At the End of the Earth

The climate. I am walking on earth, this island, this green and blue land of white, bright clouds in the Pacific Ocean. It is called New Zealand. The strong gusts of wind meet nothing between us and the Antarctic continent except a few thousand icebergs breaking off and melting into the too warm sea.

It is a raw place, bracing, and for the most part has its unique, ancient biological complexity devastated and a history of human exploitation. It breeds sturdy, perhaps dissatisfied, people.

Gentleness, intelligence, reverence, curiosity, stillness and openness, are they here? Are they here in me in these buffeting streams of air rendered visible by straining plants, and tui birds tossed wildly across the hill slopes? (Perhaps it is as exhilarating for them as for me?) This old house still slams and creaks in every blast.

Beneath the elemental boisterousness, settling deeper, loving what is, what do we need? How do I receive and offer life here in this turmoil?

Food and climate change. Yesterday I went to a talk on food and climate change. It turned out to be from a vegetarian society. The news delivered was very bad. The tipping point into destruction of the planetary biosphere is only two or three years away. Our only chance is to eliminate eating meat along with the associated industries. These industries produce methane, a worse offender than carbon dioxide and greater than 50% of the cause of climate change—more than transport, industry, and energy production combined. But unlike CO₂, methane can be removed quickly from the atmosphere (if we stop producing it before the ice caps melt.) Our health would improve along with the planetary biosphere. So were we told.

The "violent weapon of the table fork" that Ghandi talks about, we have turned on our own body, our earth.

Eating is an elemental activity. It is deeply linked to survival, and emotionally and carnally conditioned far beyond the logic of staying alive and well. As any of us can attest who have tried to change: our tastes; what we believe nourishes us and our families; our use of food as comfort; what we know how to cook; religious views on eating; expression of wealth, culture, or education through food; and our response to eye and nose stimulation of salivation, these are matters not lightly susceptible. And that is before the interconnection of agro-business and government can be teased apart.

Civilizations appear to have gone extinct in the past from cutting down the last tree, or refusing to eat available foods associated with an “inferior culture.”^*

If the facts presented are true, the task to save ourselves, let alone the planet, seems hopeless.

Prophets proclaim the justice of our demise arising from our sinful, wanton greed. (Does it help that some of us gain superiority by denying food as we all go down together?) Or is our greed innocent and ingenuous? Yet even without invoking the prophets of doom, indeed we are slow to see the inexorable relation of cause and effect, one bite after another. Wake up!

Despair sets in. How do we live our lives knowing that every mouthful brings exponential death and suffering in the short term? What is worth doing, when we are ending every thing we value so very soon?

Death. Now I am on familiar ground. “Death is certain” is the most basic of meditations. A given in my life now is that we can be free within our experiences of the circumstances of our lives, and free in our response to them. My vow is to manifest the oneness, wholeness, the interconnection of us all moment by moment in all that vividly arises now. This means in personal, political, planetary, and social realms whether we are living or dying.

Whether I personally die tonight or in five years from a bee sting allergy, global warming, a heart attack, a bus, being shot, nuclear war, infection from a tick bite, or a meteor from outer space, what is most valuable is being present with an open heart and mind to all I encounter and to express healing action (towards that which never was broken) as best I can.

Gratitude. I am grateful for this bite of food, for my life, for the innumerable gifts and sacrifices of many. I chew and swallow with attention, reverence, and knowledge, to the best of my ability. And with each breath, and with all my energy, I vow to give back the love and life I have received from you, by acting on behalf of all beings without discrimination. And by eating oryoki (just enough.)

Please, not separate from these turbulent winds of change, will you rest and drink this cup of tea with me?

^* Easter Island and Greenland, as described by Jared Diamond in Collapse.