Something in the Air
(For those of you who are just joining us, you may want to backtrack a bit and catch up. You can click the “Who’s Todd?” link on the lower left of any “Tim’s Blog” page to read about our first meeting, and you can read through the archives to get the full story.)
Call out the instigators
Because there’s something in the air
We’ve got to get together sooner or later
Because the revolution’s here, and you know it’s right
And you know that it’s right
Written by John “Speedy” Keen
Performed by Thunderclap Newman
(To watch a vintage clip of Thunderclap Newman performing this song, click here.)
I had just returned from a trip to “the big city”. Once again, I’d been suckered in by the cultural bait & switch. Propelled by some vague dis-ease, some unconscious goad, some still hidden belief that going into town would in some magical way heal the pain in my heart, I got in my car and headed into town. I had errands, of course, to justify the trip. But those errands could easily have waited.
What was I seeking? I’m not sure. Perhaps I would score some treasure at the thrift shop, satisfying, for the moment, some ancient foraging instinct. Perhaps I simply needed a dose of what Sally calls “the warm body effect”, that calm that comes from being surrounded by the herd. Perhaps I was just checking to see if the world had ended already, and if I had somehow missed it.
Whatever I was looking for, I didn’t find it. The thrift store was full of junk, the herd felt insane, and the land of box stores and four-lanes always looks like the end of the world to me. Once again I was forced to confront the fact that, whatever it is I’m looking for, it isn’t “out there”.
I stomped into my office, threw my keys on the desk, plopped down into my chair and mashed the connect button, looking for a hit of electronic love. “Connect”. Another bit of bait and switch.
A sticky popped up mid-screen: whats up dude
“Hey, Todd,” I answered. “Not much. Just got back from town.”
I know that I was there I hitched a ride in your cell phone then jumped into the car radio dude I cant believe youre still getting your tunes from a cassette deck I mean youve got all those cds and youre still listening to cassettes in your car I can get you free satellite radio you know just say the word I thought about trying to talk to you through your stereo speakers but didnt want to scare you while you were driving
“I appreciate that, Todd. I’m already a wreck on the road. After my head-on two years back, I’m on full alert from the time I turn the ignition to the time I put the car into park. And that asshole in the utility truck that’s been “trimming” trees along the road all week almost knocked us into the ditch on the way out, so I was especially prickly today.”
you ok now
I sighed and stretched my shoulders. “No, Todd, I’m not.”
whats up
“It’s really hard for me to be out in the world these days, Todd. Really hard. I see people. I see them on the road, in stores, in coffee shops. I see them mailing letters and taking their kids to school. I see them. And when I see them, I think to myself “they’ve all got plans.” And I get really sad, Todd. I get really, really sad.”
cuz you see whats coming with oil and climate and the environment and the government and all that you see whats coming and you know they dont see it and theyre all just going about their business doing their best with no idea whats about to hit them is that right
“That’s pretty much it, Todd. All those people. All those plans. It hurts, to see it. And it hurts more now than it ever has.”
whys that
“I think it’s… there’s something in the air lately, Todd. I’ve sensed it. So has Sally. So have some of my friends. There’s this new sense of urgency. This creepy feeling that Shit and Fan have been formally introduced and they’re just about to shake hands.”
Ive had that sense myself some of the articles that have come through lately I know what you mean
“Sally and I were talking about it the other day. Is it real, this new urgency? Are we right on the edge of some huge shift? Or is it just a vague dose of fear making the rounds like a summer cold? It’s difficult to tell. I remember a year or two ago, how a number of people on a listserv spoke of a sense of urgency, as if things were about to crumble catastrophically, as if the whole shebang was all coming down any minute. But it didn’t. Or at least, things didn’t crumble enough for the rubble to land in the laps of most Americans.”
so maybe its just a fear a reaction thats not necessarily tied to anything real
“It’s tempting to think that. The fear can be so hard to bear sometimes. The knowledge of what’s coming. The future. So hard to bear. But when you look at the news, as you just mentioned, you see that there are plenty of reasons to wonder whether we’re right on the cusp of TEOTWAWKI, as my friend Ted calls it.”
whats teotwawki
“The end of the world as we know it.”
cool
“I mean, look at what’s come across the radar in the last year. We’ve got record gas prices promising to rise even higher, the Saudi depletion and the global peak upon us. The housing bubble is bursting, the economy is teetering, and nations are moving to decouple from “the weakest link” (the US economy) before it pulls them into the abyss.”
