Dear community:
Once again, what a year it’s been. At the end of every year for the last few, we release our collective breath and say, “What a terrible, no good, very bad year! Next year will be better, it has to be!”
Hahaha! Remember when we used to believe that? Those were the days. I do wish I could feel optimistic, but all I’ve got is hope. In the background looms a sense of doom, or transformation, which sounds great, but can mean literally anything.
In these dark times, I don’t believe everything will be fine. I don’t believe we are doomed, either. I don’t believe, period. I fear, and I hope, with all my might. Pressures are mounting. We are headed for a shattering, but what will break and how it will heal, I can’t say. Something must change; perhaps everything. Some things must endure, and some we thought lost return, before we can reverse our course of destruction. There is little doubt left about the stakes now.
It’s not Covid-19, the government nor the elites we need to worry about most. It is the air we breathe, the world we share, the fires, the floods, the mass extinctions. What we view to be Big Problems are mostly symptoms. The real fix starts here, inside each bag of skin, in our choices to be authentic, to face and own reality, or to jump into a hole and pull it in after ourselves, like Wile E. Coyote (I notice that never worked well for him).
On our tiny island, it seems our community’s choices, collective or individuals, have no impact upon the fate of the whole, but we matter. This is our sphere. Our changes may be small, but ripple out, spreading around the globe via mysterious pathways of the psyche, or the internet, whatever. We need to take care to ask, what kind of world do we want to live in? What are my core values? What are yours? Where do we agree, what are our differences? The kind of community we need to create takes participation.
A whole requires all of its parts. A bird needs two wings to fly with, a heart needs a left and a right ventricle. We need both arteries and veins, both sides of our brains, and so on. This is not a war between right and wrong. It’s a struggle to balance our differences, to live in a good way with respect for all, and not just people. We are only one of Earth’s creatures. Our species has become a scourge, but we needn’t participate in destructive games of progress and increase. We can abdicate from the matrix and live our lives as best we can with the people who share this island with us.
Probably we will continue to behave as a sometimes-squabbling microcosm of the whole, because after all, we are humans. But wouldn’t it be nice to have a break from it all? Turn off the screens and show up smiling to a party or a dance, to release our cares into the collective arms of our community, to know we belong just because we are here, and together? Remember how that felt? It seems so long ago now.
I pray for an end to division and suspicion, and an opening into greater love and connectedness. I long for belonging, a sense of purpose and a context that includes all shades and sorts. On this sacred Earth, holy for its wholeness, great round heaving body breathing with our own breath, may we land on solid ground and real-eyes what and who we are, together with the rest.
Blessed New Year to all, and may this next year truly be better. Maybe it will. Weird things happen. With love, hope and trepidation, we begin another adventure around the sun, and for sure, some of it will be fun. I shall see you there.
Next year, as before, I want to hear from you! Please send feedback, invitations, suggestions and more to phoenixonhornby@gmail.com
Well felt, Bee. Well said.
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