On August 4th I started a four-part series of excerpts from chapter one of Ocean of Insight: A Sailor’s Voyage Deep into the Climate Crisis. Parallax Press will publish this spiritual-climate-action memoir in Fall 2016. Now is the time for the writer in you to add your comments to the draft.

This excerpt is taken from concluding reflections on our night of terror. Enjoy–H

I have new appreciation for people unwilling to sit with the emotions climate change stirs. They’re horrible. Melting permafrost, more tumultuous storms, the desiccation and blowing away of farmland, dying oceans, mass extinction—it’s overwhelming. All that we love and live for may end: our children, trees, birdsongs, snowflakes, birthdays, Shakespeare, the internet, hot showers, dolphin with their young, hotel doormen, love letters, jazz, democracy, even chocolate. Humankind may not survive the next hundred years and it is hard to keep steady in a pre-apocalyptic world.

 

Climate change terrifies me. Yet the experience off Tilloo Cay reveals the power of fear: it renders me useless. I am not alone. Fear is the greatest obstacle to society’s healthy continuation. It jams minds with panic, frustration, and anger; it triggers our defenses and makes us self-righteous; it blocks critical thoughts and confounds skillful action.

Many of us feel compelled to acknowledge fear, anger, and grief and own our contribution to the mess. We want to act with skill, and yet we have the urge to deny reality and stop looking. There is small comfort in ignorance. But as the New Year’s events demonstrate, voluntary ignorance is worse than fear….

 

 

…. Climate change is too great a challenge for hysteria. Cool heads in the face of danger are essential if we are to be clever enough to transform the mess. We are by nature spiritual creatures capable of maintaining composure and cultivating insight, and wisdom. Greatness is possible when we quiet our emotions, our rhetoric, and our politics. Skillfulness grows from acceptance of what is without blame and anger. Acceptance frees up emotional space and makes it possible for all people to participate in solution-making.

 

I wonder what would happen if the climate concerned managed their personal fear, stopped driving others into panic, and grew gentle and dignified in helping society look deeply, mitigate loss, and adapt. By making ever increasing amounts of noise as we sound the alarm of disaster, we spread our fear, petrify others, give opponents something to criticize, and drive society into states of denial or flight. Too many of us are like inexperienced horse trainers banging pots and pans to get the herd’s cooperation. It’s not working.

 

And yet, we mustn’t chastise ourselves too much; this is unexplored territory and we have cause to fear. Also, there are multiple reasons civilization isn’t responding to the scientific findings—chief among them are campaigns of misinformation perpetuated by people profiting in this fossil fuel economy.

 

The climate change message is too important for us to scream. Perhaps I and my environmental brothers and sisters need to take a lesson from Horse Whisperers and model the confidence and clarity we seek to awaken in others. Collectively we can work together to find more effective ways to speak to the causes and conditions that threaten planetary survival, solutions to the problems, and the steps each of us can take to stop those profiting from harm and bring carbon emissions to safe levels again. Our message is most accessible when we are unruffled, gentle, and plain-spoken.

 

Civilization is in danger but we have freedom to perform magnificently as beacons of inspiration with awareness of the preciousness of this moment. If we should fail and all should be lost, then at least we would die with grace knowing humankind achieved its peak of love, courage, and wisdom at the moment of our highest, collective suffering.