December 31, 2021—The Ecological Year in Review

Happy New Year My Flying Dream 2015. Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30”

Oh no. Not one of these.

Whose year?

“Not mine,” you say, and might be wrong because no life is like another, yet all are one— first breath in and last breath out. The deer in the garden, the cat on the sill, souls in the night, and the whip-poor-will. Try the breath meditation ten minutes before midnight. Leave Times Square and all those human stares begging for a stupid ball to usher in another year of capitalist nightmares. Open your eyes and I’ll open mine, let’s breathe in and breathe out. What we love is all that matters, and I can hope we relearn how to love the living things outside of Dunkin’ Donuts®—enough to push the Dunkin’ Donuts® toward the catchings of the whip-poor-will. Less coffee. Less trinkets. Less want, less expectation, Less me, less you. More life.

Whatever that means.

2021 ends tonight. Gaia gave us another year to think about everything that matters. Thank you Gaia.

I’ll recap the year with a song and a couple 2021 writings I feel have helped me to accept our quick-step to doom. I wish for the human race a non-fatal cold-cock to the floor, and recovery in a consciousness 11-15% less arrogant. I don’t know how to dream this alone. Can we forgo the second cup of coffee this morning? Maybe drink an extra glass of water and pick two less prosciutto roll-ups off the party tray? And instead of those café au laits at DD for that necessary jolt to keep us awake past midnight, perhaps a slew of afternoon cat naps making more pleasant daydreams that by definition can never become nightmares?

It might be just enough effort on our part to satisfy some anonymous snake on a rock, or foraging black bear, or migrated bird picking out her choice worm. Maybe over time, with many, many more New Years Eve naps, the Chinook salmon will increase their number, and not for any benefit to the goofy killer-capitalists wading in rubber thigh-high boots, but from the natural, unhumanated recurrence of salmon swimming through life without coffee beans picked by salmon brothers and sisters 10,000 miles away. Last night I read that not too long ago a man could cross the backs of horny salmon to reach the other side of the Klamath River in Oregon. One couldn’t see water for all the salmon rushing to make new life and forgoing their own in the process.

What a dream! A species that matures to the highest love attainable without microplastics. I will think about salmon this afternoon, while lying on the couch, breathing in and breathing out, a few hours before the party.

More time together please!

Ron

First, the song: Armageddon Songs Shouldn’t Rhyme

1st Link

2nd Link