Opportunity in the Crisis
We find ourselves in the shockingly unexpected position of having shifted into a new world paradigm overnight.
The old ways have been upended. Although uncertainty can be uncomfortable, even terrifying, there is also opportunity.
Sometimes old ways need to be released, as painful as that can be, to make space for something new and more enlightened to be born.
Many of us have seen clearly for some time that the old ways were not sustainable.
Humanity needed a reset so that we didn’t continue our inexorable march further into destruction.
Here is just one small example of a benefit from this tragedy:
One Stanford University expert, Marshall Burke, believes between 50,000 and 75,000 premature deaths have been prevented already, simply due to cleaner air across China, which likely saved 20 times more lives in China than have currently been lost due to infection with the virus.
We as a species have a collective blind-spot when it comes to the incredible, incessant, destruction our consumptive instincts are inflicting on the natural world.
The anthropocene, defined as the current geological age during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment, has been a horror show for just about every other species on the planet (please read ‘Sapiens’ by the brilliant Yuval Noah Harari for a thorough historical reckoning of this trajectory).
Scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct due to human activity every 24 hours, more than 1000 times the natural rate.
Even many of those who can see the harm we are doing seem unwilling to change their behavior is any significant way.
I get it. Behavior change is hard and we in the West are accustomed to many privileges. We have been taught that certain earthly privileges are the birthright of humans.
We got away with this convenient, self-serving fabrication for a few millennia. Our damaging ways have finally caught up with us.
We have been living a (mostly) unexamined lie of catastrophic proportion.
Without a truth and reconciliation of all the harm we have been doing and the subsequent behavior changes required, we will continue to hurtle ourselves off a cliff, taking innumerable other species with us.
The good news is that Mother Nature (or the Universe, or God, whichever you prefer) has given Homo Sapiens a do-over.
If we choose to see this as just an annoyance, a ‘war on an invisible enemy,’ a waiting game until we can get back to business as usual, this will be a lost opportunity of epic proportions.
Let this be a time for us to reflect more deeply on the interconnectedness in all of life, how we can walk more gently on the earth.
Reprioritize Everything
We must demand the end of every social condition, every structure that set the stage for this crisis to appear.
EDUCATION:
People are likely well-meaning when they advocate for more money for education and healthcare but in some ways that is just doubling down on antiquated, broken systems that need to be reimagined from the ground up.
We need to let go of our factory model of education (bells, rows, uniformity) which arose in need for obedient factory workers and members of the military, and create something much more flexible and inclusive where every person learns to critically evaluate information and form his/her own opinion.
We need a system that honors and makes room for ALL kinds of intelligence.
If we taught and prioritized a reverence for the earth and the other creatures, we likely wouldn’t be suffering so much right now. And the natural world wouldn’t be as decimated as it is.
What good is the stock market if we don’t have water to drink or air to breathe?
If we taught our kids how to process strong emotions and how to communicate respectfully, we would not see the shocking displays of arrogance and ignorance we are seeing play out on the world stage. These are natural skills that can be strengthened through deliberate practice and modeling.
Now is the time to scrap the old system and create something better.
Healthcare
Most of us are painfully aware that we do not have a healthcare system, we have a disease management system. People are likely well meaning when they advocate for ‘healthcare’ for all, but if we truly cared about health we wouldn’t be subsidizing with tax-payer dollars and regulations, systems and industries which are making us sick in the first place.
To really promote health, we would prioritize healthy air. water, soil and food. We’ve been doing the opposite of this.
We need to look deeply at EVERY decision we are making and ask ourselves these questions:
- Is this a kindness or a violence to the earth and the other beings?
- What would be in the best interest of the greater good?
Nothing is too small to be examined and changed.
One relatively small example: Right now I am listening to a leaf blower roaring outside my window. A convenience for one human, but a violence to the earth in terms of fossil fuel use and destruction of topsoil and other creatures in its path. Read more here.
Every convenience must be examined closely in this way. We can be grateful that we are alive and pick up a rake instead as a gift to the earth.
To be clear, we cannot live on the earth without doing some harm. The intention right now needs to be to do the least amount of harm possible.
Walking more gently at every opportunity is what is called for right now.
How did we get here?
One of the core component of mindfulness is clear-seeing. Let’s look clearly at how we got here.
We are not at war with a virus or with the Chinese.
This kind of language allows us to deflect blame, and feel victimized. Our species is the perpetrator of the ongoing crimes being committed against every other creature and the planet herself, not the victim.
We can not truly heal until we can be honest wth ourselves about how we got here. We need to go all the way upstream to look at the root cause.
If we can’t do that, we’ll be fated to continue facing similar calamities.
Upstream vs. Downstream
Here is a story that we read in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction classes, by Donald B. Ardell Ph.D which is very relevant.
“It was many years ago that villagers in Downstream recall spotting the first body in the river. Some old timers remember how Spartan were the facilities and procedures for managing that short of thing. Sometimes, they say, it would take hours to pull 10 people from the river, and even then only a few would survive.
Though the number of victims in the river has increased greatly in recent years, the good folks of Downstream have responded admirably to the challenge. Their rescue system is clearly second to none: most people discovered in the swirling waters are reached within twenty minutes, many in less than ten. Only a small number drown each day before help arrives — a big improvement from the way it used to be.
Talk to the people of Downstream and they’ll speak with pride about the new hospital by the edge of the waters, the flotilla of rescue boats ready for service at a moment’s notice, the comprehensive health plans for coordinating all the manpower involved, and the large number of highly trained and dedicated swimmers always ready to risk their lives to save victims from the raging currents. Sure it costs a lot but, say the Downstreamers, what else can decent people do except to provide whatever is necessary when human lives are at stake.
