Okay. We know it’s bad. I am not able to escape that reality any easier than you are. We are in the midst of a major transition on a civilizational level, what Joanna Macy would call the Great Turning. We may be starting to see things that we have taken as a given beginning to crumble. The ecosystems that we grew up with and relied upon to always be there are irreversibly changing. Our two-party system of democracy is showing cracks in its foundation. The capitalist market system appears to be wholly inadequate to address the existential challenges that we face.
What else could be changing? Patriarchy? Colonialism? Economies that only focus on extraction and exploitation?
What could replace those outdated, unscrupulous and self-involved systems?
What if…
We focus on love?
We insist on loving what it is that we have to save, loving the future?
“The most depressing thing that I can think of is to just watch the world burn and crumble before my eyes while I just wallow in self pity on the couch. We know the news is dire but, You have to try and do your part,” writes Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.
ON ANOTHER PANEL ABOUT CLIMATE, THEY ASK ME TO SELL THE FUTURE AND ALL I’VE GOT IS A LOVE POEM, a poem by Ayisha Siddiqa
Listen
What if the future is soft and revolution is so kind that there is no end to us in sight.
Whole cities breathe and bad luck is bested by a promise to the leaves.
To withstand your own end is difficult.
The future frolics about, promised to no one, as is her right.
Rage against injustice makes the voice grow harsher yet.
If the future leaves without us, the silence that will follow will be an unspeakable nothing.
What if we convince her to stay?
How rare and beautiful it is that we exist.
What if we stun existence one more time?
When I wake up, get out of bed, my seven year old cousin
with her ruptured belly tags along.
Then follows my grandmother, aunts, my other cousins
and the violent shape of their drinking water.
The earth remembers everything,
our bodies are the color of the earth and we
are nobodies.
Been born from so many apocalypses, what’s one more?
Love is still the only revenge. It grows each time the earth is set on fire.
But for what it’s worth, I’d do this again.
Gamble on humanity one hundred times over
Commit to life unto life, as the trees fall and take us with them.
I’d follow love into extinction.
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JOURNEY WITH US: The Climate Action Team is for you. Yes, you. Because you want to act on your love for the planet and because you need caring companions as you navigate these changing times. Learn all about the group here, and check out our lending library and Carbon Offset Fund. You can also request to join the Climate Action Team on Realm. Contact Jon Reese to connect to the CAT and join us for our next meeting on Zoom on Monday, Oct. 16, at 7:30 PM..