“We’ve got climate stories filling major magazines. The situation is more desperate than ever, with forecasts of more and stronger hurricanes, harder droughts, deader forests, faster melting, hotter summers, hotter global mean temperatures, dwindling food supplies, dwindling water supplies. Oceans are gagging, coral reefs are failing and species continue to die at ever increasing rates. Meanwhile, we keep insisting that economies grow. Meanwhile, we continue to pump more and more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”
“It can’t continue, Todd. It can’t. And it is unraveling in a time of wars and rumors of wars, a time of political corruption and outright insanity, a time when we have to stop and consider very seriously the notion that, as we attempt to navigate the collapse of global industrial civilization, our own governments may be our worst enemies.”
whew dude thats like I mean how the hell are we supposed to keep going when we hear shit like that
I reached over and opened Final Cut Pro on my editing computer. The last of the final music mixes still needed to be cut into the doc, and I wanted to get started. “Maybe that’s the point, Todd. To not keep going. I said to Sally the other day, maybe this thing we’re feeling, this thing in the air, maybe it’s because things really are about to unravel in a big way, and maybe it’s an emotional wildfire spreading through the dry tinder of our awake and grieving hearts. And maybe it’s also this: a deep body sense of exhaustion, of being tired of the bullshit, the destruction, the insanity. Maybe it’s a deep wanting for it to come to a stop, to reach the end. Maybe I’m not the only one who feels the oppressive weight and desperate futility of this culture as I drive around in it. Maybe there are huge numbers of my fellow human animals feeling the same thing, even if unconsciously. And maybe the building pressure of that deep knowing, that deep wanting, is about to erupt.
so maybe were sensing that like birds and squirrels and deer know when a volcano is about to blow maybe its like that
“Yeah. Exactly like that. There’s something in the air. And the instigators are being called to action. This cannot continue. Our animal bodies know that. Our monkey minds are slowly waking up to a conscious awareness of it. Maybe it feels like something is about to happen because somewhere, somehow, some way, sometime soon, somebody’s about to MAKE something happen.”
yeah dude maybe youre right theres a momentum building I can even feel it in here in the wires in the cables in the forces and the lines and the pulses I can feel it
I smiled. It’s so nice to have Todd around, helping me think things through.
are we talking about revolution
“There will be many revolutions before this all plays out. The question is: what, if anything, will work to stop the destruction before this culture kills everything? And what will work to take those who survive the collapse, if any, into a new paradigm?”
I just watched that video dude thats a good song
“Yes it is. It’s a song for this moment. Speedy Keen was just forty years ahead of his time.”
We have got to get it together
We have got to get it together now
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May 31st, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I could really relate to Tim’s foray into town. It is a painful experience for me to take a walk through my little suburban town, replete with cloned corporate businesses and people who are in the game with so litte thought to the road we are truly on. I’m looking forward to receiving the copy of your documentary so I can wake a few of them up.
We have a port expansion slated for our sleepy town that will put the port at the size of Los Angeles. We are an international bird site.
I dressed as a bird spirit in mourning this weekend and walked through the streets behind our float drumming a funeral dirge for the birds. I got a lot of funny looks and questions of what is that? I was behind my mask. I didn’t feel any stranger or different in costume than I do on a regular day around here. Keep it coming Tim & Sally it really helps and if anyone lives close by to Ladner, B.C. shout out we are interested in building community with sane people!
love & blessings in community Vivienne
May 31st, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Tim, When you reflect on your story you seem to exist only as the one who came to know reality, the one who witnessed, the one who longed to communicate to others and then be gone, a ghost beside the true body of reality. You speak as though you want to return to the substance you have lost. For though your story and movie, “What a Way to Go; The End of Empire,” gives the truth, it does not give the substance of truth. To tell the truth in all its substance you must have quiet and a comfortable chair away from all distraction and a window to stare through; and then the knack of seeing clear ocean waves when there are asphalt street or deforested regions of poisoned fields before your eyes, and of feeling the sun’s warmth rather than its rays a result of thousands of miles of an ozone hole.
How is it possible for us to live if we do not believe we know who we are? Perhaps today what you feel is that you are giving away too much and do not want to answer any more questions. Perhaps you believe that if you were cut the blood would no longer gush from you but seep, and after a little seeping, dry and heal, or not.
You have only one chance at death, and in that aspect, are not unique. Perhaps this is the connectedness you and I seek. PLEASE keep talking to others about what is real. Wendi
May 31st, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Hey Tim
Great post!
Yep TEOTWAWKI is in the air. Lot’s of denial and a few are awake to sense it.
All the geopolitical and economic house of cards globally are on shakey ground, even if, as per usual environmental reality is not really being taken on board. Add the rest of physical reality collapse to the mix, and those feeling apocalypic are very much on to it!
My friend Kevin Moore calls it “Peak Mayhem” and now Richard Heinberg’s new book is “Peak Everything”…!!
Love that last line:
“We have got to get it together now”
Bring it on, bring on the revolution!
Regards
Ted
May 31st, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Dear Tim: You describe better than I, how I feel also. Like something is moving, is thick in the air, and when you connect all those dots, you KNOW. There is tension, fatigue, anger, hopelessness, helplessness and just plain despair in the air. I can’t watch TV right now. Too many lies, too much junk that is meaningless. There was the failure of the democratic congress to stop the war, George Bush signing a recent edict to make himself the dictator. Cindy Sheehan (Bless her) got a long look at living in the Matrix and went home to save herself.
