August Moon, 2015: Que Será, Será, Part 1

Luna & Her Halo:
Winter is coming: que será, será.

Que Será, Será

I wake this morning to find a piece from EarthSky about another record. They are always posting records. Depressing records. Records like the hottest month in history, the longest drought on record & this morning, Record-breaking three Category 4 hurricanes in Pacific. All this of course points to certain changes which belie our untempered behavior as a collective. Some of us call it "collapse" others call it "progress."

One afternoon, several years ago, my neighbors' entire pasture full of quarter horses broke loose, running past the barn, around our house & into our front yard where I was tending to young trees.  

I heard them before I saw them & recognized the sound of their approach -- this was not the first time they had escaped. In the moment I realized what was coming, they were just taking the front corner of the house. By then it was too late to exercise options.  

In the past, my neighbor had advised us to "make ourselves big & loud," but I knew better. Those horses don't take a gentle critter like me seriously -- I may as well be a hamster with carrots. Thus, on this occasion, I just braced myself with my shovel & stood there stock-still, awaiting the storm.  

I cannot stop a runaway freight train & I cannot stop a mob of wild-ass quarter horses bent on liberation. In the final assessment, the power & inevitability of the train & the horses is the same in relationship to me.  

If you have ever stood in the path of such a surge, you might recognize the sensation of quiet surrender. I remember in this particular instance, closing my eyes & clinging to the shovel handle like a windswept rag clinging to a pole in a hurricane. In that moment, what could I say but "whatever will be, will be"?

Some things are so huge that we can only be accountable to ourselves & to our own sense of values. Some things are so huge that they bring our sense of values down to only our most bare, intrinsic values. When I stand in the path of thousands of pounds of muscle & bone, moving with the precision of one fervent body, I know better than to behave unpredictably -- because what I value in that moment is my own muscle & bone. 

Sometimes a situation is too massive, too dynamic, too capricious on the larger scale to be addressable by the individual. This is when I feel the need to cling to my own bottom lines & do my best to remain true to what I value most.

In the case of this "progressive-collapse" I can only be accountable to myself & my loved ones, human & otherwise. I live my moments, clinging to the pole & doing my best to behave in accordance with my values while I watch the Earth react to the exploits of human kind. 

It is difficult to relate to or respond to large disasters, crises & emergencies outside one's own sphere of influence. And yet while it is much easier to understand & recognize the subtler changes in a local environment, it is still a challenge to find an appropriate response.

This is my sphere. I live in it. This year my sphere has been fraught with an endless array of changes, some subtle, others, not so much. This Moon cycle has pressed the issue because this is the time of our Mushroom Moon Shrine & the fungi are just not fruiting -- not in this heat & dryness & well, change. 

The horses are already turning the corner. The brakes on the train have failed. It is too late to prevent the rampage, but perhaps if enough of us can look to our own base values -- like survival & more importantly, the longer term survival of our kin -- & behave accordingly, we might have some calming influence on the runaway torrents. 

I am not fooled by a savior complex, inuring activism or by the rantings of extremists on either side. This planet balks at us, yet its residents will still run amok -- us & them. But wouldn't it be a relief to see everyone eventually slow to halt?

"...there is a light somewhere.

it may not be much light but

it beats the darkness..."

-- Charles Bukowski