A compelling and touching article by Robert Jensen, "After the harvest — learning to leave the planet gracefully"
http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/harvest-learning-leave-planet-gracefully/
I share Koplin’s sense of our responsibility here and can relate to this;
this is central to my own sense of what needs to happen now:
“He loved people and planet in a way that made him yearn for a
graceful, peaceful ending, much as one wishes for a graceful and peaceful ending
for a person coming to the end of an individual life.”
I would go further than the following, though:
“Koplin told me that he remembered the moment as a young person when he
realized that every human being’s brain worked the same way, which meant that
every human being alive on the planet had the capacity to experience exactly the
same range of emotions as he did.”
I feel confident that I have direct experience that all animals also feel
the same breadth – and probably similar depth – of emotional experience as
humans feel. To whatever extent I feel despair, it is about how brutally we
treat our animal brothers and sisters – having killed off 51% of all vertebrate
life on Earth since 1970 – as well as how we are misusing the Earth herself. My
pessimism for the Earth’s future centers around the loss of that Life, which –
because we know we are One with all Life – is actually suicide.
We are now in hospice, or should be, all of us together.
“I’m the positive one — by placing my faith in our collective ability
to bear the truth that is beyond bearing, I am affirming the best aspects of our
humanity, just like my friend Jim Koplin.”
And I, too, am more optimistic than pessimistic. While I feel we have no
long-term future on Earth, I believe that we can learn to truly love one another
and become kind to one another. If not, this whole experience will in a sense
have been a waste. The Eternal Dharma is the Message of Love, only Love. If we can “save ourselves” in any meaningful sense of that, I will be by
our capacity to uncover and act from genuine Love for all beings.
May all beings be well and happy, free of suffering and causes of suffering.
PS: And this, just in: Scientists find that at the current rate of destruction, the planet’s wildlands will be gone within 50 years.
