found that poetry and images open people to interpreting situations in a more expansive and visionary way, helping them to see things in terms of possibilities
Dr. by Claudia Marcela Cárdenas

Provoking to express feelings and to reach synthesis
Daring to express things in a visual or poetic form, frees people from old fears and put them in a special category: that of the creative people, one that they thought belonged only to famous artists and writers.
Expressing ideas with drawings and pothooks (which any one can dare to do) or with poetic images, can be quite powerful, as it allows for unexpected synthesis and visionary ideas and meaningful approaches.
Dr. by Lucía Aristizábal

TOWARDS INTEGRATION AND ETHICAL BEHAVIOUOR (1)
Hands of a well illustrated observer
A wise person said that we make things
as we see them;
when observing my hands,
crossed by lots of wrinkles and lines,
I deduce that I am marking the footpaths of life,
tracks of my open, bold, well travelled hands.
When kindly hearing my words
and when caressing my visions and my dreams,
I deduce that I am inventing hidden sensations;
sounds that discover senses of silence
and that intuit enchanted and promising routes.

Helping the establishment of creative belief systems
Beliefs are very personal and people feel, in general, very proud about their particular belief systems, no matter if they received them by indoctrination or social influence or by education or by their own deliberate decision.
They will tend to keep them fixed as personal paradigms. However, if people are to contribute to a sustainable universe, major shifts in beliefs and consciousness are required. So, how does one attain those changes in an acceptable way that do not violate one´s personal integrity?

If you could give me a kiss of wisdom, my senses would open and I will lost the veil that clouds me and stops my action. With this kiss, we could be in love for ever, beyond death and memory.
Words and drawing by Alejandro Bernal

Leaves in first plane
When any lost leaf becomes legendary personage
which attracts the verses of a poet
and the loving glances of an artist,
reaching therefore first planes
in the busy agenda of life,
the destructive rites of the proud
and the ways of stingy men
will become beautiful images and songs
that summon science and spirit.
Thus Earth renders glory,
she becomes immense and promised
unto those who deal with her with appreciation.
Drawing by Claudia Molina

The untouchable ones
In old India, of ancestral ways,
It was necessary to clean the latrines,
dense with rejected feces and smelly shit
and for that, there were the untouchable ones.
Gandhi, an immense small man,
in an intense instant of poetry,
saw in those men the eternal being,
the origin of beauty and goodness.
We, intelligent modern beings,
reject, hurl and hide things,
covering them with materials and earth
in untouchable mountains, far away.
Will it be that leaving the poet get close
and letting the artist inside shine,
we will realize with clever wisdom
the enormous wealth that thus we lose?
Jawaharl Nehru chats with Gandhi
The bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore with Gandhi en 1940

THE APPLICATION OF THE METHOD (1)

Start with a creative personal presentation.
Give a short talk, introducing the theme using poetry and images in the presentation.
Ask the participants to write a poem, with at least four lines, in which people can express some feelings, which could be related to the theme of the presentation, but not necessarily so. Let them feel easy about this.
Ask them also to make a drawing or to make pothooks related again to something meaningful to you as the facilitator of the shop.
Now ask them to elaborate a project, or to give ideas in relationship to the given purpose of the shop, whichever it might be.

Let the participants share their works and their feelings.
If possible, pick up the materials from the participants and elaborate a paper with their poems, projects and ideas, organized and categorized and with your presentation as a unifying theme and your written conclusions and feedback.
Send the paper to the organization for which the participants work and to them.
This will enhance the possibilities of people really appreciating the experience and its effects.

Cordial Saludo.
La CORPORACIÓN SOCIAL FRAGUA le invita a las Tertulias que se vienen realizando mensualmente.
El próximo 25 de Abril se llevará a cabo el conversatorio sobre reciclaje y poesía, a cargo del Investigador Enrique Posada Restrepo.
Agradecemos si replican este mensaje a quien pueda interesar.
Cordialmente,
Invitation to a shop with The Social Corporation La Fragua, at Medellín

Delight in manjar
Certain earthworm describes with her nose
that that as well licks with her reverse.
In her lucidity, she then always leaves
one nourishing nut layer to pay back
and therefore, what little serves for us,
the very humble earthworm
enjoys with affability,
leaving in her route what she does not like,
and that that we do like:
that valuable fertilizer
that makes beautiful the garden.
Work by Ligia Sierra in a shop with The Medellín Waste Enterprise (EEVVMM)

THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION
¿QUESTIONS?

