I don’t know why that word. Awakening. But as I sit with it, it occurs to me as fitting for this, my first piece of writing shared with you after much too long. And I want to talk to you about the process of awakening fully enough on the inside in order to be more fully with what’s happening around you. And, of course, there’s the awakening earth around us here in the Los Angeles basin as well as most of the rest of the northern hemisphere.
Sometimes, and maybe especially because I’ve been aching but unable to write much at all, I’ve felt overcome with my desire to help mobilize my fellow humans in our collective need to tend to our planet. I don’t know how to do it fast enough at a large enough scale to feel like I’m doing enough.
It has helped to learn that there are already millions of people making impressive strides. It has also helped to recognize that the feeling of doing or being “not enough” can be unhelpfully and even devastatingly immobilizing. But I encounter that belief that “that won’t make a difference” all the time. I see it on the expressions of baristas when I ask them to skip the lid for my coffee. When I nudge someone towards composting.
Most of all, it has helped me to arrive at embodied knowledge that all of that struggle- the anguish over seeing trash in the gutter or a sea of people using plastic utensils at a restaurant or invasive plants choking out natives, the guilt over not doing more, the loneliness in it all- is entirely rooted in love. I love our Earth. I love the way that a light breeze feels against my skin and how it activates my sense of space and distance. I love the combination of awe with a bit of terror I can feel swimming in the ocean… or just looking out over it. I love relentlessly wondering at the fact that seeds grow into plants which make more seeds to grow more plants, and that that’s exactly how we all work, too. I love how often a parallel between my internal world and the landscape around me will take me by surprise and leave me feeling deeply comforted and connected.
My writing is rusty. My time to spend with is still too sparse. I had no intention of hitting the “publish” button today, but despite myself, I recognized that not doing so is another move fueled by “I need to do more than this.” But maybe one of you will feel stirred by something I’ve shared. Maybe it will result in a planted seed. And we need every instance of that.
Thank you for reading. I feel more grateful for that than ever.
