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Aging, Awakening, awareness, Body, Change, Christianity, climate concerns, coal smoke, Consciousness, Country Living, Domestic terrorism, If All lives Matter, Orange Sludge in Durango, Politics, Prayer, Racism, Self Compassion, Shamelessly linking to tragic river spill to promote blog', water pollution
It’s August and feels like Autumn the night air is crisp and demanding of a warm binkie, which I’m sitting beneath and watching Tomo, our old and eldering black Lab fall into a deep sleep burrowed into her bed on the deck under the stars. I am burrowed too and the air is cool with a hint of Sage and sweet grasses and I think maybe I could just stay here all night. But then Tomo shivers and I start to shiver and its time to go back inside. There are stairs she must manage so when its time to go inside its important to give her time to arrive. To transition from deep canine sleep space to making her legs work space. I need that time to arrive too. As I get older it seems I need more time just as Tomo does to re-orient in time and space. Its a simple thing to do – a simple kindness we both appreciate.
The river that runs through our town, the river that supplies water for living for people downstream has turned diarrhea baby brown and seems to be moving by at a snails pace as if the consistency of the fluid has thickened and become a sludge – a toxic stew the EPA says. I do not know if it stinks as say coal smoke stinks but I do know that the spill has and will cause much suffering to various life forms like fish and people and trees that grow along the river and that this relatively small spill will continue to spawn environmental health issues for years to come.
Sad to see it happen here but then it’s happening everywhere – its as if the “flesh” of earth herself is developing canker sores, blisters and boils and it’s just starting. The Preacher man is back working with congregants from all over the states and he says they tell him pretty much the same stuff – “the roads are falling apart, the schools are dangerous, nothing works, industry continues to pollute the air, the water and our land, fracking is fucking both environment and people and folks are hurting and angry and scared – the government is busted” and so am I. And I’m feeling a sense of urgency about things needing to be addressed in a hurry. Like we don’t have time to dilly dally.
Help me! I do not know if I am delusional and out to lunch so I’m asking for help. It seems obvious to me that the old wisdom teaching: “as above so below” holds true. The poison we have dumped into our habitats and the subterranean consequences of doing that is reflected and echoed in the violence and near total breakdown of our nations current system of law and justice which sees so much racial hatred, distrust and chaos. Is it just me? Can’t we see we can no longer afford to do business as usual….
I read of a very concerned scientist (link to article gone) saying: “a world temperature rise of 4-7 C will kill 90% of all human beings…and that is possible by 2050.” And here are people pretending to be serious leaders talking seriously about who can be more outrageous than the others while totally oblivious to the castles falling down upon their heads and people screaming – Wake Up! And as the world turns the civilizations and cultures we’ve built go spinning down the drain and very few notice but nearly everyone is entertained. I’m not saying its gloom and doom time but I am saying its time we start talking about realistic, possible, and horrifying scenarios of what may likely be the world our kids will live through if we can not muster the energy necessary to overcome the current gilded cage group.
Kinda makes me wonder what those folks largely responsible for making vast sums of money by polluting, poisoning, stripping, raping, and by any other name “having dominion of the earth,” know that they ain’t telling us little people? Makes the conspiracy guy inside me think that maybe being in the 1% by any means possible is the smartest play to make but I don’t know that I could sell everyone else down the river just to save my own scrawny ass. I hope I don’t find out by finding myself in exactly that position…..I hope we don’t find ourselves as a nation and or as a community be faced with finding that out.
Often I do though find myself in a fist clenched angry posture and or in a curled up and grieving posture. In both, my body is contracted, my mind narrows down into familiar (and often unskillful and old channels) and my thoughts take on a negative energy, tone and theme…..and my soul becomes restless. There is little peace within, my mind tends to have an anxious quality about it and I find it difficult to concentrate on personal matters when it seems apparent that Gaia is undergoing unprecedented changes at all levels of interdependent and unified networks many of which are as yet unknown to us and at the same time that the ground beneath our feet is falling apart our social order is likewise falling apart and one need look no further than to the recent GOP debate to see that chaos is equally visible in what we once called “civil discourse” and now it’s called “being a loser.”
