It was my birthday a few days ago and like many people do, I conducted a review of the past year of my life.
If nothing else, 2012-2013 catalyzed my waxing radicalism. I moved my position from one of passive resistance to deliberate and strategic activism. I made this transition during the course of re-examining the current state of affairs in our world. In doing so I went through all of the stages of loss and grief: denial, shock, pain, guilt, anger, bargaining, depression, reflection, loneliness, resignation, acceptance and finally, renewed hope accompanied by a new commitment to life.
Even though I have lived my whole life with an underlying sense of foreboding about the course of civilization, in order to navigate human society I've had to deeply bury my premonitions as I watched societal abuses accumulate and the onslaught of the natural world increase with each passing year. Survival in the system dictated a certain level of conformity on my part, and this in turn required the adoption of a set of values that were in compliance with consensus reality, no matter how foreign these values were to my truest sense of self and my heart. I admit, I have not always been true to myself. The schism created in my psyche by this forced participation in the demise of humankind, and indeed all other living Beings, was, and still is, a difficult burden to bear; I grew up rebellious and outraged while at the same time continually seeking a way to reconcile myself with the way of the world. It left me wallowing in a psycho/spiritual quagmire without a compass.
Regardless, or perhaps because of this, I have lived the better part of my life in the margins, preferring a pacifist/observer stance supported by the relative freedom I could glean at the periphery of civilization as opposed to the confining strictures of complete conformation with the system, not to mention wholesale abandonment of my inner self. My belief has always been: once a participant, a perpetrator you are. I chose to participate as little as possible, or rather as little as patriarchal, capitalist/industrial civilization would allow, given we are all forced to participate at some level in order to survive in this world. It was easy enough to do, especially if I could keep myself outside of the occidental world, which includes my home country. It was also much easier to ignore the state of the world while living off the grid; instead I focused my attention on my local community and found my joy in the natural environment.
I admit I deliberately isolated and insulated myself.
Upon my return to Canada in 2011, after the better part of two decades lived in Central America (Costa Rica and Belize), the first event to smack me in the face was the catastrophe at Fukushima! I could assail you with a litany of world events, all horrific and devastating, that have
If nothing else, 2012-2013 catalyzed my waxing radicalism. I moved my position from one of passive resistance to deliberate and strategic activism. I made this transition during the course of re-examining the current state of affairs in our world. In doing so I went through all of the stages of loss and grief: denial, shock, pain, guilt, anger, bargaining, depression, reflection, loneliness, resignation, acceptance and finally, renewed hope accompanied by a new commitment to life.
Even though I have lived my whole life with an underlying sense of foreboding about the course of civilization, in order to navigate human society I've had to deeply bury my premonitions as I watched societal abuses accumulate and the onslaught of the natural world increase with each passing year. Survival in the system dictated a certain level of conformity on my part, and this in turn required the adoption of a set of values that were in compliance with consensus reality, no matter how foreign these values were to my truest sense of self and my heart. I admit, I have not always been true to myself. The schism created in my psyche by this forced participation in the demise of humankind, and indeed all other living Beings, was, and still is, a difficult burden to bear; I grew up rebellious and outraged while at the same time continually seeking a way to reconcile myself with the way of the world. It left me wallowing in a psycho/spiritual quagmire without a compass.
Regardless, or perhaps because of this, I have lived the better part of my life in the margins, preferring a pacifist/observer stance supported by the relative freedom I could glean at the periphery of civilization as opposed to the confining strictures of complete conformation with the system, not to mention wholesale abandonment of my inner self. My belief has always been: once a participant, a perpetrator you are. I chose to participate as little as possible, or rather as little as patriarchal, capitalist/industrial civilization would allow, given we are all forced to participate at some level in order to survive in this world. It was easy enough to do, especially if I could keep myself outside of the occidental world, which includes my home country. It was also much easier to ignore the state of the world while living off the grid; instead I focused my attention on my local community and found my joy in the natural environment.
I admit I deliberately isolated and insulated myself.
Upon my return to Canada in 2011, after the better part of two decades lived in Central America (Costa Rica and Belize), the first event to smack me in the face was the catastrophe at Fukushima! I could assail you with a litany of world events, all horrific and devastating, that have