What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire

Lord my body has been a good friend
But I won’t need it when I reach the end

I do not know the spiritual reality in which I live. I do not know what will happen when I reach the end. I do not know what energies and consciousness, if any, will survive my body. What I do know is that, right now, here, in this body, my spiritual path consists of this: being as clearly related to reality as I can be. And what I see in this life is that many, many lives are being separated from their bodies, their good friends, long before their time. Many, many lives are reaching their end in tragic and painful ways, suffering and dying to fulfill the insane and disconnected needs and wants and desires of a human culture run amok. Human lives, to be sure, are suffering the destruction of this system, but tree lives, and fish lives and bear lives and whale lives and bee lives and plankton lives and lizard lives and river lives and soil lives and sky lives are reaching their end as well, crushed under the boots of civilization’s “march toward progress”.

And what I know right now is how angry that makes me, and how sad, and how much I want, as Derrick Jensen says, to “fight like hell”. This culture is killing everything. It really is.

So I keep going. I neither want nor expect What a Way to Go to somehow “solve things” and avert the collapse of industrial civilization. But perhaps it will play some small roll in helping some living things to have a chance of making it past this present madness. Empire needs to go. The sooner we let go of it and move forward from there, the better. Perhaps our movie will help people to let go of this current insanity. That’s why all of this is worth doing. And really, what else is there to do?

So we keep on chooglin’, to quote the great John Fogerty and CCR. From Fresno we caught a ride, then a train, then a bus, then another train that rolled us along the rails all night long, bringing us to Albuquerque midday the next day. In Albuquerque we caught a bus to the airport and picked up a rental car, found some lunch, found one of those damned data cables so we could get online, then headed south on I-25, making it as far as Truth or Consequences before we crashed for the night.

While we didn’t see any sign of Bob Barker, we did find a wonderful hotel with a great room, a big bathtub, an outdoor mineral water spa, and a decent cup of coffee, all for a fairly low price. It was more than we’d usually spend for a room, but after the night in coach on the train (Amtrak’s motto: know train know pain!), we needed it.

We bathed and read and slept and walked and caught up on email, made a trip to the post office and the thrift store, then hit the road again, crossing the Black Range on a very scenic (read: twisty and slow) drive to Silver City. We made our way to Jill’s house, where we took a nap and had a glass of tea and began to hear her story. One of the organizers for our Silver City screening, Jill was warm and welcoming, and she was making brownies. It doesn’t get any better than that!

After a bit we got a call from our friend and major supporter, Carolyn Baker (if you’re not reading her on a daily basis, perhaps it’s time?), who was coming up for the screening. We met her in town for a cold drink, then walked up to the Silco Theater, where we met Jill and John and Lydia and Angela and Elizabeth, the others who had helped to organize this screening.

We set up tables and chairs and tested the sound and picture, then sat back and spoke with people until the audience began to arrive. By the time we started, we’d once again pulled out more chairs, and once again filled the room. More than 120 people came out to see the movie (probably the largest percentage of any town we’ve visited). The energy from that is pretty amazing. Jill did a quick intro and Sally and I said our opening pieces. The room was darkened the off we went.

While the movie played we sat in the lobby and caught up on email and listened to the audience as it responded to the movie. At once point, Carolyn and I took a walk around town, talking of the tour, and of the coming storms. It was so good to see her again. So good. And I got to meet her sweet dog friend, Ethel, who graced me with a big wet kiss.

Back inside, we watched the last part of the movie, then made our way up front as the end credits rolled. We made our ending comments. Michael told the audience about Gila Mimbres Community Radio and we passed the bucket to raise some funds for their efforts. We took a break and circled some chairs and fourteen of us sat down for a dialogue.

We spoke of our responses to what we had just seen, of our anger and sadness, our fear and our disbelief, our grief and our gratitude and our joy and our relief to be talking about this so openly. People shared their stories, their plans, their hopes, and their wants. The circle created a space of safety, for people to share what was in their hearts, and they did. They did.

The hour grew late and we said our goodbyes, making connections and giving hugs and wishing well. We walked out into the Silver City night, found our car, and made our way back to Jill’s home, where we talked a while longer (with the sweet scent of brownies still filling the air) before crawling into the warm bed Jill had provided.

Our deep gratitude to Jill and John and Elizabeth and Angela for their work in bringing us to Silver City, and to Jill for her nurturing and care and warm hospitality. And thanks to the folks who came and watched our movie, and to those who were able to stay and sit in circle with us. We wish you all well.

Onward,

Tim

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 2nd, 2007 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Travel Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.