I too have times when I feel allergic to being out in the mainstream “everything is fine” world. I fear for my friends and colleagues who don’t get it, but also don’t want to know. Those are the times I get back into the natural world, even if it is my own backyard with my critters and tomatoes. I watch my banana tree grow a new leaf. They are huge and green and come out like a flag that is slowly unfurled. Natures flag waving like the fin of a whale turning in the water. Time of no drama, just in the moment.
I do mourn. I did not expect this kind of future for my children. I fear going into old age without a way to take care of myself.
But I do believe there is a higher order to things, and whatever happens, I hold onto that faith. Across the world there are millions of people who have had it, who have lost their faith in the world they live in, but want to create another. Can we? My only comfort is knowing that some of us will find other like minded people and live soul to soul with what is left on earth.
May 31st, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Hi Tim (and Sally)- I am so grateful I found your site; I wish for a sub-site called MUTANTS UNITE!
I also am experiencing heightened heavy heart, and I teeter within the balance between living with gratitude in the present moment, deep grief, and trying to figure out where to go when we leave the city. My daughter (25) thinks I’m crazy and admits she doesn’t want to hear about how bad things are; she and her friends are full of plans for the future, and my heart breaks to know it will be much more challenging than they can imagine… Thank you both so much for the work you are doing; I feel stronger because you have created a point of light in the darkness.
Blessings- Deni
June 2nd, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Dear Gail Nelson,
I thought you described your feelings beautifully,
especially the part about Cindy Sheehan getting a long look at living in the matrix and going home to save herself. I read her letter this week to the democrats and Carolyn Baker’s response. It was a part of my choosing to reconnect. When I find this paradigm too much, I jcheck out and numb out, sort of Iike when a child covers her face playing hide and seek thinking she’s hidden. It insulates me against the hurt and the pain but it cuts off all the connection and joy too. Carolyn put it so succinctly when she said Cindy Sheehan had not quit she had made the courageous choice to step ” OUT of this paradigm”
Once we make that choice and stand by it, simply stating this is where I stand, we come home to ourselves.
I’m exploring this week just how I have mistaken my comfort for safety. Even though I feel I live a simple life I am still cossetted in comfort, hot, on demand showers, organic food, a lovely, albeit small home. This week I’m heading off into the wilderness for 5 days. I’m looking forward to seeing how I do without all the comfort. I figure I need the practice, so I can really appreciate and be grateful for what I have now but also so I can learn to become more resourceful and aware of what life will be like when it’s gone.
I too feel saddened on the one hand by my children’s future, it’s not how I imagined but I remind myself that what is coming will be real not an illusion and I think that will at the end of the day be more precious even if the comforts are gone.
I loved the part of your bananna leaves unfurling oh that we might all slow down enough to watch miracles such as that which are still all around us in the midst of Empire chaos.
Vivienne, Ladner, B.C.
June 3rd, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Great blog Tim. Very important to communicate, and know you are not alone. Internet communication is critically implemental at this point. I would hope local groups of the conscious will form everywhere. The system will not be saved, and because in nature change is continous, and the system is a subset of the natural world, whether it knows it or not, whether it thinks so or not. So everyone quit yer whinin’, and thank God above that he has deemed to make you conscious of the pending TEOTWAWKI. It will be hell, but then, it already is. The demise of this materialistic, money loving system will ultimately be for the best. For “The love of money is the root of all great evils.” Those who have eyes now need to DO. Do what? Many, many things. But only one or two things for each. The angst is to prompt us to action, not bind into paralysis. Seek God, as you know him, for that will be your greatest consciousness of all. To know more than you understand. Birds and animals are led by God away from volcanos and tsunamis. Men and women - who know God - are led also as to where to go and what to do. To know God is to love. The fruit of the Spirit is hope and peace. Seek and you will find.
Oh, and give Todd my best.
June 4th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Yeah, Tim, I’ve been wondering whether my increased sense of urgency is simply a reaction to the validation of having my views reinforced by your blog commentators and others I’ve recently met. Am I reading news and articles through a selective filter and blowing up the possibility of imminent collapse? Are we creating our own clusterfuck? I think it’s important to be aware of that possibility as we strive to keep ourselves grounded in reality rather than wrapped up in imagined scenarios of what will be.
However, we do know for a fact that the emperor has no clothes, and that his empire is ultimately doomed. As more people speak the truth that they know, still more acknowledge that truth. And we know that the situation is dire and urgent regardless of when the rubble will begin to pummel us directly, for we are already beginning to endure the consequences of overshoot and the externalized costs of living in empire.
So, my answer to the precautionary questions
above is that it’s about freakin’ time more of us started sensing that urgency, that “something in the air”. Urgency certainly arouses me out of complacency, heightens my awareness of the present, and awakens me to my feelings. That shared perception doesn’t have to mean that a “huge shift” is coming any sooner (though it might!), but it certainly seems to be an indication that individual awakenings create some sort of synergy. We may be the instigators. Now what do we do with that?
Jill
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:56 pm
The cat’s back is in the corner. Nothing to lose. Claws out. Let’s go!
Purrr,
MP