Tag: climate change

We Really Do Matter

” I have marched, petitioned, written letters to the editor, made phone calls and donated, but despite all I can do, nothing seems to have changed.   I feel I cannot make a difference.”  The words refer to the current crisis of climate change, uttered during a conversation about that topic.  The words are poignant, but the speaker is not the only one who feels that way.  At some time or another, each of us experiences frustration at not being able to inspire the changes we want to see, and many also experience a strong desire to give up and stop working.  Paradoxically, while we experience that desire, we also know that actually doing that will not bring lasting happiness.

I, too, experience such discouragement.  At times, it seems that no matter what words I use, they will simply echo back from the void of inertia, slip into the antithesis of what I am trying to challenge, and perish unread and unconsidered.  At such times, it is hard to continue.  Yet, giving up would simply create more hopelessness, and negate the essence of who I am, re-incorporating it into a standard status-quo.  No wealth or luxury (or the “righteousness” of its opposite) can soothe the injection of pain resulting from giving up.

I would that it were easier for us to continue.  I would that we were not surrounded by the integrated tangle we have made for ourselves by assuming that we can create better than the wisdom of nature, or the tenets of Wisdom.  However, wishing does not make it so.  We are indeed all linked, whether in chaos or creation, or both at the same time.  This connection, while it may seem at times to present an insurmountable obstacle, is in fact an innate strength upon which we all may draw as we continue living and doing our parts to nurture each other and our planet.  Understanding this can lift us up; acting on the understanding can help us perceive often imperceptibly slow forward movement.

We need community; we need others with whom to work, strive and share.  We need those whose efforts commingle with ours to heal ourselves and our planet.  We need to act on the knowledge that we are all linked, and that each of us does make a difference to the nature and quality of the whole.  Our connection is creative – even if we are joined in creating destruction – and allowing ourselves to be separated each from the other, perceiving the separation rather than the link, inhibits our creative manifestation.   Many ways exist to connect.  Some are those of technology (not the same as physical proximity, but yes, a kind of connection), discussion groups, action/service groups, economic cooperatives, extended family, neighborhoods and co-housing, monastic groups, intentional communities, to name a few.  These groups, each in its own way, support their members (and sometimes others, too) and devote their pooled energy into influencing the creation of the as-yet-unformed that is to come.

Another obstacle many of us experience is the perceived lack of time.  Often our experience is that when all the work done to support ourselves is finished, there remains the maintenance work at home to sustain us, and some time spent to connect with family and friends.  That done, perhaps we can eke out a little time to read, exercise or learn and grow in one way or another.   When all that is accomplished, there remains little time to sleep, even if we have been operating with the stress of full speed ahead.  Community is helpful in this way as well.  Work shared (remunerative or for maintenance) means less time each individual needs to spend on tasks.  Shared effort means support for each other.  Shared knowledge means learning and growing in the course of being.  Time saved means less time spent rushing and more time available for sleep and healing, and more time in which to pursue those efforts about which one is passionate.

“It is all so complex,” one might protest.  “We are becoming more fully aware of the consequences of climate change, yet it seems that averting the full effects of climate change cannot be addressed without also engaging the issues with which it is linked.”  It is as if the totality of mistakes made in human society are the drivers of the changes on the planet as a whole.  Yes, fossil fuels are certainly a large part.  But what about people trapped residing in marginalized areas or substandard housing, an agricultural system seemingly bent on destroying the life of the soil as it goes about chemically killing everything it cannot sell, factory farms selling meat from abused animals while polluting ecosystems, a political and economic system structured to exclude or minimize minorities, escalating wars, and technology fever, which separates us from the earth and gives us the illusion that it will protect us from change?  These are a few of today’s issues; they are related to climate change.  Cause for hopelessness?   Not when we realize that each little bit helps; when enough drops have fallen into the bucket, the bucket will overflow.

Let us hold on to hope, learn to feel the interconnectedness of all things, gather into community, and be aware that we do, indeed, matter.  Anything, small or large, that we do counts.  Let us “hold the vision and keep the faith” and continue to contribute from the time we manage to devote and the talents we have been given.  In this way, we continue to grow, helping the earth and others in the process.

