There’s no rain, no rain clouds. It hasn’t rained more than a few drops for a month. Yet it’s midday and the sky is dark as dusk. But not that dark blue-grey verging on night black, but a red-orange gray, a color I’ve never seen before. Almost unnatural, certainly unusual; a color with a warning attached, a threat. Unnerving.
Over the last few days, it has gone from a health alert to an advisory, to hazardous. “Do not go outside for any unnecessary activity.” And if you do, wear a mask. This is one thing that COVID has prepared us for.
Canada, especially Quebec and Ottawa, is burning. People in California, the Northwest and Southwest, have known this sky too well, along with people in many other areas of the world. And here in the US, in the Northeast, Northern Midwest, now we, unfortunately, also see and feel it. Our homes, workplaces, communities of nature are not burning, now, yet we share this burning sky, this coughing earth. New York City, for example, experienced the worst air quality it’s had on record.
Before this happened, when the days were clear, the sky blue and a fresh taste in the air, it might’ve been difficult to accept the reality of global warming. Now, it’s difficult to escape the taste of ash. The rich can mitigate it better than the poor, hide more comfortably, get faster and better treatment for scorched lungs, infected stomachs, stress. Yet, we all can be infected. Something else this climate emergency shares with COVID: we’re all in this together. When the earth itself is threatened, we’re all united in vulnerability, in no escape.
Yet yesterday, despite having read and written blogs about the climate emergency, I had a difficult time taking in and accepting what my senses were telling me. Yesterday, I went for a walk on my rural road. I had been somewhat aware that I should only take a short, moderately paced walk. But during the walk, a neighbor, driving home in the late afternoon, stopped her car to offer me a mask. I thanked her, we talked, then she drove on. And it hit me. I had not acknowledged the threat. I took off my hat and used it as a leaky mask. Today, no walk.
My wife also wouldn’t accept the reality of what she was feeling. She was gardening without a mask. She was already freaked out by the drought. Looking at, acknowledging the taste, color, and smell of the sky was too much for her to do.
But we have to acknowledge, accept it. ‘Accept’ meaning take in, look directly at what’s happening. The earth itself is burning, getting sick, coughing at us⎼ this is a warning. Take it seriously. Do more.
Do more to learn what we can do. Do more to hear what the earth itself is saying and what our own bodies are telling us. When a neighbor is in pain, sad, grieving we too can feel it. We might not be conscious of it, but we too might carry a sense of inner tension, pain, sadness, grief. When the earth is sick, in pain, grieving, we too feel it. We might not be conscious of it, but we pay the inner price for it anyway. There’s no escape.
So, what can do we do? We can study reliable information on the climate emergency. We can act, speak up. We can do whatever we can in our own lives to reduce consumption, energy use, as we pressure politicians, big oil, etc.
But what if we feel we can’t act, or can’t face the threat? It might feel too frightening and overwhelming. Many of us feel this way. One way is conceptualizing the dilemma as the question we must answer, not only intellectually but with our life. By studying, mindfully, our responses to a situation we strengthen ourselves.
But the best way to break from fear and hesitancy is having compassion. Compassion for how difficult the situation is and how difficult it can be to acknowledge all the unknowns. Compassion for ourselves, for others, and for all living creatures and the earth itself. Because there is no escape, and we are all in this together.
Compassion is not always the easiest thing to feel and express. It’s not pity, or even sympathy. Pity can mean having sympathy, feeling sad about another person’s pain, but at a distance. Its root is ‘pietas’ or ‘piety’ and can be heard as an obligation, or as placing ourselves above the pitied person. It’s not empathy, although empathy can be at the root of feeling or acting with compassion. Empathy can be both feeling what another feels, or it can be an ability to read what another is going through. What it doesn’t have is the commitment to doing something to assist the other.
Compassion is that recognition of another’s suffering and the commitment, even instinct, to act in ways that reduce or relieve it. It can be through mutual feeling, feeling their suffering; or simply from recognizing a shared humanity.
Research indicates compassion practices, as in Buddhism, or any tradition or religion, increases the plasticity of the brain and the connectivity and coherence between different brain areas. Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran, in his book The Tell-Tale Brain, A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human, discusses research on how people can think better about life and themselves when they act with compassion. So, compassion can be our greatest aid in staying sane as we figure out what to do.
We can acknowledge, be aware, mindful of where we are personally, and where we all are. That we’re not alone in this. That we need others and others need us. We can do this together. We can study ourselves and study the science. Read activists like Joanna Macy, David Loy, Greta Thunberg — so many others, who can educate us about both the environmental and personal dimensions to what needs to be done. And then we can turn our fear, sadness, grief, and awareness into what awakens and motivates us. And what might save our world.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Flickr
