Earth Day and Professor Dumbledore's Warning

I wrote the following paragraphs last month in my "Notes to My Daughter" series at my other website, and it seems an appropriate message for Earth Day. Based on the evidence that I've seen, it is fast becoming clear that there is no more urgent a message for our times: the planet is under attack; the insurgency is US; and there is no escape except through the unity of peoples in a global affirmation of Life. I have written about this before at some length, and the message is quite simple, really: our Earth is already choking on the poisons that humans have dumped upon it. There is no longer anything to fear, for the worst that can be imagined has already begun. Could there be any greater inspiration to courage? All we need remind ourselves, each of us, is that transformation begins within the individual and his/her unique, conscious effort. Unity then arises spontaneously, from the quantum realm of the formless.

Therefore, my message to each reader here is uncomplicated: tend to the work of self-discovery, and let the Great Movement be led by Nature, and not by an institution. Wherever there is a connection of free and autonomous individuals, there will be transformation within the whole.

Dear Maria:

Can you recall the night we watched the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie together, and how I mentioned that those stories aren't the simple fantasies that people take them for?

Professor Dumbledore said that "dark and difficult times lie ahead...when we must make the choice between what is right, and what is easy." As I mentioned to you that evening, that time is here, right now. The water, air, and earth of our planet are quickly being turned into a gray sludge—like the snow in city sidewalk gutters after a day of traffic, plowing, shoveling, and smog—a semi-liquid mixture of Nature's living substance, defiled by poison, garbage, and human manipulation.

The darkness is so close upon us and our world that, by the time you reach my age, the planet you live on may be largely uninhabitable.

The danger is so great, strange to say, that there is no room left for fear. Why be afraid when the worst that can happen has already begun? So there is no better time than now for that boldness of spirit that cannot stop for fear. The peril is too great and immediate; its urgency too near to overwhelming for fear to have any place to plant its icy heels of stone, as it has done so painfully to my generation.

You and your friends will need to call upon this natural sense of resolution from within and among yourselves. Some call this resolution, this fearless energy of purpose, courage. It is the same quality that is discussed in the old Chinese book that I'm always reading, the I Ching. Here is what it says in Hexagram 43:

Breakthrough / Resolution

One must resolutely make the matter known
At the court of the king.
It must be announced truthfully. Danger.
It is necessary to notify one's own city.
It does not further to resort to arms.
It furthers one to undertake something.

Your courage will lead you to the court of the king. Your fearlessness will guide you in the unflinching recognition of danger, and the clear expression of truth to the powerful. The light of your generation will reveal the opening of the path to safety, and the recovery of humility, free of the obsessive and mindless tyranny of violence. You who are young now will show us the way back to our original maturity; our primordial modesty; our inviolate connection with Earth; the vibrant peace of dancing Nature, ebullient in her Wholeness.

Love always,

Poppy

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For more on Earth Day and the urgency of the healing of our planet, see the following links:

Earth Day Network
Grist Mag: The Environmental Majority
Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the U.S.
Al Gore: For People and Planet
Environmental Statement of the Millennial Assessment (pdf)*
The Last Days of the Ocean
As the World Burns

*requires Adobe Reader
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Personal note: To my good friend and occasional contributor here, Guptilla the Hun, my deep gratitude for your professionalism and friendship. May vast good fortune lie ahead for you; and may Dumbledore come "back to life" on 7/7/07.