Maddie Almer
Stepping Stone 30 Guide
"I am a creative thinker, a whiskey sipper, tea drinker. I burn incense, collect books, marvel at rocks, and live life in a wabi-sabi state of mind. I enjoy slow walking and living with intention. My Aquarius soul is constantly pushing boundaries and living to the beat of my own drum."
A majority of this steppingstone infuriates me. The more I read it, the more I am overcome by feelings of discomfort and confusion. It makes me wonder what the solution is to save Mother Earth, or if a solution is even possible.
I hear all the time about how doomed Earth is, but what can I do? I can recycle, compost, upcycle, reuse and reduce, as much as possible, and STILL, I feel as though it is never enough. Even 102 Nobel Laureates in science have deemed that Earth will be “irretrievably mutilated” unless we act NOW.
My fear of Earth dying is so unsettling that it leaves me restless at night. Meanwhile, I am filled with guilt because I am still able to carry on with my life in spite of Earth’s impending doom.
Why, I wonder, are we knowingly mutilating our home? How is it possible for our society to be informed of Earth’s impending doom, and still choose a path of numbness and ignorance?
"It is heartbreaking to acknowledge that our culture conditions us to believe that constant growth and profit are more important than the wellbeing of Earth."
After taking in all the rather heavy content of this steppingstone, I went on a hike in the rolling mountains of Central Pennsylvania where I live. Due to a recent windstorm, there were so many downed trees blocking the trail that I had to exert all my energy just trying to get around them. As you can imagine, this hike was not helping to ease the tension and irritation that I had hoped to release.
Finally, in the midst of my frustration, I stopped and sat down on one of the downed trees that blocked my path. It was in that moment that I noticed a clear green field glowing in the sun just off to my left.
I made my way to that shining field, and while walking in the warmth of the sun, I thought about how I had spent so much of my life following the path that society had laid out for me; and how all the obstacles on this path had absolutely annoyed me.
I had felt confined to that broken path of fallen logs until I realized that I could choose to journey into a world of wholeness and light. I believe the same is true for all of us, provided we summon the determination to break away from the path of irretrievable mutilation that we are now on.
All of this has me wondering: How is it that we have managed to build a culture grounded in numbness and what might we, as individuals, do to break free of the scourge of learned helplessness? I think that a big part of the answer lies in our willingness to feel our pain for the world. As Ingrid Bacci points out in this steppingstone: “The depth of our feeling life measures the depth of our life force, and if we judge, contain, or repress our feelings, we repress our life force.”
In the same way that I chose to say “no” to the obstacle-ridden path that blocked my way in the woods, we each have the freedom to say “no” to our numbness by giving ourselves permission to FEEL. Just consider what might become possible if we allowed ourselves to hear, within us, the sounds of Earth’s crying?[1]
It is heartbreaking to acknowledge that our culture conditions us to believe that constant growth and profit are more important than the wellbeing of Earth. But all is not lost. After all, we could choose—before it is too late—to define growth in terms of increases in our human capacity for compassion, kindness and justice, and in so doing, bring healing to Earth and to each other.
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[1] Wording from Thich Nhat Hanh
