CONVERSATIONS

The most remarkable conversation happened a few days ago. I was doing my usual trash pick-up at the beach, and the waves are still HUGE so there is way more than I can get. When I am passing people "using" the beach, sometimes they will ask if I'm finding shells, occasionally saying something positive when they find I am picking up trash, and often saying nothing. Well this conversation began with the question about what I was picking up, and when I said trash, the guy looked stunned and said "I see trash on the beach all the time but it never occurred to me to pick it up"!!!! He said he assumed someone else would. No, there is no-one whose "job" it is to pick up in remote places. Sometimes at resorts I suppose. Then something happened that is a first in 10 years: he got a bag and JOINED ME! Honestly, no-one has ever done that before. It rather astounded me. He said he would pick up the area around where he and his girlfriend were laying. I got so HAPPY! I always hope people will step up and start doing something about the way we are harming the Earth, but in my experience it is really rare. Once in 10 years. And what was so cute was he needed coaching about what was plastic and what was bits of shell or coral! Hilarious. A trash coach?

In talking with my family and friends over the years I have been so frustrated with how hard it is to get people, even people that love me and listen to me, to realize how serious our destruction of the Earth is and DO something about it. Recently I've been having conversations with several people about why this is. I've learned what might be a few of the reasons, so I post them here in case they ring for others.

Because of the way I live my life, I am seeing every day what is happening to our Earth. I am watching paradise disappear. I have to remember that most people aren't. There are so many big money companies telling them not to worry, that they feel skeptical. "What if I give up all of this stuff and the other side is right and I didn't have to give it up after all?" So they just keep doing their thing and wait until they "see" something happen or until their neighbors do something so they don't feel like they're the only ones "giving up stuff".

How can I get people to believe how important it is to change swiftly? To save what is LEFT, before it too is wiped out forever. Because if we keep going the way we are, quite literally this planet will be un-inhabitable. Very few people believe that. They don't see it so it doesn't make sense to "give up stuff". The Inuit who are watching their houses sink into the melting permafrost believe. The Indonesians watching the forest they live in being cut down believe. The Polynesians forced to leave an island in the Pacific because there is no high ground and their crops are all under water with rising sea level, they believe. The tribes in Africa killed so their land can be mined believe. Our life in N. America is way too cushy. We don't know what we are doing that affects people in other parts of the world, sometimes literally taking their lives. I am told I may be labelled as "hysterical" and people won't listen. And yet what is happening is DESPERATE. How can I get people who don't see it to SEE. And stop contributing immediately so lives can be saved. All I can do is keep putting information out there and pray like crazy it will get through to the heart. If it's just in the head it does no good. People need to be moved in the heart, with enormous compassion for what they may never see first hand, in order to do something. By the time we feel it in N. America in a big enough way to scare people into action, millions of people and creatures will already have lost their lives in other places less insulated. There is a Native Indian saying: "When the children ask what you did while the Earth was dying, how will you answer?"

The thing that still baffles me is the continuing to do something once someone knows how simple it is to do it differently. When you walk into a store you simply pick up the recycled toilet paper rather than the one that has destroyed forests. You pick a cleanser or soap that has no toxic chemicals rather than one that does. You pick up something organic that hasn't poisoned the soil. They are often in the same aisle now at the big stores. You don't even need to go out of your way to do it. It seems that people make it into a bigger shift than it actually is. There was a time when ONLY the health food stores carried products that do no harm, but that is no longer true. It's just so EASY now to make a choice to do no harm, and still people choose what does harm. I don't understand that. Once you know? Really?

I have been told for a lot of people Nature is an "it", an inanimate object, and objects cannot be harmed in very many ways that burden the conscience. WOW. I can't quite wrap my mind around that. But it sure would explain why people harm the Earth the way they do. Separate from Creation. Yes. And so how to re-connect people? Is it even possible to create respect for life if it is not considered life? Respect for an inanimate object? Hmmm. But all of the destruction we are doing is already coming back to bite us. We can't destroy the Earth without destroying ourselves in the process since this is our only home. If you haven't yet watched the movie HOME on Youtube, watch it. It is important to see what you may never know without a film like this. We need to change the course humanity is on. Even my beloved Borneo where I grew up will be devoid of jungle in 10 years at the rate it is being logged. For us. The 20% consuming 80% of the resources of the world. Why is this o.k.? Why aren't more people upset about this? It needs to be a MAJORITY that suddenly cares and is motivated to ACT. So how will you answer when asked what you did while the Earth was dying?

Thanks for listening.