Day 15 of The Year
People keep telling me I’m brave for doing this. And while I am SO blessed to be connecting with all of you incredible people, I need to call bullshit on myself.
I’m not brave. I’m scared.
I’m scared that raising my boy in a world like this is like throwing him into the lion’s den. I’m afraid that we won’t be able to swim in our beloved creeks much longer (it’s already questionable), I’m afraid that even if we change our ways it will be too late.
Brave is fighting back. Brave is action, Brave is finding a way to make a new world. Brave is living according to the old ways, in connection with the earth the way we have always lived.
Brave is flying 3,000 miles across two countries on tissue paper wings, on pure faith, because you still live according to the old ways.
Only when you get there, 2/3ds of your breeding grounds have been leveled due to suburban sprawl and agriculture.
My heart breaks for you Monarch Butterflies. Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.
Brave is walking hundreds of miles across the polar ice caps to find a mate that may or may not be there.
But the ice is too soft, because the planet is warming, and suddenly your original instructions, the cultural directions that have guided your people for countless generations, suddenly don’t apply anymore.
I’m so deeply sorry Polar Bears, I know this time must be horrible for you, watching the old ways slipping away.Watching your friends and loved ones slipping away. I love you. Thank you. Please forgive me.
Brave is sleeping for 17 years underground, only to hatch out and live for one day.
But the place that used to be forest, is now parking lot, an you will never fulfill your destiny.
I’m sorry cicadas. I love your song. It reminds me of my dad. And childhood. Thank you. Please forgive me.
Brave is walking miles across a strange landscape, back to your beloved home, in search of your family and friends.
Only to discover it’s all been wiped away.
I am so, so, so sorry Koala Bear. I don’t know why this is happening. I don’t know why someone would want to clearcut your home and sell it for board- feet. It makes me feel physically sick to think of it. I’m wracking my brains to think of a way to fix this, but I can’t come up with anything. I don’t want you to be suffering. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
So you see, I’m not the brave one here. There are many, many, many, MUCH braver than me.
I’m just trying to help the brave ones, protect them, make sure they can keep up their important work. Live their lives, have their babies, enjoy this amazing world.
I’m just a megaphone.
But wait. You know what? There’s that pesky “just” again. I’m “just”a megaphone.
Let’s flip that, reverse it, banish the “just” permanently. See what we’ve got.
I’m a megaphone.
And
I’m
on
fucking
BLAST.
Hoping that maybe if we join together.
We can figure out what to do next.
Thank you for listening.
Love,
Natasha
And tonight we are so lucky to have a guest post from fierce woman and protector of the land, fellow activist and friend, Sarah H. Thank you Sarah! Love you!
Meditation for The Modern World
“I’m not in love with the modern world; I was a torch driving the savages back to the trees… Modern world has more ways/And I don’t mention it since it’s changed-
While the people go out and the people come home again…
It’s gotta last to build up your eyes/And a lifetime of red skies /And from my bed saying your haunted hissing in my bed/Modern world don’t ask why-
Cause modern world build things high /Now they house canyons filled with life… Modern world, I’m not pleased to meet you, you just bring me down…”
Wolf Parade, Modern World
“Such things have been revealed to me that now all I have written appears in my eyes as no greater value than straw.”
St. Thomas Aquinas, the so-called “Prince of Scholastics,” in answer to his secretary’s anxious urgings that Summa Theologiae be completed. One day in 1273, during mass in a Naples church, St. Thomas experienced a profound mystical insight. Henceforth he took no interest in intellectuality.
5am has not yet arrived. Still 4. Still stillness. Soon the restless rats will spin the wheels; wheels in cages, huffing puffing blindly crossing things off lists… madness, needing to recite; people are nature too- whether the collective cosmetic surgery has left the heart or not- whether a man can sell war, like its his own dimension. Whether the mind eats itself alive.
The night critters layer the senses in mutable stumblings of white noise, occasionally interrupted by an infusion of loud truck barreling.
My muscles are tight. Post-menstrual, haven’t ridden for days- soreness, dull, headache that somehow seems lodged in my entire neurological structure. I dig roughly at my shoulders, releasing calcium deposits, my shoulders, like mountains.
My breath, this constant metamorphosis, undulating god of change and potential, weakened by my ashtray lungs, strengthened by my spirit.
Pour water down my throat- neutralize, distill, disperse, and rebalance… Shake myself up like a bottle; reach long-
I pray, completely disintegrating in the mystery, a steward standing in the last free space, hairs mystical and wild.
Work is sitting still; for hours on end, needing nothing, asking grace for those you’ve never met.
In the loneliness of this hour, we all find listeners- this pain being filtered; nervous energy burns away at the seat of a hearty bonfire.
I smell courage coming from your eyes, more innovative than any engine designed to withstand the test of time…
Your presence developing like a decaying urban shrine.
The Year of Black Clothing 