Until now, we have always recovered. We have embraced the folly of our choices and trusted that when we were done, the nurturing world would still be there; that we would find new footing in a familiar, reliable place and move on. We trusted that when we had wreaked our violence against each other and other living forms, all would return to normal as the dead and dying turned to dust and disappeared from of our line of sight as the evidence that they ever were was absorbed into the dirt where they fell. We trusted that with the passage of time, the Earth would cover the destruction and turn over the soil that we might have a fresh start. Not so, this time. This time, our folly is that we have waged war on the Earth, herself – the very thing that allows us to exist. We have overstepped…. and as the biosphere collapses, so will we. There will be no thing to return to. And in that, we are in a new reality.
Although our (individual and collective) history might tell us to fight, even in the face of futility, we would be wise to stop…. and reconsider what other choices we might make. Rather than repeat a cycle, perhaps we are being called to rise beyond what is historical and turn to what is instinctual: the desire to bring life into our experience. Perhaps we are being invited to seek a higher-order expression of our ‘intended’ Being rather than to just repeat.. repeat… and repeat again what is so familiar. No more fighting. No more violence. In this time of our individual and collective Great Letting Go, coming to find peace within ourselves will become what is reflected back to us from our external reality. We have what it takes to move beyond the habits rooted in fear, rage and outrage. What is there for us to rage about? We have done this. We have been (and continue to be) the consumers who have made it possible for the Big Bad Companies to ruin us all. To this day, there is no value in waiting for them to do something. The truth has always been that they will not make what we do not buy. We do now have – and always have had – the power to shut it down. The sad truth of it is we know that – and still, we do nothing.
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Beyond Hope: Letting Go of a World in Collapse (Deb Ozarko)
Deb Ozarko: Guest on ‘The Poetry of Predicament’ podcast
I am all fired up by this blog post. It’s excellent, and hard hitting. It really is a devastating realization that we as a species rely on things to self-regulate so we can continue to live in a habituated way that promotes “comfort” at all costs. And by comfort I don’t mean true comfort, I mean the illusion of comfort. The kind of comfort the masses seek that keeps them small, trapped and limp.
True comfort would come when we release our need to be validated by the outside world, when we instead focus on seeing all beings on this planet as truly equal, when we look at the planet as our living home and respect her as such. Living that way would bring deep comfort in the form of peace. It would have us stop. Stop and listen to the wind, the remaining birds, each other. Stop and listen to the deep internal cues that will never lead us in the wrong direction.
We have gone so far in the that wrong direction that the idea of stopping is terrifying. And stopping is all we have left.
Watching business as usual chug along unabated as the world burns is perhaps the most painful part of my life right now. Images of hundreds of horses dying in Australia because the heat is so severe that the watering holes they rely on are gone, as life threatening record setting, never seen before arctic cold sweeps across the northern hemisphere all while people race to get to work on time, get the best sales at Walmart, decide whether they should have a quarter chicken or half chicken at Swiss Chalet. It’s insanity at it’s finest.
Deb Ozarko quoted Jiddu Krishnamurti in Beyond Hope “It is No Measure of Health to Be Well Adjusted to a Profoundly Sick Society”. It’s time for us to become maladjusted and break free so we can breath our last breath with peace. Peace for the planet, peace for the beings we share it with and peace for ourselves.
What is education if it does not include the willingness and ability to see behind what so assuredly presents? In my world, it all began with the reclamation of the body; with discovering that denying and bracing against what moved inside me was neither intelligent nor useful, and not to be applauded. Without that, there is no capacity to calibrate for the ‘how else’ we might choose to live our lives, today.
I so appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts. Perhaps what underlies our reluctance is the fear that if we cut the strings of the marionette, we will forget how to dance. There is only one way to find out!