Peace, Diane

A New Decade

“There is no proof whatsoever for the story of three wise men, presumably astrologers, following a star to find a baby born in a stable and bedded in the cattle feed in a manger,” the speaker was saying in response to a mention of the New Testament account of that event.  “They could not have followed a star, because all stars – and planets, for that matter – rise and set like the sun, except for the North star.  The rising and setting stars are not always visible, and the North star always leads north, not into the Middle East.  It is constant and does not move to lead people.  That story was written by someone who hadn’t looked at the sky very much.”

The speaker had totally missed the point.  The important part of that recounting is deeper than the provability of its details.  Among other things, it tells of the ongoing search of humanity for that which is greater than humankind (called God by many), even though sometimes that longing is manifested in the denial that a greater aspect or entity exists.  It also shows the need to leave the focus on habitual, surface life in order to find the Infinite, and the dedication of one’s gifts (and each of us has a gift to offer) to that which is beyond self.

We are again at the beginning of a new year, and this time, a new decade as well.   It is easy, as we listen to the news and read the online feed on our phones or computers, to be aware of the innumerable chaotic, destructive, cruel and scary goings-on around us.  It is easy to understand, if we look at these happenings, that if we continue on these paths, the ultimate end is possibly our destruction – or at least the destruction of our civilizations and planetary support systems.  It is also easy to deny what we see and hear, and reassure ourselves that there is no proof of the certainty of these predictions and that of course, technology will save us and shield us from any ill effect that may – or may not – come.

The truth is that it is our reaction to events rather than the events themselves that makes the difference.  I would prefer to look on 2020 with eyes of hope.  That is not to say that I am blind or oblivious to the challenges of the times.  I am fully aware of the possibility of various kinds of disasters that may happen.  I do not deny the probability of some of these disasters if things continue as is.  I simply believe that these are not cast in stone, and that enough of us can hold the vision of a positive outcome to allow such a positive outcome to manifest.  It is said that one purpose of prophecy is to make people enough aware of current patterns that the patterns can be changed and the prophecy thus not occur.

However, to believe that things will improve, that all will be well, that the Earth will be saved from climate disaster, that people will live together in peace, respect and justice does not excuse anyone from the responsibility to act.  We are all one, and change, whether positive or negative, affects us all.    Each of us contributes, by action or even inaction, to the direction and quality of change.  The key is that our thoughts and actions must be in alignment with the change we wish to see.  If we wish to see more conflict between people, we will act towards others in hostile ways.  If we wish to see an Earth healed of the fever of climate change and extinctions, we will make sustainability an underpinning of our choices and speak for the value of renewable energy.  Our task is to hold the vision and act in alignment with it.

It is also important to recognize and respect the underlying Infinite reality from which our human story proceeds.  Put differently, we need to be aware when it occurs of the arrogance which says that humans are all powerful and control nature and living outcomes, that we need nothing but ourselves.  We need to set aside that arrogance, because it is only through connection with that primal energy which existed before the Big Bang that we derive our power.  When we deny it, we cut ourselves off from the Source of our strength.

As we enter 2020, let us each examine what it is we wish to create in the coming decade.  It is a complex question and requires complex answers.  Our answers in one way or another will support continued life, peace and joy or will support ongoing destruction and diminishment.  The choices of each of us matter, not in a legalistic sense, but in an artistic one, as a brush wielded to make a painting or a tool that helps to carve a sculpture.  What vision will we hold, and can we act in alignment with that vision?

Happy New Year!

Peace, Diane

Little Drops of Water; Little Bits of Sound

As we approach the end of 2019 and the cumulation of the holiday season, I find myself at times falling into a pensive state amidst the bustle of to-dos.  I have been recalling a passage from C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew, in which the singing of the lion Aslan results in the formation of the country of Narnia.  Another, different memory flows from that passage.  The sixties and early seventies were times of rapid and needed changes, among them civil rights, anti-war and the environment.  What kept those changes moving was the nonstop messaging of the music of that era.  Pete Seeger, Woodie Guthrie, Peter, Paul and Mary were among the creative musical souls who with their music, often generated from our heritage of folk songs, kept the constant musical drumbeat that propelled the sixties forward.  Sound has power, be it the sound of music or the sound of prosaic voice.

