I’ve been stuck in Syria’s bloodbath with all Syrians, at a comfortable distance in one of the old empires who helped create The Whole Problem–stuck in their unfinished uprising even as Egypt goes to the presidential polls without a clear mandate as to what A President can accomplish (or is allowed to by The Military Generals)…meantime back at the Euro-Ranch, the Greeks lead the way into The Newest Great Unknown, a life without euros (the anti- euro camp must be enjoying this).
Life as seen through television media, even with an enlightened channel like Al Jazeera is conveyed as very complex and yet so simple. Meantime the BBC falls rapidly behind in its world coverage as government and conservative forces bend it to its will via budget constraints and fear of reprisal for being too truthful (out there). Sometimes the best channel to watch is the Euronews with its relatively objective, straightforward, unemotional factual style approach. Newspapers convey more complexity though in the main, I read English which is limiting…
Hidden behind all this is of course, the REALLY SERIOUS news, global warming and environmental disasters stacking up, as we grind toward the inevitable tipping point that we have (probably) already passed. Oh well, all this OTHER NEWS cloaks that much scarier news, as it’s consciously and unconsciously designed to do. You can be sure the 1%, the wealthiest classes, KNOW the truth and thus are accumulating wealth (and influence) at an even greater pace to ensure their survival whilst the 99% drop away in famine, poverty, related warfare, etcetera.They will/are/have build/ing/t their fortresses and warlord style paramilitary security-armies to protect themselves and their few descendants. All failing they’ll launch them into space and have them return when the worst is over (but of course they will have to live in deep underground places, nouveau-cave-people) as most life on the surface will be very hard indeed. Perhaps the surviving wild animals (apart from humanity) will finally get their Great Revenge, those that are left…not gone extinct (because of us in some way).
So as we head into summer I am looking for reasons to hope. I find them, little and big. First, my garden still grows. Some say it was too hot in March, too rainy in April and now it’s balancing out with some cold and serious warmth in late May. Some plants are okay, they just get on with it. Others are slow, some resentful! But the Beauty of Blossom is still there, for which I am so grateful….there is such a blissfulness in the experiencing of nature just getting on with it.
Ah, and there’s the rub, the people in the garden, Earth’s Garden, what we might like to imagine was once Eden. Of course, it’s still Eden, we just made a mess of it and then we made stories up about falling from grace to excuse our misdemeanours. If only. If only human nature was different, it might all be different. Of course, we can be different. I know we can. I lived for about ten years at a famous garden community called The Findhorn Community in Northeast Scotland (started in 1962, I arrived in 1975). Certainly, the Human Mirrors revealed that WE are the problem, but FOREGIVENESS (on all fronts) was rife and we also got on with it, many of us truly believing that if we cooperated with nature, we might have hope, have a chance at righting previous wrong behaviour. The Community is still going. People still complain. The Mirror Trip is still working–as in the ‘outside world’ but just more obvious ‘in world’. I still love the place, still have good friends there and still go up to join in on a regular basis. ‘We’/the Community will be 50 years old in November (on our birthday, 17th November, a very auspicious date esoterically, predictably, eh?). We’re (jointly, so to speak) throwing a Big Party, a Jubilee of Our Own, timed especially nicely to the Queen’s Jubilee Year and the Olympic Games, but politely, not to upstage anyone, after those are over…
My hope is bolstered by all my Findhorn Pals round the world, as we come home to our better selves–a number of us keep touch online anyway… A majority of us left the community many years ago, took their ‘love, light and wisdom’ into the ‘outside world’, turning it into an inside world in a great manner. One went high up in Apple Command UK, several are serious first class conservationists and gardeners, a good number are stunning artists and artisans, one is a Tai Chi cum Comedian Master, several are very good teachers, and of course, city planners and administrators..the list could go on to include any number of professions and lifestyles. And that’s not even counting the many thousands of wonderful guests whose lives have been irrevocably happily altered and thus altering (the wider world). The Ripple Effect. My hope lies in their spiritual beauty, in their children and families, whose lives they have helped fill with ‘Light’ (truth & beauty). This is one cadre of people working along so many others to create a better world, despite the odds stacked against us. Some of these people are locked away in jails, are persecuted, are murdered by enemies, or are lost in some way …they live in all parts of the world, including in Syria, and of course in Greece, and yes, absolutely in Iran. They come out in the coldest weather to demonstrate as in Russia, or the hottest weather as in Egypt; they are you and me; of course, We Are One, We have Hope. I have hope, I own that. Even if the Sky falls down, I will have hope, because it’s programmed into Us, The Home of The Selfish Gene, which clever Mr Dawkins wishes hadn’t been taken to mean exactly the opposite of what he meant.
All said and done, let’s hope that Summer will bring peace and democracy to Syria (and an end to dictatorship), a happy denouement to the Greek Drama (maybe it’s the drachma) and sanity to Israel with statehood for Palestine (I can dream. anyway).
The devil’s in the detail, eh what?