I had been purposely trying to live in a state of don’t-know mind for the past few months. “Who knows? Maybe it will turn out okay,” I’d say to myself. And it was working alright. Sure, I looked a little silly walking around with my fingers in my ears going la-la-la, but I could function.

But here we are. Reality is unavoidable. There’s only so much one can ‘not know’ it turns out!

Now I am sitting with dread, like the characters in Ursula Hegi’s novel Stones from the River, feeling helpless as cavalier cruelty is exonerated and normalized.  And it breaks my heart for our planet, our communities, and the future generations of all species.

I see how I suffer from my attachment to a different outcome and how my hope was rooted in fear. Experience keeps teaching me that fear is likely to cause me to shrink, to turn away from life, to cloud my judgment and numb my mind with pleasant-seeming distractions — just another form of sticking my fingers in my ears and going la-la-la. Maybe it’s not useful, but it feels kinder than lashing out in anger, or sinking into despair.

For now I am just being present with the roiling emotions. I haven’t come up with a cheerleading chant or an anthem to fortify me. Too soon!

But I did go to the audio page of my website where I listened to my own voice guiding me to the present moment and my heart space. The fear quieted down as a sense of interconnection with all life on a cellular level and the vastness of space and time enveloped my consciousness. It was a much-needed relief but not a permanent remedy. Soon enough my knotted thoughts weave in to fill what they perceive to be a void. But having just created that space softens their harsh edges. It melts the painful shards of frozen fearful thought into a more easeful natural flow of water that lovingly supports and refreshes.

Thus refreshed, I remembered a walk I took among the towering redwoods, and how some of the trees were scarred by fire. Resilience is part of the key to their longevity. Another is their community bonds of mutual support.

We humans don’t live for a thousand years or more. Even our civilizations rise and fall more quickly. All the cycles and patterns of nature have infinite variations, including our own existence. But we do have the innate capacity to build community bonds of mutual support. It’s not often highlighted by the media that prefers to focus on hornet’s nests of hatred it helps to activate to ramp up its ratings to attract more advertisers trying to activate our fear-based sense of greed and aversion for profit. According to them, we’re never enough and we’re always in danger. Their products will solve that deficit by bringing us acceptance, admiration, security, and pleasure, however fleeting.

Entangled in these fabricated beliefs of separation, wars erupt, spread, and cause unimaginable suffering, much as fires, under certain conditions, burst forth and cause devastation.

And then at some point, never soon enough, peace happens. Fires run their course, the winds die down, and leave behind acres of ash and chimneys.

Looking around, we see that amidst all the destruction, the kindness of fellow humans shines radiant. 

How we respond to crisis tells us who we are and how we can live together in a way that supports life. It reveals who the real leaders are: the thoughtful, compassionate, and valiant ones who show up and care.

So I am pulling my fingers out of my ears, opening my eyes, and instead of blocking out the world with la,la,la, I am listening within for a song that reminds me to live from love and awareness of our intrinsic interconnection. 

What is that song for you? Let’s co-create harmony as we sing this life together.