I find myself frequently searching for these quotations.
A Reading from The
Food Revolution by John Robbins
Maybe we aren't on a one-way road to oblivion. Maybe we're
standing at a crossroad, facing what may be the most important choice human
beings have ever faced, a choice between two directions. In one direction is
what we will have if we do nothing to alter our present course. By doing
nothing, we are choosing a world of pollution and extinctions, of widening
chasms and deepening despair, a world where humanity moves ever farther from
achieving its highest aspirations and ever nearer to living its darkest fears.
Our other choice is to actively engage with the living
world. On this path we work responsibly and joyfully to make our lives, and our
societies, into expressions of our love for ourselves, for each other, and for
the living Earth. In this direction we honor our longing to give our children,
and all children, a world with clean air and water, with blue skies and
abundant wildlife, with a stable climate and a healthy environment.
If you live with fear for our future, you are not alone.
If you live with dreams of a better world, you are not
alone.
We all live, now, with both the pain and the possibility we
carry in our hearts, both the despair and the hope that we may yet learn to
live in harmony with our precious and endangered Earth. There is not a person
alive today who does not, at some level, know we are facing these two
directions, and understand how much is at stake.
I am aware how strong are the forces of ignorance, greed,
and denial in our society. I know it is possible that we won't make it.
But I am also aware of how strong is the longing and the
love of life in the human heart. And so I know it is possible that we will make
it, that we will create a sustainable economy that protects the living systems
of the Earth, that we will come to be part of the world's repair. The power of
darkness in our world is great, but it is not as great as the power of the
human spirit. We can learn to provide for our needs and limit our numbers while
cherishing this beautiful planet and its creatures. It is in our nature to
honor the sacredness of life.
What is at stake today is enormous; it is the destiny of
life on Earth. At such a time, walking a path of honoring ourselves and the
living planet is our responsibility as citizens of the planet, but it is
something more, as well.
It is also a joy, and a privilege.
A Reading from Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan
It is an
illuminating peculiarity of the microcosm that explosive geological events in
the past have never led to the total destruction of the biosphere. Indeed, like
an artist whose misery catalyzes beautiful works of art, extensive catastrophe
seems to have immediately preceded major evolutionary innovations.
With each crisis
the biosphere seems to take one step backwards and two steps forward - the two
steps forward being an evolutionary solution that surmounts the boundaries of
the original problem. Not only meeting but going beyond challenges confirms
that the biosphere is extremely resilient, that it recovers from tremors with
renewed vigor. Nuclear conflagration in the northern hemisphere would kill
hundreds of millions of human beings. But it would not be the end of life on
Earth, and, as heartless as it sounds, a human Armageddon might prepare the
biosphere for less self-centered forms of life. As different from us as we are
from dinosaurs, such future beings may have evolved through matter, life, and
consciousness to a new superordinate stage of organization, and in doing so,
consider human beings as impressive as we do iguanas.
