I am in a space of unfolding layers, seeing guards I have constructed to bar hurt from entering me in a deep way. These layers keep unfolding, wavelike in nature, first one, than another, than a third. So many ways our culture is broken, so many lives compromised at the alter of our consumerist culture, so much sacrificed to the God of Capitalism. I have chosen not to see the real consequence of my thoughtless actions and choices, it seems to much to bare. If my choice to get a takeout cup of coffee, or a to go box has such a powerful ripple through the world, how can I bare the weight of being human? How can I always choose well? Why does it hurt so badly to have the blinders ripped from my eyes, to see the far reaching and devastating ways each day that my actions and those of the people around me affect the whole?

So many of us choose to simply not see. In the words of the dear Bob Dylan ” How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn’t see?”
I am seeing in a raw and truthful light, so much that once was hidden from me, or perhaps hidden by me. As I often do, when troubled. I put my pen to paper and with words, gain insight to the heart of the matter. I share here a poem that came from the deep pondarence of my current unfolding layer. How can I live lightly on the Earth? and how do I mourn the ways that I do not without falling into apathy and despair. I have found some answers of a sort, small as they may be, and I have found the peace that comes from not pretending that I do not see.

Wasted

I am surrounded by a nebula of “trash”
Discarded, once useful thing
surround me where I sit.
A plastic cup, a lid, a straw
cellophane wrappers piled on the floor.
A pair of scissors, broken and forgotten
purchased from the dollar store not long ago.
Half lives of things once needed now discarded
a shadow of our hunger
the gaping maw of convenience.
If we could look with eyes that see,
at the star-trails of our waste
the wake of “disposable” suffering
we would lie down on the still friendly Earth – and weep.
for all our careless blundering
our selfish need for ease
our lost sense of belonging.
Behind me, the trail of cast off things
is miles wide – and towers high above me.
No amends can meliorate this sin.
My only penance is a glass jar with a lid
A muslin bag, a woven basket,
I carry these in solace for my sins.
My greed, my haste, my waste.
I may not right past wrongs,
but I can wage peace and freedom with the tools I choose
Sing reverence for all I use.
A scared pact of human need
and Earth’s abundant gifts.
Walk slowly, look, see,
Your choices matter
You have power
you – are a person of consequence
Be consequential.