Everything is disappearing: bees, frogs, many ocean friends. I feel myself returning to my 4th grade animal rights activist mindset often these days. When I left that behind what replaced it was a mixture of human rights/social equality/racial & ethnic justice jargon that I felt better reflected my passion for loving my brothers & sisters & wanting to raise them up & for someone to raise me up. Now I see that the oil in the Gulf is my own blood spilling, my own life force gushing out, weakening me. I see that I've been arguing the same rhetoric the whole time; it was just the glossary of terms that changed.
My life is an exercise in personal responsibility. Does it matter that I care? Probably not, if I'm still hopelessly consuming the toxic meal that will almost certainly lead to not just my own death, but the deaths of many others. What about spiritual death? Spiritual awakening? Can it be said that in comforting myself with my own righteous indignation I hasten the speed at which my intentions distance themselves from my greater purpose?
There's a lot of "I's" in there. There is a lot of me in someone like me -- who grew up flitting about the lower extremities of the me generation. Will I ever think of a question, much less a solution that isn't so self-centered? Yowzas.
We are no more or less in trouble than we have ever been. The potential for the catastrophic events & losses we experience daily has been there since the beginning. Some part of me lingered in the loins of a woman who died thousands of years ago; when she died, I died, too. She and I came from the sea -- the balance of salt and water in our bodies while we live is evidence enough for a poet like me.
So when I say my blood is spilling, it's ok if you feel weak and light-headed. It is to be expected.
Because yours is spilling, too.
There's a lot of "I's" in there. There is a lot of me in someone like me -- who grew up flitting about the lower extremities of the me generation. Will I ever think of a question, much less a solution that isn't so self-centered? Yowzas.
We are no more or less in trouble than we have ever been. The potential for the catastrophic events & losses we experience daily has been there since the beginning. Some part of me lingered in the loins of a woman who died thousands of years ago; when she died, I died, too. She and I came from the sea -- the balance of salt and water in our bodies while we live is evidence enough for a poet like me.
So when I say my blood is spilling, it's ok if you feel weak and light-headed. It is to be expected.
Because yours is spilling, too.
