Creeping Reality

“Reality!”

We say that like it is an absolute and we all share it. Yet, I know ‘reality’ to be fluid…. fickle… at times even, whimsical… and unwilling to be boxed.

There is the one that is visible to me through my personal sensing of it – the one for which I calibrate as I look out my window and notice the hills in the distance, the rising sun and the sounds of another busy day slowly rising from the streets below.

There is the reality I know intimately from time spent with people I love; in exploring ideas and possibilities, captivated by the promise of another day to discover and engage.

And then, there is the one that is not yet at my door. The one that is unfolding what feels like light-years away from the truth of my experience… and yet, the truth of someone’s experience as their day presents so differently. The world is changing. It may not yet be the one I calibrate for from my cozy perch on my deeply personal and intimate reality and, truth is, there is only one atmosphere… one biosphere… and it is all interconnected.

I can feel this creeping reality approaching my own. Time and distance are the illusions that allow me to think about that tomorrow…. to embrace my telling moment as Scarlett O’Hara watching Tara burn to the ground. Trusting in my line of sight, I’ll think about that, tomorrow.

Distance… allows me to think that it is not here; it is not yet shaping my deeply personal and intimate world of day-to-day ’stuff’ that presents.

Time… allows me to think that whether I choose a three year or a five year lease, matters.

I watch my precious little Grandson and know: time is fleeting.

In this recent conversation, Chris Hedges interviews Dahr Jamail on the (yet again) disturbing content of his new book “The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption”. I was struck by this line of enquiry as the book comes to its conclusion:

“We are already facing mass extinction. There is no removing the heat we have introduced into the oceans nor the 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere every single year. There may be no changing what is happening and far worse things are coming. How then, shall we meet this?”

The answer to that question, for each of us, will only feed the Soul if we listen to what is bubbling up from that much deeper part of our being; if we allow what is emerging to capture our attention and find the will to engage… no matter its meaning to another or for another. We each carry the seed of an intention that makes our journey of existence… the journey of our presence in this space/time… meaningful, relevant and valuable. Do not look around you to see what it is for others. Rather, look inside you and lay claim to what fills your moments with the waves of gratitude that come for having chosen to be here… in the face of this immense, powerful and overwhelming wave of transformation that is heading our way. Trust it. Let it define you. Surrender to it. And watch your life rise up to embrace the Force of Creation that is yours, to express.

I know why I’m here. In that, I find peace.

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty
that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.” (Vaclav Havel)