Mother Earth will endure
The water is running. Snow is melting. The geese are flying north. I can hear and see all of this from up here in northern Ontario. I can even smell spring in the air. After an up-and-down, cold-and-warm very strange winter, it is good to see the white frozen carpet fade away to reveal the good earth again.
When the season changes like this I feel overwhelmed, as I imagine most of us do. All of these changes make me feel like I am not in control of very much in this life. There are the ebbs and flows of life continually and we as humans are just a second in terms of existence of life on our planet. Taking the time to go for a walk to listen to the snow melt and water run in the nearby streams and rivers reminds me of the power of nature. In the midst of all this change I realize how precious it all is. I get a glimpse of just how wonderful and beautiful life is with a pale blue sky overhead, lazy floating white puffy clouds moving through all that blue and sounds of birds returning to the north.
It is so easy to forget just how short our lives are and how fortunate we are to be living in a time where most of us at least in the first world have the luxury to appreciate good food, clean water, family, friends, neighbours, warmth when we need it and air conditioning in the middle of a summer heat wave. We, as a global civilization, have survived countless wars, famines and disease to arrive at this point in what we call Canada.
Many do not have the good fortune that we have. Our lives here are amazingly good compared to most of the world. I have visited much of this planet and I can tell you that a good portion of it is made up of countries that occupy the third world. As bad as some of my people have it in a remote First Nation with a housing crisis, water problems and poverty it still does not compare to life in most of Africa, Asia and South America.
Many countries are also involved in wars and most of them have to do with instigation from our very own western nations. We want their resources, we want cheap slave labour and we won’t take no for an answer. Of course, I am not talking about you or me or the common Canadian because we don’t have much to do with directing any of this, but we are guilty of ignorance and apathy. That alone contributes to the current sad condition we find our planet in. I am talking about war, climate change, famine and disease. Most of our problems are due to the very rich and powerful wanting to be even more wealthy and in control.
Currently there is a strategic movement being pushed all across this world by that 1% most wealthy to put in place right-wing, fascist and nationalistic governments. Most of the news we get surrounding any of this promotes these movements rather than providing intelligent, well-researched and non-biased stories that could be educating us. The fact is that much if not all of the mainstream media is very closely related to the military, industrial complex. There are pockets of alternative media mostly online that provides a different angle on what is happening in the world, but mostly what we watch and read is mainstream propaganda. Some sites that I like are: alternet.org, Counterpunch, Mother Jones, democracynow.org, rabble.ca, consortiumnews.com and globalresearch.ca
With spring’s arrival and the promise of summer I understand very well how nature and Mother Earth moves on. She does so and has being doing so since the beginning of time. As yet another seemingly Dark Age comes upon us I am comforted at the very least in the fact that Mother Earth will survive and throw us nasty humans off her like fleas from a dog. With the Americans, Russians, Chinese and all of the other monopoly players at each other’s throats and with their military drooling to launch their precious nuclear bombs anything can happen. In a week’s time, we could all be struggling just to survive as human civilization commits suicide. Still, the snow will come again, it will be colder than ever and we humans just might not make it back this time.