I am at a loss. We talk and reassure ourselves, we think we are all in a safe place.
This religion of them and us, it's deep inside us all. Don't kid yourselves. But so is greed and fear and misery and self pity. From time to time, we must reach there and touch these nasty spots deep inside our souls and admit it, and while we're at it, our anger and our helplessness too.
What do I know?! Fear is not the answer, hate is not the answer. But what is? Love sounds too sticky right now. I am not sure I can trust love. Or people or myself. I watched a documentary about the new caliphate or whatever in London and when this gentle old man who looked a bit like the convert Cat Stevens said, the world must free itself from the demons of liberty and democracy, I got the shivers.
And yet.
My comfortable wealthy world, the one I move in, has always been an open world, diverse, messy, chaotic, welcoming and off putting, imperfect, always trying, growing, nourishing and struggling, but most of all, open, wide wide open. The world that I dream of as a near ideal world doesn't look much different and I want to believe that I am not alone with this dream, that as diverse as we are, we can remain sane and human and practical and helpful and whatever it takes to look after each other and our planet.
Meanwhile, the river has reached a new record low. This is not good. We need constant rain from now until the new year to fill it to a seasonally acceptable level.
5 comments:
Yes, what do we know?
I feel that since the entire population of this earth will never reach the same level of evolution, all our ifs and buts will be pointless.
It has taken me a long while to finally give up my hope for a full human conscious awakening. It surprises me how long I held on to it. Now that we are in the midst of destroying the very planet that sustains our lives, I know nothing will change, but only continue to get worse and worse. We are seeing the small battles on the silly war fronts of the old made up stories. I hide from the world as much as I can. I hope you get a lot of rain. We had almost an inch last night. Great news for northern California.
I believe that we can trust our grief and anger and helplessness. My gut feeling is that there is something else trustworthy beyond the words that fail us when even our beloved rivers don't flow as before and our beloved ocean continues to rise and safe places are elusive. I am grateful for this ongoing dialogue. We are not alone. No hell below us. Above us only sky.
Yesterday around noon I felt immense anger and helplessness in connection with "them," a medical transcription contracting company that survives by subcontracting and exploiting an ever-growing stream of desperate people, mostly vulnerable women, and insisting that if only we would "work harder," we would be able to make minimum wage for our efforts. I was doing my best to do my work after they had changed the hospital account instructions on us this week without adequate explanation or support (there is no compensation for the hours it takes to figure out how to abide by the ever-changing hospital account instructions, and we are paid only $0.03 per line we edit) and I found myself in tears, saying out loud, "Fuck this," and then unable to think clearly enough do the work I am paid so little to do. I can't afford not to work but am not going to try to work today.
There is snow in the foothills and a heavy cloud cover here this morning. A Western Junco reminds me to refill the suet feeder.
Living lives in peace. The beloved community that Martin Luther King, Jr., dreamed of that includes everyone. Trusting grief and anger as well as love.
Thanks for this Sabine. It's more honest than much I've seen, and I think perhaps it's cost you something. Admitting to being at a loss, in a world full of brutal and dangerous certainty and conviction is no bad thing.
Your river looks soothing.
It's hard to fathom how some people see liberty and democracy as demonic. That isn't a development I ever expected to see.
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