June 9, 2019 — Jennifer Comeau
As many of you know, I was one of 350 people across the globe accepted to attend Climate Change & Consciousness conference in Findhorn, Scotland in late April. How I got a “Yes,” when there were probably thousands more qualified is not a small thing: I wrote the free-form application from my heart, and then completely surrendered the outcome to One Greater with this prayer: If it is important to my Soul’s purpose, God, then You make it happen. I simply want alignment with what is my own “Noble Contribution.”
When I was accepted, I realized how not-small a thing it was. In addition to gratitude, I felt a keen responsibility that accompanied the privilege of being alongside the world’s foremost climate visionaries, experts, activists, as well as indigenous wisdom keepers and youth. So I come to you as a humble messenger, having listened deeply and taken copious notes. I share a brief summary, followed by a video montage – Voices from Findhorn. It’s only a start, for how can a week filled with intensity, shock, grief, beauty, and inspiration be disseminated in less than 15 minutes? On Thursday of this week, at 6:30PM at BPCC, I’ll convene a series of gatherings to consider together how to meet these times with grace and love.
When I say “these times,” I am talking about the very bad news that our planet is dying a death of a million cuts. With the loss of species, called “the organs of a Living Planet” by Charles Eisenstein; with higher and higher amounts of C02 being pumped into our atmosphere, and a new record [of 415.7 PPM] being projected for 2019 in spite of what we know about its warming effects on the planet; with the melting of Greenland’s ice-sheet – and its implications – unforgiving floods, billions of tons of once-trapped carbon released into the atmosphere, and once-trapped microbes that humans have never been exposed to also released; with the destruction of intact mature forests, wetlands and grasslands, to say we are at a massive turning point for humans and the planet is very accurate. We’re embedded in a system that encourages our disconnection from, and decimation of, our Living Planet for so-called “progress.”
Now I’m imagining that at this point you’re looking at your bulletins, thinking, “I thought she was gonna’ talk about the sacred gift of these times!
I’m cutting to the chase.
What I heard emerge from the conference over and over is how we have been programmed to need an “other” in order to identify ourselves as “the good guy” or “the hero”. And that is the biggest lie of the last two thousand years. A lie based upon an egoic mind. To blame “evil” or “the other” is to misdiagnose the problem. We are the “other.”
In his book The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible, Charles Eisenstein describes how we are fundamentally unseparated from each other, from all beings, and from the universe. How, in order to join fully the tribe of all life on this Living Planet, we must move toward our evolutionary impulse of oneness, of compassion, of reciprocity and love. This will represent a great shift in consciousness, a coming-of-age of our young human species, from one of consumer-destroyer to one of partner-restorer.
Over and over we’ve heard similar messages from wisdom-keepers in the past. Chief Seattle said, “All things are connected like the blood that unites us. We did not weave the web of life. We are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”
Indeed, Jesus tried to tell us, saying, “Love your [so-called] enemy as yourself.” We have within us everything we need in order to follow this age-old wisdom. We have a beating heart.
The unknown force-multiplier here, it seems to me, is consciousness. When we deprogram the ingrained story of “the other” and align ourselves with the life force of the planet, unimagined miracles are possible.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Even if I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would still plant my apple tree.” I don’t think he was naïve about the state of the world. Similarly, anyone who thinks this human experiment is over hasn’t factored in their own mysterious, synergistic encounters — experiences with the subtle realms of this world that cannot be defined from a rational, analytic mind.
Imagine the love in action that can be released when we truly dismantle the story of separation from every insidious way it has woven into our culture and systems. Friends we must develop the capacity to catch and correct ourselves when we want to blame “those people” or “that institution.” We are out of time. Change starts close-in.
Thus, amid the paralyzing bad news, I realize the paradox and the gift of these times: any act, no matter how small, if done in love, can shift the consciousness necessary to bring about new solutions to the climate crisis and a new interconnectedness in our world. We don’t have to move mountains. We only have to move ourselves in the direction of healing and love, starting close-in.
I invite us all, with the flame of Pentecost burning in our hearts, to imagine a world in which these words by Ganga White (Founder, White Lotus Yoga) were true:
What if our religion was each other
If our practice was our life
If prayer, our words.
What if the temple was the earth
If forests were our church
If holy water, the rivers, lakes, and oceans
What if meditation was our relationships
If the Teacher was life
If wisdom was self-knowledge
If love was the very center of our being.
Thank you