Angry Like Me
Karma, as most people understand it, is a fallacy. The notion
of karma that many of us cling to is that of a cosmic bellboy who
sweeps in to punish our adversaries for their sins against us. This
notion of karma is empowering when we’re feeling angry, indignant, embittered, and
vengeful. ‘Karma will get him’, we say. Karma will level the playing field.
It doesn’t work that way. The Buddhist view of karma is the
correct one: our actions – each and every last one of them - yield consequences. These consequences may be realized in this life, or in a future incarnation.
The sufferings of this life may very well be the karmic consequences of a previous
life. But whenever it manifests, however it manifests, you may be sure it’s purely
a cause and effect mechanism. It exists neither to punish nor reward us for our
deeds. It’s simply the fruit that we bear.
Humanity is grappling with its karmic path now. The absolutely
tragic gardening season the Northeast has just had has demonstrated – unless you’re
being willfully blind – that climate change is moving fast across the globe, threatening food supplies everywhere.
The summer of 2018 in the Northeast, according to the U.S.
Department of Commerce National Weather Service, was officially the most “tropical”
summer on record for this area. We were torpedoed with rain and record humidity
for almost two months nonstop.
At our little homestead, under the weight of torrential wetness,
the food gardens developed fungal infections in early July before turning
largely into pulp a month later. Weeds grew at dizzying speeds and choked
out food plants. Insects marched in to eat decaying plant matter and whatever fresh food was still on the plants. A hungry bear came in and leveled our corn crop overnight. In mid-August,
my husband and I gave up. We harvested what we could of what was left and began
removing diseased plants. We didn’t even bother with planting our second round
of greens. The sodden soil was just wrecked.
This summer, we had barely enough garden food for ourselves
and our families, little for colleagues, friends, and neighbors, and none –
none at all - for our local food bank. That broke my heart most of all.
This is the kind of growing season that makes us realize,
once and for all and without a doubt, that the game has changed. Climate change
is not a problem that exists ‘out there’. It lives right in our laps, right
here in the Northeast corner of the U.S. This is a problem everywhere. A God-sized
problem.
If you were conscious or gardening or looking for locally grown farm food at reasonable prices, then this summer has made the war visible. Some might want to
muddy the water by arguing that the mechanisms of modern animal agriculture –
the biggest offender by far in creating climate change - are so vast and powerful that
we’re helpless to change them.
But it’s really a very simple discussion.
Identify the needed changes, plunge into them, move with them, and forge a new
plan. Human history is filled with accounts of sweeping changes made by those with conscious awareness. Especially
when the chips were down, as they are now. And if you aren't angry like me, then I say - with love but urgency - that you are one of the willfully blind.
We are getting close to the bedrock here. It isn’t merely
our fate. It’s the fate of generations to follow. Your children, our children, and
their children. All animal and plant species. Everything that lives. If we think about it that way, and act accordingly, we may reach those who are still living larval,
low-awareness lives with opinions that are so catastrophically incorrect that
their very existence threatens the future of the Earth itself.
And finally, consider this: growing our own food is a
revolutionary act, a stand on independence and self-reliance. When we are no
longer able to grow our own food, we will become completely and utterly dependent
on entities like Monsanto and its crooked ilk. That is not the legacy we should leave to Mother Earth and her inhabitants.
Barbie xo
