When I was born in November 1950 there were 2.5 billion people on Earth. In November of 2022 the total world population will hit 8 billion. Rather than talking about carrying capacity, overshoot, and resource depletion, I want to invite readers to mindfully contemplate that in the past 72 years the numbers of homo sapiens on the planet has almost quadrupled and that the rate of increase is exponential. What are we to do? Does it make sense to even ask that question now?
Our vast numbers alone contribute to climatic change, habitat loss for fellow species and will increasingly lead to violent struggles over resources, mass migrations and breakdowns of social order in vulnerable cultures. Our species is going though a cycle that, unless something miraculous occurs, will end with human populations collapsing as well as the extinction of our many of our fellow beings. No wonder we are all going crazy. Even those of us who are still in denial know the jig is nearly up.
I often awake in the night confronted by our predicament. It is beyond my capacity to even slow the pace of our rush into the abyss. Nor can I truly come to terms with the catastrophic losses occurring every single day which imperil the future of everything I love. Hate and blame offer me no comfort, they only make me agitated. They no longer even distract me. If I cannot be distracted what is left?
For me, all that is left is prayer. I can pray unceasingly. I can feel my breath rising and falling and remember that I am one with all that is. I am a rock weathering for ten thousand years on a cold mountainside. I am a bird migrating over the dark Gulf of Mexico to the thorn forests of Yucatan. I am a baby rat asleep at my mother's breast in a warm sewer. I am the child wandering in the desert, following the others whose language I barely understand. I am a sick old man huddled underground to escape a heavy bombardment. I am a healthy young steer in the feedlot near the slaughterhouse. I am soldier in a tank on fire. I am a lost dog by the side of the road. I am the pampered woman lying awake on clean sheets listening to the rain.
Being alive is the gift I am being given. Being in acceptance is the choice I am making. I will accept my fear and reject despair. I will accept my fate and reject hopelessness. I will accept the long chain of cause and effect that has led me to where I am. I will arise and give thanks for another day during which I will try to live up to my Love. I will see all my fellow creatures as Bodhisattvas. I will try to take only what is needed and share as much as I can. I will embrace my death. And over and over I will give thanks for the miracles that are coming, miracles which I may never know or understand.
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