Whatever He Does To the Web...

[cedar_grove]

Fortuna is our fate, our destiny.
In her hands she holds the horn
we call the cornucopia, the horn
of plenty. From it pours - how to
describe this? - not only fruit and blossoms,
but everything the earth can bear:
waters of the ocean, minerals
from beneath the earth, jewels
from the depths and neighs,
everything the earth produces,
this is our fortune, this is our blessing,
pouring forth from the goddess
in abundance and in plenty.

--Roman poet Plutarch, Moralia

Our fortune is inseparable from that of the other creatures of the earth. We may be rich for a generation, or even more, if we are careless and greedy. But our children, or their children, or their children's children will pay for our greed and carelessness. The earth goddess wants to take care of us, if we will let her and if we will take care of her.

We had storms today... very high winds, sand blowing everywhere... and cold - very cold. And all anyone can say is how "unseasonal" the weather is. It's the same everywhere I guess because I hear the same from friend and from the news in America, and from friends in England... to the point where some people I know are convinced that the world is ending. Not in any 2012 kind of way, just simply because the weather patterns are all wrong, there are far more natural disasters - earthquakes, volcanos, tsunamis - all of it signs that maybe Mother Nature has finally had enough.

I find myself sitting here today reminded of a quotation from Chief Sitting Bull that I first heard, or became aware when I heard excerpts of it on a world music album a while ago now (that I wish I still had a copy of to be honest). The Album was called One World, One Voice. Anyway, the thought that comes to me from this wise of men is this... and probably I'm paraphrasing horribly, for which I apologise: Mankind did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand on it... whatever he does to the Earth, he does to himself How easily we forget this.

I'm in a country right now where little is done to prevent the accumulation of rubbish, it lies in piles in the streets; where the polution is high from all of the traffic, and coming from a country where we recycle all we can, and living some of the time in another where the same is true - and where every effort is being made to reduce the polution we belch into the atmosphere, it breaks my heart what we are doing to the Earth - to our mother.

And of our world... I wonder what we will do, how long it will take before the world consciousness we share realises that it's not just bleeding-heart-do-gooders that espouse saving the planet, the resources, the environment, the whales... but that we must make a genuine shift toward being more concerned to live responsibly awakens in all of us, not just those few to whom it is like preaching to the choir.

Comments

[mirrani.livejournal.com]

it's Mankind did not weave the web of life. We are but one strand in it." and it's cheif seattle, so if the cd says it's not, then it's not a very good cd.

there's got to be a way to start recycling some things... any things... reduce your own personal impact.. no bottles... find a way to burn your paper for heat or whatever... I dunno.