It’s September, and it’s hot. Where I live in New England, this is a big deal. This is a climate that should be pretty cold. Stores seem to think that it’s fall. They eagerly anticipate Halloween, the next big thing. A chance to escape.
But I cannot escape this sorrow that I feel. The loss of a dear friend that is ill. Who is this friend? This is her:
I still remember the first time I heard that the earth was warming up. I was incredulous:
“How is that possible?” I thought. “How can this be happening?” I felt a punch to the gut, as if a part of my soul had been snatched away. For years I ignored this. It was too much. I was just one person, what could I possibly do to help?
I’m not alone. Recall for a moment, when the first pictures of Earth were taken by the astronauts who went to the Moon. This mission, which was ostensibly about exploring space, inadvertently led to all of us having a greater perspective of living on Earth.
“There are 3 great stories of our time,” write Joanna Macy and Chris Johnston in the book Active Hope.
The first is called Business As Usual. You know this one, right? One that’s focused on material gain, and growth and any cost, often at the expense of others. Macy and Johnstone call the second the Great Unraveling. This is the narrative you often see online, and on social media. It’s like the Tower card in the Tarot- when things fall apart- “we’re living on a sinking ship, there’s nothing we can do.”
I understand this one. I once attended a group that was supposed to be about climate grief. “We’re here to figure out how to live in a dying world,” said the woman leading.
But I cannot. I cannot accept that the world is dying. I must focus on the third narrative proposed by Macy and Johnstone, which they call the Great Turning. This is something that has come up in prophecies in many Indigenous cultures, and in Buddhism as well. Joanna Macy relates it in the following way:
“There comes a time when all life on Earth is in danger. Great barbarian power have arisen. Although they spend their wealth in preparation to annihilate each other, they have much in common: Weapons of unfathomable destruction and technologies that lay waste to our world. It is in this moment, when the future of all beings hangs by the frailest of threads, that the kingdom of Shambala emerges.
You cannot go there, for it is not a place. It exists in the hearts and minds of the Shambala warriors…..They have no barricades on which to climb or threaten the enemy, or behind which they can rest and regroup. They don’t even have a home turf. Always they must move across the terrain of the barbarians themselves.
Now the time has come when great courage…is required of the Shambala warriors, for they must go into the heart of the barbarian powers, to dismantle the weapons…of the barbarian powers.
How do they train? They train in the use of 2 weapons; one is compassion, the other is wisdom- or insight into the radical interdependence of all phenomena.”
(Joanna Macy coming Back to life, p69)
So, effectively, this can be boiled down to 2 things:
Operating from the understanding that true change comes from the ground up. It starts with you. Noticing and acknowledging your pain for the world, yes, but also having the capacity for gratitude. Doing all of this is a lot easier with others support than alone. (To that end, I have wanted for a long time to create a group that meets regularly to talk about what it means to be alive now. I’m still working o out the particulars, but if you’re interested in this let me know.)
Having faith that what you do matters. In this world, it’s east to feel lost. And yet, you are alive today for 2 reasons:
➡️ so that you can experience these times, and
➡️ so that you can help. What does this mean for you?
For me, one of the ways in which i help is to make art. Art has the capacity to help you see life from a different perspective. I’ve wanted to do this forever. Here’s what I have so far: