sonora2sonoma

On thinking about paradigm changes

like those involving the advent

of a different way of looking

at the world–

in short, a new way of life

 

And how that intersects with climate change,

which will, over time present us with challenges

whose response will likely involve

significant changes of attitude and perspective

on the part of the participants involved.

 

I ponder the responses

of those fact-resistant presidential candidates

appearing on tv last night

in the latest Republican presidential debate spectacle

In particular, a certain Senator, for instance,

who talked about potential job losses

as a reason not to pay attention

to the pending climate catastrophe

as if the two comparisons

had some sort of legitimacy . .

as if the two ideas

were somehow equivalent.

 

Or another senatorial candidate for president

who derided President Obama

for declaring our biggest threat

was climate change

This Senator, meanwhile, claimed our real primary threat was Islamic extremism.

 

Don’t these people realize

that defeating Islamic extremism

will not be of much benefit

to anyone

if we’re all dying off

from the toxins produced

in the name of American Exceptionalism?

 

Do either of these men or their fellow aspirants

possess the kind of understanding

or wisdom

that is needed to navigate the unpredictable waters

of sea change?

The uncharted territory

one must traverse

when confronted with

a new world

with different rules?

Do they possess the flexibility of mind,

the imagination,

to lead us into this new paradigm shift?

 

Imagine what must have gone through

the minds

of the Miwok men and women

(living in what is now known

as the South Grove of Calaveras Big Trees State Park)

when they saw the White men

take down a tree–

a giant sequoia tree, largest of its kind,

a tree the Miwok people had revered

for countless generations–

Imagine what they must have felt

when they saw the White men cut down this tree,

this Great Being,

and proceed to make of its stump

first a bowling alley, and then, a dance floor.

 

These people, these Miwok people,

Were witness to a paradigm shift

just as surely

as the one that faces us today–

and one they surely must have had misgivings about,

just as many of us aren’t happy with the climate news these days–

The end of their lives as they had known them

and as their parents had known them

and their parents before them

down through the generations.

 

The end of the world as they had known it,

an end to reason as they had understood it

an end to people living in harmony with the natural order of things

as they had perceived them to be

for countless generations.

 

We, on the other hand,

have no such heritage to pass on

no such lineage to cite

no such understanding of the natural order of things

no such arrangements with the spirits of the wilds

no such beauty or wisdom or gratitude

to pass on to our children.

 

We leave for our children

uncertainty, fear, insecurity

social decay, poisoned rivers, fouled air

spoiled marshes, ruined corals

decimated forests and

mass extinctions of our fellow beings.

 

We pass on to our children a heritage of chaos–

environmentally, socially

politically, militarily

and, most disappointingly, spiritually.

 

Unheeded or forgotten are the words of wisdom

that guided and informed

the indigenous peoples of the world

whose stewardship

successfully preserved the lands and the seas

for their benefit and that of their descendants

over countless generations.

 

Instead, we hear

insane notions

of economic “progress.”

We see rampant, unrestrained, resource-hungry

Endless Moreness!

Visions of Mammon! Chamber of Commerce endorsed and approved!

The cancer of the heart

that is the driver of our modern dreams of success/excess,

The myth of perpetual prosperity

that will ceaselessly consume until nothing remains,

until all the workers whose jobs

are saved

by the likes of those who think like the Senator from Florida

have asphyxiated from the ruined air

they didn’t see coming

in their rush to participate

in the fleeting pursuit of More.

 

Just how much more

does it take

for there to be enough?

 

 

16 December 2015

Tim Konrad