I have a strong conviction that our path forward is a path of seeking and moving towards the things and people we truly love1 . Not the path of fear and scarcity and anger – but mostly fear – that we’ve collectively been moving along for so long.
It’s not easier, frankly. To love things is to feel into the heartbreak of them, too. Fear and anger and the things we declare war against don’t require our consideration beyond how we will destroy and eliminate them. When we declare war, we don’t have to see or acknowledge things such as: the paradoxes of what is both good and bad all in one (or perhaps, beyond both those labels altogether), the ways in which we each have contributed and continue to contribute to what we label as evil or undesirable, or simply the vast distance of how far we are from what we most deeply desire in our lives and in the world.
No, when we choose to operate from separation, that thing/person/idea I don’t like doesn’t have to be acknowledge, and the way in which I am linked to it doesn’t have to be acknowledged… all there is is a singular focus on my elimination of what I have labeled as bad.
Done mindfully, seeking love is not yet another denial, nor escape. Anger and fear do have their places. But we have invested in our fear so much collectively (sometimes we don’t even see the depths of our fears; our fears are also something else we can numb out or to try to conquer) that we mostly leave out any consideration of our love. When we can even remember what it is we love anymore.
For example, today we seem to define sustainability and our work in it primarily by the things we dislike and that we want to stop, like fossil fuels and unfair labor practices. Oh yes, we may talk about renewable energy (which we label as “good”), but do we consider what our lives are like with it? Where does what we love even figure into that picture? (do you have a great love for a wind turbine farm? I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel much of anything at all when I think about them.)
Love isn’t all — or even mostly — about rainbows and sunshine, as we simplistically be tempted to believe. To love deeply (as opposed to the superficial things we are taught to ‘love’) is to realize that everything is ephemeral. That everything will eventually pass, that life exists because of death. It also means that to have the things we love is to also give up some things we originally thought we needed/wanted. And finally, to love is to see the brokenness of things, and grieve for what is, right here and now. In great part, to love is to feel alive, while knowing that all we have is this moment.
I was listening to a livestream about the emotion of exploration2. One of the hosts said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that actually feeling our feelings never ends up being as bad as we imagined. I know that to be true, even though I repeatedly forget it.
What would sustainability look like if we could be with all things — both inside and outside ourselves — as they truly are, right now? To actually feel our feelings? Could we move into our love, and end the stories of war and separation? Perhaps then we could develop and work towards a vision of what we deeply desire, and not just what we think needs to be destroyed for us to save ourselves.
- thank you to Charles Eisenstein’s writings for introducing me to this concept – see his book “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible“
- Ke’oni Hanalei of pohala.net and Kaleinohea Cleghorn of ealaea.co