It was a sad day in mid July, 2011… We were all stunned at the news that the Whatcom County Council had just approved unanimously to let the Whatcom County Parks build a parking lot in the heart of Lily Point. A plan to bring 30 cars at a time into the sacred grounds of Lily Point, where motorized vehicles have always been prohibited. My two closet friends wearily asked me, what can we do to help? Knowing the failure of Whatcom County to listen to the local community… my thoughts turned to someone outside the area that might help bring attention to this issue, and I said, “Get Me Joni Mitchell” I’d remembered that my friends had mentioned before that they knew Joni, through a friend of a friend. But the idea was really born out of something deeper, something that had caught my attention weeks before. Joni Mitchell put out a new CD in 2007 called Shine. One of the songs on the CD mentions a eagle. “Sparkle on the ocean, eagle at the top of a tree, those crazy crows always making a commotion, this land is home to me.” When I heard the song I knew that Joni was speaking from a voice of experience, and if she felt strongly about eagles, then she would care about Lily Point. My friends hung up the phone, and 3 days later I get a call, “Joni Mitchell is coming into Vancouver Airport, what do you want me to say to her?” So I started to explain what to say, and said I would get back to you. “No, she’s landing in an hour I need to know now!” So I went to the song “This Land” and told my friend just to explain about the parking lot at Lily Point, and how its going to be devastating to the eagles. Well Joni Mitchell was very receptive to my friend and they had a nice talk, and within their discussion Joni Mitchell said that we could use any of her music to help raise awareness about Lily Point. Joni said, “whatever I can do to help, just let me know.” It turned out that Joni Mitchell has a nesting pair of Bald Eagles on her property, and so yes my hunch was right… Joni Mitchell knows about eagles. So now I’m going to let the genius of Joni’s music help me to raise awareness and to take a stand that will impact eagles everywhere. I am honored and inspired by Joni Mitchell’s listening to our struggle, and thank her on behalf of the eagles of Lily Point, who soared just a little bit higher today.
One of the last movements to come out of the 60’s, was the raising of awareness towards our environment. One person encapsulated that whole period of change and creativity and laid it down in one song that captured the essence of a generation. That song was “Woodstock”, who Joni Mitchell wrote (even though she wasn’t there) and first performed it in Monterey. “We are stardust, we are golden, and we got to get ourselves back to the garden.” “going somewhere to lose the smog”, i.e. city living and all that comes with it. “I don’t know who I am but life is for learning, “
Well this spiritual raising song didn’t resonate with the people who cut down forests, polluted our water, and removed over 85% of the wetlands that support our fragile wildlife. Instead of stepping on the brakes, industry pushed its foot down harder.
So Joni seeing what was going on, upped the ante and released the song, Big Yellow Taxi. It was released just 10 days before the first Earth Day in 1970. Her message now was much more direct and aimed at the people who were a major part of the problem. “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” coupled with, “don’t it always seem to go you don’t know what you got til its gone”… yes we were losing more things everyday, only many people didn’t recognize it at the time.
“we are stardust , million year old carbon… caught in the devils bargain”, “and we got to get ourselves back to the garden” Yes the devils bargain, our dependence on oil and coal, the dirty cheap energy that powers our lifestyle. So for the next 40 years we have learned about the reality of this bargain, and we have listened to each and every President say we need to get out from under our independence on foreign oil. We were pacified with talk and didn’t notice that not only were things not changing towards us “getting back to the garden” we were really on a course to remove more of the garden.
It was the Vietnam war that raged on through all of this and taught us the meaning of collateral damage. In the natural world the solution to collateral damage was the Endangered Species Act. But as we are finding out in Whatcom County that policy statements and environmental law, and protection of wildlife is still taking a back seat to business as usual; which is if you pay for the permit and jump through a few hoops, you can do what you want. Whatcom County doesn’t even make you prove your development won’t be harmful, they just want the money.
So in 2007 Joni Mitchell releases the CD “Shine”, as in shine a light on all these things that are happening that nobody is taking action on. Joni Mitchell even re-recorded Big Yellow Taxi and put it on the new CD. Why? It was still relevant. In fact it is more relevant today then it was 40 years ago when she wrote it. The fact that it is still relevant speaks volumes towards just how perilous a position we find ourselves in today.
So we are going to raise awareness about the truth of what is really going on at Lily Point. Like all issues today, there is far more to consider then what appears on the surface. The eagle is symbolic of seeing the big picture, and with the help of Joni Mitchell, who epitomizes all the eagles attributes, vision, seeing what’s important, peace, a guardian spirit, a guide who’s clarion call can lead us “back to the garden”, if we only listen. You see Lily Point is not just about eagles, its about us respecting the right for eagles and all creatures within the eagles domain to exist without human interference.
Thank you Joni Mitchell for your light and spirit.