Lamentation
by Ruby Sara
People. My heart is breaking. The Mama. The Mama.
Here I am in the clutch of divine fear. I can’t lie to you and tell you that I haven’t been experiencing some Dark Nights in the private tumultuous cataracts of my multiple souls. It’s a tender fragile hateful glorious crying out feeling. I cherish it even as my heart is broken by it. I would not trade it for the numbness of disconnect and denial that we move and shake in – the miasma of civilization – yet I can tell you that it really fucking hurts all the same.
Out of the holy fire of despair, I have been passing the molten questions of my deepest fears from hand to hand, examining their burning urgency, the ones with many answers, the ones with no answers.
Mark Morford, that master of a turn of phrase, addresses the honeybee crisis.
Oh, my golden sisters. Everywhere I turn, someone is talking about you. We are waking up too late. Too late. What would I be willing to give up to have the honeybees back again? What would you?
It’s not just the honeybees, of course, it’s half of the world’s species of plant and animal life.
What would I be willing to give up to save the biodiversity of our planet (and subsequently, the survival of our own species, since we cannot live without the interconnected ecological web we exist within)? What would you?
Cell phones? Strawberries in December? Coconut products in the Midwest? Cars? Air conditioning? Shoes? Recorded music? Books? Electronic entertainment (TV, movies, etc.)? Electronics in general? Hair products? Plastic? Eyeglasses? Antibiotics? Asthma medication? All pharmaceuticals? Laser surgery? Computers? Jewelry? Some are easier than others, and all are culpable in the act of murdering Beauty.
What would I give for the honeybees (dying), the River Dolphin (functionally exinct), the Golden Toad (extinct), all ocean life (dying)? Pieces of the soul, maybe? A finger? My tongue? My life?
Sara Gets Preachy about the Environment. News at 11. Oh, I know, I know. We spend so much time trying to find a million different ways to convey the urgency and desperation of our planetary situation. I am told to not be preachy, to appeal to people where they are, etc. These are good strategies. Yet. Yet. Who is pushing? How hard are they pushing? Can I change the lightbulbs in my house to energy efficient blah-blahs and then sit around feeling real good about myself and that’s it? No. Can I buy recycled toilet paper and feel okay? No. Can I buy ecofriendly homes and hybrid cars and say “everything’s gonna work out just fine?” No. I have praise for the conscious thought in all of these actions. But I push. I want more. I’m greedy – I want biodiversity. Lots of it. I want it all. I want the riot of life to fill the world, and my body and soul, with all its ecstatic Truth. I want to be washed in the Spirit of the Mama. I push.
I ask these questions of other people because I ask them of myself every day. I am culpable.
Whose side am I on? If I am on the side of relationships, of authentic diversity and raw, wild spirituality, how do I manifest this committment? How do I show the Mama – the World, that I fiercely love Her, that I fiercely love the rocks and the bees, the mountains and the mourning doves, the salamanders and the javelinas? When I speak, do monarch butterflies and precious orchids fall from my lips? When I speak, do toads and snakes rise up to praise me? When I speak, do I apologize for my love?
Of course, these are questions about morality and personal ethics. My choosing to live without my books or my car, or sweating in the dark of night over ecoquestions that affect my earthly soul, will not ultimately have much of an impact on the honeybees as they choose or are forced to be taken up to feed on liquid gold in the Otherworld by Death, that Gorgeous God who makes me Tremble. If I recycle and eat locally and bike to work, and Monsanto and Proctor & Gamble and Union Carbide and mining companies and so on and so on ad infinitum are still at large in the world murdering peoples and destroying whole ecosystems in a matter of weeks, and governments give subsidies and tax breaks to the same corporations, and all generate mindblowing tons of wasted virgin paper from the mill in order to enact these subsidies and tax breaks and the business of global economics and global death-dealing, and marketing firms invest millions of dollars in selling the world things made by slaves with materials raked from the Mama, well you know my puny-ass efforts are for crap. But this is why it’s all important. Work must be done on the larger scale. AND, it must also be done in the rich humus of our deepest souls, in the fabric and the weave of our spiritualities. It must be done up and in the thick of our worldviews. Given all this knowledge about our psychotic (literally) culture and the orgy of waste and death we are wallowing in – why are we not taking to the streets by the millions every single hour? Why aren’t we? Why aren’t we?
Our worldviews must shift and crack and turn. And it is in those places that these questions burn hard.
Whose side am I on? What would I give?
After all the poetry and prayers and mighty words – I’m scared to fucking death, and I’m laid out in an empty waking nightmare by the killing of beautiful things.
