Today’s SuperForest Sundae celebrates the completion of the Plastiki’s voyage from San Fran to Sydney, the power and healing of Restorative Justice, and Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s uplifting video in which she gathers strangers and enlists them to make stuff together.
Plastiki voyage = success!
Back in March, we told you about the incredible Plastiki voyage that had recently set sail. [In case you missed it: Armed with a crazy idea - undoubtedly harder to execute than it sounds - the Plastiki crew fashioned themselves a catamaran using 12,500 plastic bottles and sailed it from San Francisco to Sydney]. Well, I’m happy to say they made it! Their heroic journey across the Pacific lasted 129 days. See the illustration below for a visual and numeric breakdown of the trip.
Brit David de Rothschild came up with idea as a way to get people to see waste, not as waste, but as a resource. Check out the video below of David onboard the Plastiki, talking about his hopes for a new way of looking at plastic.
I’d say all it takes to really change your thought pattern on this one is to pause before you pull out your purse. Look at what you’re buying has been packaged in. Bring your own cup, container, bag or box, and offer a polite and cheery “No, thanks” to unnecessary waste. Oh, if you’d like to pledge (or simply re-affirm) your allegiance to this cause, you can do so here, where every click means you’re committed!
A path to healing
As a young girl, I remember being completely stunned when I’d learned that Pope John Paul II had visited his would-be killer in jail, two years after the assassination attempt. I thought it was a remarkable display of forgiveness and mused on this for a long time afterward. This flashback came to me after I’d read about Restorative Justice programs in the UK, which sees victims and their offenders meet face to face for a chat.
Peter Woolf was a prolific offender, ensconced in a world of violence and depravity, who, by his own reckoning committed about 20,000 crimes. Then he burgled a house, fought with his victim and ended up in prison yet again. This time though it was different. Peter met with his victim, Will, in a restorative justice session that took place in the prison. The meeting changed both their lives for ever.
Will’s experience of meeting the person who attacked him meant he could move on from the trauma. Why Me? was started in 2008 as a way to deliver Restorative Justice to victims who want it.
The Beckoning of Lovely
You might recall catching Amy Krouse Rosenthal‘s Thought Bubble On Kindness on SuperForest recently. In this video, we see her put a call out to strangers, inviting them to meet her at the Bean sculpture in Chicago on 08/08/08 to make pretty things, friends, energetic entrances and more. This one’s the cherry on this week’s sundae.
Oh, and to see what Amy did one year after The Beckoning of Lovely, click here.
Happy Sunday.
April
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