Oh, a few people in Downstream have raised the question now and again, but most folks show little interest in what’s happening Upstream. It seems there’s so much to do to help those in the river that nobody’s got time to check how all those bodies are getting there in the first place. That’s the way things are, sometimes.”
We are taking an incredibly downstream approach to the Coronavirus, as we do with most things.
When we go all the way upstream of this crisis, we see that the root is how we have been treating the natural world and the other beings with whom we share this wondrous planet.
There are inevitable consequences to our behavior.
The Living World and Karmic Consequence
“Men of science, like men of state have a duty imposed by ethics. The Earth is living: it can and will avenge itself: already there are portents. The Earth has no time left for man’s ignorance, arrogance, sophistry and madness.” ~Jean Malaurie, French geologist and Arctic explorer
The coronavirus didn’t arise randomly. This wasn’t bad luck or coincidence. Our sadistic treatment and manipulation of animals for centuries has come back to haunt us. It is important for us to acknowledge this if we are to avoid making the same mistake.
From one of the best articles I’ve seen on this topic, by Cyril Christo in The Hill.
“Whatever deaths have overtaken our species in the last few months, deaths that number in the thousands, we should not forget the root source of this scourge, humanity’s revolting disregard, manipulation, and outright slaughter of our fellow beings, the animals of earth.
The deafening silence of absent species marks our time as singular. What extinctions are happening will become more impactful than WWI, WWII or the Great Depression combined, because now we have an enormous, almost unfathomable ecological tab to reckon with, and not just the folly of an economic system run amuck.
The entire spectrum of nature’s syllabus is being played out. Our relationship with the sentient world will have to reverse or we perish. The coronavirus is the tip of the iceberg.
Animals were always considered cardinal spiritual, sentient and even intellectual beings in the lives of indigenous peoples and many civilizations past. But as colonial and technological powers overran the world, indigenous peoples were treated no better than the buffalo, or whale or pangolin or bat. And now our disregard of the others bears a karmic component we cannot ignore.
Wall Street may have lost some ground, but the mounting possible extinction toll is many magnitudes more vital than the arbitrary machinations of the Dow.
The death toll on millions of acres of rainforests lost, coral reefs bleached and species eradicated the world over has brought us to this point. It is the invisible aura of loss we have inherited. It is the karma our species is inheriting.
The locust invasion of east Africa is a Biblical cohort to the virus of East Asia. Now our entire immune system as a species and that of the planet is under siege.
If we lose the animals, we will become inconsolable orphans…
We have wrapped ourselves in a cocoon of technological, synthetic and decorative cultural achievement burdened with pride that strains and depletes our full values as sentient beings. In the process we have ignored the suffering and sentience of others.”
Please take the time to read this important article in its entirety here.
Interconnection and Spiritual Awakening
I understand that if you have not yet explored inter-being and the interrelationship of all sentient beings, this might seem unimportant to you, perhaps even heretical.
These are not concepts which have been emphasized in the Anthropocene, in fact they’ve been actively discouraged, as if everyone embraced inter-being, that would threaten the precious GNP and the fairytales of eternal economic growth, as Greta Thunberg said so eloquently.
Each time we consume a ‘product’ that was once a living being who had emotions, preferences and desires just like we do, and who likely lived and died the most miserable existence imaginable, we are absorbing this misery, trauma and suffering into our own cells.
And we are saying to the universe: that this is who we are. We don’t care enough to take the time to see the truth of the matter; to acknowledge the immense suffering our mindless, habitual decisions cause.
Compassion: consciousness of others’ distress and a desire to alleviate it
Compassion is one of the most important qualities a human can embody. Compassion has been in short supply when it comes to the non-human animals. I use this language because we ourselves are animals.
Yuval Noah Harari puts it this way in ‘Sapiens’:
“Self-made gods, we are accountable to no one. We are wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement yet never finding satisfaction.
Is there anything more dangerous and irresponsible than self-made gods who don’t know what they want?”
Are you feeling claustrophobic now that you are being asked to quarantine?
Now you have a small sense of how the animals in zoos and aquariums feel.
Are you feeling anxious about all the uncertainty?
Now you have a small sense of how the millions of animals arriving at slaughterhouses feel.
Are you worried about what might happen to your loved ones, and when you can see them again?
Now you have a sense of what the cows feel who have their babies repeatedly ripped away from them so a machine can pump out their secretions.
Are you feeling sad that your movement is restricted?
Now you have a small sense of how all the sentient beings trapped in battery cages, research labs, and gestation crates feel.
If you have never given much thought to how the non-human animals feel, perhaps now is a good time to start, How we treat the natural world is how we will be treated.
I recently gave a talk at the Power of Plants Summit addressing all of this.
The good news is that many are waking up and making more compassionate choices, and we can all make these choices at any time.
I invite you to watch the whole talk here.
Despite my deep concern for the widespread suffering of humanity right now, I have immense hope in my heart for our collective future.
Keeping animals off our plates is more important now than ever. It’s not the only thing we need to do, but it is an essential step. It has never been easier to do so.
May we use this opportunity to re-set our values and priorities.
If you’d like to come along, if these ideas resonate with you, please let me know. If you’re struggling to grasp it all, that’s OK too. I’m a resource for you all, no matter where you are in your journey. if you need any guidance, please let me know. I have lots of resources I can recommend.
Please make space for the idea to percolate in your awareness. I know people don’t change overnight. Let’s stay in dialogue about how we can come together, wherever we are, whatever political party you identify with, to create solutions.
We have more that unites us than divides us. And that is true for people of other political parties, other nations, other genders, other races, and other species.
Times of crisis show who we are, both individually and as a species. Let’s bring our biggest, most compassionate, best selves to the table. Anything is possible right now.
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much love,
