Being Here Now

Before

After

Photos by Christine Lowther

The tsunami missed us this time,
but swept away others.
Mother Earth's voice grows louder,
while leaders stay silent, responding
to crisis upon crisis, no time 
for addressing the fact
that we live in  a collapsing world.
Icebergs melt, huge cracks open in the earth,
floods and fire and storms batter,
one after another, so that crisis is
the order of the day, just
another bit of morning news.

Ram Dass was ahead of his time
with Be Here Now. I am here,
loving where I live, sadly watching
trees fall, more ecosystems being
cleared away for humans,
because we are too many.

We, who have voices,  are
the only possible agents of change
in this transapocalyptic world.
Let's demand that our leaders
act; with our dollars, refuse to support
corporate criminals and factory "farms".

The earth will force those who are left
to return to the Old Ways.
The indigenous people of the earth
will show us how.

Meanwhile, the 8th continent,
the forest canopy, is disappearing.
Where I live, in what is left
of the last of the old growth,
deforestation continues apace.

Some of us work to pass tree bylaws;
we bring to Council our dismay
at the forest falling; we fight to save what's left.
Every day we write a letter to Council,
pen a poem, visit a tree. We steadfastly love
the sea that one day will swallow us. 
We love where we live, while, every day,
its destruction is breaking our hearts.

The canopy as the 8th continent is  a premise discussed by Meg Lowman in the book The Arbornaut, in which she explores the kingdom at the tops of trees. A large portion of Tonquin forest is now gone. Already, they are talking of falling the rest, which they had said was not under threat. A group of us have been trying to get Council to pass a tree bylaw for years. We are now mobilizing to save the rest of Tonquin. So many wild creatures are being displaced and encroached upon. No government or corporate agencies think about them, and their right to a safe place to live. This "human first" attitude is what has destroyed so much of what was once bountiful enough for all (all but the greedy.)

Cutting old growth in an escalating climate crisis caused by a warming earth is insane. But leaders work for votes, not for what is best, or difficult. Easier to put in one's term, let "future" governmental agencies deal with the fallout. Except all of B.C.'s agencies are fully involved this year dealing with massive flooding, wildfires, heat domes,  collapsing infrastructure, and a pandemic. I think they have utterly lost control; the tipping point has been passed. One way or another, humans will  learn how to live on this earth. The way it looks, this may be after cataclysm. Meanwhile, we love where we live, we do what we can, we wish for enlightened leaders who rarely appear. 

for earthweal, where we are contemplating these transapocalyptic times, and how we are living through them.