ANNEX
SAMPLE OF SHOPS

TALLER NÚMERO 1
LA MENTE, EL CUERPO
LO CONSCIENTE, LO INCONSCIENTE
Escribe un poema en el cual la mente se declara enamorada del cuerpo y le promete amor eterno, más allá de la muerte.
Luego plantea un proyecto nuevo en el cual se logra que las personas se comprometan con el planeta y el manejo sostenible de los recursos más allá de su muerte.
Haz un dibujo en el cual la conciencia despierta, que es consciente de las cosas, se comunica con lo que se hace de forma no consciente
Luego plantea una acción que te puede llevar a un compromiso consciente con el reciclaje y la conservación de los recursos

TALLER NÚMERO 1
LA MENTE, EL CUERPO
LO CONSCIENTE, LO INCONSCIENTE
Plantea un proyecto nuevo en el cual se logra que las personas se comprometan con el planeta y el manejo sostenible de los recursos más allá de su muerte.
Plantea una acción que te puede llevar a un compromiso consciente con el reciclaje y la conservación de los recursos

TALLER NÚMERO 2
LA PERCEPCIÓN MENTAL : PENSAMIENTOS Y SENSACIONES
LA PERCEPCIÓN SENSORIAL : SENTIMIENTOS, SENTIR, INTUICIÓN
Escribe una poesía basada en el siguiente tema: eres una lombriz que come unas cáscaras de naranja, que está encantada con este delicioso alimento que te llega continuamente en una cama de compostaje.
Luego plantea un proyecto para aprovechar los residuos orgánicos de la ciudad.
Haz un dibujo en el cual el pensamiento lógico y la intuición se ponen de acuerdo para vivir y trabajar unidos.
Luego plantea acciones para aumentar los ingresos de las personas que viven del manejo de las basuras y los desechos

TALLER NÚMERO 2
LA PERCEPCIÓN MENTAL : PENSAMIENTOS Y SENSACIONES
LA PERCEPCIÓN SENSORIAL : SENTIMIENTOS, SENTIR, INTUICIÓN
Plantea un proyecto para aprovechar los residuos orgánicos de la ciudad.
Plantea acciones para aumentar los ingresos de las personas que viven del manejo de las basuras y los desechos

TALLER NÚMERO 3
EXPRESIÓN VERBAL, HABLADA, CONTAR, ESCRIBIR
EXPRESIÓN NO VERBAL, GESTOS, DIBUJOS, GARABATOS
Escribe una poesía para un familiar tuyo dándole ánimo para el futuro
Plantea un proyecto para que haya jardines en la ciudad
Dibuja unos garabatos que expresen tus deseos de vivir en un ambiente armonioso y tranquilo
Señala acciones para que la ciudad cuide su patrimonio cultural y ambiental

TALLER NÚMERO 3
EXPRESIÓN VERBAL, HABLADA, CONTAR, ESCRIBIR
EXPRESIÓN NO VERBAL, GESTOS, DIBUJOS, GARABATOS
Plantea un proyecto para que haya jardines en la ciudad
Señala acciones para que la ciudad cuide su patrimonio cultural y ambiental

TALLER NÚMERO 4
VALORES DE EXPANSIÓN, DOMINIO, COMPETENCIA, CANTIDAD
VALORES DE CONSERVACIÓN, ASOCIACIÓN, COOPERACIÓN, CALIDAD
Escribe un poema sobre la gran cantidad de estrellas que hay en el cielo y sobre el poco tiempo que les dedicamos a mirarlas y a apreciarlas
Plantea un proyecto para que el río y las quebradas de la ciudad se conviertan en patrimonio apreciado por todos.
Dibuja lo que sería un relleno sanitario manejado con calidad.
Señala acciones para que la ciudad se apoye más en las cooperativas y asociaciones para el manejo de sus problemas

TALLER NÚMERO 4
VALORES DE EXPANSIÓN, DOMINIO, COMPETENCIA, CANTIDAD
VALORES DE CONSERVACIÓN, ASOCIACIÓN, COOPERACIÓN, CALIDAD
Plantea un proyecto para que el río y las quebradas de la ciudad se conviertan en patrimonio apreciado por todos.
Señala acciones para que la ciudad se apoye más en las cooperativas y asociaciones para el manejo de sus problemas