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going somewhere i need to go

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somehow,  in Spirit Diaries,  Jude Hill's online creative journey

a seed that has waited, dormant, cracked.   what i referred to as Unspeakable there,  speaks.  In this beginning.  And as i have believed for so long,  once the seemingly unspeakable is given voice,  it begins to transform.  change.  shapeshift.  breathe.

There is the   Great Law of the Iroquois,  the 7 Generations.  that speaks of the necessity to weigh every societal decision with the well-being of the next 7 generations.    Oren Lyons, Chief of the Onondaga said  "What about the seventh generation?  Where are you taking them?  What will they have?"

Exaggerated by the current campaigning for the presidency,  i watch my country with such deep Grief.  I feel alienated.  I feel helpless.  I feel great sorrow at what seems to be the choosing of blind eyes  toward the changing planet.   The denial of the Wounding. 

amidst all the mainstream journalism,  i found only this:

"The problem that we are seemingly  unable to countenance is the end of growth.  Today's system is predicated on the progressive conversion of nature into products, people into consumers, cultures into markets and time into money.  We could perhaps extend that growth for a few more years by fracking, deep-sea drilling, deforestation, land grabs from indigenous people and so on, but only at a higher and higher cost to future generations.  Sooner or later…we will have to transition towards a steady-state or degrowth economy."

guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/03/debt-federal-reserve-fixation                                         We can't grow ourselves out of debt, no matter what the Federal Reserve does                                            Charles Eisenstein

The great Grief for me is that i don't think it will change.  i don't think humanity as a whole is going to choose change,  or,  if suddenly there is realization that we Must,  it will come too late.   The planet can sustain only so much.  

So, my question to myself is,  How do I live, then.?    and I Don't Know.  Maybe all there is,  is to express this Grief,  to express the deep and abidingly fierce Love of this Earth  in whatever ways i can find.  with every breath i am given.   Back again to that paraphrase of Clarissa Pinkola Estes

"stand and face what you know."

 

 

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40 responses to “going somewhere i need to go”

  1. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    the truth of all of this seems unbearable.
    but she is beautiful.
    and the gift of her being willing to picking up and hold these heavy truths is unmeasurable.
    x

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  2. jude Avatar
    jude

    beautiful, grace…

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  3. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    Oh Grace–how fine your comprehension–How potent your tears–weep no more–keep going on in the moment–your moment–it breathes life into everything it touches–live in the human slipstream between all these worlds we create. There the future appears only in the present, and think of the long line trailing behind, the ribbons of time, the layers of earths strata, the mountains and civilizations rising and falling, and the distance of stars, how long it takes for their light to reach us, how vast the universe, and universes beyond. The goats call, the children play, the rain comes and goes, and life, ubiquitous as the forms it takes, persists.

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  4. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    no.
    but i love you.

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  5. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    thank you, Cindy. there is the fear that you know
    about, that no one will talk to you anymore.

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  6. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i already said this…it didn’t go through…
    but Thank you…
    am feeling there will be many of her, my tribe of What Ifs

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  7. jude Avatar
    jude

    Maybe you will be weaving all these selves together?
    Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

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  8. handstories Avatar
    handstories

    i will. o

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  9. ;uie Avatar
    ;uie

    Every day, standing and facing, seeing, doing what can be done, singularly, sometimes reaching out with words, actions, collectively. Change, well, they say it starts with one step, it is an individual thing that sometimes morphs into the collective but I no longer wrack my soul with the universal question, is it enough? At the end of the day, always these questions come: Have I done good today ? Have I been kind and helped and here (fill in the blank ) my family, my friends, my neighbor, the creatures who live with us on this planet, my city, my state, our planet? Have I done anything to protect this precious place for my grandchildren, for your grandchildren, for future grandchildren? Sometimes, I answer with a resounding yes, Other times, I fail but the thing about planetary women is this: We don’t give up and if no one talks to us, we begin a new conversation the next day. In the end, one voice, one vote, one stance, one heart, it is what we do, it is who we are, those of us who are planetary women.

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  10. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Marti…i don’t know. am thinking.

