If Only I'd Listen

I think this eagle is onto something. Imagine if we all just slowed down.

Slowed our consuming, our striving, our competing, our driving, our thinking, our needing, just slowed the fuck down.

All of us, especially those with enough.

I'm as guilty as the next at wanting more, but at what cost?

It's not just the whales that are dying, not just the seabirds, not just the polar bears, not just the honey bees, but snow machine riders who travel between villages and fall through the ice that held them for generations.

The American Dream of progress and commercial success, motors and plastic, eats away at the only home that holds us.

If we aren't moved by the fate of other species, will we act when our own is threatened?

Or will we wait until the water rises on more populated coasts? Will it take waves rolling over Manhattan for action?

All these questions can sink me--but what can I do from this worm pit of worry?

Sure, I can write about my fears for the world we will leave our grandchildren, but what good is a mother's lament about the future?  My words can't halt the retreating glaciers or repair the erosion to our shores. My sentences can't stop wildfires, hurricanes or avalanches.

And yet I can't let the enormity of it all silence me, even if my utterances remain insignificant.

Perhaps I can start by listening to the eagles. 

I can slow down.

Slow.

The.

Fuck.

Down.

A humpback whale rose to the surface of Resurrection Bay on Mother's Day.

I stood on the beach with friends and watched this mysterious creature rise and dive. Rise and dive. We scanned the water waiting for the whale to surface again, pointing and smiling and trying to capture its image whenever the mighty one gave us a glimpse.

A blow hole, dorsal ridge, fluke, all parts of the whole, briefly visible, as the humpback swam past on the whale's yearly summer migration to Alaska.

What a gift.

More than enough.

Even living in this wildly beautiful place, I get caught up in my internal capitalistic desires for more things. I want what I don't need. I compare myself to others and feel less than adequate, so I binge on more sugar, as if chocolate had the power to save this world I love.

But the eagles keep singing, regardless.

And my friends love me, even from afar. Nick's blue eyes still make me swoon. The hummingbirds returned to Foundry Peak.

My children, despite my failings, say "I love you too," every night, as I settle them for bed.

And the sun keeps rising and setting, like my chest, when I remember to stop for a moment and breathe.

Imagine if we all stopped for a moment to breathe, all at once, a global pause, lungs expanding, releasing, unified, as the endangered butterfly opens and closes her delicate wings, as the tide changes, as new seeds crack open and release an abundance of fragrant possibilities.

What will it take for us all to slow down?

Comments

[greta]

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, thank you. I feel your prayer from afar. Your writing is more than words. You speak again and again what we unknowingly yearn to hear. How lucky to call you my friend!

[greta]

Watch this film if you can: https://thehumanelementmovie.com/

A Taft classmate and friend was involved in producing the documentary and it is stunning, haunting.

[Christy]

Oh Greta I am late in responding but thank you so much for your kind words. I am lucky to call you a friend as well. I will check out the movie:)