Inner Sustainability
We know that our planet is in trouble and we know who did it! Back in the 1960’s comic strip character Pogo famously said about the Vietnam war, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” Humanity is destroying our precious Earth at an alarming rate. These are ten ways we humans are destroying our sacred home. 1. Overpopulation, 2. Pollution, 3. Global Warming, 4. Climate Change, 5. Genetic Modification, 6. Ocean Acidification, 7. Water Pollution, 8. Deforestation, 9. Acid Rain, 10. Ozone Depletion. These are all major systems that are in vital danger of drastically harming all of the planet’s inhabitants. And to repeat, it is being caused by homo sapiens.
That is the bad news. The possible good news is, we caused it and only we can fix it. The challenge is, will we?
We have made the choices that have created our current environment. We made many of these choices in ignorance. Now we know what we must do to turn this epidemic around. When we didn’t know, we had an excuse. This is no longer the issue. However, knowing what to do, or even how to do it, may not be enough.
In order to become sustainable around the globe, we must become sustainable within our hearts and minds. You and I may start to see that our lives are interconnected with the lives of all living entities on earth, from microorganisms to all people to the ecosystem of the planet as a whole. We may gain a humble awareness that the small choices we make, day by day — what to consume, how to handle our garbage and waste, how to conduct our work, and how to spend our time — do indeed have effects on the larger systems around us. We may also start to recognize that our ability to care about others — people on far-flung continents, people in unfortunate circumstances, people caught in disasters, or people anywhere in the chain of life — makes a difference.
One path to creating our inner sustainability is to do the inner work like meditation and prayer. It would be helpful to learn mindfulness through the practice of Yoga. This will connect us with our inner wisdom and we will make healthy choices for our fragile spacecraft.
A wonderful local organization, Inspiration of Sedona, is making this their predominant purpose right now. When we create our inner sustainability we will then do the outer sustainability. Eventually, we want to become THRIVEABLE! From my sustainable heart to yours, Thomas