The Corona Virus and Climate Change

So here we are suddenly thrust into a Pandemic.  Living in circumstances none of us could imagine even a month ago when the epidemic was sweeping China and Iran, etc.  We are living a crisis of a type that has not happened in any living person's memory (100 years since the last pandemic).   We are living a nightmare in someways made worse by how much of a global community technology has made us.  (100 years ago people did not fly in hours from one place to another.)

As I have been doing Joanna Macy's Work That Reconnects for 10 years I cannot help but see this catastrophe through that lens designed to help us face "the Mess we are in without going Crazy" or with Active Hope (the title of her last book).   It feels to me like sharing some of these thoughts would be helpful to others as well.

As someone who has been doing climate work now for 13 years I have been long been staring down grim scenarios for humanity and our planet.  The worst case scenarios all involve the total breakdown of society as the environment itself fails.  Logically there is a terrible economic fall out of such scenarios and the breakdown of various societal structures, but even the worst case scenarios did not see things like that happening for 10 to 15 years.  Some of those scenarios also envisioned old epidemics literally rising out of the permafrost or no longer enough vaccinations to suppress.

But what is actually happening is a scenario no one but a science fiction writer envisioned and would appear unrelated to Climate Change.  Yet Joanna's words still powerfully apply for me.  She has talked for a long time about non-linear time, the idea coming forth from quantum mechanics of parallel time, and she has said: our ancestors and our descendants are trying to help us, and the non human beings.  I had the dawning realization the first time I listened to her "why do I think all the solutions will come from the minds of humans living right now?"   During the sHell No campaign in the NW in 2015 - Kayactvists tried to stop Shell from parking a rig in Seattle and going up to Alaska and testing to drill off the coast of Alaska, and activists hung off a bridge in Portland to stop the ice breaker coming for repair.  I had several experiences then that felt powerfully to speak about what Joanna was speaking of.

The rig alluded the two dozen Kayactivists trying to block it in Seattle but by the time it got across from Port Townsend some Kayactivists - only 4 or 5 came out and it swerved slightly to miss them and ground.  It was only stuck a short time, but I felt as if the earth had reached up and grabbed it!  I felt as if the earth were trying to help.   Later, the ice breaker was damaged (apparently by ice) and had to be brought down to Portland for repairs...causing delay. (Again I felt the frozen ocean had reached up ripping the ice breaker and helping us.) It was further delayed as it left by activists hanging on ropes from the bridge blocking their path and by kayactivts that also darted out and blocked their path. That whole delay only took two days, but added to the time lost on the repair and Shell wound up not having enough time to do their test drilling and without that info their board cancelled the whole project (partly also aware of the negative public outcry.)  In the end I felt the earth had puts its finger on the scale and helped ups to win that battle.

For those of you very scientific this account will drive you mad.   This is a spiritual story.  It is a story of how beings from another time are conspiring on behalf of all life to save us.

What you say does this have to do with the Coronovirus?  Well I want to be clear I am not celebrating anyone's death.  I am not oblivious to the untold suffering that the virus is bringing by stopping the global economy in its tracks....but I will say this: look at a list of the industries currently in a tail spin:
airlines, the oil industry, cruise ships, the financial industry....all of these are leading contributors to climate change.  We are literally seeing as the flying and way less driving is happening as people are compelled to stay home the green house gases reducing and the deep smog over China lifting.  The eco system has produced a virus that is both reducing the population of the beings in charge of climate change and it is also changing our most climate destroying behaviors. 

Sure when the epidemic is over people will go back to flying and driving and spending money....but maybe just maybe we will begin to realize that much more telecommuting could normally occur, that it is crazy to fly across the country for a convention where we listen to a talking head that we could easily have listened to on a screen.   Maybe we will think twice about flying across many states to go to a sports game or watch a play.  Maybe we can hold flying a privilege for weddings and funerals and to see the dying.   Maybe we will learn how quickly we can change policies when we really KNOW we are in an emergency (she says with the anger of being told for three years that we will protect the trees next session or being told by portfolio managers that they know oil will become a stranded asset put policy prohibits divesting from it.)  Maybe in the ashes of this mess we will decide we might as well reconstruct things in a way that will survive climate change.  Maybe just maybe we can learn from this experience about the way we have been living and how we need to live.

