“Okay, this is where I am. How am I going to let that grief alchemize me into something that can listen to life in a different way? …the awakening is so strong, so rich. Because there’s so much loss going on. The love that’s becoming available because of the grief is so huge [so as to] blast through our apathy.” Clare Dubois, interview on Buddha at the Gas Pump, March 9, 2020

These words and this entire interview with Clare Dubois, the intelligent and passionate founder of Tree Sisters, strikes me in this time. Especially when, this morning, I took a bit of time to catch up on the news and saw headline after headline, from PBS to the NRDC, about this heartless U.S. administration destroying one environmental protection after another—migratory birds, old growth forests, trophy hunting on nature preserves with the allowance to kill animals raising young in their dens, industry bypassing environmental impact studies and rules, deregulation of chemicals and pesticides (that go into our food and our homes, by the way), and the frightening list goes on.

This is where the Orange One has been putting his energy (when he is not bolstering his ego and his image with those he has in his thrall) during Covid-19, during a nation uprising in rightful and right-minded protest. He and those focused only on GDP and $$$ would like us so very much to just forget about the protests and especially the coronavirus. I’ve seen politicians and media encouraging us to go out and spend money! Drink at a bar! Go to the beach! To return to “normal” ASAP. It’s a gas-lighting campaign, for anyone who hasn’t figured that out. If you tell folks it is safe and everything is great enough times, they will believe it.

I know we are weary, but racism is a deep, deep societal ill that will require long, sustained energy to change and heal. We need long-range activism to deal with it. And the virus is still here. This novel coronavirus is here to stay. Yes, we will have waves, spikes, and outbreaks for the foreseeable future (aka, years). Yes, case counts and mortality of the First Wave continue to rise, especially in countries led by despots like the U.S., Brazil & Russia. Yes, if you haven’t already, you will know someone who dies of Covid-19 before long. No, they don’t know how herd immunity will look or if it is likely, yet. Or how long immunity will last – a few months, a year, permanent? We just don’t know yet. No, we won’t have a vaccine distributed to 7 billion people by next year. No, a vaccine won’t magically make normal life reappear. Only small pox was eradicated by vaccine and it took a drastic concerted effort and decades upon decades. Eventually, scientists are thinking Covid’s effects upon those who are vulnerable will grow milder over time, but that will take years. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/2020/05/27/coronavirus-en…/)

So we need to build long-range, thoughtful strategies. We need to work together to RETHINK how we live and what we value, to build a new vision. We should not return to the damaging “normal,” to, in the words of Dubois, “kneel at the altar of the current economy that requires the death of nature [and people] to thrive.”

Donald Trump and his administration have made war on us—war on the environment, war on our health through inaction or negligent action concerning the virus and increased pollutants through deregulation, and have incited renewed war on race, color, and difference of any kind.

This is reality. And acceptance of what IS now, not what once WAS, or what we WISH were true, is the only sensible path. Because acceptance allows us to make rational decisions. Like removing this man and those who support him from office as soon as possible, by whatever legal means we can find.

This is no time for apathy, or magical thinking. And we are rising up, no longer apathetic. This is full of heart and is heart-lifting.

All of these “illnesses” above are rooted in dualistic thinking and the ideology/worship of domination. I have said it and will say it again. We are all interconnected. That small snail crawling on the stone wall after the rain? It is no less important than you. It deserves just as much compassion as you. It deserves life, just like you. Clare Dubois goes on to say that “Communion—oh my god, communion! The most exquisite level of belonging!” It is time for communion my friends. The time is NOW. Before it is too late.