As in the cartoon, most of us really want to have a Unicorn to look after and to emulate. After all, Unicorns have always escaped captivity, choosing to fling themselves off of tall mountains to avoid domestication. The only time a Unicorn was seen getting close to a human was, according to Judeo-Christian mythology, when the young Virgin Mary quietly sat under a tree, praying. The Unicorn sniffed her reverence for life and slowly came to lie down with her and rested it’s head on her lap. From the magnetic presence of the Unicorn, she conceived a child we call Jesus, or Yeshua, from the soul of Yahweh. So this proves that when humans realize their oneness with nature, miracles happen!!!
How can we expect cold-hearted, greedy, mega-billionares to want to lie down on the earth and stop their addiction to playing Monopoly with this depleted, desperate planet? We cannot. But we can remember that the Trudeau and Horgan’s governments have given us another year of flake news, full of green-washed commitments to UNDRIP, climate change and environmental conservation. Yes, some social policies have been improved. However, long-term human health and happiness depend on The Unicorns of healthy oceans, clean water, clean air, local food security systems, intact multi-generational communities, ancient forests to store carbon and most of all, the shut-down of industrial capitalism. I realize that political puppets of profit are easy targets for our disdain and merely reflect the false promises and lies fed to us by the faceless kings of multinational corporations. The bedrock of this global systemic delusion is hard to dismantle. The pick-axes of Indigenous allyship actions, forest blockades, pipeline protests, bank occupations and flooding politicians’ phone lines with angry agitations seem to barely remove the smallest of stones from it’s walls. The endless wealth paradigm pretends to exist in a vacuum but most of us know otherwise. Endless consumption depends on endless resource extraction; all taking place on stolen Indigenous lands. The Unicorns of traditional ways of living on the land, lush ecosystems and the last fragments of biodiversity need our help.
Human arrogance ignores our ultimate interdependency with the natural world. Humans who busily run around telling lies, try to capture innocent Unicorns, to avoid feeling vulnerable. Limitless plunder of the natural world capitalizes on the human tendency for laziness, addiction, fear of sacrifice and fear of intimacy with the unknown. Unicorns live in the wide open spaces of courage, wisdom, compassion, joy and skillful action. I think Desmond Tutu, who died on December 26, this year, was a Unicorn. He once said: “It is through vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our souls.” He also said: “True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the truth…. only an honest confrontation with REALITY can bring real healing.” What can each of us do this new year to bring back the Age of Unicorns?
