Uncertainty
While we watch Putin’s Russian forces destroy every last living thing in Ukraine, its devasted people fleeing to places unknown with the knowledge they can never go back home, we wonder, what’s becoming of our world?
The Omicron Ba.2 virus is now raging, and it won’t be the last one to sicken and kill thousands before it gives way to the next deadly epidemic already on the horizon. There’s no cure. Meanwhile our very earth is suffering and gasping for breath. Arctic temperatures soared to 70 degrees higher than normal. Animals in the forest are positive for covid, bird flu is prevalent, our waters, seas and even we ourselves are infused with plastic microparticles and yet the downhill slide of our planet escapes the news and thus our minds.
What is happening to humans? Why are we so complacent to what we are wreaking on ourselves and our precious planetary home? Sure, the Ukrainian tragedy is forefront in our minds, but don’t we see the connection between the obliteration of a nation and the certain ruin of the earth itself?
We are in the midst of the most severe crisis in history. It is essential to recognize the connection between a mindless dictator taking control of the world with impunity by threatening nuclear war, and our refusal to acknowledge the dicimation of the planet by neglect and pollution, and that of humans by rampant disease.
It’s all about truth.
It’s easier to look the other way; pretend it’s not happening. No, this can’t happen to us. We have things to do, wealth to accrue, and endless work to do, bills to pay. There’s no time to contemplate a future we know nothing about. “They” will take care of it.
They are not taking care of it. We are creating our future in every moment of the present. We are constantly being messaged with what’s happening in the world and right under our noses, but we refuse to listen or even look at it. It’s too ugly and frightening to contemplate.
How about just seeing, and telling truth? In every news story, every so called “fact” we are told while knowing it’s not so, every plastic bag we throw into today’s bin for the landfill, every time we go without a mask because we hate them, every news story we turn off because we can’t stand it, we stop and see what our denial is doing to all of us, the part we are playing in that delusion. Do we actually want to blindly live in our laziness so our kids can figure it out later when it’ll actually be too late?
See the truth in every thing. Take the time to evaluate and make your own decision about what is right, not what’s told to you. Correct untrue statements mindfully and calmly, in person or in writing on public media. Commit to reducing plastics of all kinds in your life. Conserve water and fuels of all kinds. Eat and purchase locally. Recycle and waste nothing. Honor the natural environment and every sentient being. Take a stand and don’t feel guilty for doing so. Love deeply, every chance you get, especially yourself.