Discuss: What Love Looks Like

We need our heroes, they play an important role in instigating societal change. But perhaps even more we need larger numbers of people to change their thinking and level of participation in creating widespread and enduring change in the world. Too much reliance on outstanding individuals can overshadow the obligations of many unexceptional people to put their shoulders to the wheel in often ordinary and unsensational ways. Parallel to this flawed psychology of overvaluing the role of “leaders” is the hope that simply making changes at the “top” will yield the new world we so much need. Until large numbers change their basic orientation to the culture, changes will be ephemeral and easily swept away. We need a movement that changes the consciousness of a large number of people in a deep and permanent way. The sum of such people’s sustained actions will prove to be an effective and lasting force for real change.

I read this article this morning, aloud, to my partner and paused from time to time as the tears came. I am struck by Tim’s love for people. This is something so often missing from discussions about wilderness and about what’s needed. I, too, love people, and maybe even understand them a little, the older I become, though I hesitate to claim such understanding. For example, I don’t understand why we fail to match our words and our deeds, especially, say, regarding life and death of any creature, not only two-leggeds, but four-leggeds, winged, scaled, finned, the rocky ones and the green ones. With so many things (things!!), we strike a pose as being against death, but this does not mean we are “for” life, because what’s left at the end of the day is not supportive of life, is not really even opposed to death, but something muddled and vague, quicksand in a shallow-bottomed quag we find it hard to extricate ourselves from.

The first step, of course, is to look at death and see it for what it is. No easy task. And next to put aside our fears around living, living fully. For each of us, this will be different—a different process and one akin to, as Tim mentioned in the quotation from Annie Dillard, jumping the cliff first, then creating your wings on the way down. It will mean arrest for some, for many, perhaps. But ultimately, it will be for each of us to go to the places—in ourselves—and reach out to the things we most fear and confront them. To disregard our comforts, whatever they may be: things, food, states of mind, of conscience unpricked, of identities unexamined.

I myself have only just begun this process, but already I find that of anything I’ve ever done, it’s what makes me feel most alive. It’s not so much the thrill of the leap—or leaps, as there is not just one cliff, but many—as it is the burnishing of faith that I can actually create the wings. Not so much create—that gives the creator far too much credit!—as co-create, with all the other gifts the Universe and creation itself offer.

So, some questions we each may need to answer: We do we love? And what are our own personal comforts? Are the two in conflict? Can the former continue to exist if we cling to the latter?

Good to hear your voice, Leigh. Thanks for your valuable gift, you cause me to consider my options more deeply. I used to occasionally fantasize about how I would have responded if I had been a German in the time of the rise of the Nazis. No need to fantasize now — we are living in very similar times. The question now is: what would the deep truth of my conscience have me do now in the face of the holocaust that is presently being enacted? When I am on my deathbed, what will I remember that I have contributed to the world that gave me birth?

Hi, mike k!

Thank you for your comments – and your enduring inspiration, provided via wisdom circles. A few of us are considering starting an envisioning (or just visioning) circle…to really begin to dream the world we want. The current holocaust is a key result of our continuing to tell old stories; a result of our being stuck in ruts, large and small, and drama triangles, always playing out the roles of victim-persecutor-rescuer. (Incidentally, it may go without saying, but when we see Earth as a victim, even of ourselves, and see ourselves as persecutors or rescuers, I feel the contribution of this kind of energy does nothing to resolve the situation[s]. Grief, of course, is rightly felt!)

The idea of visioning comes from one of the stories told by Alberto Villodo, about indigenous elders and how they would get together to dream on behalf of those coming after. And it also relates to a comment made toward the end of the interview by Terry Tempest Williams: “And I think that brings up another question: we know what we’re against, but what are we for?”

If I have anything to disagree with Tim DeChristopher about activism, it’s this: It’s not enough to be a refusenik (and refuse the current system however one deems best for oneself…making one’s yard to look like a “farm” in the midst of grassy surburbia; ripping out GMO crops; camping out in trees to prevent them from being cut down, etc.): We also need the courage to dream new stories—real brainstorming, not saying, “Oh, but that’s not realistic! It’ll never happen.” And so, when you think of your conscience and what it would have you do, think also of your imagination and what it would have you dream.

Mike and Leigh

Thanks for this valuable discussion - You might also find the book Walk Out and Walk On useful in your visioning/envisioning process.

Ryan

Thank you, Ryan! So far, it looks good. Some of the Walk Out, Walk On things remind me of Transition and permaculture efforts as well as the idea in Homer-Dixon’s The Upside of Down in being able to retain some essentials from the present to carry us into what’s to come. I think the hardest thing, for me, at least, is how best to reach out to folks. I want to meet them where they are, but it’s sometimes hard to try to walk in their shoes when I’ve already worn out several pairs of my own! How to reach out to those different from us, esp. those w/opposing views, has been talked about elsewhere in Orion discussion pages. But this WO/WO concept looks good. I imagine some work must revolve around the idea of resiliency and what that means. I will see about getting the book. Thanks, again!

Leigh — I am exited about your visioning group. So many have offered up their dreams of a better world on the altar of some practicality or supposed realism. Spiritual teachings have always told us that the world is not what it seems to superficial vision. That there are other deeper higher dimensions of our Cosmos that hold the real lasting aims and answers we are seeking. Freeing our minds to journey in these hidden realms is the intent of real spiritual paths. These dimensions are not far away from us; they here even now all around us and within us, only waiting for our recognition. If there is anything I can contribute to your venture, please let me know. When we are pointed in the right direction, only good can come from it, and we will be helped by unseen aid.
      Best of luck.  Love, mike

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