A Day of Peace

Summer memory - walking through the Ancient Forest not far from where I live.  Some of the cedar trees are estimated to be 1000 years old.  It is one of the few cedar rain forests not on the coast but in the slopes leading up to the Rocky Mountains.  I understand that there is another pocket rain forest further south, and folk there are working hard to also preserve it from logging, as this one was, due to the tireless efforts of countless people in the area petitioning the government to declare it a 'no logging' zone, building walkways to help preserve the forest floor from the trampling of human feet through it.  It is now the newest provincial park and should be safe from logging.

I spent the morning - as I routinely do - scrolling through Twitter and Facebook, reading all the declarations of peace and hope being sent.  But I also read some articles that were far less than hopeful.

In many ways, we are at a tipping point as a race.  We are currently at around 7.5 billion in terms of population, with predicted growth to 10 billion by 2050.  (The Reality Bubble, by Ziya Tong - and other sources)

Personally I won't be alive then, nor do I have offspring to worry about.  But I do worry about what we are doing to the planet - and ourselves. 

This morning someone posted a meme of the central tenet of the major religions of humanity.  They all boil down to one thing.  Harm none.

How have we taken that message and tangled it up into what it currently is?  How have we become so fearful that we section ourselves off from other human beings and 'protect' ourselves from that 'other' group over there?

How have we gotten from 'it will be more difficult for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle' to 'give me every single cent and you can go get food stamps - if we let you have them'? 

Something has to change.  I don't know how.  I do know that we cannot sustain what is happening.

Climate change is a thing.  If we don't want to accept refugees, we need to stop the increase in the sea levels due to the poles melting.  If we don't want to accept refugees, we need to get the temperatures down so that wildfires such as are being experienced in Australia, Africa and the Amazon right now, will not be so horrendous.

So far our snow pack is 'low', although that could change in Jan/Feb.  But for several years in a row we have experienced conflagrations here in BC and Alberta.  Two years ago we had about 10,000 people evacuated from the Cariboo region due to wildfires while further thousands went south or east.

If we do not want to accept refugees, we need to stop bombing their homes.

If we do not want to accept refugees, we need to address what is happening to our climate and our food sources.

It is hard to feel at peace right now. 

What can I do?  Not much.  So I will continue to do what I have done all my life.  Live with the smallest footprint I can manage.  Teach people how to weave.  Because if the apocalypse arrives, survivors will need clothing.

I lived through the Cold War.  I remember the Duck and Cover exercises.  I grew up in the shadow of a radar base linked to NORAD, well aware that if a nuclear war was started - hell, any kind of war - that radar base would most likely be on an early destruction list.  If a nuclear bomb was dropped, we would be destroyed.  If ANY Nuclear bomb was dropped, we could have a nuclear winter, and then there would be mass destruction from radiation poisoning. 

We already knew about the fall out (literally) from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

We need to pressure our politicians.  We need to pressure 'energy' companies to stop squeezing every last drop of oil out of the ground and come up with viable options.  We need to listen to the scientists.  We need to accept that we cannot - probably should not - have more, more, more.

Today we woke - as usual - and are carrying on with our day.  I do not put up a Christmas tree.  There were no heaps of gifts wrapped in paper that could not be recycled.

We do not need things, so we now purchase experiences.  Doug got some books, we will attend a performance of Cirque du Soleil in June.  I also got books - I just need to give myself permission to read them - along with the five library books on the table and the six on hold that will be coming down the pipeline, likely in February!

So now?  Now I will shake off my feelings of sadness about the state of the world.  I will send my best wishes to all, whatever you celebrate, however you celebrate it (because not all of my friends are Christian), I will go to the loom and weave.  Because what I CAN do is exercise my creativity. I can send the positive light of making something (hopefully) beautiful out into the world.  I can pay attention to what is happening and when I can, where I can, support those people working to make positive change in this world.

Peace to all.