| [Written for Environmental Sociology, UCLA 2005]Today in the world, many people starve to death. We play the corporate games to make money, to protect our own interest, often because we fear for our own families and their well being, but I would like to suggest that the idea that we must compete with one another is only a concept of fear.
We try to steal from our neighbor so that we can get what we “need” before they get what we assume is just a “want”. This concept of fear is what is really sucking the life out of all of us. For Julia butterfly, it was a tree that was connected to all creation, but for you and me often the trees we cut down or fail to protect are actual people. The people who are harmed by our profit, or by our desire to protect ourselves or to worry about our own comfort, are the trees in our forest of humanity.
I fall prey to this as well. I too love Potterybarn and ipods. I love beautiful clothes, and good wine, but what do these desires I have really do to others, and to my own soul? Do I need them to truly make me happy or am I simply using these (not evil) pleasures to cover up my true desire for meaning. I believe in our society we have lost our hearts because we are acting out of fear. I believe if we truly trusted we would be able to see that the things we think we need, are really just wants, and what we really need is to live in harmony with what our hearts will tell us if we listen. We are all connected, and we cannot live without affecting other lives.
Each one of us can make a difference- Luna is just one tree, but there are many others, and all our forests look different.
-Thoughts after reading ‘The Legacy of Luna’
|
|