As the Future Rolls In

 It seemed I was getting mad at everything last week: our preoccupation with things, wealth, competition, racing ahead to ever new technological achievements. I'd drive down the road and yell at the cornfields, the concrete-covered ground, the rows and rows of fast food places, the traffic jams. Really, I was ripe to find fault with anything. Fortunately, that mood hasn't lasted, and it feels better to have gotten some of that anger out. It's hard to know for sure why I'm feeling better now, but I think it partly has to do with some inner work I was forced to undertake at the height of my anger. Like many of us, I was raised in a household where there was all too much scolding and blaming, and too little comforting. And we all grew up in a world where to get approval we had to be good, to do what we were told, perform well. Our self-worth tended to be skin-deep, gauged by what other people said about us. Even though we might find ways of being "good" in other people's eyes, what we needed more was a genuine feeling of being loved, of being accepted and comforted no matter how well we performed at any given task. It's the kind of nurturing that all little mammals need to flourish. And in our complicated culture, where mothers have many roles, little humans often don't get that.

This is uppermost in my mind these last few days, for I just adopted two 3-month-old kitties. My recent life has been full of snuggles and purring since I brought them home. They curl up in my lap, singly or curled around each other. They look up into my eyes with hope and peace. They scurry around the place, exploring every surface and cranny, and then they come back to me to cuddle again for awhile. Their lives are wide open at this point, and they are learning about the world every day. They do know the word "no" now, and that has been important for me to achieve. Now I can eat my own food without them jumping all over me. I've also totally restructured my rooms so that at least for now, it is impossible for them to jump onto my counters, or get into the massage room. Those things needed to be settled so that we could happily co-habitate. 

It's the softer piece of it, the comforting and petting and holding, that I'm noticing most. And it is what I missed as a child, as well as many others of us. I think what we all need for us to be at peace with ourselves, is someone teaching us and showing us that we are wanted, that we are already good before we even do anything, that we are meant to be here in the big web of life. That we belong. So what if no one showed us these things when we were little children? Is it too late? I don't think so. When I was in graduate school becoming a mental health counselor, I remember during one term we studied how to get back into that child self, talk to it, mother it. We still hold our child self inside, and it has a great deal to do with how we lead our lives and especially with how we feel about ourselves.

So the last few days, not only am I cuddling and loving these little kittens, but I've given my inner child a healthy dose of self-love and self-acceptance. And at least for now, it is helping me handle the upsetting things happening in the world. I just read a review of the book Goliath's Curse by Luke Kemp in The Guardian. It gives a perspective on what seems to be happening not only in our own U.S. government, but in other places in the world as well. And it draws on 5000 years of history, studying the rise and fall of about 400 societies. If you're at all like me, you look around at all the people who seem to be supporting our president in his crazy schemes, and you wonder how so many people could be blind to all the harm he and his compatriots are causing. You see the wealth going more and more to the top, and the government passing legislation causing this, and you wonder how could someone in this country support this? 

But Kemp, in his book, describes how this very thing has occurred again and again on this planet. People seem to be naturally egalitarian, and in the beginning societies can survive well by sharing resources and working together. But at some point, greed comes into the mix and a few people set themselves up as elites. Inequality then thrives. Resources are not shared. And gradually that society collapses because inequality and elites at the top do not work very long. Small societies may collapse and then eventually recover. But in today's world, so much of everything is connected across boundaries. Unless we can change the whole structure of our governments and institutions quickly, Kemp thinks things will collapse. What that means in real terms is unknown, but it won't be good for people!

Someone else told me this week that in the past, democracies have never lasted long. I think they quoted 200 years as the point when they start to crumble. Hmmm. That doesn't look so good for us either! So all this bad news didn't help my anger. And it was also scary! OMG, what's going to happen? And when? 

This is when my work with my inner child started to make things easier. Instead of cringing and hiding under the covers, I began thinking of myself as someone tied into everything. I belong to the earth. And I am held by that great earth mother, however we see her. And so when I started imagining the worst, with things toppling and life collapsing, I imagined myself sitting by a tree, hunkering down, knowing I might die, but also knowing that everything dies. And knowing that this collapse is the way forward, the way for things to eventually recover. Whether humans will be part of that mix is unknown. But maybe. And the collapse itself will be curative in the sense that the whole earth will benefit.

Knowing that this has happened before, many many times, helps me accept the trajectory we seem to be on. I don't have to be angry at whoever seems to be causing it. If we look at humans as one organism, and these collapses happen when things get off balance, then we're going in that direction together. This is not particularly fun for most of us, except maybe for the people at the top. I do wonder if it is any fun to have piles of money. I think that would not make me happy. I'd rather have a kitty on my lap! And as the future rolls in, whatever form it takes, I'll hold those kitties and remember to hook into the web of life. And maybe see into a healthier future for our earth. The wider truth is that it's been a pleasure to be a part of it all, no matter for how long.