What a Way to Go: NetworkJust saw Derrick Jensen talk
Derrick Jensen came to Toronto this very wintry evening and gave a talk in a church. It was quite well attended - much more than I was expecting for some reason. I guess I've just gotten accustomed to seeing a much smaller turnout for these kinds of events than I wish, so it was nice to see such a full house.
I didn't realize how funny he was, too! For someone who's so passionate about the most difficult subjects of our time, he certainly knows how to remain very human. As he says, we're really, really fucked, but life is still really, really great.
Earlier today I spent a while walking through one of this city's last forests, or what remains of it. I hadn't been in the forest for a while. I live right next to the city's longest stretch of wilderness, the Don Valley, and still I don't manage to "find the time" to get down there. How can I allow myself to put connecting with the real world so low on my list of priorities? I love the forest. I should get as much joy spending time in it as I would spending time with anyone that I love. Yet I routinely forget. I even find myself rationalizing putting my work life before walks in wilderness because my work life will allow me to save enough money to be able to afford to buy land that I can live off of sustainably. If that's even possible.
Towards the end of his talk, Derrick read a poem he wrote, though he credits it to the river. He asked the river, what's it like to be you? And the river told him. I thought it was beautiful. I'm going to make it a habit to be with the trees, and like Derrick and all indigenous people do, form a real relationship with them. I'm looking forward to it!
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Good Times
The only hope we have now is for us to restore our relationship with the Earth and the Natural World. We must go to the Trees, the Grass, the Rocks and Birds. We must ask them for forgivness. We must ask them for guidance, wisdom and strength. And we must give them our deep gratitude. If we can do that. If we can listen, watch and follow we might have a chance. And we might have some good times along the way..........rcd
Thanks for this, Roger...
... I've been coming up against so much insanity these past few weeks. I'm so tired of it. Your words are a balm of sanity for my exhausted soul.
Touching the ground,
Tim
Glad
I,m glad to have touched you in this way. The insanity is unavoidable we have to go out an slog thruogh it almost everyday. For me its a matter of where i place my attention. Sanity is available in a blade of grass. Above all we must remain calm. Its important that we don,t thrash around. Observe the leaf as it is carried on a swift moving current through turbulent rapids. Stay calm, be still. This is a time of great joy. The monster is dying right in front of our eyes. Ding dong the witch is dead! Let,s have a party and celabrate. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the leading edge of the transformation of human consiousness. There are no life boats there is no place to go, nothing to do. Only the swift moving current and the rapids. I,m glad i,m holding hands with you and Sally and all the rest of you beautiful souls...........rcd
"Private Despair to Public Action" workshop
I went to a workshop today that was a follow-up to the Derrick Jensen talk last night. I found it very interesting and helpful for me. It was a group of about 25 people - environmental/peak oil activists, teachers, students, people in industry, all kinds - many of whom had undergone or were currently undergoing the trauma of confronting the apocalypse as an imminent reality.
This was the first time the facilitators, Joan Simalchik and Yaya de Andrade, experts primarily in social trauma (and not so much the apocalypse), had ever held something like this, so it was a pretty flexible format. I really appreciated hearing everyone's perspectives through the group discussions we had. Overall, I'd say everyone was pretty frustrated and feeling pretty aimless, just as it seems many people on here are feeling or have felt. Nobody has any clear answers. Because it's not a clear situation, it's extremely complex, and the "answers" are just as complex and multi-varied. There were a couple different people there who made the point that all approaches, political, apolitical, pacifist, violent, inside the system, outside the system, are all important and necessary.
I liked hearing at the end of the workshop that all of us who are choosing to face this situation now, we are the leaders of this transition, whether we hold positions that are considered "leader" positions by the dominant culture or not (and most of us obviously aren't in those positions). There is a reason I feel drawn to the farming lifestyle, to the formation of something like a "lifeboat community". Even Derrick Jensen said in his talk, while he doesn't feel as if escaping to the country is "the solution" or that everyone can and should pursue that route, those communities will have their place, and when the shit seriously hits the fan, he knows whose door he'll be knocking at!