I wish THIS did not have to Happen in my Time

On Facing the Challenges of our Times

THE Ring from Lord of the Rings

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

 

 

 

Tolkien, Lord of the Rings

Lots of us feel sorry for ourselves. “Life is so hard these days”…. “It’s not fair that I am alive just when our civilization has a chance choosing self-destruction”….Etc. Etc. Etc. Fortunately, I am a Lord of the Rings fan – not the movies, but the books, and this story prevents me from wallowing in self pity. I have read them all at least 10 times. Why? Obviously, I know the plot, in fact, I know every paragraph before I read it. The “action” is not the point. It is HOW Tolkien creates a mood and how he weaves a magic spell in a fictional world which is, of course, our world in disguise. Thus, it is a window that allows me to more clearly see our world as we, like the struggle between Mordor and the Hobbits, struggle to find a way to stop the destruction of our “Middle Earth”. Many of us, for good reason, are unable to face the challenge or accept that this struggle even exists. Other, are over whelmed, filled with despair, give up and are unable to act.  Still others – whether it be conscious or not – and fill their lives with escapist distractions and self-indulgent pleasure. Others, the brave few, accept that we are in a struggle with Mordor which will bring us life or death. But who or what is Mordor?

 

William Blake, The Modern Age as Dante’s Hell

Of course we all know it is us. A comic strip once said: “I have found the enemy and he is us.” But we need to dig deeper than this to find a way to escape our doom. I propose, as Tolkien did, that our challenge, in fact, the challenge of people in every age, is to accept whatever our Age has thrust upon as and fulfill our Destinies by rising to the challenge and finding a way to destroy the Idol of the Age that is bringing us death. In Frodo’s case that meant destroying the Ring which was the ultimate source of power that had actually been part of the way life and beauty had been achieved in Middle Earth. For us our “Ring of Power”, our Idol, is the worship of progress achieved by exponential growth enabled by Industrial Capitalism that always demands MORE MORE MORE… more stuff, more people, more food, more cars, more cities, always more, more more… We must destroy the very source of our power for it is destroying us, just as the Ring destroys the souls of all those who wear it. Then, and only then, can the new Age, the Age after Middle Earth, the post Industrial-Capitalist Age, be born. For that to happen much that is good will be lost. There is no sugar coating the fact that as we now enter the Collapse stage of our Civilization there will be a lot of pain… but… for new life to be born the old must die.

To be a Flower

is profound

Responsibility

Emily Dickinson, Bloom

We are each born into an Age which has its own unique challenges and opportunities. Our task is to acknowledge the challenges, not be overwhelmed by them, and then focus all our energies on finding the opportunities and living our lives to help give birth to the as yet unborn possibilities. In effect each of us is a special type of “Mother” – “Mothers” to the future.  IF we do not do this we risk becoming slaves to fear and the past, instead of living out our Destinties which are always an unfolding, like a butterfly wing being born from the Pupae. We move forward knowing and building on the past without getting stuck in it – for it is the raw material from which reassemble its elements into a new configuration. This is an artistic endeavour which makes all of us artists.  This allows our lives to be Art and all Art connects us to each other. The ending of our Age, like all endings, is actually a new beginning. You can play your part. You can be a great actor on the stage of Life. My grandmother was brought up in the midst of World War I, survived the Spanish Flu, endured hyper inflation in Weimar Republic Germany, grew up in the Great Depression, suffered through the horrors of World War II, lost everything to the Communists when she fled to the West… life is always loss, but it is also gain. I lived with one summer when I was 10 years old and I never heard a word of complaint come from her mouth. She played her part well. Will you?

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances.

W.Shakespeare

What can you do? What is your destiny? To help destroy the Ring of Power. To live with less less less instead of MORE MORE MORE. To slow down. Be less over whelmed. Less anxious. Stroll through the woods. Smell the flower. Look at a snow flake with wondour and amazement. Be like Jack Kerouac  who said “Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.” To become rich in the way of  H. D. Thoreau: “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”   Stop and take a picture of cute sign by the side of the road like this one: [Yes, I know its corny – that’s the point!]

In other words, your Destiny, in this Age, is to help transform us from Mordor to an Ecological society whose highest value is nurturing the web of life. Here is a poetic version of our Destiny: our challenge is to carpet the worlds with flowers:

Flowers appeared and carpeted the world with astonishing rapidity — because, in some poetic sense, they invented love.

Once there were flowers, there were fruit — that transcendent alchemy of sunlight into sugar. Once there were fruit, plants could enlist the help of animals in a kind of trade: sweetness for a lift to a mate. Animals savored the sugars in fruit, converted them into energy and proteins, and a new world of warm-blooded mammals came alive.

Without flowers, there would be no us.

No poetry.   No science.   No music.

Darwin could not comprehend how flowers could emerge so suddenly and take over so completely. He called it an “abominable mystery.” But out of that mystery a new world was born, governed by greater complexity and interdependence and animal desire, with the bloom as its emblem of seduction. This is an example of GAIA at its best.

And if you don’t? Well, all you do is ensure that Mordor wins. All you do is ensure that your life will not matter. Yes, you may still experience pleasure and enjoyment and even temporary happiness – but no meaning. No JOY. No deep connection and bond with those around you as you travel together to destroy the Ring. This is what some writers have said your life could well become:

Life is but a quick succession of busy nothings.

Jane Austin, Mansfield Park

Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow,
A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more:
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Shakespeare, MacBeth

Here is how I now see our Age: we are not condemned, instead we are truly blessed for we have the chance to stop the destructive way of life of the past few hundred years and to cover the Earth with flowers. The choice is yours: to be blind to the fact that you are an unwilling supporter of Mordor or to be a flower and bloom a short while before you fade… but knowing as you fade that you have laid seeds for a new life that will bloom after you are gone.

BLOOM
by Emily Dickinson

Bloom — is Result — to meet a Flower
And casually glance
Would cause one scarcely to suspect
The minor Circumstance
Assisting in the Bright Affair
So intricately done
Then offered as a Butterfly
To the Meridian —
To pack the Bud — oppose the Worm —
Obtain its right of Dew —
Adjust the Heat — elude the Wind —
Escape the prowling Bee
Great Nature not to disappoint
Awaiting Her that Day —
To be a Flower, is profound
Responsibility —

We were born in a dark age. But there is this comfort: otherwise we should not know, or so much live, what we do love. I imagine the fish out of water is the only fish to have an inkling of water.

― J.R.R. Tolkien