I have been having great difficulty with my blog this, now last week.
Partly because it is the end of summer in Vermont and too many wonderful events are happening, but more because I am listening to Bill McGibben’s latest book, Falter. I feel like a fraud. I have been realizing that I have reached one level of embracing the future and what it means, but that I am still really in denial.
On the one hand, I know that I am older so will live only until the mid-century at best. I know that living in Vermont/the US means the effects of climate change, other than the heat and rain, are not going to hit me personally for a while. On the other hand, in the long term, I might reincarnate. In the short term, I look to see what I can personally really do next to mitigate climate change: stopping driving my car as much, eat less foods that are non-local and that use water like avocados and almonds, use less water, be more aware? Will that really make a difference?
Or is the real question:
I don’t really want to go any farther down those roads because I don’t want to let go of my trips back to CT or take shorter showers or let almonds and avocados go so then I ask “Will it really count?” I understand that my mind can’t really conceive of what is coming. It still frightens me and I feel out of control. Why don’t we all stop what we are doing as next to what is going to happen, very little of it matters? How can I worry about the future of draft animal power or the land next door or being late to a meeting? With each level I move through I think I am doing well and then fear and confusion hit again.
The three years that I spent moving from CT to VT, I often refer to as “practicing death” in that I left behind the 40 year creation of Reva. That Reva was over and my willingness to live in the heat and humidity was over too. I am beginning to understand that for me the process of truly opening to what is coming is a long term process of deeper surrender – surrender of the ego and the doer and allowing what is: climate change.
Just as I write to all of you in my blogs, I can allow myself to have my resistance to what is and climate change and my feelings of helplessness and fear. Then I can let those emotions and thoughts go. With a little help from my friends, I can remember my connection to beingness and allow spirit to work through me as best needed for all…. How quickly I forget to do this.
Each time I go through this loop, I come out a bit stronger in my connection to Spirit and to the Earth.
I can then remember that this is all, way too big for my mind to handle. I can be more aware of my love and being conscious through this huge transition. I can use my dowsing to decide when something beloved or seemingly beloved needs to be let go of so I have the time and energy to support the future. And around I/we go, being human, being aware, and loving the earth and all of its beings.
Falter: Has the Human Game Begun To Play Itself Out? – Bill McKibben 2019