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  11. jenni-lynn Avatar
    jenni-lynn

    I think these thoughts as well. Humans have a hugh capacity to endure so I fear that things will continue as they are, slowly de- evolving… until we say enough! What can we do? We lean to the light in whatever way we can (which you are obviously doing already). Sharing your grief at Mother Earths wounding, loving the womb in this cloth.

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  12. patricia Avatar
    patricia

    I don’t know either, Grace. And I vacillate between between being paralyzed with grief and sorrow–to being awestruck by the beauty that still abounds. How can there be two such divergent realities? And for me it is the resistance that is so crippling, and when I’m crippled, well, that speaks for itself. In my wildest dreams I cannot imagine being released from this deep sorrow but I sense there is a way to be WITH it w/o becoming it. I will keep trying.

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  13. elizabeth fortes Avatar
    elizabeth fortes

    Dear Grace, I hear you. I hear your pain with the ears of my own pain. I honor your willingness/courage to verbalize this aching that you deeply know. Let me just be here, listening to you. Perhaps…a seed of your pain…. carried by winds of change…. e.

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  14. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    ok…to Begin…called and signed up to train for
    Every Child Outside Learning About Bosque. a partnership
    between the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio
    Elementary School and Audubon of New Mex.
    will see how that feels.

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  15. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i think each of us individually experiences things
    differently. so…there is no one thing to DO, no
    one answer.
    all i know is that i cannot any longer sit quietly.
    i really do not think there will be a “happy ending”…
    there Will be continuation in some form, i am sure, but
    i guess it’s really my love for how the Planet is/has
    been/could continue to be if we accepted our responsibility
    as equal partners with it All. if we stopped TAKING so
    much more than a Fair Share. if we Actively valued each
    life form equal to our selves. And i know that a lot of
    people are not going to do that, it’s a Romantic thought,
    but to at least go back, as i was wondering about on
    Wendy’s blog, Grace and Mending. i think we are the first
    generation that has become so oblivious. my parents, my
    grandparents lived in a much more sane way. it occured to
    me, reading Wendy’s thoughts that this is really relatively
    NEW, this blind consuming, this illusion that is the only
    Real good life. i think it’s NEW, but we bought it
    totally and now don’t even blink an eye.
    so, i don’t know. i really don’t know. but i will do
    all that i can to find out how to live.

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Patricia…the two divergent realities are REAL and
    will remain REAL until one eats the other. and yes,
    i do not expect to be released from the sorrow, but
    i will, until my last breath, at the very least,
    speak of and celebrate the beauty and wonder that
    this Planet has been. it can not go unsung. and
    along with that is honestly taking responsibility as
    humanity, for it’s death. or, if we don’t want to call
    it death, then the great changes that trillions of
    living organisms will experience. trying my best to
    follow buddhist teachings, i work at not being attached
    to outcome. i am only such a small dot. but i AM
    a dot and i was born into this Time, into this being
    that loves so much so hard. so…i will love it Hard.
    whatever on earth that means.

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  17. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    i had to verbalize it. i will have to continue to do so,
    and in its way, it is freeing of the tight knot of it
    inside me. being silent was much more painful.

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  18. linda Avatar
    linda

    she is so incredibly beautiful. the eye has become a womb to me. i am in awe..
    also in sadness and understand your feelings. 7 generations.. what will we be? too hard to even go there but you do. i so admire you. let us know how every child outside learning turns out. i don’t know what that is, but i agree that sometimes you have to take a stand no matter where it is.
    no one will go away.. we all listen and love and are opened to you

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  19. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    A truly beautiful gesture, Grace, this woman holding an eye hair tossed by wind, eye with a root into another world?
    If you don’t know this already, you might find it a worthy of a look:
    dark-mountain.net/

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  20. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    V…i don’t know if you saw it, but i commented somewhere
    along the line, maybe yesterday? i don’t know, about
    how to describe this feeling of Grief/Sorrow/Responsibility
    and the closest i can come to it is like a SOUND that
    runs through my body, and that Sound is most like a note
    from a cello and that Sound is a Sound i have heard
    you sing. that time it came from You, out of Your mouth.
    yes. dark mountain. i have looked. i will go again.
    thank you for the reminder.

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  21. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    you and i, our children even and maybe even theirs won’t
    see it. but at some point, some mother, some grandmother
    Will
    and what will they be able to say? about the myth of
    how things were, and why it changed?