Dear One,
I’m sitting in a version of denial. Not the denial of “This isn’t really happening.” Nor the denial of “I don’t care.” More the denial of “I can’t do anything except “puny-ass efforts.”
I’m burned out on so many concerns, from this one through war and torture funded by my taxes to…you know the list.
I’ve come to feel that it’s all beyond human agency to fix, that we will need some Divine and Terrible intervention–which may salvage the earth by removing the blight: us.
But then, I decide that I can only be in the present moment, so I do what I can at that moment.
Puny-assed, yes. But the whole of what I can do at that moment.
This is not a time to pretend we can fix things. We need to pray that the Old Ones fix us.
Blessed Be,
Michael BrightCrow
I don’t know what to say.
I was sniffing back tears at work,yet.
Thank you for articulating these feelings for me.
Love,
Terri in Joburg
Nature is something we should be playing with “It not nice to fool Mother Nature”
But there a things we can give up or cut back. It more or less changing one habits.
Old Friend,
I’ve been thinking of you & the bees. Thinking about my Part…your words do much to motivate the human spirit to do more.
Love you! (I know, I know…not pagany enough language — but its ME after all…). Missyoumissyoumissyou.
Anne
Yeah, its pretty shitty. I am extremely poetic, I know. I was looking at a 3-D map of a TCE plume while I was in my meetings in KC this weekend, and the overwhelming saddness of the human inability to exert any kind of control over ourselves or moral awareness hit me. “change-change-change, we all need a little bit of change…can I borrow some change?”
Enacting systemic change is a necessity in order to have some kind of redress for these issues. Systemic change requires a change in worldview because there will always be folks who just want to get by and go with the flow, or who are so wrapped up in personal issues that they aren’t constantly interrogating the power dynamics that operate around them (as we all are, at times). But, if that underlying basis from which we interpret and articulate our truths comes from a place of Wholeness and a deep, intimate, bodily knowledge of ourselves as Nature the way that we structure our society will reflect that.
Do you know what angels always say when they show up? I think you do. They say, “Be not afraid.”
I’m a puny ass…I make small changes, small works, small prayers…maybe I can’t bring all the bees back by myself, but I can create a haven for the few that visit my little realm. I am reminded of a story I once heard…a little boy is throwing starfish back in the ocean, one by one. There are thousands of starfish across the beach. A man sees him and approaches him, saying “You know you can’t save them all so what does it matter?” . The little boy looks at the starfish in his hand and replies, “It matters to this one.” No, I can’t save the world, but I can save the small piece of the earth I tend. Have faith in small things.
Sara,
I love you. I love you.
I love you. I love you.
I love you. I love you.
I love you.
So sayest the seven directions.
So sayest I.
Aligned within them, we can choose the impossible into existence.
Our problem is attaining that alignment.
Michael,
Webs of Power (as quoted in her book The Earth Path):
Now, I admit that a case can be made for this view [that humanity is a blight on the Earth] – nevertheless I think that in its own way it is just as damaging as the worldview of the active despoilers. For if we believe that we are in essence bad for nature, we are profoundly separated from the natural world. We are also subtly relieved of responsibility for listening to the great conversation, for learning to observe and interact and play an active role in nature’s healing.
The humans-as-blight vision also is self-defeating in organizing around environmental issues. It’s hard to get people enthused about a movement that even unconsciously envisions their extinction as a good. As long as we see humans as separate from nature, whether we place ourselves above or below, we will inevitably create flase dichotomies and set up himan/nature oppositions in which everyone loses.
(from pp161-161 in Webs of Power / pp 8-9 in The Earth Path)
Time may show that we are indeed a blight on the Earth by wiping us out for the greater good. Until that happens (which I pray it won’t), I hope that we can see ourselves and an integral and important part of nature, hopefully avoiding that possibility.
Blessings,
Jonah
(posted by Sara for Jonah)
Thank for this poignant, self-searching post and thank you for being not only ‘here,’ but present and accounted for.
To my fellow swimmers:
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift,
that there are those who will be afraid,
who will try to hold on to the shore,
they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know that the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore,
push off into the middle of the river,
and keep our heads above water.
And I say see who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history we are to take nothing personally,
least of all ourselves, for the moment we do,
our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves.
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
For we are the ones we have been waiting for.
Hopi Elders Prophesy
These are our times and responsibilities. Every human being has a sacred duty to protect the welfare of our Mother Earth, from whom all life comes. In order to do this, we must recognize the enemy, the one within us. We must begin with ourselves.
Leon Shenandoah, Onondaga
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