Contrails

There can be times when my mind seems to be going in all directions yet, like these contrails in the sky outside the kitchen window, all eventually wind up in the same place. After a year marked by political upheaval, social injustice, and environmental disaster I am. aware that the beginning of the year has a certain significance. Yes, it is just another day, but for me, it seems a time for reflection. Not for making resolutions which will never be kept, but for making connections; for making all the random lines connect in a better place...

Almost everything that seems like an insurmountable problem can be traced back to one issue that we can't ignore. There are too many people. That in itself seems like an insurmountable problem, but perhaps if we could just talk to, not past each other, to stop whatever we are doing that seems so important and listen, to pay attention and not prejudge, we could find some solutions, or at least to be able to live on a crowded planet more respectfully.

I remember being in Tokyo in about 1985, sitting in the airport having taken several packed trains and busy stations to get there. The airport was very crowded and people were rushing here and there. 'Don't make eye contact' said my friend. In a sense he was right. I reached my destination more quickly. But what would have happened if I had stopped and looked at someone? We might have had to communicate in some way which one of us was going to go which way in order to avoid crashing into each other.

I sat in the boarding lounge and watched a seemingly endless stream of people coming down an escalator in single file, without speaking to each other. 'That is the wave of the future I told myself'. We are about to reach critical mass (if we haven't already) and our solution seems to be isolation and and rejection.

What if we found a way to connect more? Through education, through being more open, through not prejudging  but through reaching out and sharing? 

I know it works for me on a small scale. It will require more introspection and education. to figure out how to expand the scale of connections so that more people wind up in the same place...or at least can talk about it....

At the moment I am thinking about the people of Australia and the nightmare of smoke and flame that seems to be engulfing them. I know how awful it is to wait with dread the next forecast of high temperatures and strong winds, and not to know what to do. When we went through it, it was all the people who let us know they cared, that they were thinking about us that helped us get through it. So people of Australia, be strong, be safe, impossible as that can seem,  and I am thinking about you. The scale of your disaster is almost unimaginable, but there are a lot of other people who are thinking about you too....