The earth wants you by Reverend Billy Talen

Author:Reverend Billy Talen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: City Lights Books

TO HAVE A VOICE, YOU MUST TRESPASS

WHEN A PERSON EMERGES FROM A flood or a fire, and in this heightened state of survival begins to talk about their experience, the report is often spellbinding. The tragic loss of loved ones may be weighing this soul down, and he or she may break down crying, or laugh and sigh and sit down and stare at the ground. We may be so moved by what we hear that we are changed forever. Our emotions shift, our values and our vision of change in this era of climate chaos may radically shift along with them. It’s possible we will never return to the habits of the passive consumer of “news.” It isn’t easy to stay in the pallid mix of consumer responses if while you take in the story you’re stanching a wound or spooning soup into someone’s mouth.

After Hurricane Sandy we came back out into the streets and wandered wide-eyed from our terrible experience that night. We filed our unprofessional reports with strangers and neighbors, without any “research” or “production.” This was the story. This was the storm moving through us. The Earth was still talking in us during those first hours, before the information was taken up and processed by the corporations for broadcast, before food and water again cost money. The tragedy was still enforcing our humanness. We were helping each other.

Listen. We’d best listen to the survivors stumbling out of the maelstrom. This is where the truth of climate change is told, coming to us with stuttering, tears and a sudden grabbing of the arm.

There is a direct line from the suffering in the storms to the focused anger of the protest. The Earth Unplugged — without the corporate mediating but the thing itself — leads to Humans Unplugged. We are still learning to do this. Experience the storm directly and walk out of all that destruction and extend the natural power we now have directly at the perpetrators of climate violence.

When in doubt, we should always return to the Earth’s vantage point. Being with the victims after Sandy in Brooklyn and looking back at Goldman Sachs over there at the bottom of Manhattan, its headquarters lit up all night despite the general blackout, powered from some mysterious source they hoarded . . . the Earth’s POV sees one of the principal profiteers of the crisis, glowing with triumphalism in the storm it caused! Made us want to pull that plug.

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