think globally, act splendidly

It's hard not to have some fear, in a world with more people all the time sharing a decreasing amount of good stuff. The math isn't rocket science - smaller pizza divided by more people at the party equals, at the least, an embarrassed host and more likely some hungry guests. But the ways in which we feel it manifest around us are numerous and constantly evolving like endless flakes in an April nor'easter.

Education - To get into university or graduate school, you have to look better than the other candidates, of whom there are more now than ever. Your parents know/feel this when they sign you up for competitive entry kindergarten programs that have homework and achievement tests (yikes!). The teenagers feel it when they do 163 extra-curricular activities on top of their already large homework burden. The college graduate feels it when she knows she has to come from a big name school, have excelled there, worked for the U.N., spent time doing field work with hardworking indigenous people somewhere below the equator, have 8 years work experience packed into 3, and have an undergraduate thesis as long as a Tolstoy novel. This is competition for a scarce resource (grad programs and big time schools) to ensure our seat at the table in a class- and scarcity- conscious society. I'm not speaking for or against schooling as an institution (eye-rolling is allowed here), but I think the education system is clearly being affected as it becomes a scarce resource.

Food - Speaks for itself. We see the images on TV still, with children far away not getting enough calories to survive and thrive. It's happening here in North America too, especially in big cities and in the rural South. I know we're all aware of how restaurants and stores toss food away, but how do we feel about throwing away food in a world of hungry folks? We're privileged by accident of being born where we were, and others are hungry because of the same random placement in countries that begin with the letter Z.

I'm not sure what to make of the scarcity thing, besides to recognize that we all feel it at the edge of our fields of vision. It's the background in the wars that rage about access to water and food, oil and minerals. It affects us here in housing prices in desirable neighborhoods, the gangs of politicians in L.A. and Phoenix engaged in turf wars for water control, huge numbers of applicants for underpaid non-profit menial jobs, paving national parks so more RVs can come in each year, oxygen bars to compensate for terrible air quality outdoors, and much more...

If nothing else, I see the manifest scarcity in the world as a call for cooperation and being honest with ourselves about our collective predicament. We can plan towards a more positive future if we accept where we're at, namely that there are more of us on the earth than the fragile ecosystem can ever support in a long-term sense (more than one more generation, I think). By positive, I'm not promising that all will be sunshine and suburban soccer leagues. Instead I mean acting based on the best information we have in the present, combined with wanting a healthy and satisfying future for all us homo sapiens, not a small group of us at the expense of others. I mean recognizing that working ever more feverishly to advance our immediate physical comfort and security, we are generally decreasing everyone's ability to have a liveable, pleasant future. Overfishing to stock up against a future famine doesn't make sense if we know that the fish stocks will soon collapse completely.

Let's bring talk of a more positive future into our personal discussions, the cocktail parties, the newspapers, the magazines, the streetcorners, and everywhere else. Let's ask the big questions - where are we on the timeline of human history in terms of resources? Where do we want to be headed? If we can't tell where we are or what's going on in the world around us, do we want to keep on the same path that has brought us here or do we want to change course? Let's look all the kids in the eye and think about what we'll have to tell them when they grow up about what we choose to do now.

(This post is dedicated to my friend Jeff in California, who has encouraged me to write with "more bite" about some of the ecological analysis that we've been talking about over the past 5 years. Thanks for the nudge :-)

seedlings in the window

Canada comes out swingin', brandishing a small April blizzard in a desperate attempt to reassert her identity as a cold country in the face of global climate change. Big wet snowflakes come streaking nearly sideways out of the orange night, and I step out through the cone of pale light to beyond the street lamps. It's not too cold, probably just around freezing, and I can feel the moisture in the air against my face. The storm is just a farce, though - one last hollow bellow before spring does away with the discussion for this year.

It's time to reinvent ourselves, to challenge ourselves to a new enlightenment, innovation and adaptation being the tools to carry the day. We as a global culture are crumbling rapidly in the era of too much - too much change, too much destruction, too much extraction and conversion of materials from the earth, too much information that we don't know, too many patterns that we can't see clearly because they are too big for us. We've been proud monkeys, and when the planet was big and we were a small force to be reckoned with, perhaps we deserved a tiny bit of pride. Now there are too many factors, the heat's been turned up, and the pressure cooker is continuing to work an incomprehensible unknown magic...

Let's do away with hydrogen cars and biofuels, certified lumber and debate over international treaties. Let 'em be what they are - dreams of a desperate man rife with tumors but lacking the word cancer in his vocabulary. Let's get local, get loving, get wise. Share information - how to fix it or how to bake it, when to plant it and where to find it. Let's admit how little we know and move forward with the precautionary principle in mind. Let's dissolve the myths that competition works for the betterment of everyone and be human enough to admit that cooperation feels better. Let's dispense with the homophobia and fearful, closed relationships so that we can hug a friend in need. Let's ask ourselves if we want the current state of affairs to be sustainable.

Let's be thoughtful and kind to one another. If we are the only one on the block to shy away from competition, then we will inevitably be afraid of falling behind as everyone else edges us out. We need each other for support so we are not alone in our endeavors to create a better world for our kids. We need to gather in potlucks, dances, picnics, town meetings, libraries, coffee shops, street corners, and kitchens full of the sweet smells of this new life.

I only know these things from feel, from the ten thousand smiles or tears impressed upon me every day, from the faces on the street carried by my synapses around the corner and down the hill. I know I feel at peace writing like this, and I carry trouble in my heart if I go to bed silent at the end of the day. I only know that I need to nurture these thoughts, to carry them forward each day or risk withering something inside me. Look for the smoke from my chimney and lights in my windows, and I'll do the same with you.

condensation is a first step

Today is a day of sitting in wicker armchairs, observing the cool rain and looking right through it, beyond the budding and bare trees in the distance, beyond the small worlds of red brick houses, out through the thin batik fabric of space and time to imagined futures and the sweet delicacies sprinkled in the present. It is a day of plotting coups to overthrow the affairs of the present which we do not love, it is a day of scented green tea with emerging friends and spring discoveries. It is the day we know we can get damp in the rain and not face a terrible chill at home. Today there is no guilt due to overstuffed sofas and pulling a light blanket over our feet and knees to stop the clocks for a while. Today is the satisfaction of a yoga stretch where amnesiac muscles speak of wintery tension and neglect, but prepare for the long walk to the fields.

In this season I can learn, teacher's hand placed thoughtfully over mine to guide the clay into useful vessels and the brush to lay down vibrant greens and oranges. The hustle of crowded sidewalks slows just enough to crack open the possibility of smiles in passing, seeding for hybrid blossoms of appointments blissfully made and adventures schemed. The Platonic essence of rebirth walks in the misty noontime, hands turned up to the sky, scarf draped forgetfully around her neck, a dormant muse so patient and unsuffering, bursting into the world silently in tender petals.

Where do your footsteps go on days like this? The stage, the office, the kitchen, the classroom, all the spaces of life charged with new energy. May you unapologetically track mud and smiles indoors, with seeds and twigs in tow, picked up along the path that seemed straight at bedtime last night and now curves and branches to fill the surface of our planet.