March 13th
cold, high 20’s, sunny, few clouds. Large snow storm expected tonight. Full moon yesterday
This weekend we made cardboard superheroes. Wil helped the boys cut them out and then they colored them and have been playing with them non-stop. The process got me thinking.
I believe that civilization is killing the planet. I believe that this civilization, and the western consumer culture that even at this moment spreads farther and farther across the globe, is completely at odds with delicate ecological structure of this planet. I believe our civilization, and our culture as it exists right now, is doomed to fail, and indeed is failing now. Even as we speak we are losing species. Even as I sit here typing this the planet’s very climate shifts in ways completely out of our control.
But, I also believe wholeheartedly in the earth’s capacity to create. In her ability to roll with the punches, in her ability to change, to adapt, to stun us with her resiliency and creativity. She truly is the mother of invention, and the mother of us all.
As her children, we too, carry her bold instinct for survival, her desire for life, and her ability to create.
At our worst we are mean. We are small. We act out of fear and in a blind kind of panic.
But at our best? We are fully alive. We envision. We make, we generate, we re-generate. We mimic. We invent. We love.
At our worst we are very bad.
But at our best? We are a wonder. A creature like any other, with an enormous capacity for adaptation and change.
I believe our civilization is killing the planet. I believe it is completely at odds with the ecological processes that must be able to happen here for us all to survive, for the earth to survive. But does that make me sad? No, not really.
Because I look at my child, the kids in my life. I spend time with them. I watch them making things. Drawing, inventing, crafting, creating. I see them playing, how their brains have an endless capacity for invention, and how their spirits are not yet dimmed by the the toughness of life.
There is a way forward here, I just know, I feel it. In order to transform our culture, if there is a way to truly change this civilization, the blueprint of a new world, and the map for the journey is most certainly held in the earth beneath our feet, woven among the stars in the sky and written in our very own hearts.
Another way of living is possible. Truly it is. It has existed before and can exist again.
So make, create. With abandon. Let’s sharpen our minds, and busy our hands. Let’s teach our children to do the same.
Because if a mind can see a superhero in a box made of cardboard, certainly that same mind will have a chance at helping to lead us out of this box.
That’s the stuff that superheroes are made of. They’re scrappy. They’re bright. They’re brave.
And they most certainly are what we need right now.
Minutiae 