So, many years ago, there was a book released by the name of Rainshine. Only 150 copies were ever made, and I still have four or five of those. Well, that book is about to be re-released, in recognition of the new company that I’ve founded and the new books that I’ve been building/writing in relation to my time in China. Indeed, there isn’t much changed other than a bit of tightening up of the packaging and the bits that hold it together.

I’ve got the first copy of the new run on its way to me now. It’s been printed and shipped and I’m keeping my eyes open for the package in the mail. Very excited.

In the meantime, I’d like to start today off with a poem to recall the content.

Gary the Squirrel

Gary a kind, little squirrel, was a hard working man.

He worked in the daytime, and ran on foraged bran.

At the beginning of the summer, once every year,

He got one day free to do with as he pleased.

This year, he went to the sea.

A picnic was his plan, for his day of R & R.

It happened this way every year, his friends would come from afar.

But this year his R.S.V.P. ’s were nil. Not a one of his friends wrote back.

He wondered how it could be, he thought to himself “Maybe it’s me.”

Then out of the forest came a CRACK!

A gunshot was heard, by Gary the Squirrel.

He then saw quite plainly, he was the last creature in the whole wide world

Left to run around free, with the wind and the trees and the sky.

Gary then shuddered at the realization that he too, soon would die.

Gary sat and cried, for quite a while

Down by the beach, for he was all alone.

He’d lived quite a life, this Gary we call a squirrel;

He had lived just long enough to see his world turn to stone.

The world’s forests are being stripped clean, by a particular creature called “Man.”

When asked of the reason behind this destruction, the answer is “Just because we can.”

Well, I don’t believe that ability transcends privileges.

I don’t see in nature where else that is true.

We are the only known creatures that destroy just for fun!

This destruction must stop.

But the beginning of the end, must be initiated by you.

…

Then Gary went on home, on that frigid, fateful day;

And he noticed a bit more plainly his passings along the way.

He noticed that there were no birds soaring in the mid-summer breeze.

The gasses now polluting the air were enough to make a man wheeze.

And with no clean air, we can have no clean dirt.

The rain from the sky, instead of helping, now hurts.

And with no clean dirt, we can have no clean water,

For the runoff runs off from the hills.

And without the water, where are we left?

And what about those, to which this is all theft?

Those like Gary and me, who are creatures of the Earth.

For we are in need of a homeostatic environment,

And have been ever since birth.