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We walked, people of all ages
and a dozen big goofy, happy dogs,
from the trailhead, across the tombolo
to Ts'ix-wat-sats,
just before sunset.
“Despair is an indulgence,”
Joanna quoted.
“Let’s set our minds towards hope.”
We walked, mindfully,
single file, and I pondered.
I have been discouraged.
What could I bring back
to the communal discussion
that was about hope?
It came to me, like the silver gleam
on the shimmering sea.
The shamans say
we are at a critical moment
in the evolution of the soul
of this planet.
As awareness of climate change
increases, we begin, of necessity,
to evolve.
This is, if we will it,
a transformative moment.
a transformative moment.
The people – we, ourselves -
can make the evolutionary leap
beyond those who are fixated on money.
It is within our power – our possibility –
to move with the winds of change,
creating other ways of being
with the earth
than the old, tired ways
of fossil fuels and death,
of rich billionaires, despairing others.
The soul of our planet is on the cusp
of a Great Awakening.
The bad news:
Nothing will ever be the same again.
The good news:
Nothing will ever be the same again.
To share with earthweal's open link. Caveat: this was written in 2018 when there was still hope of a shift. Right now, Kelowna, my home town, where my kids grew up, is aflame. The entire North West Territories is burning and people can only be evacuated by plane because it is so remote. Whole cities and smaller villages. Wildfires across Canada. Way past the tipping point, and the climate events are coming faster than we can process. How are we to make a switch in the middle of responding to such devastation? Governments are still not saying Thing One about the urgent need to lower emissions. We saw during covid, how the earth responded to less plane and car traffic. Capitalism does not know how to change and the oligarchs won't. It is not looking good, my friends.
Dear Sherry, I've been reading about the wildfires in BC, and immediately thought of you. I am so sorry to hear that your home town is on fire. All along, you have been raising the alarm, and so many people still seem blind to what is happening. I hope you are safe where you are now.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are OK....Canada is really copping it. Stay safe......Rall
ReplyDeleteThe soul of our planet is hurting and we have indeed reached a tipping point. There will be continuous disasters with massive cleanup. How many creatures will pay the the price with their very life?
ReplyDeleteYou wrote this in 2018 a warning and look where we are today. sigh....
Stay safe my friend - Truedessa
There have been a few fires on Vancouver Island but they got managed, though the highway is still impacted by the one nearest me. However the picture nationally is devastating. Thousands upon thousands of climate refugees. It is happening faster than expected and I still do not hear one word about the desperate need to lower emissions and change our ways. Frustrating to have been writing about this for 40 years and to be where we are today.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to hear your hometown is caught up in the fires. You're right, we are seeing a new event every single day- the pictures from Hawaii were terrible, so are the crazy rains and landslides in the lower himalayan states here. How hard is it to pause everything and rethink our ways. We did it for covid... we know how to. Sad, very sad. Stay safe, Sherry.
ReplyDeleteI don't like heat, so this summer I've revelled in record low temperatures. Ten miles away, people have wailed about their heat wave. It's not just that they're wimps who turn on the air conditioning too soon. It's that afternoon sunshine really does push temperatures in downtown Kingsport, Tennessee, 10 to 15 degrees higher than they are in the rural areas ten miles north OR south. One can drive downtown and see the dramatic differences on those time-temperature-and-an-ad signs.
ReplyDeleteI've spent the summer saying, O ye swelterers! Pay attention! The debates about global climate change are irrelevant because what you're seeing is not global. It will undoubtedly affect global climate change in some way as yet unknown. What we're seeing now, what we know something about, is local, which means things can be done about it. Drive less, air-condition less, reduce crowding, minimize pavement, keep more trees. Do not try to move to Gate City. Instead, make Kingsport look more like Gate City, and it'll feel more like Gate City. Natural factors--altitude and rivers--make Kingsport only two or three Fahrenheit degrees warmer than Gate City. The additional difference is new and directly correlated with crowding.
Further south? I don't know. My prevailing wind is from the north; down along the Mexican border and Gulf Coast they may get more weather from the south. But no, the weather inequality did not align precisely with the Tennessee-Virginia border. Kingsport was, geographically, part of the Northeastern States' cool damp weather pattern. Local warming makes them feel that they're part of the Deep South's heat wave.
The science does not support some people's politics. But the science does leave some room for hope.
Leaving mature trees alive will help and planting more. It takes 25 years for a tree to store significant carbon and cool temperatures.......in BC it is CRIMINAL that they have clearcut almost all the old growth and keep taking trees down everywhere for "development." That is why the planet is heating - and now we are losing more trees to fires so the world will get hotter. Things are happening fast now. Hard times.
ReplyDeleteThe moment you recall of collective hope seems impossibly far now, but the truths found there are not lost, just undergoing the most grueling of shamanic initiations. Times are changing fast, we keep singing.
ReplyDeleteStay safe, my friend.
ReplyDelete