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All humans know somewhere deep – somewhere like our spinal cords, somewhere we are not used to communicating with – that our planet is suffering. We know at a cellular level and it is causing us huge distress. It’s like being in a sci-fi story where we are under attack from the Martians – except in this story we are the Martians and there is no spaceship out there poised to save us from destruction. But let’s remember that because we are the authors of the story we can also be the authors of what comes next.
So many of our inventions – miraculous at the time – gas, coal, planes, cars, smoking (I loved it) are now the agents of destruction. It’s hard to let go of our addictions, so hard. But let go we must if we, and the greater web of life of which we are, after all, only a part, are to survive.
I wonder what the best way of helping us understand that is. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, the terrifying documentaries, the relentless roll-call of climate disasters spread fearfully essential knowledge and are vital, of course. It goes without saying that we must educate ourselves and see for ourselves what is taking place. But something else needs to happen if our fear and rage and frustration are to succeed in transforming our world.
These writings have pulled me back into focus.
I can remember now how many bees I used to see in parks and gardens in London and on the hills of Argyll. I can remember the variety of butterflies, their miraculous beauty, strength and fragility. I realise how little I now see them and how heartbroken it makes me. I miss them in the visceral way I miss members of my family long since dead.
We all need to plug into our love for our home, our planet, our earth. The astronauts describe it so well – those people with fiercely trained scientific minds who may not necessarily open themselves to poetic imagination (that might be too dangerous). They suddenly see the vulnerable beauty of our pale blue dot in the reaches of dark space. They feel huge love and empathy for it and, crucially, they feel deeply protective.
Art – in all its forms – can turn us all into astronauts. It can help us out of the prison of assumption and the caverns of ignorance into the atmosphere of clarity and hope. The temptation to panic is very great but panic will always prevent useful action. I panic regularly about the planet and then I will often turn to small, everyday actions. One of them is to sit and contemplate the beauty of nature – to go to a park and read and look up every so often at the sky or at a tree and remind myself that while we are here, we can care for our home.
Or I can transform my panic by joining larger actions – like the XR protest at Oxford Circus which was so memorable and full of love. Standing on the