The story of my body is the story of the planet, and I need your help to tell it.
My name is Aurora Levins Morales. I have spent my writing career drawing connections between the intimate and the global, between the struggles of my own life as a chronically ill, Caribbean born, Jewish, woman of color artist and single mother, the struggles of humans everywhere, and the endangered planetary web of life. I tell stories, mostly through the medium of writing, but also through visual art, public speaking, and performance— stories that reveal difficult truths, but above all, foster hope, and an expanded sense of possibility, connection, and adventure.
My writing reaches people in ways that purely informational articles can’t. I make the critical issues of our time into personal stories that enter the heart as well as the mind, and lead to engagement and change. My stories are crafted from my own experience, from my deep and broad knowledge of world history, my profound sense of ecology, and from listening to a wide variety of people, and weaving their tales into my own. I bring my personal truth to the big questions we face as a species: how will we live with one another, with the rest of life, with the finite waters, forests, air? How will we share the precious necessities, take care of each other, resolve conflicts? How will we end war and heal the traumatized, and stop the corporate plundering that underlies so many of our ills? The story of my body really is the story of the planet. As I travel around this country and others in my tiny house, I will be talking about human health as a measure of planetary health, about deforestation and malaria, the stress of endless struggles and diabetes, global warming and chronic inflammation, small scale farming and the preservation of soil, epilepsy and organophosphate pesticides invented hand in hand with military nerve gas.
My name is Aurora Levins Morales. I have spent my writing career drawing connections between the intimate and the global, between the struggles of my own life as a chronically ill, Caribbean born, Jewish, woman of color artist and single mother, the struggles of humans everywhere, and the endangered planetary web of life. I tell stories, mostly through the medium of writing, but also through visual art, public speaking, and performance— stories that reveal difficult truths, but above all, foster hope, and an expanded sense of possibility, connection, and adventure.
My writing reaches people in ways that purely informational articles can’t. I make the critical issues of our time into personal stories that enter the heart as well as the mind, and lead to engagement and change. My stories are crafted from my own experience, from my deep and broad knowledge of world history, my profound sense of ecology, and from listening to a wide variety of people, and weaving their tales into my own. I bring my personal truth to the big questions we face as a species: how will we live with one another, with the rest of life, with the finite waters, forests, air? How will we share the precious necessities, take care of each other, resolve conflicts? How will we end war and heal the traumatized, and stop the corporate plundering that underlies so many of our ills? The story of my body really is the story of the planet. As I travel around this country and others in my tiny house, I will be talking about human health as a measure of planetary health, about deforestation and malaria, the stress of endless struggles and diabetes, global warming and chronic inflammation, small scale farming and the preservation of soil, epilepsy and organophosphate pesticides invented hand in hand with military nerve gas.
I was born on a coffee farm in 1954, in the age of “better living through chemistry,” with a liver that couldn’t handle the job of clearing pesticides from my blood. Dieldrin, which is linked to the cancer that killed my mother, is used to give lab rats epilepsy for research purposes. Parathion, used against mosquitoes, can also "kindle" seizures. I started having partial seizures as a child and full blown "grand mal" seizures as a young adult. I live with chronic muscle and joint pain, spasms, and exhaustion, and have unpredictable and often severe reactions to medications, household cleaning products, shampoos, laundry detergents, adhesives and many other common substances. I've had multiple head injuries from seizure falls, and in 2007 I had a stroke. One of my doctors told me that the pesticide powders that clung to my father's clothing when he picked me up are probably still lodged in my body, while stress hormones--from sexual violence, migration, racism, sexism, single parenting on too little money, fear of my own government, fear of war, fear of losing health coverage--wear away at my tissues, unbalance my endocrine system, and keep my body in a state of red alert.
Reckless industrial development in the name of profit and progress has wounded our landscapes and our bodies. Violence engendered by greed rips at our families, communities, hearts. I am sick from the same toxins that have sickened millions of people, tens of thousands of other species, and are sickening the planet.
I am also entranced by urban gardens filled with organic tomatoes of medicinal teas, inspired by the revolt of fast food workers demanding a living wage, nourished by the constitutional right to health care of Cubans, Venezuelans, Ecuadoreans, elated at the return of indigenous lands in Bolivia and the melting down of captured Venezuelan guns into beams to build houses for the poor. My story is not just a cry of alarm. It's a story about hope, about commitment, about people with the courage to try things, about people who stand up for each other, share what they have, reach for something better for all of us, a different version of human nature.
