be the change – The Light Behind the Story

Image by Jean-Louis SERVAIS from Pixabay

It is one of those increasingly rare days here in New Hampshire when one feels like normal has returned. At least for a moment. The edge of anxiety has lifted with the smoke filled air and the apocalyptic haze has gone elsewhere. It is a summer day of yesterdays. Instead of fire, I can smell the clothes drying on the line. Above me, the blue sky has broken free, and the air quality index has registered as “good.” For now, the angry red sun has calmed.

It is a good day to breathe. A good day to be outside in the shade and marvel at the life that persists and even thrives. Here in New England we have received record breaking rains. It is a good summer for mushrooms and mosquitos, but not for sensitive lungs. Torrential rains cycle through several times a week, flooding the banks of rivers and washing away roads. Entire cities have been submerged, becoming islands to the helpless and hapless. Landslides have taken down hills that have never experienced instability.

Even though it is a “good” day to breathe and to allow the increasingly steady state of anxiety to abate, just a little, I am acutely aware that it is no longer a normal day. I can recall, maybe a mere decade ago, thinking how lucky we are, here in the Northeastern part of the continental U.S., that the effects of climate change have been subtle. And, dare I say, even gentle.

How much has changed.

I am in the midst of a summer of rain and thunder. Of smoke and haze from nearly 900 fires burning in the land north of where I live. A land that is supposed to be colder. On Monday, as the sky broke open in more angry torrents of rain, I stood beside the open window and smelled fire instead of water. The impossible has become possible. The threat, now a reality.

No longer are we in the phase of forewarning, we are living in the landscape of dystopia. A landscape of our creation. Do not try to preach to me about climate denial. I will not hear it. Wake up to your senses. Breathe in the unease around you. Feel the deadly rise of Fahrenheit and smell the smoke of a raging Earth.

Complacency is not an option.

Warning, this post contains some disturbing content.

signposts-40322_640 — What would you like to see on this sign? (photo source: Pixabay)

I was, I believe, about mid-way through my studies with the Silent Eye School of Consciousness. Driving in my car, as I so often do, down a road so familiar cellular memory could take over and I could lose myself in my thoughts. How many of us have been down these types of roads? Lost in our own musings and not paying mind to what is happening around us?

That day, though, I was paying attention. I was looking with new eyes at what had become so familiar that, I realized, I had become accustomed to it to the point of acceptance. I was jarred into a reality that I found acutely disturbing. I was looking at the facade of a convenience store. A sight not at all uncommon, which is why I was deeply disturbed. Posters defaced the windows, calling eyes to drink in the alcoholic beverages held inside. Mouths to draw in the cancerous smoke of the tobacco sticks sold behind the counter. Bellies to fill with the carbonation of liquid chemicals laced with artificial sugars. Defile your body and numb your mind, they called out to every onlooker: man, woman, and child.

This is my world, I thought. This is what we have chosen for our life, collectively. I was deeply disturbed. Yet, I had also come to accept this, at least partially, driving along the roads and barely noticing my surroundings. Even, sometimes, stopping inside these stores to purchase a beverage or snack to fill my hungry body. And what about my mind?

Last night, while watching an episode of “The Crown,” which I’ll admit has become a bit of an addiction, I fell into a similar state of disturbance. Once we make the conscious effort to open our eyes to our surroundings, we cannot help but see what is before us. “Hold her still,” the voice of the handler demanded, while a stallion did the deed of impregnating a mare. “Well done,” was the response after the deed was complete, as the satisfied parties left the scene.

I, though, was infuriated and saddened. What of the mare? “Hold her still.” “So,” I declared out loud, “they essentially force rape her.” And, everyone applauds a deed well done. Once again I found myself thinking, And this is the world I live in?

This morning, while going through my email, I found myself clicking through the daily dose of petitions in the hope to instill change. It’s always disturbing, the barrage of cruelty that meets the senses head-on. A macaw shot for fun, a comatose woman raped for pleasure (another rape), but it was the face of a young woman that pulled my eyes into the layers held behind the scene. Her grin, an artificial high of delight, as she held the dog she calls “Momma” with bloodied feet. A thrill-ride of violence. A young woman who had taken her scooter and dragged her pet behind her. “Mission accomplished,” her eyes spoke. “Look what I’ve done!”

And yet, I thought, why should we be surprised? Look at the billboards we feast our eyes on? They come in myriad form. Books filled with glorified rape and violence. Big screens bringing to life pillage, greed, lust and more gloried rape and violence. I have never enjoyed reading horror novels, nor have I ever enjoyed watching their counterparts on the screen, yet so many of us do. Perhaps, in part, because we can say, “This is not happening to me.” But is it not?

Look around you. What is your world like. Are you okay with it?

When I sent my visionary fantasy novel, The Labyrinth, to a young beta reader, she asked me if anyone was going to die. She expected violence and even murder. Why not? It’s everywhere. Glorified. Accepted. Welcomed into our homes through media, news, and entertainment. What we create becomes our realities. That, in itself, deserves some thought.