WILD WRITING I

What was it like when the virus came? some young person might ask twenty-five years from now. If there still are humans then, if the world is remotely habitable.

When it first hit, people didn’t pay much attention, thinking it was a flu like other flus. Until the numbers started rising astronomically, and the deaths were described as suffering and horrible. Until health authorities became the people on the news and the news was just about all and only the corona virus news, watching the numbers climb, exponentially, especially in Italy, people dying faster than their bodies could be gathered. And then in New York, where people were buried in mass graves, no time or space to do anything else.

We were suddenly living in a pandemic that threatened us all world-wide. It wasn’t a sci-fi book or movie. It was here, and we were in it. We ARE in it.

I am fortunate. I live in a small village with good leaders – conscious leaders – on Vancouver Island where, thanks to limited ferry traffic, our officials have managed to keep numbers manageable. It is worse on the mainland. And health authorities expect a second wave in fall. I fear the “return to normal”, when all those tourists will climb into their cars and travel here with all their deadly germs. After all the weeks of us sitting in our houses, of people shutting down their businesses, of everyone being so careful – how easily and quickly it can all be undone.

Health authorities say the virus will be around a long time. That the best they can hope for is to "keep death at a manageable level". Our doctor here in Tofino says "what is an acceptable number of deaths in our small town, where we all know each other? Who are we willing to lose?" No one, of course. And covid is not how I want to die.

It didn’t take long for the virus to be traced to wet markets in Wuhan, where terrified animals crammed in cages await, with full conscious awareness, their terrible deaths: dogs, cats, wild game from Africa. They barbecue small monkeys there. They boil dogs. I once saw a photo I wish I had never seen of a dog’s eyes as he was lowered into the vat of boiling water.

(That young person, 25 years from now: I can feel you recoiling in horror, wondering what kind of humans we are. Well, in North America, animals in “factory farms” are treated no better. Pigs are kept lying down while they are fattened, barely squeezed into their metal confines from which they never move. And pigs have the intelligence of children, they are conscious beings, as are all other animals.  Cows are beaten and abused on their way to slaughter. The metal bolt to the forehead which finishes them off must come as a relief. I don't know what humans do to their minds to absolve themselves of commiting these acts. I am glad for the many vegetarians and vegans, for whom no animal has to suffer and die in order for them to eat.

I once, horrified, watched someone lower a lobster into a boiling pot of water. The lobster reached out its claws, gripped the edges of the pot, trying to stop its immersion. Even a lobster can want to live, can feel fear, can dread a cruel death.)

What manner of humans are we? All my life I have waited for the transformation of consciousness. Since 1980, I have been talking about climate change – now a climate crisis – have waited for humanity to wake up. And here we are in 2020, no farther ahead than we ever were, the planet so hot we are tipping ever closer to the apocalypse AND NOTHING CHANGES. We react to all the disasters, floods, forest fires, hurricanes as if each one is an isolated incident. And the tundra melts, and the icebergs melt, and the poles are melting, both north and south. Polar bears starve, or drown swimming for miles,  trying to find food. Whales are in decline for lack of food, pollution and warming seas. Koalas and kangaroos burn alive as wildfires rage beyond control. I have not recovered from the last wildfires and now, on the Island, wildfire season comes around again.

Always it is the suffering of the animals that bothers me most.  Animals live according to the laws of the natural world. The factor that unbalances and distresses the whole is man: with our greed, our profligate and wanton devastation of the land as “resource”, unsustainably, beyond earth’s capacity to give.

Here is the virus, forcing us inside. The climate begins to heal itself. Wild animals creep out into areas that have been unsafe. Before Mother Earth can breathe a sigh of relief, man is at it again: WHEN can we go back to normal?

Seriously? Normal is broken. Normal is what got us here. We need a new respectful, sustainable normal. We need social justice. We need to liberate the animals. We need to GIVE UP ON fossil fuels and put everyone to work creating clean energy systems.

To the person 25 years from now – if you are here, then we succeeded. Otherwise my words are going out into the universe, as they always have, in utter discouragement that we are so incredibly slow to understand, and even slower to act.

This is When the Virus Came – Day1