Grieving for the Earth
Today is the day I share with you my grief for the earth.
If you don’t see it, then it’s time to. Take a look. See the trash that litters the highway. See the shredded plastic bags that cling to trees along creeks that run with oiled waters. See the birds, fish, and turtles as they snap up tiny particles of plastic. See the endless development and growth paving over forested nooks and crannies, devastating vast expanse of open land, and tearing down wild habitat. The only remaining wild habitat.
It’s time to wake up and see that WE are destroying this planet. The planet we call home. Endless growth is impossible because we live on a planet with limited resources. Endless growth is a byproduct of living in a capitalistic society that reveres consumerism — buy more, more, more, more, more. Work more, more, more, more, more. It’s broken? Toss it out. Buy a new one. Forget repairs. Forget borrowing. Forget the impact on the earth. There’s more where that came from!
But there’s not. There’s not more. There are only so many trees. There’s only so much oil in the ground. There’s only so many fish in the sea.
This mentality of exponential growth and endless consumerism without regard for the environment is an illness. It’s a sickness. It’s a disease. And it’s killing us all quickly as it carries us away to Mars where we’ll plunder and pillage like the rabid pirates we have been here.
You can bury your head in the sand all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that chemicals are constantly dumped into our waterways or flood into them by way of monoculture farms and industrial complexes. Complexes that create chemicals to aid in our non-stop industrialization and creation of plastics for one-use shit everywhere.
Our forests, prairies, mountains, rivers, oceans, animals, and insects are dying. We are dying. We are a part of this system. And we are harboring, hoarding, and revering the disease that’s destroying it.
Greed is killing us. We are sold into the belief that our way of life is the best and only way. We go forth and continue to conquer third world countries in the name of “development.” Because these poor souls need our saving. Lest they are doomed to live close to the land that feeds them forever. Instead, we’ll show them how to be slaves to the capitalistic system. Just like us! Hoorah! Now they too can aid us in pillaging and plundering the earth’s resources for endless gains. Muhahahahaha!
Argh.
Today my heartaches. My heart has been aching. For months now. As I’ve come into a deep realization of the IMMENSE loss occurring. I grieve for Mother Earth, for our home. The home we are a part of. Nature. We are nature. We are animals on this planet too. We belong here. And yet, a rampant belief in our separation from the very thing that gives us life is killing us.
It’s time to wake up. It’s time to see the system for what it is. It’s time see what WE are doing to this planet. I urge you to step back. Take a breath. Pause. And look around. Look at the concrete covering everything, the plastic litter everywhere, our obsession with growth and materialism.
Ask yourself: where does all my trash go? The 10 plastic drink cups you used this week. The 20 paper plates you threw away. The packaging from food and home goods. Every single thing you throw away. Where does it go?
Contemplate: how is it possible that we could continue on in this way? Where does everything come from anyway? (Hint: the earth. And we’ve only got one. And it’s only got a limited supply of resources.)
Not only is everything in limited supply. But everything we are creating is turned into something that can’t be given back to the earth. At least not for millennia.
Don’t be surprised that once you see this too you will join me in mourning. It’s mourning for humans as much as it is for the planet. Humans can’t survive on a planet covered in plastic and concrete. But the earth can and most likely will survive us.
Nonetheless, harm has been done and is being done. And I hear and feel the pains of the earth reverberating in my body, in my heart. Today I am grieving for our home. Grief is with me and will be with me for some time.
I beg you. Stop and take a look today.
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