Desert tortoise (Photo – nps.gov)
Our wisdom search is based on the premise that the current climate and pollution crises mean early extinction of most species, including humans, in about ten to twenty years, and that extinction is already well underway and too late to reverse.
A small group conversation, exploring our emotional responses to this unfolding tragedy and examine spiritual and ethical issues as we prepare ourselves for what is certain to come very soon, will take place every month.
Hosted by Thom Hawkins and Charles Jacobsen, the Wisdom Circle meets the first Sunday of every month from 12:45 to 2:30 in the Fireside Room of Throop UU Church in Pasadena.
Date/Time 08/04/2019 12:15 pm - 2:30 pm Location Throop UU Church
My erroneous thinking should’ve been completed by saying that the speed of extinction may be compensated by the speed of its recovery… in terms of millennia no matter what that speed is in galactic terms.
… and the little boy
reminds his father
who was his little boy
that he watched him
when he was as little
as he was then and
that it was dangerous
to play with fire but
no less he did
and it is thanks to him
they flew through space
landing on the moon and
Mars but got singed when
the Solar Probe Plus
touched the Sun.
On the way down Icarus
waved his flaming wings
hollering he’ll never again
point his ass at the Sun.
But it was too late. I saw
his butt spewing black ash.
Who Is Stirring the Primordial Soup
Well, this is not like Humans
aren’t important but they (we)
are part of the evolutionary soup.
Some get cooked now some later
ad infinitum. Actually we were
always here but that’s another story.
In any case, first there was the basic
soup, then the aroma (or Divinity
…ha-ha!) then we were expulsed
from Paradise (God’s gut?) with a
Big Bang. It’s like watching ourselves
in a Petri dish. That s how significant
we are. Of course this philosophy will
not sit well with the Creationists who
needed a Daddy.
But I’ll let them stir their own soup.
Too Late to Cry
I am a little boy
playing in the forest
with three other little boys,
my son and his sons,
biting into wild raspberries
that cover us in blood
from severed arteries
in the legs of the earth.
She has nothing left
to hold her up,
but we play on,
too young to know
what’s important enough
to cry about.
All little boys and girls
that walk in the woods
are afraid of what they can’t see,
nameless ghosts making threats
blown on toxic winds.
Mothers’ teats are dried and withered
as we search for fathers who can lead us
down the path of tortured knowledge
to the land of why this happened,
why now, why us.
Little boys and girls today
must climb out of
the graves they’re born in
if they want to cry for what is lost.
There is nothing
to be done.
All that’s left
is the crying.
In the shadows
of the forest
are the next
girls and boys,
who will come
too late to cry.
Thanks for the repartee.
Besides that, I think we may have it, if not all wrong but at least much of it. Earth must’ve undergone a multitude of climatic, cataclysmic to boot, changes due way beyond what mankind can produce. Ice Ages & Hot Houses couldn’t have been produced by manmade activities unless we numbered 100 billions & everybody drove RAM’s…lol. Also, humans aren’t that special, so their disappearance wouldn’t surprise me as I wouldn’t be able to write about it…lol
Besides, were magma to erupt on a grand scale it would destroy ANY kind of records. Even of pyramid size. I suspect we know very little on a cosmic scale of time. Besides that, I question why do we have only 5 major races? Why not much larger numbers?
As someone put it in our last Wisdom Circle, “Earth will be a lot better off without humans.” Amoeba, protozoa, fungi and other elements will remain to carry on some form of life after a few millennia of planet repair when we’re gone. Or maybe not, since the current experiment with life forms hasn’t worked out too well, at least from the human perspective. The cosmos will go on creating and destroying. We’re just an insignificant blip.
I agree that such rapid demise is possible but highly unlikely to happen worldwide. However, it is possible serially in different geographic pockets. I wish there would be a synopsis article posting of the meeting.
These Wisdom Circles are not for debating the science of species extinction and global heating. They are about grieving the ongoing catastrophic loss of life on earth, be that loss total or partial. I will consider writing a general synopsis article after several more meetings. Thanks for the suggestion.