Pagan Godspell

Once again, Dr. Glen Barry at Earth Meanders has hit the nail square on the head with his latest post regarding global climate change:

I exhort all that read this to break the denial that the current “wacky weather” is natural; it is more, much more; the start of systematic collapse of being as we know it. And I ask that you help other non-ecologically attuned people grasp what their way of life is doing to creation – risking ridicule as an acolyte of ecological truth. Take responsibility personally, and become involved in the great climate change/ecological sustainability movements that are set to rock this world – bringing forth the necessary societal changes. Time is short, but solutions exist. Save the climate, save the Earth, save yourself and your posterity. Get active, organize, agitate, protest and above all else reduce your carbon emissions!

Obviously, I think Dr. Barry is spot on – passionate, unapologetic, and coming from a place of emotional authenticity.  This is not alarmist - the situation is freakin’ alarming.  It requires our immediate, concerned and concentrated attention.  In biblical terms, as I have come to understand it, a prophet was someone who called the community on its shit - they weren’t fortunetellers, they were soothsayers, truthtellers – they could see the path being carved into the future by the actions of the present, and they spoke to their people in a shattering, clarion voice of alarm, warning, and inspiration.  In this way, writers, speakers, activists and agitators like Dr. Barry and others are prophets.

It has been noted by so many, and rightly, that it’s painfully easy to lapse into apathetic despair in the face of civilization’s vast granite wall of wrongness.  It is true that I, me alone in the world, little ole me (funny how society likes to tell me, a fat woman, how excruciatingly large I am until it wants me to believe I have no agency, and then suddenly I’m very small…I’m an Alice in Wonderland of societal image and expectation) make no dent in civilization’s machine when I change out my lightbulbs, buy organic food, or walk downtown instead of driving.  These things are not enough – anyone who thinks they are is under an illusion crafted by greenwashing.  Yet, while it is not enough, it is moral.  It is good for your soul, and your mind, and your heart, to choose to lead a life of awareness in as much as you can given the parameters you have to work with.  So we do these things.  We grow permaculture gardens and start car-share programs and make choices about what kinds of clothing we wear based on what we know of its source and the labor involved.  These things are important.  And at the same time, we must also, as Dr. Barry has said, agitate, protest, educate and organize for global, corporate, worldview change.  We must meet in groups, voice our anger, write letters, take to the streets, talk to others, educate children, educate adults,  talk to politicians, corporate CEOs, each other.  We must picket, scream, jump up and down, sing, cheer, get people’s attention, make change.  These things must happen. 

And, in addition to our personal struggle to be individually sustainable and our participation in global movement and action, I would add that it is also crucial that we, as artists, storytellers, thea/ologians, Pagans, poets, Bards, point to beauty whenever possible.  And importantly, to make connections between the beauty and these issues.  To take someone, turn them towards a nest of new birds, their gorgeous blue-green speckled shells broken around them (why blue or green or brown?  why speckled?  because the Earth is that awesome, that’s why – I’m sure there are other equally neato explanations, but this one works for me), and say “Look!!  Look!!  This is the Message.  This is the Reason.  This is why we do and should make these noises and jump up and down and picket and yell and plead and cry and despair and laugh and play and love.  This is why!!  And this!  And this! Look!!!” 

All these tactics are necessary.  The combination of them, to me, seem the only path through despair (the constant companion of every activist, of every awake person living civiliation’s realities).  The sum total may not be enough, but in order to remain true to myself and the ethics I believe are clearly laid out for me by my polythea/ologies, I must participate in all of them.  I write these blithering diatribes more to remind myself than anything else, particularly when the despair threatens to block out everything else (ironically, now that I’m a blogger, I find myself right back in the media smorgasbord that I intentionally swore off years ago, with all the same emotionally damaging effects). 

It’s a little late, but I have added one more New Year’s Resolution to the mix – and that is to get out and kick my own ass to do more.  Always.  For me and the speckled eggs. 

I am scared.  I am in love.  I am furious.