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  22. ;uie Avatar
    ;uie

    And so you will begin a new conversation and the word, partnership, conveys so much and especially how fitting it is that you do this with the children. In the hands of the children, the seeds of the future reside: The new preschool that my 3 yr old twin grandchildren attend have as part of their daily learning, a walk around the grounds of the college campus, to see, touch, sometimes to taste and most of all, to learn of the old trees that dot the landscape, the grasses, the native plantings as well as the planted gardens. It is that first step…

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  23. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    a step is a very Real thing.
    love,

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  24. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    No, don’t think I saw it… but, yes, much of my singing contains all this, I know. Some of the songs are something like wailing, but then there is invocation, and traveling songs… all, though, a bone-deep call to awaken to something beyond words, about this moment and the ancient memory of a different dream.

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  25. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    “the ancient memory of a different dream”
    this brought tears.
    not tears of grief or sadness, but tears of determination,
    cleansing tears. Tears of Just Going.

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  26. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Let’s JUST GO then…

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  27. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    OK. OK. Done Deal. JUST GO.

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  28. Deb G Avatar
    Deb G

    Just wanted to say I was here, I don’t have the right words tonight. I type, erase and type and erase again…

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  29. Doris Avatar
    Doris

    Normaly I´m filled with hope and look at all these little or big projects which seem to be able to change things. But now I´m often really depressed and I thing that ignorance, hate and stupidness rules the world. your thinking brought me back to hope even if there is no hope expressed. It is important to feel the grief that´s the start to act.
    She is like a guardian not only watching but also feeling.
    7 generations … when I look at my grandchildren … how can they become strong enough to handle what we have left them. And what will they think about us. Our generation knows so much about it all and achieves little. Sometimes I think about a assembly of grandmothers all over the world..

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  30. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    your wild woman singing is helping us remember the songlines for every place, every space, every road, every element, every being on our beautiful planet… & to listen…

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  31. Michelle in NYC Avatar
    Michelle in NYC

    Okay
    and I love you too.

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  32. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Grace.. have you noticed that it seems that are comments are flying away little by little? I think you replied to this last one of mine, then I replied to yours… but now, POOF!

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  33. Valerianna Avatar
    Valerianna

    Oh, weird.. the comment stream beyond my second comment wasn’t visible until I wrote that, and then it was… ok, smoke and mirrors and blogger-space land.

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  34. cgReno Avatar
    cgReno

    I have found your blog through Jude and her “Place Keeper” spot. This is such a beautifully, painfully, honest post. Your work is moving and beautiful and I thank you for sharing.

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  35. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    carol…THANK YOU for taking the time to leave a message
    and thank you for being ok with the content….i always
    feel like i wouldn’t want my own challenges to be
    received as a burden for others…..
    but yes…it’s honest and i really need to be.
    hope you visit often….

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  36. Hoola Tallulah Avatar
    Hoola Tallulah

    Very thought provoking, and very sad, but your vision, beautiful x

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  37. Martine Avatar
    Martine

    She is so beautiful Grace, i have no words to describe it.
    Havent been here for a while. Occupied with the same thought and grieves as you.
    I neighter think humanity as a whole is going to choose change, and then mother earth is going to get rid of us. As i made my goddess cloth last year i had hope but lost that. Now i need to get that hope back and so do you………. What is left without hope?

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  38. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    Martine….thank you for coming and for these words.
    i am still deep in thought about this, about how to
    Proceed. And how one proceeds without hope. i will
    come back to your comment, here, probably over and over
    as it is the question. What is left without hope? and
    do i need to look for hope? or is there something else
    i need to do? these are my questions.
    the child is still here. to the end of this week,
    probably, and thinking is full of Fair Interuptions of
    him. but the thinking is the undercurrent of all and
    sustains, somehow.
    i thank you though for saying these things. i feel
    alone with these thoughts much of the time. they are
    hard thoughts to carry. but more than anything, what
    i cannot do is DENY. i have to look at it all, try to
    see Honestly as best i can. and just to say, i think
    when one gives up hope, the result may be to Love Even
    Harder?????
    love to you and stay in your window, looking…..xoxoxoxo

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  39. Martine Avatar
    Martine

    XXXm

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  40. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes.

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