Since the New Year, how many earthquakes? Haiti, western China or is that Tibet, Chile, Indonesia, Illinois, Oklahoma... (There's a good list at earthquake. usgs.gov.) Storms and floods. The explosion and sinking of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, now leaking 42,000 gallons a day, spreading over the surface of the ocean. Mine disaster in West Virginia; 29 dead at the hands of Massey Energy and our collective addiction to coal fired power. Upcoming for this summer; a plague of grasshoppers (per High Country News), plagues of wildfires (per everyone).I keep thinking about Thomas Banyaca of the Hopi Nation, who used to come around Olympia in the 1980s talking about the Hopi Prophecies. You can look them up. Tales of ancient prophecies (of doom, of resurrection, of help from a world beyond, of the chosen people) have been part of American culture for a long time. We love thinking we are the chosen people, either chosen for a great destiny or chosen for front-row seats at the Apocalypse. And I've been often fascinated with the stories and prophecies -- which so often feel right and true for the times we're living in -- and also skeptical. We live in large part in a material and biological world. I don't think that the space brothers are all that interested in our success or failure. And while the divine spark of evolutionary fire inhabits every sentient being, our human world is mostly made by us. I don't think we can expect rescue (by angels or aliens), or rapture, or transcendent breakthrough.
But the earth, Gaia, is screaming louder and louder. How loud does it have to get before we wake up? Like junkies in a burning room (this is a scene from Sid and Nancy), we stare at the flames of destruction, mesmerized by the light. When the president announces that we need more offshore oil wells, and the next week the oil well blows up, killing 11, and sinks, spewing forth oil for days (weeks? months?) to come, some people might take that for a sign. A nindicator, as Riddley Walker said. Or just a simple case of cause and effect, nothing mystical about that.
On the home front, flowers. Rhododendron, magnolia, lilac, dogwood, plum, apple, ocean spray (I think), wood hyacinth, dandelion, red-flowering currant... there is no end to the fecundidty. The birds are loving the birdbath/feeder, conveniently located near the apple trees and the pond, and too high for the cats to pose a danger. We will hang the signs this week: Paradise is all around you.
We can still make this planet a paradise. or a hell. The preponderance of our efforts seem to be for the latter, but votes are still coming in.