Joanna Macy is a whole systems thinker.  One of the "games" she has us do in workshops to illustrate systems theory involves each of us secretly picking two people in the group of 20.  When we say go you are to place yourself equadistantly from those two as the group moves (that can be in a line or a triangle).  The group keeps moving and moving trying to establish this perfect equilibrium.  Then one predesignated person drops to the ground and the facilitator says: if you are connected to someone on the ground you must drop too.  Within seconds the entire group is on the ground.  This is a powerful lesson that we are all connected to each other in the web of life.   This is why the moment the ban on travel to Europe was  announced I knew our economy was going down.   I knew it would force airlines into bankruptcy, that as they lessened flights other things would go wrong, etc.  I knew that as we restricted movement in order to stop the spread of the virus that it would stop economic activity and close businesses, many forever.  This is the painful side of the generally beautiful truth that we are all connected to each other.

It is also why it is so important for how we now respond to this.  It we act as every person for themselves we will create a hell.  Like the person who knew they had the Covi-19 and flew on a Jet Blue plane anyway exposing every person on that plane.  An unbelievably selfish act destroying the web they belong to.   But I also see people right now reaching out to get groceries and meds for those who cannot do it, and trying to figure out how to help those who are becoming unemployed over night. Several NBA players responded to the cancelling of their season by donating to replace the incomes for the season of the minimum wage janitors and hotdog sellers, etc. associated with the stadium.   We are all payed millions, but how can we help those who are struggling right now?

History is full of crises.  Crises that pivoted us as a people in a good way and crises that pivoted us in a bad way.  Example - the poor resolution of WWI leading to economic hardship in Germany made ripe the rise of Hitler promising a new bright future for Germany.  The worldwide recession was responded to by Roosevelt in a transformational way of creating social security, public works projects, unemployment insurance, etc.   We will choose what comes out of this crisis.  We can let the rich use it to snap up even more resources or we can recreate a society that provides universal health care, sick leave and maternity leave for all, and that begins to really seriously address climate change.  Some may find what I say to be an incredible tale of silver linings or fairy tales.  But we are the ones who will decide what the final outcome of this story will be.

Faithfully Effective

At the Delta 5 trial in order to prove the necessity defense the 5 defendants were asked repeatedly to tell the other things they had done and to say whether these things were effective.  They said no they were not effective as that was part of proving that the act of breaking the law was necessary.  I think this is a very confusing message for our movement.

In reflecting upon this I think it is an incorrect question.  I think in fact that everything we do to fight climate change is somewhat effective and also not successful.   But I think the correct question was: but is it faithful?  

In facing the greatest moral challenge of our lifetimes we can only listen for God's guidance and be faithful.   Joanna Macy famously says: "We must realized that the ancestors, the descendants, and the other life forms on this earth and the earth itself are all trying to help us."   I was deeply moved when I heard Joanna say this.  I have struggled with the feeling of the weight on the world on my shoulders as we face this grave crisis.   But when I heard that I realized "hmmm yes why do I assume it is a human brain that will think of the solution or even create the movement for change?  Or that we can even recognize the solution as it emerges?"

When Shell was here in Seattle last year with their arctic rig - hundreds of people came out in their kayaks and tried to stop them.   They basically pushed us aside like flies and proceeded.  However they ran aground outside of Bremerton (while evading only 3 kayaks) and were stuck there for a few hours.  I could not help but think of Joanna and believe the earth itself had reached up and grabbed the rig.

Later their one required ice breaker, sprung a leak (apparently from ice slashing the steel) and therefore had to come back to Portland for repairs.   While they were there,was when the world watched them be delayed for several days by protesters dangling off the bridge stopping them from going forward.   The leak itself cost them several weeks, the protesters several days.   In the end their short window for drilling was shortened enough that they got only one hole drilled instead of two as they had planned.   And because of that their very expensive mission failed and they therefore have given up on arctic drilling.   In my mind the earth is helping us...the ice reached up and in its own act of vandalism, slashed, and said no!

It would seem to me therefore in God's universe it is unknowable what the outcome of climate change will be, but we all must be not so much effective as faithful in the fight against climate change because we do not know how life will act to protect life!

Which One are You?

You are perhaps familiar with the kind of Bible study which asks us to take a particular story in the Bible and imagine that we are each of the individuals in the story to more deeply understand the story.  So for example, in Luke 10 we are asked to consider what it is like to be Mary enjoying having Jesus in her home and hanging on his every word and what it is like to be Martha working hard in the kitchen to make everything perfect for a meal with Jesus, but resentful of doing all the work.  And we are asked to think what it is like to be Jesus observing these two sisters, and telling Martha to concentrate on what is important.  (So then male person how does food get on the table?)

This weekend I went to a symposium entitled Transformation without Apocalypse.  ( A complete aside here would be my complete horror at realizing that there are people who actually welcoming our planet heading over the climate change cliff because they believe this is the way to the Apocalypse and second coming.  I cannot believe that a loving God would ever want us to commit planetary Genocide!) The symposium was about Climate Change and had speakers: Timothy DeChristopher, Joanna Macy, Kathleen Dean Moore, Sarah Van Gelder, Ursula LeGuinn, etc.  A true smorgasbord for the soul.

