Governments, corporations, militaries: these super-groups are not people. Their power is based on violent separation from life, domination from afar. They consistently put poisons into the Earth.
And who defends the Earth? Individual souls and small groups like families where love grows, or neighborhoods, which can then grow into movements. But we activists, whatever our campaign, have been unable to change the devotion of major institutions to toxins and war.
So – who defends the Earth? The Earth defends itself. The Earth is the only living being that responds realistically to the poisons we put in the air, water and soil. Look at the Earth now. In the 500 mile path of Hurricane Helene’s destruction there are completely depoliticized Americans who are looking up at the sky and wondering for the first time, “All this. Where does it come from?”
Can we create a new kind of activism with Earth as our teacher? Maybe we don’t notice it sometimes, but the Earth is already there in our work. When we think of our activism, we need to see the Earth in the risk we take. The Earth urges us on! The Earth is the ultimate activist, putting fierce love into our resistance.
The wind and waves lead us through old walls to a question we have avoided for centuries. “All this…”
Rev. Billy