Even the Prophets Are Human

O blessed Lovelock, son of Gaia

even with all your science and vocabulary

you failed to wake us up until it was too late.

Global warming is irreversible and all we can do

is wait for the terrible thing to happen

the desertification of Europe, the sinking of London

the famine, the epidemic and the mass migration

of hope.

What can we do if there is nothing we can do

if earth’s reflective organ is too vain

if our power turned too much to outward aggression

punishes the inward nurture of the most delicate

new green shoots emerging above the soil?

Now we shall weep and weep as those great

sky penetrating towers fall

and we perish under their mute walls.

Such a prophecy is not new

there have been others who knew

by the way the warriors went to battle

thrusting their swords into Gaia’s children

that we would not last long

yet we believed linear logic was our sword

of immortality.

And since you are our most recent prophet

why don’t we blame you for not doing

what never worked anyway

—shaking us out of our delusions.

(from Infinite Power, Ekstasis 2016)

How Can We Find Our Way Home?

This past weekend I had the pleasure of reading some of my poems at the Capital Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Victoria.

Reading from a collection titled "Over There Where I Cry Mother I Am Lost" we then gathered after the service to talk, ask questions, on how we can return to a preferred future. Everyone who spoke was in touch with the politics of our day, the threats to our environment and the challenges of our relationship to one another and our planetary home. We were mostly middle aged and there was one young person there.

We are not short of thoughtful intelligent and sensitive people, but we suffer from the realization that a system drives our which is dissociated from nature and civil society. This means we find it difficult to affect change and protect our home. Out of that conversation I list several things we might consider.

1. ECONOMICS
Send letters to our political representatives, call them, let them know their duty to their constituents and country goes deeper than "jobs" and "the economy". Their reliance on lobbies who have no other interest than making the economy grow - is now destroying our home. Make noise. Get their attention. Offer alternative ways that go deeper into the problems.

2. COMMUNICATION
Do not fall back on scapegoats, threatening those who don't see things as you do, go beyond blaming to workable ideas on how we can work together. Offer hope in ideas rather than leaving it at criticism. Making claims about what "they" do leads us deeper into judgement and leaves us without ideas on how we can move forward.  Bring young minds into the circle. Listen to what they believe rather than telling them what they believe.

3. LOCATE YOUR HOME
What areas of social life do you know, what have you experienced, what skills and knowledge do you possess? What books have you read that have influenced you? Where have you come from? Your family values, your political preferences, your education level and your profession. This is where you begin because you've lived it.

4. INHERITED TRAUMA
Trauma that your parents and ancestors survived are the bedrock of your beginning as you learned how to survive. It is the lens you have inherited like your DNA and your values. How did these elements make you vulnerable and make you strong?

5. SOCIAL STRUGGLE
How did you get through elementary school, high school and university? How did you fit into your profession or work life? How much support did you get from colleagues, friends and bosses?

6. EMOTIONAL AND SPIRITUAL HOME
Where do you find comfort? In nature? In a religious congregation? As an activist? As an artist? Where do you feel effective and where do you contribute? Even warriors need a tent to return to for support and sustenance.

7. WHERE IS YOUR TRIBE?
Where you do feel a kinship? Where do you belong? Where besides social media, can you say what you feel, reveal the deepest feelings in your heart and your mind. Remember you are not alone. Nothing that thrives is alone, not even oceans and trees, not even clouds.

8. IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT
It is about what is, what was, but mostly what we can do.  Until our species becomes extinct we shall respond to the world as we know it in our hearts and minds to the best of our ability.

Ten Tips on How to Save the World

photo from NASA/Wikimedia

I’ve used popular jargon for the title, because, as you’ll notice below, this is not political science, or any science at all. This is a riposte against the endless hours of brutal entertainment that suggests only might makes right. To save the world might be a heroic endeavour but I don’t believe it requires a Napoleonic campaign. It does, however, require the engagement of an alert mind and open heart. 

The instructions are simple. Learn from the bees, use your caring mind to gaze at the world, reclaim your power, reclaim your nature, hold onto curiosity, celebrate your creativity, give up blaming, live from a place of love, acknowledge your political self, and honour your spirit.

1. Learn from the bees.

Marilyn Hamilton, CEO of Integral City, told a children’s story not long ago, that is easy to remember.  Three key strategies enable bee hives to survive, which can teach us how to sustain the human hive  – take care of you, take care of others, take care of this place. Our ancestors learned how to do this but sophisticated social systems have alienated us from our own capacity to manage the hive. However, world crises shows we must re-engage in the process now.  

2. Use your caring mind to gaze at the world.

Look closely at the operating system, or the ‘apparatus’ as Simone Weil put it. Read ideas and opinions wherever you can find them. Ask yourself who benefits? Expand your gaze beyond your own immediate interests. Prepare to be disturbed but not defeated.

2. Reclaim power.

Power and all its parts: politics, wealth, language, science, economics, institutional religion, is not evil. What is evil is the way institutions have been corrupted from their original purpose – to serve civil society – into clubs of privilege. Good leadership is the conduit of responsible power which demonstrates humility, vulnerability, and serves the greater good.  Good leaders spend their powers to affirm and highlight the power in all. Infinite power is not a zero sum game, it is natural, inclusive and intelligent.

3. Reclaim our nature.

We are resourceful workers and stakeholders in our society. We are not a resource or a job description. We are not left, right, conservative or liberal – we are organic, politically mobile beings.  Labels are assigned to influence and control masses. We have courage, fear, anger, love and wisdom but they are not commodities, they are strengths that emerge and hide. The deadliest weapon of oppression is that which turns humanity and all of nature into a thing, a resource.

 

4. Hold onto Curiosity.

This is what keeps us exploring, examining, interrogating the conditions we live under or in. As long as curiosity is alive we shall never be content with serving an oppressive and corrupt social order.  

5. Celebrate your Creativity.

Music, theatre, farmers’ markets, poetry, gardens, maps, new political parties, conversations –  are the means of expressing and sharing our humanity.  Art is the what, where, how and who of our species as it yearns and evolves.

6. Give up blaming.

Blaming is not problem solving and the problem is not what other people do.  To solve problems we need to re-engage our power to care creatively, with curiosity and love.

8. Live from a place of Love

Love breaks apart the structures of false hierarchies. It demands attention to suffering and violence, and calls for healing. It insists on life as the source of knowledge.  Love is what drives great minds to take courageous stands outside of their particular disciplines for the greater good. Love is the openness to pain that makes injustice, corruption, cynicism and oppression unbearable.

9. Life is political.

You are an integral, intelligent, reflective part of a larger organism. Whether we survive as a species depends on protecting our earthly home from a system that enables a few egos to hold this planet ransom for the sake of temporary profit. There is no escape from politics. Its apparatus has been built on a grandiose delusion that refuses to see the natural world as sacred, and ourselves dependent upon its health. To be apolitical is to be a doctor standing at the bed of a dying patient, refusing to be involved because the disease is dirty. To dismiss the world stage and our part in it is to lobotomize the future.

10. Honour the spirit

The spirit is our energy. It imparts our intentions before we see them. It allows us to dream and care for the world beyond our own life span.  Imagination and love is the immortal  legacy we leave for our great-grandchildren.

These are just my thoughts.  What are yours?  What would you list as the top ten tips on saving the world?