With What Time We Have
Loving what is human
There is a poem I have been working in for the past few years. I haven’t gotten it right yet, but I also haven’t let it go. I keep circling back to it. I know this is a poem I need; it just hasn’t fully manifested yet. In it I recall the story of the Titanic sinking and how notoriously the band played while the ship began to go down. I am reflecting on how when I was younger and felt quite far away from my mortality, this story was received as a sign of denial or frivolousness in the face of tragedy. Now I see if very differently.
Now I can imagine much more closely, how it might feel to get the news that the boat keeping you alive is sinking and that most of you will not be saved. Now I can emphasize with the question – what would you do once you knew the boat is doomed? Would you fight for a place on the limited lifeboats? Would you hide in your cabin? Knowing you personally could not fix the hole in the structure or build lifeboats to save more, would you silently pray?
Would you maybe choose in your last moments to create the art you had lived to create? To play beautiful music to the best of your ability. To offer your gift to an encroaching ocean, to a dark night sky, to frightened people.
I now see the sacredness of choosing to continue creating art with what time you have left. To connect to your own human gift as long as possible. I see it as the most life affirming thing possible.
These days things feel surreal. I find myself dreading the question, “How are you?”. How to answer? There is an unpleasant part of me who feels like standing on that street corner with a sign that says The End is Near, a raving part that is desperate for some wake-up call to be heard but is not sure what that would invoke even if it was heard and received. This part has fearful information careening around her head. She knows that human life will require a 70% increase in food production by 2050, a mere 25 years away and that currently we are witnessing increasingly extreme heat and rainfall in some areas, droughts in others, conditions leading flooding and soil erosion, while we are shrinking our dedicated farmland area. And this is just one of the areas of concern within a larger climate crisis. (Watch 30 Harvests)
So each day I am trying to turn to face this desperate part of myself, that whispers “The ship is sinking! 25 years!!”. She wants me to understand something that feels unfathomable. I realize she is not even hoping for a savior or solution, just companionship in this knowing that the threat is real and getting closer each day. I try, almost as a meditation, to open my mind to the possibility of a larger end than any of us want to consider.
This is not something most people want to talk about. Not, I have found, good cocktail conversation. But it is pretty potent meditation material. A charnal ground meditation with scientific timelines instead of corpses.
And so I have also been thinking a lot about what I am personally called to do in the face of this Doomsday Clock. If we only have 30 more harvests to feed us all, what can I do in that time?
So I took myself to sit on a Redwood stump softened by years shifting weather and its own dropped needles and to slow to its pace, as much as possible. And I asked, “What can I do in this time? What should I do in the face of all of this?” And the answer I received surprised me. It was – Help humans be more human.
What this means to me is to call in what is precious in us. I want to support people in expressing themselves honestly and creatively through their bodies and their distinctly human lives. It means opening ourselves to creative expression, to making things with love (from food to furniture), to making love, and to the imaginal explorations of our inner world and its ability to connect with vast potential.
I know many may think that humans’ gift to this world is in building things or in productivity or problem-solving, systems and structure. But really other beings do that, quite possibly better, than we do. Beavers, ants, mycelia – all masters at building and making intricate, incredibly effective functioning systems.
I have many thoughts and feelings about AI, and will out myself as wanting to avoid its use as much as possible – or at least be very, very judicious about why we are using it and what it is replacing. But I will say one of the best things that may come from the rise in AI is for us to ask questions about what gifts humans bring and what parts of us cannot be replaced. These questions do not have clear answers. But they seem important. AI may actually allow us to become more aware of what is Soul-less and what is Soul-full. What can be replicated and what must be birthed.
Perhaps this is too woowoo for many of you. That is ok. I do think we can feel the difference – if we are really paying attention, which is something else that is a dwindling resource – when something is created from a beating heart that is physically connecting to the Earth and spiritually connected to the Sacred.
Recently I was in a group gathering and one person entered summaries of our conversation into an AI and had it craft a blessing for our group. It was a beautiful blessing, a amalgamation of our words and spiritual truths that on one level I could receive and appreciate. But quite quickly I felt an emptiness. How different it would have felt to have a human craft our words into a blessing of the moment. It would have been shorter and perhaps less elegant. But..and heres where I get more woowoo… if we are really calling in a blessing, a heartfelt request from Spirit, can that be done by a machine? Even a machine that plays back our own words or thoughts?
So I realized that, for me, calling in what is Human is also calling in our connection to Spirit. Which for me is felt and experienced in our embodied connection to all of creation here on this Earth.
If we only have 30 years left, or if we have 3000, I want to support other humans in deepening their relationship to this Sacred Earth, their tender bodies, and their unique, creative, empathic hearts. We are here to feel and connect. Let’s use this time to be more human, not less.
It can seem easier to let machines do it for us. For certain. And there are many things that don’t need or call for a human touch. It can seem easier to detach and numb out; let the machine entertain and distract us in a virtual reality. It can even seem easier to take up the cause of a group thousands of miles away who you will never speak to than to check in with your neighbor next door and see if they need any help. It seems easier to let something else calculate the answer.
But there is a magic that happens when we humans do it ourselves, in our imperfect, growing way. There is magic in struggling with something and not getting it quite right. There is magic in effort and attention. There is magic in a voice that shakes and paintbrush that goes outside the lines. There is magic in facing the blank page. There is magic in birth pains and sweat and thinking this is too much for me. There is magic in humbly asking Spirit to work through us.
Creation is vastly different than replication. There will never be another version of you, even if a machine captured all your thoughts and voice and took every measurement, it could not cobble together another you for me to interact with. This is our only chance to get to know the authentic you or to see what you can create.
In the face of a present reality that is shaking up the question of what humans are here to offer– I believe that is our capacity for the imaginal and creativity, self- aware embodied vulnerability, and expansive love.
So, “How am I doing?” I am trying to do those things. I am being Human, while I can. Being messy and sore and confused and late and in awe and compassion and deep belly-laughter. How are you?
Join me in Creating Juicy Embodied Prayers - this July in Santa Cruz, CA
Prayer as Portal
Saturday July 19th, 3-7pm at Pleasure Point Sanctuary
Our prayers are doorways we consciously walk through. In this workshop we will work with our prayers as conversations and collaborations with the Divine that come through our whole embodied Self.
Practicing yoga, guided meditations, and embodied writing we will find our way into deeper, juicer, more vulnerable prayers. We will explore ways to connect with inner and outer guidance to shape our prayers and perhaps bring some healing to our often striving or fearful Ego.
Words, action, visioning, and surrender all as necessary to make your prayer a portal. Join us in grounded exploration and community.