Our own age has as many – perhaps more – issues as the sixties.  Some are similar, such as continued civil rights.  We have peace movements and the exemplary seeds of communities, some of which survived the sixties and matured.  We have political turmoil and economic inequality, healthcare and education among our issues.  What is new about our era is the rapidity with which public attention fluctuates from one issue to another in kaleidoscopic fashion, resulting in continued stress and few solutions.  The political system seems to be teetering, hampered by infighting, talking heads, and inactivity.  We go, for example, from focus on Greta Thunberg and climate change to political debate between electoral candidates to the impeachment of the president, as if an invisible hand were turning a giant kaleidoscope.

Also new in our area is an overarching issue, to which all others are related.  We are faced with the imminent and ominous advent of climate change.  Without our planet, the rest does not matter.  Without viable solutions to the subsidiary issues, healing the planet and adapting to what is currently inevitable is a herculean task.  Sadly, we are focused on the tributary tasks feeding the current of climate change and comparatively neglectful of the overarching issue.

The obstacle is that the issue of climate change and the needed changes (no, technology will not solve everything for us while we continue the present path) is a highly uncomfortable issue for most people; the changes needed are massive.  We cannot persist in an extraction-based economy, an assumption that it is permissible to kill for our advancement or convenience, in economic and social inequity, in a lifestyle of throwaway consumption and a detachment from the earth and the plants and animals that live upon it.  This is the crossroads. 

Change is usually not comfortable.  It is easier to focus on the other issues contingent to this central one, and to hide our heads in the sand, so to speak, as we mostly ignore the imminent and ominous approach of the results of our actions upon the earth.   Because we cease to speak of it, it is easier to not think of it and not make any of those uncomfortable changes.   We like to assume that someone else will fix the problem, or that it will fix itself.  Then we can feel that we are not responsible.  The truth is that no one else will fix the problem for us.   We are responsible for the results we want.  

Many years ago, the Earth/Nature went through another period of global warming – possibly fueled by volcanic eruption. Over the eons, the Earth in her wisdom healed herself by capturing those elements that contributed to the warming and sequestering them underground in the form of oil, coal and natural gas.  Frozen methane was also sequestered in the permafrost of the polar regions as the earth cooled.  There was extinction during those times, too.  Eventually, people evolved – supposedly the most intelligent of all creatures.  We, the intelligent creatures, learned how to put back into the atmosphere all that Nature had hidden underground, and we proceeded to do that as fast as we could.  We thus began to bring back the times of warming and extinction.  Are we intelligent enough now to correct our actions and stop the release of the pollution which spoils the Earth and warms it, and causes extinction of species, including ourselves?  Are we intelligent enough to change, and restore at least some of what we have taken?  It is past time to start that process.

We need again the power of sound to reorient ourselves to the need of the present moment.  We need it to energize our awareness that no matter what else we may be working on, that project is subsidiary (important as a contribution) to the elephant in the room, climate change.  To mitigate or tack across the effects of the climate change we have wittingly or unwittingly created will take the efforts and contributions of each of us.  No one of us can do the job alone.  Technology will not excuse or save us from our responsibility.

Admittedly, we cannot all march in the streets, pay to fund activists, research and educate people, form communities, garden on our rooftops, install solar panels or paint our roofs white.  Some of us (and our neighborhoods) even have difficulty in recycling, despite expanding landfills and the omnipresent plastic waste on land, in the air, and at sea.   There is, however, one thing that everyone can do. Everyone can keep the reality of climate change from being forgotten, deleted from the conversation by the short attention span of public interest.

We need sound.  Musicians, if you are up to the challenge, focus your creativity here.   It is not necessary, though, to be a musician to contribute.  Whoever you are, whatever else you do, you can help to create a tsunami of lasting attention to what needs addressing.  Each of us can each day mention climate change to just one different person and ask that person to do the same.  We can connect in person, by email or social media, by letter to the editor, on the bus, at work, via chance encounter – the ways to choose are many.  There is no need to argue – just mention, each day, consistently.  The rest will follow, in ourselves and in our world.

