It's Pandemic Month! That's... well I was about to say that's not a holiday, but it kind of looks like one, with everyone staying home and businesses shutting down.
This is not the end of civilisation as we know it, but we are getting increasing numbers of natural disasters, weather shifts, more severe weather, animal life going extinct or overpopulating, soil depleting, etc. etc. We're overpopulated, we're poisoned our water supplies and soils with chemicals, and we keep trying to produce and buy and make and clear-cut even more. It's insanity, and it will lead to collapse. At some point along that route, the majority of us will realize that's what's happening, and the question is, at what point along this route will we realize it? Because at a certain point, it will be too late to avoid really serious disruption or even total societal collapse. And at various points, it will get harder and harder, the further we go without changing course.
Hopefully, worldwide disruptions like this will serve as a wake-up call: Hey, our systems are fragile. What happens if we don't have electricity, or food, or water being pumped in? The thought is terrifying, because we rely on the systems we've built. We can't drink our rivers because companies have been dumping waste into them. We don't have any gardens in our back yard, just toxic lawns. We've cut down our tree's so we can't heat our houses, and our houses can't be warmed by fires anyways. Many have no tribe, no social support groups that they can rely in difficult times.
Hopefully people will take the conclusions of this pandemic a step further than just "we need more canned food." Because canned food won't be enough if we've got people looting houses because they've got no jobs and no food and families to feed and people are starving.
Take a breath. We're not there. But we could get there, if we don't change course. Many people know this, most don't believe it, and change nothing. Perhaps more will believe it, perhaps more will change their actions and their votes and their voices, and we will shift direction soonish. Many are already paddling that way, more each day. I hope that happens super soon.
Perhaps it won't. Ultimately, all are one and this body is but a shirt we wear for a day and then take of, only to put a new one on tomorrow. Nothing to get alarmed about.
But if you have not yet gotten yourself prepared for emergencies of various sorts, hopefully this will be a wake-up call that they can happen to you, yes you, and you'll start thinking about a garden and a rendezvous point for your loved ones if communication is down and maybe some non-perishables stored somewhere and a supply of potable water and some warm sleeping bags. This seems less spiritual than most of my posts, but this body of ours is a temple, a gift, and we have loved ones under our care, and it is our duty to care for them as best we can, while we have them.
And perhaps if everybody starts growing a garden and voicing their concern about how we're polluting our water supplies and soil and neglecting our poorest and messing up our weather patterns and overpopulating and in general making earth less habitable. If everyone--or even just most people--decide we want less crazy things happening to the earth, and take action towards that end, then perhaps we will as a global society, start caring for our earth, as well as our own body and family. Perhaps we will even care for all the people of the world, because that too will help make the world less crazy.
I think it could happen. I hope it will. I wonder how many disasters it will take. Perhaps this will be the last one it takes for me. For you.
