I have always been a strong, stoic person. I had to be; as a
single mother of four, I was the one who had to get everybody through, look
after everyone else, be a strong oak, for my fledglings to lean on. But seven
years ago, my beloved wolf-dog, my soul mate this lifetime, died, and since
then I have cried a river of tears. They come so easily now, especially for
animals, both domestic and wild, and the cruel, sad or dangerous lives so many
of them live because of humans. Because of us.
Recently, I have identified the grief I carry as “earth grief”.
I cannot bear what is happening to Mother Earth because of us, mainly because of
corporate greed, and the leaders ruled by corporate money and lust for power, entities
who are stealing our childrens’ futures for profit now, at the expense of even
our questionable survival as a species. I hear so clearly how Mother Earth is
crying. She is speaking her distress in all the languages she has: extinctions,
hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, warming seas, and melting icecaps. But when the
octopuses started walking out of the sea along the Welsh coast and beaching
themselves, it was too much. What is causing dozens of octopuses to walk out of
the sea, night after night, lying limply on the sand, dying? Is it earthquakes
underwater, magnetic activity at the poles? Warming or polluted waters?
Starvation? How inhospitable a climate is the sea for them, that they prefer a
quick certain death to a slower one? What is Mother Ocean trying to tell us?
I know we don’t have four more years under rule by a climate
change denier to ignore the urgency of our situation. I applaud those local and
regional governments which intend to continue addressing climate change (and
social justice) in the midst of the chaos. I am heartened by such groups as
Jane Goodall’s
Roots and Shoots,
and the
Tree Sisters: Women Seeding
Change, who aim to plant a billion trees worldwide this year. In my village, I
plan to gather a group of women and plant trees here, too, in spring, once the
winter rains have stopped. Even in the rainforest, we have lost too many trees. The rainforest is changing, getting hotter, drier.
More trees will help, but not enough. For forty years, I have
understood climate change and the urgent need, even back then, to switch to
clean and
breakthrough
energy. And here we are, with fossil fuels all but obsolete, with rulers
and corporations still determined to run pipes through sacred land and endanger
water sources for millions. It makes no sense. The choice is always “the
economy” over climate. Yet switching to clean energy systems is not only
cleaner, it makes economic sense, creating jobs for millions, while easing
pressure on the planet, using natural systems we already have in abundance: solar, wind, and water.
And now we have a president (sorry, no capital “P” for
him), who wants to mine for uranium in the Grand Canyon, removing protections
for wildlife and the wild sacred places. I would despair, except that is not an
option. I feel the resignation of age and wisdom creeping over what once was my
indefatigable hope: I believed for so long that the transformation of consciousness would occur in time. But humans learn the hard way. Perhaps we will transform after everything collapses and life is untenable.
Or perhaps the human experiment has failed. I know we can do
better, we are meant to do better. On
a smaller scale, in singular human lives, many of us DO do better. We do what
we can, what we are moved to do. But the globe is full of the starving, and dispossessed, those
displaced by war and by climate. Chaos, bombings, gunfire, death, destroyed
lives are everywhere: warring factions
who see only Other, and not our shared humanity. Heartbreak is universal on
this beautiful planet, that would be our garden if we opened our eyes and our
consciousness. And our hearts.
In the middle of it all, even given our misuse and abuse of
her, Mother Earth gives to us so generously. Like a human mother, she gives
even when we take without giving back. She gives us chance after chance,
implores us to heed her wisdom, and we walk off laughing. We are still children.
It is when we are old that we will remember and will realize what she was
trying to tell us.
Because I refuse to give up hope, I will end with a quote from my friend, environmentalist
Valerie Langer, who once said, “Mother Earth can feel your pain. Let her feel
your joy too.” So I walk on the beach. I commune with Grandfather Cedar. I
raise my eyes to the sky in gratitude for the gift of life and all of its beauty. Unspeakable beauty, coupled with unbearable
sorrow. I speak for the wolves, for the
starving polar bears, for the dying and diseased salmon. And for those desperate
octopuses walking out of the sea. Wake up, humankind, while there is still a
very small window of time. Wake up.
There is a very interesting and relevant discussion going on over at Sreejit Poole's The Seeker's Dungeon these days, a month of essays on the topic Rage Against the Machine. Do check it out. Some fantastic essays in there. It sparked this post, as I have been struggling with what I can only call "Earth Grief" for some time.