I commit to doing this.  I invite all to join me.  Together we may be strong enough to heal our planetary home.

Peace, Diane


Convenience and a Caveat

Benjamin Franklin once wrote,” …in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”   I do not argue with Mr. Franklin, but I would add one more thing.  Change is a certainty in life.  It surrounds us, and no matter how much we resist, it happens.    Not all of us are happy with that, though.  Change is often uncomfortable, and many notice with trepidation that change does not always seem under our control, even if we can influence it.  However, I would posit that one of the greatest factors that elicit people to resist change is inconvenience.    One example is climate change.  Embracing the change needed to ameliorate the potential disaster is an awesome, far-reaching task, requiring massive lifestyle changes, and is certainly not convenient.  Even the title of Al Gore’s book on the subject is “An Inconvenient Truth”.

At least here in the United States, and I would guess, among the moderately well off elsewhere, we have been raised to expect that life will be convenient.  Life should be pleasurable, as consistently happy as possible.  We should not be expected to take responsibility for what might cause us expense, extra effort, possible sorrow or pain.  We pay insurance companies to “protect” us from all that.  We litigate at the drop of a hat to place responsibility upon someone else, who should then pay to restore our happiness.  We eat pre-prepared foods to spare ourselves the effort of cooking.  We expect that schools and daycare centers should raise our children to be whatever we want them to be, but most of all, to give us no trouble when we come home tired from work.  Learning should be fun, hence effort-free, and it’s someone else’s job to make it so.  We should no longer be inconvenienced to learn grammar or spelling or even common arithmetic facts, because the computer will do all that.  Handwriting skills are a chore from the past because we have word processors and printers.   “Progress”, it seems, is almost synonymous with “convenience”.

Marketers are well aware of this phenomenon.  Products are designed to help us do less and less and think less and less, and the advertisements for these products emphasize in one way or another how convenient they are.   Classes in writing emphasize not grammar or varied vocabulary, but that we must make our writing convenient to read, requiring little or nothing of the readers.  It is almost as if the readers were considered to be a bit retarded.  Politicians make it as convenient as possible to agree with them, using convenient social media, convenient memes, convenient platitudes, convenient TV ads, and convenient means to donate (with a click.)    Thinking is not really required. Those who wish to discourage voting begin by making it inconvenient to vote.  Finances can now be done conveniently online, without the effort of keeping accounts or writing checks.   And so it goes.

It feels good when something is convenient, and sometimes convenience is immensely helpful to the accomplishment of a larger goal.  Like most things, though, convenience can be overdone.  In excess, it does not empower us; it effectively weakens us, leaving us less able to do the things which we have abandoned to our convenience.  There is strength in being able to chop firewood, wash dishes, cook, write, figure in our heads, read and understand deep material, have legible penmanship, grow our food, know something about our health and healing, create our own entertainment, talk in person with one another – the list can go on and on.  When those strengths are taken from us by various means to provide our convenience, we are in fact disempowered.  Sadly, such is the attraction of convenience that most of us are unaware that we have been disempowered.

We are at a time in history when change is happening more quickly and more drastically than before, creating chaos around it.    It is most certainly inconvenient.  If we have been permeated by the expectation of convenience, we will be effectively edged out of the conversation about change by blindly following whatever ideas seem to be the most convenient.  Not all those convenient changes lead to the best ends, but if we have been desensitized to this concept, we will be unaware.  Sometimes the energy of going through inconvenience – whether physical or the effort of thinking deeply – is the energy taking us to the places we need to be.  The inconvenient efforts of adapting to climate change is a large example of this, but the same pattern applies to more personal and individual changes as well. 

Let us form the habit of questioning our convenience.   Is the easiest way really the best way to guide our affairs?  Sometimes it is.  It is needful, though, to recognize when it is not.  If we wish to retain the power of guiding our own lives and influencing the grander changes around us, we must not give primary importance to convenience.  Let us not allow enshrined convenience to blind us when change comes knocking at the door.  We need our awareness and discretion.

Peace, Diane