If you do not know who Timothy DeChristopher is, he is a young man who at the end of the Bush Presidency attended an auction in UT where beautiful public lands were being auctioned off to be mined.  He entered the auction with no particular plan in place but then was asked if he was there to bid, so accepted a bidding paddle (number 70).  He saw a woman he knew from his church at the back of the room, and she began to cry at the sadness of all these lands being destroyed.  Suddenly Timothy began to bid.   Ultimately he won 22,000 acres of land for 1.8 million dollars!  The only thing was he did not own 1.8 million dollars and bidding without the ability to pay is a federal felony for which he was arrested and released on bail. Ultimately he was convicted of two felony counts and sentenced to two years in jail.  The incoming Obama administration investigated and found the auctions had been illegal because the proper environmental impact statements had not been done.  Bush officials were simply rushing to sell the lands while they still could.  The land therefore that Timothy bid on was safe forever.  The Obama administration did not, however, stop his prosecution.  Timothy is considered by many to be a climate hero and in fact a very moving movie entitled Bidder 70 has been done about his story.  I recommend it if this story intrigues you.

But I find myself asking those Bible Study questions:  What would it be like to be one of the other bidders in the room, sent by oil companies to buy land to exploit?  Would you feel anything about your task?  Or only concern for succeeding and winning favor in your company?  What would you feel about this mysterious bidder that keeps winning parcel after parcel seemingly from a bottomless purse?  What would it be like to be the auctioneer?  Do you ever feel bad about what is being sold?  Or have you trained yourself to have no feelings about that which is sold because it is just a job?

What would it be like to be the weeping woman who comes in feeling powerless, only able to be witness to the destruction of the holy?  What would you feel as you recognize Timothy and see him begin to bid?  Are your prayers answered?  How do you feel as they take him away in handcuffs?  Do you feel guilty....like the famous exchange between Thoreau and Emerson where Emerson comes to visit Thoreau in jail for not paying his war taxes.  Emerson asking "David what are you doing in here?"  and Thoreau responds:  "Henry, what are you doing out there?"  Do you weeping woman wonder what you are doing out there free on the street as they take away Timothy who has acted upon your pain?

What does it feel like to be Timothy drawn to this troubling situation, suddenly seeing an action he can take?  Lead by God? Lead by Conscience? Taking an action that will change his life forever? And if all of these people had been listening, like in a Meeting for worship, where was the Creator's voice in the room?  Was The Holy One speaking to one or all of these characters?  Does God speak through a woman's tears or a spontaneous moment of inspiration?

At the symposium this past weekend Timothy's call was for us to tell the truth more plainly, to not white wash the truth of how bad our situation is.  He also said that we will all have to make sacrifices, that we cannot fight Climate Change and live the same comfortable lives we have been living.  Kathleen Dean Moore who spoke after him made a slightly different and yet profound addition to this point.  She said:  "People don't want to have to make sacrifices to save the climate, and yet what they are overlooking is that we are already making sacrifices; huge unacceptable sacrifices.  We are in the process of sacrificing a liveable planet; we are sacrificing future generations lives.  So really the question is which sacrifices do we want to make?"

So which person are you?  The auctioneer, the other bidders living in business as usual?  Or are you the weeping woman, sad but powerless, or are you Timothy DeChristopher, willing to take life changing actions?
Which sacrifices are you willing to make?

Climate Change, Duality and The Triune Truth

I have been doing Climate Change organizing for 7 years.  It is hard work because it is a depressing subject that most people wish to avoid.  It very easily evokes in people feelings of good versus evil, and a great deal of discouragement about the ability of David to beat Goliath.  However, in my spiritual life I have come to regard duality as a false consciousness, so this creates an interesting tension for me.  Neale Donald Walsch writes very interestingly about the falseness of duality and how there is always a third possibility.  I quote:

