I received this response to this essay on Facebook from a “spiritual” colleague and someone I truly admire.

She tried to post here, but it did not work out. So I am pasting comments in from my colleague, anonymously for now … I think they are important.

Until I read Rachel Maddow’s book, “Blowout”, your posts, and blogs such as this one were really, really hard for me to read. I would feel a rising guilt and anger, as though somehow the climate emergency were my fault and that I had personally stolen my grandchildren‘s future.

Rachel’s book helped me connect some dots and see that the pace to the current state was hugely accelerated relatively recently (30 years or so) and results from a confluence between layers and layers of corporate greed and massive corruption (especially, but not exclusively within the fossil fuel industry) and the INNOCENT enjoyment of the fruits of technological advancement and its unforeseen (by most) byproducts by “little people” like me.

Coming closer to a place of compassion for my own personal innocence in this unfolding human drama has been SO helpful. I feel freer from a lot of weighty thought and heavy emotionality or urgency. Underneath is a sweet peace. A kind of, “ok, so this is what is. Where do I go from here? What is there for me to do?” It’s the same kind of peace beyond understanding I experienced after my first husband’s death where I came to know and accept that I hadn’t caused his fate and it wasn’t my fault, but I did need to respond to it and I saw unequivocally that my best responses were often simple ones, guided from within. And I saw without a shred of doubt that I was guided and loved through that personal crisis as we all are now through this global one.

I can’t say I have, yet, a huge amount of personal clarity about my response to our climate situation, but there are some things that have come to me, personally, especially evolving from my two week seclusion deep in the mountains and woods of WV:

1. Our beautiful earth has already forgiven us. It embraces us with monumental compassion and love and sees our innocence. As I think and feel that I experience waves of gratitude that invite me more deeply to revere, enjoy, and serve her.

2. Everyone alive today has agreed to be here during this time, and that means our children and grandchildren, too. The children of laughter and light are all around us. We can join hands with them, see their wisdom and humbly allow them to remind us to move through this time with kindness, love and light-hearted ness.

3. I have seen to call 2020 a year of deep quiet. No travel. No public speaking. I will let the earth, children and the love within help me discern next steps in peace, free of urgency or distress.

I dislike long posts and I apologize for this one. It is hard to give words to all the big and beautiful awarenesses that are arising in me.