How To Live And Love Deeply In Dangeous Times.
{Photo via Tumblr}
I’m intrigued by the question, “Are you on vacation?”
From what? What springs to mind is the Bruce Cockburn song, Lovers in a Dangerous Time. To be a lover at this time seems to have its particular challenges.
It is a time of great poignancy. Perhaps I am confusing a natural sense of poignancy, of the mixing of the sweet and the sad, that comes with aging. But, I do consider it a fact that this time of my life coincides with the end of the Holocene period.
I’m sitting at a picnic table in the Florida Keys, looking at the Bahia Honda Channel bridge; looking to the west into a steady westerly breeze. That wind roared all night, and the noise of the traffic on the bridge is nearly unbearable. Nonetheless, people clamor to get in here and I leapt at a chance.
Being involved in research like this, finding the very best places to hide out during New England winters has its risks. Sometimes you spend way more money on something that is entirely unsatisfying, compared to, say, the night before when I slept in a dirt pull-off next to the water at a cost of nothing but the slight anxiety of the possibility of being rousted in the middle of the night.
There I met two comrades doing similar research. There I didn’t feel nearly as alone as I have for most of this trip, and had perhaps the most satisfying experience out of the forty-two or so nights I’ve spent on the road so far.
Last night, here on my expensive waterfront plot, as darkness fell, the lights from the site next door, occupied by a huge RV, came on; a neon palm tree, string lights around the footprint of the vehicle, two overhead floodlights on the side of the RV and a bright, one-foot diameter geodesic dome-like ball hanging on a stand under the tree separating our campsites.
Meanwhile, I had just read a posting at the entrance to the bathroom that said, the Florida Keys are one of the best places in the USA to stargaze! Ironic.
As I sat in my folding chair in the gathering darkness, I spotted the owner of the RV, introduced myself, and gently asked, “When you retire at night, do you turn the outdoor lights out?” I was assured that he did. They did go out, just a few minutes before I decided it was time for me to sleep as well. I woke with this idea to write about my vacation from a life that I continue to deeply question.
Every moment seems to echo with the poignancy and the irony of that exploration.
I am a lover in a dangerous time.
I have looked at the signs, read the science, felt the truth, at least what is true for me, studied the patterns and characteristics of the systems and institutions, proposed psychological explanations for larger trends based on my own research and, perhaps more importantly, my own experience, and decided that there is only one response to dangerous times and it is to live more deeply.
To be a lover is to fall in love. It is to be willing to enter an experience of vulnerability that softens the boundaries of my perceived self so that I might commune with that which I love so much. I believe it is this life, this opportunity to choose, that I am seeking to love more deeply.
The process that is implied is to exercise that capacity to choose and experience its relationship with this life, which cannot be separated from the expression of life anywhere, neither on Earth nor elsewhere.
No, I’m not on vacation. I am here. Now. In the wind, sleeping on the ground. Being cold, being hot, getting dirty, and being so very grateful for hot showers. I am here with Dolly the dog, an awfully good companion.
I am here trying to sort out this deep desire for relationship that so easily and frequently gets cast as a search for a soul mate, but which is so much more than that. I am subjected to a constant impulse to compensate for the lack of inherent collaboration in our free market system, you know, the one that is based on our so-called self-interest, and the nature of the culture that has developed around it.
This need to compensate for that which is missing seems to undergird the partner ideal that so is so real and powerful. And, ironically, it is this ideal that is thus so energized that can both lead us forward toward its completion and undermine the real opportunities to connect that arise from time to time.
If there is to be a new consciousness, driven by natural evolution and perhaps in response to dangerous times, I think it is this:
To integrate all of the rational understandings we have developed to thrive in this culture, in the world as it is now, with a deeply felt sense of our own aliveness, our deepest values, are most profound desires. It means opening oneself up to the poignancy of feeling the brilliant joy of the breath, with the painful realization of its temporal-ness.
To feel the bend in the arc of one’s lifespan, slip-sliding down the back side just as industrial civ slip-slides down the peak oil curve; to recognize that the end of your life appears very much to coincide with the end of the Holocene, a geological epoch that spans 11,000 years and is characterized by an explosion of diverse life, but which has come to an abrupt end through human activity, the so-called ‘Anthropocene’.
In the most quiet times, sitting in the fresh breeze by the turquoise water, or wherever you may find yourself, an understanding emerges that comes from somewhere other than the rational mind. It bubbles up from our felt-self and speaks clearly to us:
There is only one response, and that is to trust yourself, trust your instincts, trust your aliveness, and choose. Choose that which moves out from who you really are, from what you really cherish.
If the system and culture are taking us over the brink and that next thing that moves you is something you were taught by that same system, perhaps there is an opportunity for brief pause. ‘Where is my heart in this, where is my soul?’
In Lovers in a Dangerous Time, ‘some days you’re waiting for the sky to fall, the next you’re dazzled by the beauty of it all’. The dominant systems are not fully controlling, but do hold a powerful inertia. Each of us has the power to step into a felt understanding of those aspects that are working and those that are not.
Hone your capacity to connect with and allow your instincts to shape the expression of your life. There is no answer to dangerous times, but there is the opportunity to choose a response; to be a better lover.
This journey now seems to be about:
* Working for less money
* Offering whatever time and talent I have as a gift, when I can
* Learning to accept gifts and generosity gracefully
* Crying when I need to and encouraging laughter and play
* Accepting and living with fears and anxiety that are related to living the life I choose
* Moving away from fears and anxieties of things I am not actively choosing to have in my life
* Learning to balance so-called survival needs inside of our money-economy; working for enough money without shifting the emphasis from being in charge of how much is enough to it being in charge of me
* Being compassionate in all things, even those I disagree with or that disagree with me
* Cultivating courage and gentleness together to better feel more, spend more time being, and choosing my doing with greater awareness and love
This is a story we write for ourselves, every moment. It just so happens, in these ‘dangerous times’, the canvas is ripe and ready for our best work yet.
*****
Michael George Daniel is an activist, writer, musician and artist based in Connecticut, who also has an engineering background in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainability studies. He is a former president of the Earth Charter Community of the Lower Valley, and currently continues to seek a satisfying response to the distinct possibility of near-term extinction.
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