If I see one more promotional piece about how I can finally live the life I’ve always dreamed of or how I can become healthier or richer, more empowered and successful and attract the perfect partner, I will have to run to the window like Peter Finch did in the film Network and let out a mighty scream. It would be so easy to holler, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”. So so easy. I’m not going to do it though. Instead I will remember Antonio Machado’s words:

What have we done with the garden that was entrusted to us?

Then I will weep. Because I am part of this crazy dominant culture. Because I was born into that a world-eating culture and it hurts to know it.

What does it mean I wonder to live the life I’ve been dreaming of with all its accoutrements, to feel “healthy” or “empowered” or “successful” or attract the perfect partner if the world around me is quietly and even sometimes not so quietly crumbling? Surely this is the epitome of self-interest. What deep love, sobriety and humility might we invite to our doors? So that we resist the seductions that assault us without mercy?

I recently wrote a post to my facebook page which stuck a chord for many:

Dominant culture has been admitted to palliative care. Tis a sobering thing. And there are many crowded in the ward, some struggling with the news, others praying for a miracle, some angry that preventative measures weren’t taken sooner, some researching the latest cures for death, some running for office, others remembering the old stories, some dancing in the hallway because what else can you do .. and others given to making beauty in gardens and weaving cloth at their looms because people still need to eat and be clothed and there are small children just learning about the world who are asking .. what’s happening mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, neighbor .. responsible citizens .. what’s happening? Everything my child .. all the best and all the worst is what’s happening.

Despair would be too easy at this point .. so horribly unachieved. I look around me and there is still so much to love, so much that needs tending to. We could rise up and get to work. Our labours could be magnificently contaminated by our fervent committment to love this world.

It has always been my experience that the best way to remedy a problem is to know what the problem is. It don’t think it’s a good idea to wait until the consequences of not paying attention swallow us up in quicksand.

I don’t write these things because I’m pessimistic or negative. I write them because I think humans have enormous capacity to do good. More often than not, people will rally even more when they know what’s at stake. There’s a lot at stake. I hope we will do good.

The Wind, One Brilliant Day

The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

‘In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I’d like all the odor of your roses.’

‘I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead.’

‘Well then, I’ll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain.’

the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:
‘What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?’

— Antonio Machado

Originally published at www.rachellelamb.com.