"This Triune Reality is God's signature.  It is the divine pattern.  The three-in-one is everywhere found in the realms of the sublime.  You cannot escape it in matters dealing with time and space, God and consciousness, or any of the subtle relationships.  One the other hand, you will NOT find the Triune Truth in any of life's gross relationships. 
   The Triune Truth is recognized in life's subtle relationships by everyone dealing with such relationships.  Some of your religionists have described the Triune Truth as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Some of your psychiatrists use the terms superconscious, conscious and subconscious.  Some of your spiritualists say mind, body, and spirit.  Some of your scientists see energy, matter, ether.  Some of your philosophers say a thing is not true for you until it is true in thought, word, and deed.  When discussing time, you speak of three times only: past, present, future.  Similarly, there are three moments in your perception - before, now and after.  In terms of spatial relationships whether considering the points in the universe, or various points in your own room you recognize here, there, and the space in between.
   In matters of gross relationships, you recognize no "in-between".  That is because gross relationships are always dyads, whereas relationships of the higher realm are invariably triads.  Hence, there is left-right, up-down, big-small, fast-slow, hot- cold, and greatest dyad ever created: male-female.  There are no in-betweens in these dyads.  A thing is either one thing or the other, or some greater or lesser version in relationship to one of these polarities.
   Within the realm of gross relationships, nothing conceptualized can exist without a conceptualization of its opposite.  Most of your day-to-day experience is foundationed in this reality.
   Within the realm of sublime relationships nothing which exists has an opposite.  All is One, and everything progresses from one to other in a never-ending circle."
Conversations with God: Book 1  p.30-31

What Walsch writes is so helpful to me because of my own spiritual path.  I feel I have come to earth to work on issues of violence and injustice.  Yet in both, it is so easy to quickly get caught up in good versus evil sorts of ways of thinking which I have come to see actually perpetuate "enemy think" and the continuation of the spiral of violence and injustice.  So it has become clear to me that part of the path forward is to step out of duality, and yet I find that in many of the things I feel most passionately sort of pull me towards some sort of right wrong thinking.

This past week I went to a "dialogue about climate change".  Obviously this is a topic which brings strong feelings: fear, despair, grief, anger, etc.  It is not a dispassionate subject.  After showing a very depressing TED talk we were divided into groups of three and asked first to share our feelings about the statement: “Things are getting worse”, then about the statement “Things are getting better”, and finally about the statement: “Things are perfect as they are, or things are as they are”.  During the first part you could hear  words like destruction, grandchildren, politicians, species loss, etc. whirling around; it was somber in deed in the room.  This was the "easy" part.  I think for many of us the second part was most challenging - how to be with it without feeling like we were going into denial or whitewashing what is happening.  For myself I can both notice various solutions and initiatives people are taking that are indeed hopeful - and yet I know if we do not get the political will quickly to implement these things they are all pointless.  From a cyncial point of view I can say "Well Gaia is healing herself; she is throwing off the leaches that suck her dry and poison her.  She will live in the much longer span of the planet even if all human and mammal life perishes." 

My first gut reaction upon hearing the word perfect anywhere around climate change was “bullshit”.  But when I just sat with the sentence, I found it was a huge change in perspective.  It was like a lens that moved me out looking at the earth as big marble and at our past, current, and future time.  From this perspective I could notice we are each individually learning lessons both personal and collective.  We are playing roles both personal and collective in the fate of the earth.  It took me back out into the mystery...into all that we do not know.  A man burned himself in the Middle East and it spawned the Arab Spring.  Who could have predicted that?  Humans have accidentally discovered all kinds of technologies and all kinds of love and all kinds of ways of organizing ourselves.  In the face of crisis they have suddenly behaved differently.  Who are we to know what the experience or the meaning will be of a global crisis shared for the first time in history by every person on the earth.  And honestly we have no choice but to live into the mystery.

When we returned to the whole group the woman next to me commented that the first two questions were the polarity, but that the third question took us out of the duality.  In fact I see the third question is what Walsch calls the Triune Truth: there is the getting worse (or the Great Unraveling as Joanna Macy calls it), and the getting better (Or the Great Turning as both she and David Korten call it), and then there is things as they are (which Joanna might call non-linear time).  As long as we deal with the political issues before us in the language of "gross relationships" (as Walsch calls it) rather than the sublime which transcends polarity then we continue to beat our head against a reality in which we just take turns playing bad guys and good guys.  I think many of our answers will be found in the third space.

An example of this has to do with good guys and bad guys.  When we believe in a world of gross relationships then we are duty bound to fight the bad guys often engaging as President Obama has in actions that create bad karma for oneself and enrage others who then arise against us as the “bad guy” and the circle continues.  Whether you believe in reincarnation and your own string of past lives, or simply in your ancestors and know enough of their stories to know: you will then observe that each of us is enmeshed in centuries of being both oppressor and oppressed, powerless and powerful, kind and cruel, and that we contain within us all of these experiences and possibilities.  Part of the heart of non-violence is to call out to that other set of possibilities that exist within the person currently acting as oppressor or “wrong doer”.  We can really only do this however, as we drop the righteousness of wielder of Good and meet the other on the plane of the Triunal Truth…where we are all one and share the same fate.  I think as we face climate change this way of approaching the issue will become increasingly necessary.