The Vehicle for Change is my story incubator, both a sanctuary and a laboratory, a way to heal my body, calm my spirit and focus my creativity and conviction where it will have the greatest impact.
Reckless industrial development in the name of profit and progress has wounded our landscapes and our bodies. Violence engendered by greed rips at our families, communities, hearts. I am sick from the same toxins that have sickened millions of people, tens of thousands of other species, and are sickening the planet.
I am also entranced by urban gardens filled with organic tomatoes of medicinal teas, inspired by the revolt of fast food workers demanding a living wage, nourished by the constitutional right to health care of Cubans, Venezuelans, Ecuadoreans, elated at the return of indigenous lands in Bolivia and the melting down of captured Venezuelan guns into beams to build houses for the poor. My story is not just a cry of alarm. It's a story about hope, about commitment, about people with the courage to try things, about people who stand up for each other, share what they have, reach for something better for all of us, a different version of human nature.
The Vehicle for Change is my story incubator, both a sanctuary and a laboratory, a way to heal my body, calm my spirit and focus my creativity and conviction where it will have the greatest impact.
What's Environmental Illness?
 Smokestacks
Since the end of WWII a vast number of new molecules have been released into our environment and entered our bodies. It’s one of the fastest changes to our habitat in human history. Although we know some of these substances are outright poisons, 95% of the chemicals in circulation have never been tested to find out what they could do to our bodies or our world. In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control tested the blood of a broad sample of the U.S. public to screen for 148 known toxic chemicals: almost everyone had almost all of them. And that's only what they decided to test for.
All this exposure is changing some of our bodies. Environmental Illness, also known as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, affects many of the body's defense systems, and the symptoms are neurological, immunological, digestive, respiratory and endocrine. We become sensitized to small amounts of toxins, and many substances that may not be toxic at all. According to one study least 35 million people in the U.S. have it. This doesn't include all the people with conditions that are at least partially environmental, like asthma and cancer. Unregulated chemicals in our environment are causing a public health crisis. They're also causing a housing crisis. Indoor air quality is often far more toxic than outdoor air, even in heavily polluted areas. Household chemicals and conventional construction materials and furnishings release toxic fumes that disrupt our hormones and nervous systems, cause birth defects, cancer many other conditions. 60% of environmentally ill people in a nationwide study had experienced homelessness, lived in tents or cars, or been forced to stay in homes that made them seriously ill. In 2010, I became one of them. Mold in the structure of my apartment building, and fumes from a laundry room that vented opposite my front door, made me violently ill. I left my home of fourteen years overnight, and spent months living in offices and living rooms, looking for a home I could tolerate. Like me, people with EI often spend years and thousands of dollars adapting homes that they end up walking away from. Sometime during that difficult summer, it occurred to me that I wanted a home I could take with me, so that I could move wherever I wanted, and the time, money and effort I invested in making a chemically safe sanctuary could come with me. A non-toxic home on wheels. I also wanted to create a model of what's possible: a home that's portable, healthy, and ecological. |
The Vehicle
 http://thistinyhouse.com/2009/building-a-mcs-safe-floor/
I have designed a vehicle for my stories and a sanctuary for my body: an ecological, sustainable, non-toxic home, built inside a 32 foot aluminum gooseneck trailer. It will be made of non-toxic materials, and meet my electrical needs with a solar photovoltaic system. I will have filters for air and water, and EMF shielded wiring, a special gasification wood stove that is virtually smokeless, a composting toilet, a tiny greenhouse, and a solar oven.  Casa ©2012 Aurora Levins Morales
My traveling studio home is more than transportation and shelter.
It also embodies possibility and innovation. It’s a manifestation of hope, a solid, three-dimensional expression of what I write about. As I move around the country and beyond, the fact of this vehicle, and the need for it, will underline and expand my words, to help me talk about what we’re facing as a planet, and how to face it. I am a storyteller. I know the power of my craft to shift how we see ourselves, each other, and the world. This is what the planet and my body are crying out for. This is what my traveling safe place will let me do. Learn more...
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