[Pause] Take breath. Again. Yes again. Once more. [Resume play]
I get it intuitively that I can’t be as effective as a citizen of the planet working in whatever capacities may be challenged of me and called forth from me as long as I’m all and only about the anger – the outrage – the raw sting of brutal injustice and the blind hatred on display in the form of White bred terrorism against People of Color along with the backlash against LGBTQ folk and the worsening political and economic treatment of the people who are not destined to be in that half a billion or so human beings with the resources and luck to survive the new world we are leaving for future generations. Let us pray they will be brave and let us hope they will be free.
Some of my outrage is personal, my partner is Asian American my family is her family and she and me have been and could easily become targets of racism and of course, she is a potential target every day for the slings and arrows and micro aggressions minority folk and women of all flesh tones live with. My dad being gay and myself being a genetic and hormonal intersex being weaves strong bonds and feelings and I fear for those among these who may be hurt or worse who may once again be forced to hide. Let us fall to our knees and pray: Dear Heavenly Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come……..Forgive us our trespass as we forgive those who trespass against us……
The Way of the Flower 
Oh, deep sigh, and resonance for things that need to be said. I feel your words, and I applaud you for getting them out there.
I am not so brave. I have been depressed and powerlessly-angry at the rhetoric. I don’t know how to reframe it either, but somehow, in the middle of the night I found a way to ignore the ignorance, and concentrate on being present again. I don’t know if it will last. Yesterday, I had a waking thought traipse through my mind where I posted “I am coming out as an environmentalist” as if that would somehow open dialogue. AS if it would somehow explain and justify everything I wanted to say next, in my outrage at various ignorances. Instead, I took the familiar road of retreating into silence. It is what I know. It is safe. And I remain sad, and facts continue to get trampled in the rush for a clever comment or political attention.
On other learnings, racism and gender issues, I have so much more to learn. But I am trying to do so, and it is painful.
I don’t have anything to add, exactly, except that I too have been trying to forgive and find healing.
These are just my own disjointed thoughts, the best I know how to make them. Feel free to throw them out if they offend.
it is painful and your words are piercing and poignant and your sharing is beautiful and I thank you!
I am in the stew with you, Robert. Feeling impotent or trying hard NOT to feel.
The last 2 services at my UU church have helped greatly–the first based on Sharon Welch’s book “A Feminist Ethic of Risk.” Speaks to changing our definitions of success and failure, that we must fight the fights we *know* we cannot win because eventually they will be won (but maybe not in our lifetime). She speaks to social justice burn-out and pulling our focus to do what we can with our two hands–ease the suffering of those sitting next to us. Here is a link to the book.
https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Feminist_Ethic_of_Risk.html?id=R7M2kS7Q-68C
Yesterday, our Social Justice pastor (yeah, we have one), a young and passionate woman, said we must be brave and feel the pain/guilt/anger that is so uncomfortable, because if we can’t sit with our own discomfort how could we possibly stand all that is painful in the world?
Erin talked about how people from church call her and say, “I want to help. I want to make a difference. I just don’t have the time.” And she knew if their mothers/brothers/best friends asked them to help, they would find the time. So the first step in doing any kind of activism is to make deep connections with others who are doing (or wanting to do) the same work. To that end, our UU provides an enormous variety of intimate activities where we get to know each other on a deep level. I’ve just joined a small group that meets monthly, and I’ve signed up for Erin’s retreat that is designed for just that purpose.
I don’t know if it will make me braver or able to fight the fights I can’t win, but I know going deep with people is something I need and crave. I’m willing to see what happens after that.
Thank you for sharing. There is also a book I’m reading called Active Hope by JoAnn Macy who uses a buddhist approach and there is a group here through the sangha I am getting in touch with…….
That sounds great, Robert.