The World We Know Is Possible

People know things are changing on the Home Planet, Earth. Even if they like to temper the shifts in climate with comments like, "We could use more sunshine here", the facts speak for themselves. And just because many of us in the Northern Hemisphere can still get food easily enough, doesn't mean that there aren't starting to be inconveniences, like the voluntary power shut offs in some Bay Area communities due to extremely dry conditions. PGE, the power company acknowledged that they were unprepared for the increase in fire danger last summer when a huge area of California burned down due to faulty power infrastructure.

Now, Science, which has occupied a similar level of credibility as the Almighty for the last 175 years, is falling in value. "Post-Fact Era" is now a phrase on many tongues and Instagram sites, whether you identify as Red or Blue or Purple.

When we no longer want to hear what an authority figure has to say, the power of the masses can dethrone God himself. 

This was actually a phenomena that Western culture created due to the scientific and industrial revolution. If they had a slogan, it might have read, "God is Dead, Long Live Science." But now, science is pointing out some uncomfortable truths and not everyone wants to be put on the spot.

Many of us would rather put our heads down and keep with business as usual. It's understandable to long for the days when "playing Ostrich" was an acceptable strategy for dealing with climate change. 

It is easy to point the finger and blame the "other side" for all the ills the world faces in this polarized age, but no one that has participated in capitalism and Human Above Nature culture is blameless.

Like it or not, we all need  similar basic things. A home, food, shelter, a sense of safety, health, and purpose. When we have those, we can start thinking about more abstract concepts like ethics, arts, and how to create a world that is just and equitable for ALL life, human and more than human alike. Until we have those, we will have different ways of trying to get them.

Like it or not, we are all on this planet together and while not everyone may choose to believe in a world where climate change exists, we will all sink or swim together.

We live in worlds on top of worlds, inside of worlds. Just look at micorhyzal fungi and their subterranean culture that feeds the plants and builds superhighways to transport nutrients and life between what we see growing above the surface. Consider our bodies that are constantly shifting, regenerating, balancing and negotiating complex external inputs and internal processes like digestion and standing upright. Imagine what breathing would be like without trees and growing things to produce oxygen for our lungs. We are not part of nature, we ARE nature and what we do to nature, we do to ourselves.

As indigenous wisdom has taught us world over, we live in a web of life that is not just three dimensional, it is spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical. You cannot impact one without impacting them all. Science now confirms this as it looks more and more closely at the tiniest quarks and nutrinos. Our thoughts impact what we observe and our emotions shift the frequencies matter vibrates at.

We are all magicians at our core, but many of us have forgotten that we have the skills within us to create the reality we experience. We have been collectively instructed to believe that we are powerless, worthless, and subject to the whims of politicians, religious leaders, and the almighty dollar. We have been raised to hand over our personal sovereignty for the price of an iphone, fake food that poisons our bodies, and a disposable, transient lifestyle that poisons the land, water, animals, and air.

It is time to remember our personal sovereignty and stand with Life.

I recently attended the Bioneers conference in San Rafael, California for the 3rd year and was reminded by visionaries like Paul Hawken that the time for re-calibrating what "business as usual" means, is NOW. We have moved past one minute to midnight and are sailing right into the hurricane of human curated climate change that is causing millions of people to migrate towards more liveable bio-regions.

Taking your re-usable bags to the store is great, and we ALSO need to be thinking more systemically, acting more expansively, and feeling more communally. We have a lot to do, to grieve, and to connect if we want to be a part of creating the world we know is possible.

The science and the gods are there to help us, both modern and ancient. Indigenous communities have been ecologists, biologists, agriculturalists, shamans, healers,  and conservationists as long as there have been people on this earth. We need to be looking to them, uplifting their communities and knowledge, and asking them to show us good ways forward. We need to pay them to do this and ask for forgiveness for what we tried to do to their ways of life, and now, we realize, our life boat in this sea of climate emergency.

We need to be implementing today's science displayed in works like Paul Hawken's recent and unprecedented book, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed To Reverse Climate Change

We need to be supporting people willing to embed themselves within the current power-structure and create a Life-Affirming climate. 

If you haven't heard about Michael Meade and Mark Gamba, get your google fingers dancing and take a gander. These are two older white men who are willing to take a bullet literally and figuratively for the cause of Life. This is a good space for old white men to be occupying-leveraging their platform and privilege to amplify the diverse perspectives calling for immediate evolution in our social, financial, and political systems on a global scale. And they are just one piece of the puzzle. But they are an actionable one. Get to their events, donate money, campaign, write them emails. They are open to feedback and conversation.

The Call of Our Time is to remember and act on  the reality of interconnectedness of everything on this planet. This is a closed system and what we do, think, and feel impacts how it operates. Yes, we are but individuals in a sea of Life, but we ARE a part of it and it is our destiny and duty to care for this planet and all our human and more than human relatives.

We know we were made to be in community. To be witnessed and tend to the land. To walk tall and with individual and collective purpose that elevates Life.

So let us observe, listen, dream, and act to birth the world we know is possible. Let us do it, together. Let it be now.